Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Black Mask, September 1933

What would 20 cents buy in 1933? Well, it would buy a lot of things I suppose, but one possible answer is that it would buy an issue of BLACK MASK with stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, Frederick Nebel, Raoul Whitfield, W.T. Ballard, Roger Torrey, and Eugene Cunningham. That's just a spectacular group of authors. Cunningham is best remembered as a Western author, but he wrote quite a few hardboiled yarns, too. His story in this issue is the first in a series about hotel detective Cleve Corby. Nebel's story is part of his Kennedy and McBride series, Gardner's features the phantom crook Ed Jenkins, Ballard writes about Hollywood troubleshooter Bill Lennox, Torrey's story is about policeman Dal Prentice, and Whitfield's is the first of two about private eye Dion Davies. Several of the stories from this issue have been reprinted, and I'm sure they're well worth seeking out. By the way, the cover of this issue is by J.W. Schlaikjer, who did quite a few covers for BLACK MASK during this era.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Exciting Western, January 1948

It’s been too long since I’ve read an issue of EXCITING WESTERN. This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy. I think the cover is by A. Leslie Ross, but it also looks to me like it might be by H.W. Scott. So I’m hesitant to identify it as the work of either artist. I’m hoping some of you may be able to provide a definitive answer. Whoever painted it, it’s a pretty good cover.

I’ve enjoyed W.C. Tuttle’s Tombstone and Speedy series ever since I started reading it. The novella in this issue, “Strangers in El Segundo”, finds our eccentric range detective duo in the cowtown of the title, and once again, they’ve been fired by their exasperated boss at the Cattleman’s Association. That unfortunate circumstance doesn’t last long, however, as it just so happens the owner of the local bank has written to the Association asking for help, and Tombstone and Speedy are rehired. But wouldn’t you know it, the banker is murdered before they can talk to him and find out why he needed a pair of detectives. That sets off an apparently unrelated chain of events including a stagecoach holdup, an explosion, a kidnapping, and more murders. Tuttle was great at packing these yarns with plot despite their relatively short length. Tombstone and Speedy unravel everything and bring the villains to justice, of course, after some excellent action scenes and plenty of amusing dialogue. This is one of the few comedy Western series I like, because it’s not all comedy. The stories always feature action and mystery and colorful characters, and “Strangers in El Segundo” is no exception.

Hal White is a forgotten author these days, although he turned out dozens of stories for the Western, detective, and air war pulps. I’d read one story by him before and didn’t like it, but his novelette in this issue, “Powder on the Pecos” is very good. It starts out with a stagecoach robbery and moves on to be a story about a young rancher being framed as a rustler by the local cattle baron. The plot is very traditional, but White supplies a mildly entertaining plot twist and has a nice touch with the plentiful action scenes. I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

Johnston McCulley is always a dependable author, of course. This January 1948 issue was on the newsstands during December 1947, so McCulley’s story “Undercover Santa Claus” is very appropriate. It’s a heartwarming tale in which an outlaw risks his life to help out the children of an old friend. Most readers will have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen in this one, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.

I’ve always enjoyed T.W. Ford’s stories (he wrote hundreds of ’em for the Western, sports, and detective pulps), and his novelette in this issue, “Man-Bait for a Gun Trap” is no exception. In this yarn, a former deputy goes undercover to infiltrate an outlaw town and rescue the brother of the girl he loves. This story is almost all hardboiled, well-written action, but Ford also manages to make the characters interesting, especially the protagonist, who gave up packing a badge and has to learn how to handle a gun left-handed since his right arm got shot up and crippled. The boss of the outlaw town, who seems to have been modeled on Lionel Barrymore, is pretty good, too. This is just an excellent story all the way around, and I really enjoyed it.

Chuck Martin’s short story “Tanglefoot” is almost as good. This is the first in a short, three-story series about Jim “Tanglefoot” Bowen, another former deputy who has to learn how to cope with a handicap, in his case a leg that never healed right after bullets broke a couple of bones in it. Bowen has retired from being a lawman and makes his living as a cobbler and range detective, but he also helps out the local sheriff from time to time, a situation complicated by the fact that the sheriff is in love with the same girl as Bowen. The two of them team up to solve a mystery and round up some outlaws, including some of the men responsible for crippling Bowen, and Martin spins the yarn in his usual straightforward, fast-paced prose. He even throws in some frontier forensics! Bowen would have made a great character for novels, and I’m sorry there are only three stories about him. I think I have the other two, so I’m looking forward to reading them.

Tex Mumford was a house-name, so there’s no telling who wrote the short story “Powerful Hombre” in this issue, but it’s another good one. It’s a lighthearted tale but not an outright comedy about a cowboy who’s too big and strong for his own good. He doesn’t know his own strength, as the old saying goes, and that gets into trouble, as when he encounters a bank robber in this yarn. This is a minor story, but it’s well-written, moves right along, and I found reading it to be a pleasant experience.

I don’t know anything about Leo Charles except that he published four stories in the late Forties, three of them in Columbia Western pulps. “Remember the Knife” in this issue is his own credit in a Thrilling Group pulp. It’s the third story in this issue with a protagonist who’s handicapped. I doubt if this was an intentional theme, but who knows. In this case, the fellow has a bad leg because a horse fell on him when, as a young outlaw, he was trying to make a getaway. He’s gone straight, and nobody in the town where he runs a stable knows about his past. He has an adopted son who also has a crippled leg and needs an operation, so he tries to get the money for it by using his uncanny skill with a knife. Unfortunately, some of his old outlaw compadres show up, and so does a U.S. Marshal. I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one at first. The writing isn’t as good as in the other stories in this issue. But the author won me over with his characters and the genuine suspense the story generates. This is another good one.

And this is a fine issue of EXCITING WESTERN overall, with a solid Tombstone and Speedy yarn and great yarns from Ford and Martin. I was a little disappointed when I realized this issue didn’t have a Navajo Tom Raine story in it, since I really like that series, too, but I wound up thinking it’s one of the best issues of this pulp that I’ve read. If you have a copy, it’s well worth your reading time.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Sons and Gunslicks - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

It was a wandering daughter job.

That's a classic set-up for hardboiled private eye fiction, and Chap O'Keefe's series character Joshua Dillard is nothing if not a hardboiled private eye in the Old West. In this novel, originally published in hardcover by Robert Hale in 2007 and recently released in an e-book version, freelance troubleshooter and range detective Dillard is hired by elderly former lawman and town tamer Jack Greatheart to find Greatheart's daughter Emily, who disappeared during a trip to Arizona. Emily was engaged to the son of a widow who owns a large ranch, and after her fiancée was killed in a gunfight before they could even get married, Emily journeyed to Arizona to meet and offer her condolences to the woman who would have been her mother-in-law. She never came back, and a bloodstained coat is the only clue to her disappearance. It's up to Joshua Dillard to find Emily if she's still alive or find out what happened to her if she's not.

Naturally, once Dillard arrives on the scene, things turn out to be even more complicated and mysterious than they appear on the surface. There's a range war brewing, and Dillard has to survive gunfights, fistfights, and bushwhackings before he's able to untangle the various strands of the plot and uncover the truth of Emily Greatheart's disappearance.

As usual, Chap O'Keefe (who's really veteran author and editor Keith Chapman, as most of you already know) spins this tale in terse, no-nonsense prose and skillfully throws in enough plot twists to keep things racing along to a powerful climax. Joshua Dillard is a fine character, a dogged investigator who's plenty tough when he needs to be, and his own tragic background adds a touch of poignancy to his adventures. I've probably said this before, but fifty years ago these books would have made good Gold Medal paperbacks or Double D hardbacks.

As an added bonus in this one, O'Keefe includes "Crime on the Trail" an informative essay about the links between detective fiction and his Westerns. If you're a fan of those genres, SONS AND GUNSLICKS is well worth reading.

(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on September 25, 2013. SONS AND GUNSLICKS is available in new e-book and paperback editions, and I second my own recommendation from twelve years ago that it's well worth reading.)

Review: Buzzards Fer Thanksgivin' - Cleve Endicott (Norman W. Hay) (Wild West Weekly, November 28, 1936)

I came across this issue of WILD WEST WEEKLY on the Internet Archive, and since it features a novelette with the great title “Buzzards Fer Thanksgivin’”, I decided to go ahead and read that yarn so I could post about it today. It’s the November 28, 1936 issue, and the cover is by R.G. Harris. I’ll read the rest of it and feature it as a Saturday Morning Western Pulp in a week or two.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Billy West/Circle J series in WILD WEST WEEKLY, it was the most prolific Western pulp series with more than 400 entries between 1927 and 1943, written by at least 15 different authors under the house-name Cleve Endicott. The protagonist is Billy West, the young owner of the Circle J cattle ranch in Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains, along with his sidekicks, the colorful, grizzled old-timer Buck Foster and feisty, redheaded Joe Scott.

In “Buzzards Fer Thanksgivin’”, it’s the day before the holiday and the Circle J’s Chinese cook Sing Lo is on his way back to the ranch with a buckboard full of supplies for the Thanksgiving feast when he interrupts a stagecoach robbery and is taken prisoner by the outlaws. Meanwhile, in town, Buck Foster competes in a turkey shoot to win a prize gobbler and runs afoul of some other hardcases. Unknown to any of our heroes, these two circumstances are connected and will soon lead them into a whirlwind of action.

In fact, this story is almost all action, but it’s well-written and Billy, Buck, Joe, and Sing Lo are very likable protagonists. Despite the thin plot, I found it to be a very enjoyable yarn. The actual author is Norman W. Hay, who wrote more of the Circle J stories than anyone else. If you’re a Western pulp fan and need something to do after your nap this afternoon (I assume everyone takes a nap on Thanksgiving, like I do), I can recommend reading “Buzzards Fer Thanksgivin’”.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A very happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate the holiday. As always, I have a great deal to be thankful for, including all of you reading this blog. I appreciate your patience and your continued interest after all these years. That's the First December 1930 issue of TOP-NOTCH MAGAZINE, by the way, and it looks like a pretty good issue with stories by Donald Bayne Hobart, John Wilstach, Ben Conlon, and a Kroom, Son of the Sea yarn by house-name Valentine Wood. (I feel confident in saying that no one else will mention Kroom, Son of the Sea to you this Thanksgiving, but feel free to bring him up around the dinner table if you want to.)

Review: Men's Adventure Quarterly #13: Fatal Femmes

The latest issue of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY is out, and as usual, it’s a breathtakingly exciting collection of stories and artwork from the men’s adventure magazines, expertly assembled by editors Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham, ably assisted this time by guest editor Eric Compton and guest contributor Terrance Layhew. The theme this time around: Fatal Femmes!

They lead off with “The Gun Moll Who Hated G-Men” from the July 1957 issue of SEE. The author is David Mazroff, whose work I’ve been familiar with for a long time due to his true crime articles and occasional fiction in MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE. I didn’t know until I read about it in a previous issue of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY, however, that Mazroff was a career criminal himself and was deeply involved with organized crime. That certainly gives his work an air of authenticity. His story in this issue is a non-fiction piece about the notorious Ma Barker and her sons, and he does a great job of capturing their bloody lives and deaths.

Don Honig, a prolific contributor to the men’s adventure magazine whose work has been reprinted several times in this series, also wrote for the mystery digests. His clever crime story “Mrs. Herman and Mrs. Kenmore” is from the May 1958 issue of ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. While AHMM isn’t exactly a men’s adventure magazine, I suspect there was a significant crossover with the readership of those magazines. A guy like me, for example.

W.J. Saber was really Warren Shanahan, and under his real name he wrote one of the novels featuring the comic strip hero The Phantom that were published originally by Avon back in the Seventies. I was an avid reader of those novels and read and enjoyed Shanahan’s entry back then. Under the Saber pseudonym, he wrote extensively for the men’s adventure magazines, including “Rich Lovers Wanted—Apply Mme. Crielle, Champs Elysées” from the January 1960 issue of STAG. It’s a great, lurid yarn set in Paris in the 1920s about young men being murdered and their blood being drained from them, with a dogged police detective determined to get to the bottom of the crimes.

“Kiss Me and Die” by Hiram J. Herbert (TRUE ADVENTURES, December 1960) is another true-crime yarn about the killing spree of a couple of prostitutes and their henchman/fall guy, an AWOL GI. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of true crime stories, but this one works very well and I enjoyed it.

Buz Rowan, like the author of the previous story, is an unknown quantity, likely a pseudonym. His noir crime yarn “Blood for a Nympho’s Flesh”, from the November 1962 issue of ALL MAN, is about crop-dusting, not a subject that comes up very often in such stories, I suspect. But Rowan, whoever he really was, uses it to craft a gut-punch of a story that could have been a Gold Medal novel in miniature.

I’ve read several stories and a novel by Dean W. Ballenger, and his work never fails to entertain. “The Incredible Norwegian Ice Nymphs” (NEW MAN, September 1963) is a World War II yarn about Norwegian women who fight back against the Nazis and prove to be just as deadly as their men. It’s a punchy, very entertaining tale, as you’d expect from Ballenger.

None other than the great pulp author Paul Chadwick, creator of Secret Agent X and Wade Hammond, shows up with “The Ever-Lovin’ Nude Who Watched Her Boyfriends Die” from the May 1969 issue of REAL MEN. This is the only story Chadwick wrote for the men’s adventure magazines, but it appeared three times under three different titles, in three different magazines, to boot! It’s a good story about a serial murderess who uses poison to dispose of her victims, set in France like one of the earlier stories in this volume. You can always count on Chadwick to spin a good yarn, and this one is no exception.

“Vendetta on the Street of Lonely Frauleins” wraps up the fiction in this issue. It appeared originally in the March 1966 issue of MEN and is by Mario Cleri, a prolific contributor to the men’s adventure magazines who just happens to be better known by his real name: Mario Puzo, author of THE GODFATHER and many other bestselling novels. Taking its cue from the contemporary boom in espionage and secret agent fiction, this story features freelance American operative Scarlet Tracy and her partner Charlie Hunt. Scarlet and Charlie are in Berlin to hunt down a British defector with a briefcase full of top secret documents to sell to the Russians. There seems to me to be a definite Modesty Blaise influence in this one, along with echoes of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., The Lady From L.U.S.T., and the other books, movies, and TV shows from that era that featured beautiful female protagonists. I am definitely the target audience for stories like this, and I loved it. If Puzo had turned this into a paperback series, I would have been right there at the spinner rack to pick up each new book as it came out. As far as I know, this is Scarlet Tracy’s only appearance, but it’s a good one.

Eric Compton contributes a fine article about fatal femmes in novels, and Terrance Layhew has assembled a wonderful photo gallery of some of the beautiful women from the James Bond films. Both are very worthy additions to one of the best issues of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY so far. But let’s face it, all the issues have been great. If you’re a fan of great art and hard-hitting stories, this volume and all the previous ones get my highest recommendation. You can find the Fatal Femmes issue on Amazon.

Review: Ride the Wild Country - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

I read most of Keith Chapman’s Joshua Dillard novels when they were reissued some years ago, but RIDE THE WILD COUNTRY is one that I missed back then. Which is a good thing, because I was able to read it now.

For those of you who don’t know, Joshua is a former Pinkerton operative turned freelance range detective and gun-for-hire in the Old West. In this novel, originally published in hardcover by Robert Hale in 2005 and now available in e-book and paperback editions, he’s hired to accompany a New Yorker who’s paying a visit to Colorado. Instead of the man he’s expecting, his employer turns out to be a beautiful woman with a plan to turn a high country valley into a fancy hunting resort. I don’t recall ever encountering this plot in a Western before, so I was impressed by that.

Ah, but is that what’s really going on? In his usual skillful fashion, Chapman peels back more layers of the plot, adding a shady lawyer, assorted ruffians, some religious fanatics, and a young woman Joshua tries to help, leading to all sorts of trouble.

RIDE THE WILD COUNTRY is a thoroughly entertaining Western yarn with plenty of action and plot twists and a very likable protagonist in Joshua Dillard. He’s fast on the draw and can be plenty hardboiled when he needs to be but is also a genuinely decent guy who seems to have hard luck following him around the West. But that’s good luck for us, who get to read about his adventures. If you’re a Western fan, RIDE THE WILD COUNTRY gets an enthusiastic recommendation from me.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Feds, October 1936

THE FEDS was a G-Man pulp published by Street & Smith, a company that usually was very successful with anything they put out there. Not so with THE FEDS, which lasted for only 15 issues in 1936 and '37. But its lack of longevity can't be attributed to the generally pretty good covers, including this one on the second issue which is probably collectable because of the presence of all those Ku Klux Klansmen on it. I don't know who painted it. Nor were the writers any slouches. This issue features stories by Steve Fisher, Wyatt Blassingame, W.T. Ballard, Arthur J. Burks, William G. Bogart, Laurence Donovan, Jean Francis Webb, George Allan Moffatt (Edwin V. Burkholder), James Duncan (Arthur Pincus), and house-name Bruce Harley. Probably some good reading there. I don't own this issue and it doesn't appear to be available on-line, but if I did have a copy of it, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a try. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Speed Western Stories, December 1945, Plus Blog Update

This issue of SPEED WESTERN STORIES features two stories by Edwin Truett Long, one under the transparent pseudonym Edwin Truett and one as by Wallace Kayton. Long died earlier in 1945, apparently from an illness he contracted while serving in Burma during World War II, so these may have been some of the last stories he wrote. Or they could be unacknowledged reprints. With a Trojan pulp, one never knows. Elsewhere in this issue are stories by William R. Cox, Laurence Donovan, James P. Olsen, William J. Glynn, and house-name Max Neilson. The cover is probably by H.W. Scott. This issue can be found on-line at the Internet Archive. With a line-up of authors like that, I may have to read it one of these days.

Speaking of issues, I've been dealing with some health-related ones recently. Nothing serious, the blog's not going anywhere and neither am I, but it's left me without the time and energy to get everything done that I wanted to, including updating the blog. However, I'm hoping that normal posting will resume next week, although it may get sporadic now and then. 

Movies I've Missed Until Now: Dillinger (1973)

Given my fondness for gangster movies, and for Ben Johnson, I’m surprised I never watched 1973’s DILLINGER until now. It’s also an American International Picture, and AIP turned out some mighty entertaining movies over the years. I watched many of them at the Eagle Drive-In, but not this one. By the time DILLINGER came out, the Eagle had already switched over to showing X-rated movies.

But now I’ve seen DILLINGER. Warren Oates plays the title character, and Ben Johnson is Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent who doggedly pursues not only John Dillinger but most of the other famous criminals who roamed the Midwest during the Depression, robbing banks and mowing down cops and anybody else who got in their way. Most of them show up in this movie, too, including Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson. Bonnie and Clyde are mentioned numerous times, but their paths never cross that of Dillinger, which is probably a good thing because he looks down on them as non-professionals. For him, on the other hand, it’s just his job, and he’s the very best at it, at least according to him.

The script by John Milius, who also directed, has only a nodding acquaintance with historical accuracy, starting with the fact that the FBI didn’t exist when Dillinger was active. It was still the Bureau of Investigation. The various gangster characters are killed off out of historical order, often in ways that didn’t happen. But take it for what it is, a piece of entertainment, and DILLINGER is pretty darned good, with interesting characters, good dialogue, excellent photography, and a bunch of bloody shootouts. It’s a loud movie most of the time.

Oates does a fine job as Dillinger, playing him with a real zest for life and fondness for excitement. Ben Johnson, one of my favorite actors, is great as Melvin Purvis. Johnson is one of those actors I could listen to all day, no matter what he was saying. Just a great voice. Michelle Phillips is okay as Dillinger’s girlfriend, and a young Richard Dreyfuss shows up as Baby Face Nelson. The top-notch Seventies character actor Geoffrey Lewis is also a member of the gang. It seemed like Lewis was in just about every movie made for a while back then.

I had a fine time watching DILLINGER. It’s probably not a great movie, but it’s a very good one. I’m still a little flabbergasted that I didn’t see it back when it was new, but on the other hand, that gave me something good to watch now.