Original Novel 709 Gang Moll by Albert L. Quandt, a 1952 digest-size "sleaze"

Original Novel 709 Gang Moll by Albert L. Quandt, a 1952 digest-size "sleaze"

VG Condition (see pictures)

Published in New York by Original Novels as No. 709, first edition, 1952. It's a paperback original (PBO), meaning it was first published in this format rather than reprinted from a hardcover.

The author
Albert L. Quandt wrote a cluster of these digests in the early 1950s, including Zip-Gun Angels, Beyond Desire, and Boy-Crazy, as well as Girl of the Slums, Journey into Ecstasy, Street Girl, and Dream Club. Beyond Desire, the title mentioned on your cover, was later reissued by Original Novels as Dream Club. Publishers in this market often retitled and recycled books. Girl of the Slums came out from Venus Books (No. 121) in 1951, a year before Gang Moll. Your cover's tagline uses the phrase "girl of the slums," so the two books may be related, but I couldn't confirm that Gang Moll is a retitling. Little biographical information about Quandt survives, and the name may have been a pseudonym, as was common in this field.

The story
The heroine is Lee Sissle. The book's pitch is that the slums are full of fiery, troublesome girls like her who want more from life but pursue it the wrong way. She learns to earn extra money by stealing nylons from the stocking factory where she works, but she gets caught and fired. Her landlady throws her out, and the landlady's son, Goosey Mullins, a truck driver for a racketeer, takes her to the Vagabond Club, where she lives as a member of the gang. From there, she plays men for all they're worth and stirs up trouble, until an avenging racketeer finally catches up with her. The morality-tale ending was typical of the genre. Books like this sold lurid content while making sure crime didn't pay by the final page.