Rough Edges

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Big-Book Western, April 1940

2012-01-28T07:00:00.003-06:00

This is another Popular Publications pulp, as you might guess by the yellow background and the red banner along the top of the cover. Popular really loved yellow and red. At this stage of BIG-BOOK WESTERN's existence, Ed Earl Repp is in nearly every issue. Of course, there's really no way to know who actually wrote those stories published under Repp's name, since he's known to have used several ghosts. The other stories are by Tom Roan, John G. Pearsol (both Popular Publications regulars), Larry A. Harris (who wrote for nearly all the Western pulp publishers), and a couple of authors I'm not familiar with, I.L. Thompson and Jack Bloodhart, which sounds like a pseudonym to me but quite possibly isn't. I like this cover because it continues the tradition that nearly every woman in the Old West had red hair and was handy with a shootin' iron.

Forgotten Books: The Bamboo Bomb - James Dark (J.E. MacDonnell)

2012-01-27T06:00:00.011-06:00

(This post originally appeared on April 26, 2006, in slightly different form.)

There's a story behind why I read this particular book at this particular time -- so naturally I'm going to tell it.

Like a lot of people who have a lot of old paperbacks, I sometimes have trouble remembering which books I own and which I don't. So when I come across something interesting in a used bookstore, I occasionally have to ask myself, do I already have this one or not? And if I can't remember, I err on the side of caution and buy it anyway, because -- in the words of a very wise man -- you never regret the books you buy, only the ones you didn't buy.

Anyway, I was discussing this with Livia the other day, which led me to remark in passing, "That's why I have five or six copies of THE BAMBOO BOMB by James Dark."

She just looked at me and asked, "Have you ever actually read it?"

I had to admit that I hadn't, so she said, "I want you to read it."

Now I have. And it's not bad.

Mark Hood is your typical Sixties secret agent: rich American playboy, Rhodes scholar at Oxford, internationally renowned cricket player, race car driver, karate master, etc. Just the sort of guy who spent the Sixties fighting the bad guys and keeping the world safe. He works for Intertrust, a top-secret international spy organization. In this book he's sent to Singapore to pull the old "American down on his luck" bit so he can infiltrate a group of villains who are out to destabilize the Far Eastern political arena . . . I think. I'll admit I had a little trouble following the plot because I know almost nothing about politics in the Far East during the Sixties. But that's okay, because Hood fights a bunch of bad guys, romances a couple of beautiful girls, and blows a bunch of stuff up real good.

One of the best things about this book is its length -- 127 pages. And there's more plot in that 127 pages than in a lot of 500 - 600 page thrillers that I've read. True, there's not much characterization or back-story, but sometimes I don't care. You pays your money and you takes your choice. More than anything else it reminded me of the Sam Durell books by Edward S. Aarons, with its hardboiled hero and exotic locations and convoluted plot. "James Dark" didn't write as well as Aarons, but then, few people ever did when it comes to this particular sort of book.

"James Dark" was really J.E. MacDonnell. I know nothing about him other than the fact that he wrote a lot of war and espionage novels in various series under various names. The Mark Hood books were originally published by Horwitz in Australia during the mid-Sixties, and at the same time about half of the books were reprinted in the U.S. by Signet, cashing in on the secret agent boom of the time. I think I have all the U.S. editions -- multiple copies of some of them, in fact.

But just to set the record straight, I checked my shelves and I don't have five or six copies of THE BAMBOO BOMB.

I have three.

(Update: I never got around to reading any more of those James Dark books, and I haven't replaced any of them since the fire. But I have fond enough memories of this one that if I ever run across any of them at a reasonable price, I'll pick them up. I might even read them. And this won't come as any shock, but I once again have multiple copies of some books because I saw them in the store and couldn't remember if I already had them. In fact, just the other day I barely caught myself in time to keep from ordering a book on ABE that I had just ordered another copy of maybe a month earlier.)

The Green Hornet: Year One: The Biggest of All Game - Matt Wagner

2012-01-25T06:00:00.002-06:00

A while back I read and enjoyed the first volume in THE GREEN HORNET: YEAR ONE, and now I've read the second trade paperback collection from the comic book series. Volume Two is called THE BIGGEST OF ALL GAME, and it's an appropriate title as The Green Hornet and Kato step up their war against gang boss Skid Caruso. In fact, they cause so much trouble for Caruso that he calls in the brutal gangland killer known as The Scourge and sets him on the trail of the Hornet.

Interspersed with this storyline are flashbacks detailing how The Hornet came to be equipped with his famous car The Black Beauty, his electrified weapon The Hornet's Sting, and his downtown headquarters with its secret alleyway entrance. Britt Reid's secretary Lenore Case is also introduced in this volume. All of this is classic Green Hornet lore, told in a little grittier fashion for modern readers maybe, but faithful enough to the original that a purist like me really appreciates it. I'm still not crazy about the series being set in Chicago rather than Detroit, but I can live with it.

As usual Matt Wagner's scripts are excellent, fast-paced and hardboiled and occasionally humorous. He's also credited with art direction on the series, which I suppose means he did rough breakdowns for Aaron Campbell's pencils and inks. I like Campbell's art for the most part. His storytelling is fairly easy to follow, and his characters all look right.

I've liked The Green Hornet ever since I first listened to the radio show in the early Sixties. Wagner's doing a fine job with this retelling, and when the next volume comes out, I'm sure I'll read it.

Tuesday's Overlooked TV: Coronet Blue

2012-01-24T06:00:00.002-06:00

Following up on Bob Randisi's suggestion from last week, today I want to look back at a summer replacement series that surprised everybody and still has a cult following, CORONET BLUE.

Some of you probably remember summer replacement series, which were exactly what they sounded like, new programming that took the place of reruns during the summer. Bear in mind that back in those days, most TV series produced between 30 and 40 episodes per year, not the 22 that's considered a full season now. Even so, all the networks would have a handful of summer replacement shows.

When CORONET BLUE made its debut in the summer of 1967, it's likely no one expected much out of it. It had been produced a year or two earlier and had been sitting on the shelf. The premise seems to have been inspired somewhat by ROUTE 66, THE FUGITIVE, and RUN FOR YOUR LIFE: a semi-anthology series with one or two continuing characters. The twist here was that Michael Alden, the protagonist of CORONET BLUE (played by Frank Converse) didn't know who he really was. He didn't know if that was really his name. All he knew was that he had climbed out of the East River in New York, the mysterious phrase "Coronet Blue" had some meaning to him . . . and people were trying to kill him.

That's a classic thriller set-up, and CORONET BLUE made the most of it as Michael Alden spent the summer trying to discover his true identity and find out why those mysterious enemies wanted him dead. The series caught on and became extremely popular, with the ratings rising each week. The on-going mystery had something to do with that, and so, I think, did the great theme song and opening credit sequence. That song has been stuck in my head for more than 40 years now.

Then suddenly it was over, with no resolution at all. Rumors abounded that there was a mysterious final episode and CBS, for some reason, decided not to show it. That seems not to have been the case. After all, when the episodes were produced in the first place the hope was that the series would be successful and would continue. Some executive decided that wasn't going to happen, and everyone involved moved on to other project while the episodes sat gathering dust until CBS trotted them out as a summer replacement series. Even after they saw its popularity, there was nothing they could do about it. Frank Converse was already working on another series, the short-lived cop show NYPD.

The rumors about the intending ending of CORONET BLUE persisted, and eventually creator Larry Cohen revealed in an interview what his plans had been. You can find the information easily enough on-line if you really want to know. But I'll say here and now that I don't buy it, not for a second. I hate to second-guess the guy who came up with the whole series, but I would have been severely disappointed if I had seen that ending. Maybe this is one of those rare cases where something was better because the outcome was left up to the imagination of the viewer.

"The Galvanized Yankees of Company D" - Troy D. Smith

2012-01-23T18:43:00.000-06:00

The Galvanized Yankees were Confederate prisoners who volunteered to serve with the U.S. Army on the frontier during the Civil War. I researched and used this setting in some of the novels in my Civil War Battles series and have been interested in the period ever since. Troy Smith mixes battlefield action, interesting characters, and dialogue that rings true to produce a compelling story with a poignant ending. "The Galvanized Yankees of Company D" is top-notch historical fiction.

CBS Radio Mystery Theater

2012-01-23T13:20:00.000-06:00

I remember listening to and enjoying the CBS Radio Mystery Theater back in the Seventies. Now all 1,399 episodes are available on-line for free. I'm an OTR fan from 'way back, although I can never seem to find the time to listen as much as I want to, but I'm definitely going to check these out, probably starting tonight. Lots of great stuff here!

The Masacado Scrolls #1: The Fall of Awa - Charles T. Whipple

2012-01-23T06:00:00.002-06:00

Charles T. Whipple is best known as a well-respected Western author under the pseudonym Chuck Tyrell. But he also writes stories set in Japan, where he's lived and worked for a number of years. His novella THE FALL OF AWA is the first in a series of fantasy yarns based on ancient Japanese mythology, and it's a good one.

The heroine, a girl named Ryo, is the daughter of a servant in the household of a local ruler. When the kingdom comes under attack by the forces of a rival warlord aided by dark sorcery, the fortress of Awa falls and Ryo and her mother are doomed to life as slaves of the conquerors. Other mystical forces are at work, though, and Ryo is destined to play a pivotal part in the battle between good and evil.

With its young heroine, you might think this is a YA novella, but not really. The battle scenes early on are bloody and almost Howardian in their sweep and pace. That hardboiled, gritty realism continues during the story of the time Ryo and her mother spend as slaves, culminating in a sorcerous conflict that sets the stage for more stories to come.

I'm not a big fan of stories set in the Orient, but Whipple does a great job with this one and has me looking forward to the rest of the series. It's a nice blend of historical and heroic fantasy, and if you're a fan of those genres, you should check it out. I enjoyed it a lot.

Check Out Latchkeys: Unlatched - Steven Savile

2012-01-22T10:45:00.003-06:00

The first book in the Latchkeys series is now available on Amazon and will be available soon for the Nook as well. I played a small part in creating this young adult fantasy series with a number of other authors and will be writing one of the books coming later on. It's been a great experience so far, and as with the Dead Man books, one of the best parts is getting to read all the books done by the other writers. So if you're a fantasy fan, you definitely need to check this one out.

Bob's Birthday

2012-01-22T08:00:00.003-06:00

Today marks the 106th anniversary of Robert E. Howard's birth in Peaster, Texas, about twenty miles as the crow flies from where I'm sitting. If you'd like to celebrate, the accepted procedure is to read one of your favorite REH stories and raise a glass of your favorite drink to the Greatest Pulp Writer in the Whole Wide World. That's what I plan to be doing this evening.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: The Lone Ranger, May 1937

2012-01-21T07:00:00.005-06:00

Earlier this week in my comments on the great new collection UNMASKED from Black Dog Books, I mentioned the pulp magazine devoted to the Lone Ranger. Here's the cover from the second issue of that pulp, which features the story reprinted in UNMASKED. The art is by H.J. Ward. The Lone Ranger novel takes up most of the wordage inside, but there are also short stories by Claude Rister, Lawrence A. Keating, and Frank Kavanaugh, an installment of a serialized biography of John Wesley Hardin by Chuck Martin, and an assortment of articles, features, and columns, including the "Lone Ranger Stamp Page", whatever that was. As popular as the radio show was, and as much other merchandising featured the Lone Ranger, I'm surprised the pulp magazine was unsuccessful. Maybe the fact that THE MASKED RIDER, a pulp series featuring a character clearly inspired by the Lone Ranger, was already being published had something to do with it. In fact, one of those Masked Rider stories, "Outlaw of the Red Hills", was written by Lawrence A. Keating, who has a story in this issue, making one more connection between the characters.

Forgotten Books: The Time Traders - Andre Norton

2012-01-20T06:00:00.002-06:00

When I was a kid, Andre Norton books were everywhere. Every school library and every public library had what seemed like dozens of them. Plus the paperback editions of her books were plentiful and easy to find. During that era, her name was as synonymous with science fiction as those of Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke.

I read a bunch of those books, too, although I was never as big a fan of Norton's work as I was of those other authors I just mentioned. And as time went by I stopped reading her books entirely. At least forty years went by without me picking up an Andre Norton book.

Recently I got the urge to give her work a try again and see how it holds up, so I read THE TIME TRADERS, the first in one of her many series and a book that I never read back in the old days, at least that I recall. It has an interesting set-up: young Ross Murdock, who's in trouble with the law, is given the choice of taking part in some top-secret government project or being subjected to an ominous-sounding "Rehabilitation". Naturally Ross goes with the top-secret project and soon finds himself part of an American time travel experiment in which agents are sent back into the past to vie with Soviet Russian agents for alien technology that shouldn't exist in Earth's past.

I've always liked time travel books, and this is a good one, packed with adventure as Ross and his fellow agents deal with the hardships of life in ancient Britain as well as carrying out an espionage struggle against the Russians. Then, to complicate things even more, the aliens show up . . . and they aren't happy.

I thought the writing in this book was a little bland – I always thought Norton's work, though it was written for a primarily young adult audience, could have used a little more grit – but the ideas are intriguing, the pace rocks right along with a considerable amount of action, and Ross Murdock makes a likable hero. The whole thing is pretty dated but still enjoyable. I probably won't drop everything to read more Andre Norton books right away, but I don't think it'll be another forty years before I read one, either. (For one thing, I'd be nearly 100 years old!)

Check Out Dodge Dalton on the High Road to Oblivion

2012-01-19T13:18:00.000-06:00

(I've read the first two books in this series by Sean Ellis and thoroughly enjoyed them. I'll be reading this one, too, but in the meantime, it's now available. If you're a fan of adventure fiction, don't miss it.)

The Golden Age of Adventure has a new champion!

Twice before, Dodge Dalton proved himself a worthy heir to the heroic Captain Falcon, but saving the world has been more costly than he could have imagined. The scars of that sacrifice have only just begun to heal when disaster strikes again. Dodge's friend Doc Newcombe has been kidnapped by a gang of terrorists who plan to use his scientific expertise to build a weapon capable of destroying entire cities.

To save his friend, Dodge will have to unravel a web of intrigue where no one can be trusted, face off against enemy spies trained in the ancient arts of stealth and assassination, and travel to the very gates of Hell.

Dodge Dalton has emerged from the Shadow of Falcon's Wings...

He survived the Outpost of Fate...

But is he ready for the dangers that await on the High Road to Oblivion?

Hope Road - John Barlow

2012-01-18T06:00:00.002-06:00

I hadn't read a British mystery in a while, and John Barlow's HOPE ROAD was a good choice to change that. It's a thriller with a little bit of police procedural thrown in, as protagonist John Ray, the son of a notorious British gangster, attempts to go straight with his business of selling second-hand luxury cars. John even has a girlfriend on the police force, Detective Constable Denise Danson. So he has plenty of motivation for getting to the bottom of things when one of the cars from his showroom goes missing and then turns up with the corpse of a young woman in its trunk. Not only that, but John's friend and top salesman, also missing, is considered by the police as the leading suspect in the woman's murder.

Barlow throws in plenty of twists before everything is untangled, since of course nothing in the case is exactly what it seems to be, and he spins the yarn in fast-paced, very readable prose. I'm not a big fan of books written in the present tense, but Barlow makes that technique work here. He also does a good job with the setting, the English city of Leeds, and made me feel like I'd been there. (Which I haven't, of course. I don't even go as far as Dallas unless I have to.)

HOPE ROAD is a fine novel, the first in a series, and I look forward to reading the others.

Tuesday's Overlooked TV: Blue Light

2012-01-17T06:00:00.002-06:00

Like GARRISON'S GORILLAS, which I wrote about last week, BLUE LIGHT was a short-lived TV series set during World War II. It was on a year earlier in 1966, and lasted even less time, only half a season. I recall it being pretty good, though.

The emphasis was on espionage rather than combat in this one. Robert Goulet played David March, an American journalist who turns traitor and goes over to the German side early in the war, before the U.S. is involved officially. But of course, March is really an American secret agent working against the Nazis. His code name was "Blue Light", hence the name of the series.

I remember very little about this one except that I liked it. The episodes were a half-hour, which meant the plots had to be pretty tight, and it had a nice hardboiled feel to it. There are a few clips from one episode available on YouTube, but that's it.

Unmasked - Tom Roberts, ed.

2012-01-16T06:00:00.002-06:00

As we've come to expect from publisher Tom Roberts and Black Dog Books, UNMASKED is another fine collection of vintage fiction, in this case the earliest appearances of some characters who are much better known for their movie and TV versions: Hopalong Cassidy, The Cisco Kid, Zorro, and The Lone Ranger. Two of my all-time favorites there (Hoppy and the Ranger), and a couple of other characters that I've enjoyed greatly over the years.

This volume starts off with a lengthy, informative, and entertaining introduction by Francis M. Nevins that covers the evolution of the characters from prose to screen, or in the case of the Lone Ranger, from the airwaves to prose. Nevins knows as much or more about this stuff than anyone alive, and he provides plenty of good background info.

Having read many a Hopalong Cassidy book when I was a kid, I had no idea that the original stories had been revised and rearranged for book publication. UNMASKED gives us the first six Hoppy stories as they originally appeared in THE OUTING MAGAZINE in 1905 and 1906, the first time those original versions have been reprinted in more than a hundred years. Clarence E. Mulford's style, especially the use of thick dialect, takes a little getting used to, but once I got into these stories I found them incredibly entertaining. Owen Wister gets credit (deservedly so) for coming up with many of the conventions of Western fiction, but Mulford came along only a few years later and added a lot of things that we've come to expect from Westerns, giving these stories some historical as well as entertainment value.

From the same era is O. Henry's "The Caballero's Way", the only appearance in print of the original Cisco Kid, who, like Hopalong Cassidy, was considerably different from the movie version that came along later. This one is well-written and pretty hardboiled for the time.

Next up is an excerpt from "The Curse of Capistrano", the ARGOSY serial by Johnston McCully that introduced the character of Zorro to the world, and again Roberts goes with the original magazine version rather than the rewritten later versions. I've come a little late to McCully's work but I'm quickly becoming a big fan. His stories are very well-paced, with an almost uncanny sense of what makes a story exciting and keeps the reader flipping the pages. This example is no different.

Finally, UNMASKED gives us a complete novel featuring the Lone Ranger, "The Masked Rider's Justice", from the second issue of the Ranger's fairly short-lived pulp magazine. This is my favorite story in this volume, probably because I'm such a huge Lone Ranger fan. As I began reading it, something about the opening – the Ranger rescuing an unjustly imprisoned young man from a lynch mob – struck me as familiar, so I checked my collection of Lone Ranger novels. Sure enough, this story was rewritten and expanded into THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO, the fifth volume in the hardback series published by Grosset & Dunlap. As Roberts explains in his introduction to the story in UNMASKED, the Lone Ranger pulp novels were published without a by-line, but it seems likely to me that they're the work of Fran Striker, who wrote the G&D series (with the exception of the first one, which is by Gaylord Dubois). But we can't be sure about that.

No matter who wrote it, "The Masked Rider's Justice" is great fun. The pulp version is shorter, punchier, and somewhat grittier since it wasn't intended for a juvenile audience the way the hardbacks were. And it tells you something about the quality that I remembered that opening from reading THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO at least 45 years ago.

UNMASKED is one of the best collections so far from Black Dog Books, and those of you familiar with their publications know that's saying a lot. If you have any interest at all in early Western fiction or Western film and TV, or if you're just looking for some very entertaining stories, you shouldn't miss this one. Highly recommended.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, August 1943

2012-01-14T07:00:00.002-06:00

This issue has an action-packed cover by Allen Anderson, and I'd be willing to bet that the stories inside were pretty action-packed, too. The featured story is by my old favorite J. Edward Leithead, who also has a story in this issue under his Wilson Covert pseudonym. There's also a novelette by the always dependable Dean Owen and short stories by Gunnison Steele and old cowboy Chuck Martin, among others. The Ace Western pulps, WESTERN ACES and WESTERN TRAILS, were considered lower-tier markets, and maybe they were, but I've enjoyed all of them that I've read.

Forgotten Books: Rapture Alley - Whit Harrison (Harry Whittington)

2012-01-13T06:00:00.006-06:00

RAPTURE ALLEY, another novel in the latest Harry Whittington triple volume from Stark House, ventures into Orrie Hitt territory, since its plot includes both nude modeling (sort of) and the plight of unwed motherhood. For the most part, though, this is Whittington's dope novel, and in that respect it reminded me of Robert Silverberg's first Don Elliott novel, LUST ADDICT.

Originally published in 1953 by Carnival Books under the pseudonym Whit Harrison, RAPTURE ALLEY is the story of Lora Cassel, a beautiful young woman who moves to New York in an attempt to become successful as a singer and actress. She lives with her sister, a sweet-natured invalid who's confined to a wheelchair, and her brother-in-law, a virile, successful salesman. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going to happen from that set-up, and as Whittington quickly reveals to the reader, an affair is already going on between Lora and her brother-in-law Ken.

The stress and guilt of this affair, plus her continuing trouble finding any success in her career, lead Lora to make a bad decision and start going to marijuana parties with a TV industry flunkey she meets on a job. From here the plot begins to take on a slight feeling of REEFER MADNESS as Lora's life spirals more and more out of control. Whittington does a great job with it, though, keeping the story moving along at a brisk pace and making the reader feel Lora's desperation as she makes bad decision after bad decision.

Eventually things work out, as they usually do in books from this era, but not until there's a minor but interesting plot twist late in the game. RAPTURE ALLEY is a very solid, very entertaining entry from Whittington, and one more reason, as if you needed it, to pick up this collection from Stark House.

Just a Couple of Guys on Top of a Mountain

2012-01-12T15:49:00.000-06:00

You may have noticed on Bill Crider's blog today that he ran a picture of us at the Western Writers of America convention in Jackson, Wyoming in 1992. Here's another picture from that same convention (which he was kind enough to send to me, along with some others) of the two of us standing on top of Snow King Mountain. I have no idea why I'm looking so suspiciously at Bill, as if he'd just tried to push me off the mountain or something. But if you ignore the two writers, there's a pretty nice view in the background.

Favorite Bookstores #6: The TV Repair Shop

2012-01-12T06:00:00.001-06:00

Like The Old Man's Place, I'm sure this business had a real name, but I either never knew it or have forgotten it. We called it The TV Repair Shop or sometimes The Other Old Man's Place, because the owner was an elderly gentleman who repaired television sets in the front part of the building, but probably 80% of the space was taken up by shelves and shelves of old used books. This was on the near north side of Fort Worth, on Sylvania Avenue, I think. I have a hunch the building is long gone, and I doubt if I could even find where it was. Livia and I didn't go there very often; it wasn't on our regular circuit of used bookstores. But when we did, I always found some good stuff.

Most of the books were what would now be considered vintage paperbacks. Lots of Midwood and Beacon soft-core erotica novels. If I'd only known then what I know now, I'd have probably bought more of those. As it was, I picked up all the ones I found by Mike Avallone (who I was corresponding with at the time) and a few others, but I'm sure I passed up Orrie Hitt, Loren Beauchamp, Sheldon Lord, Edwin West, and others like that. But the store had quite a few Gold Medals from the Fifties, especially Westerns, and I pretty much cleaned it out of those. Early Avons by authors such as Harry Whittington (I remember I bought 69 BABYLON PARK there). It was just a good assortment of Fifties-era paperbacks, with some newer stuff, mostly men's adventure, mixed in, too.

The old fellow who ran it was friendly, if not as colorful as George Snapka, the proprietor of The Old Man's Place. The store was located in an old house, and I'm sure it had termite damage because the floors sagged in places and you had to be careful where you walked. That just added to the place's personality as far as I was concerned. I always enjoyed my visits there and wish I had gone more often. As it is, it's another good memory of the days when bookstores like that were common (or a lot more common than they are now, anyway).

Guest Blog: Brian Drake on The Rogue Gentleman

2012-01-11T06:00:00.002-06:00

Thank you, James, for allowing me to promote my new ebook on your site. Much appreciated, as always. I'm doing something different this time, though one might say I'm duplicating what Lee Goldberg and Paul Bishop have done with their own recurring series. THE ROGUE GENTLEMAN will be a monthly serial, with stories anywhere between 80 and 100 pages; basically long books broken into pieces. This is the nice thing about the ebook world. A project like this would be unheard of otherwise.

Here's the story:

Steve Dane, The Rogue Gentleman, an international adventurer who rights wrongs wherever he finds them, fails to prevent a young woman’s abduction. But that doesn’t stop him from finding her.

Officially hired by the girl’s father, Dane battles gunman and evades police as he discovers the decades-old vendetta behind the kidnapping; he soon learns that the grudge is just the beginning and peels back the layers of a more fiendish plan that goes beyond a desire for vengeance.

Assisted by his lover, the luscious Nina Talikova, Steve Dane dives in head first, the only way he know how, into a conspiracy of terror the likes of which the world has never seen, orchestrated by a powerful and mysterious woman known only as “The Duchess”.

When Dane finds The Duchess, he will sacrifice anything, including his life, to destroy her.

Once again Ian Fleming is partially responsible for the creation of Steve Dane. Author Ben Macintyre published a book, appropriately titled For Your Eyes Only, that was part of the Fleming Centennial celebration which listed some of the ingredients Fleming mixed into the Bond character—the exploits of real-life British agents such as Eddie Chapman and Biffy Dunderdale, who lived lavish lifestyles while fighting for queen and country. Chapman is unique since he was a full-time crook rescued from prison in return for serving his country. He was ordered to be an international playboy while tripping up the Germans and he went all out. I wanted to do a character like that, but, of course, make him an American; since I didn't want to do a World War Two story (maybe someday!) I needed a reason to have him operating in contemporary times. Having already done a spy story, I didn’t want this to be about a secret agent, per se, but somebody who could get involved with international intrigue and mix it up with the usual spy novel suspects.

Instead of a government agent, Steve Dane is a former spy and mercenary now living lavishly and chasing trouble and intrigue on his own terms. How he supports himself is part of the on-going subplot. Did he acquire his wealth honestly or by nefarious means? The good guys think he's a bad guy; the bad guys think he's one of them; he's able to play both sides against each other and, like Boston Blackie and The Saint before him, come to the aid of those who have nowhere else to turn as long as he can stay one step ahead of the cops and the crooks.

There's a bit of Nick & Nora Charles mixed in with Steve Dane and his lady friend, Nina Talikova; the stories mix adventure with light humor and so far readers think the combination works. They’re perfect if you’re one of those who ride a commuter train every day and want something quick to read.

Anyway the first installment, PRIVATE VENDETTA, is out; MOVING TARGET and THE ZETA CONNECTION will follow in February and March and, of course, three more after that. After the first six, I’ll write a totally different book but that’s something we’ll talk about later. I hope you have as much fun reading the stories as I have had writing them.

Tuesday's Overlooked TV: Garrison's Gorillas

2012-01-10T06:00:00.002-06:00

I've probably mentioned before that I was a big fan of the TV series COMBAT! That, along with numerous issues of comic books such as OUR ARMY AT WAR (with Sgt. Rock) and OUR FIGHTING FORCES (with Gunner and Sarge) made me a fan of World War II fiction. So it's not surprising that I was a faithful viewer of GARRISON'S GORILLAS, a 1967–'68 World War II TV series that was a spin-off from COMBAT!, as well as being heavily influenced by the success of the novel and film versions of THE DIRTY DOZEN.

It uses the same basic set-up of a group of convicts being recruited for highly dangerous commando missions behind the lines, although there's only four of them instead of a dozen. And they're led by the usual stalwart American officer, in this case Lt. Craig Garrison, played by Ron Harper. The four convicts, who are known by their nicknames, are Actor (Cesare Danova, who usually played gangsters), Goniff (Christopher Cary), Casino (Rudy Solari), and Chief (Brendon Boone). I remember Danova and vaguely remember Ron Harper, but the others not at all.

I liked the show well enough that I bought and read the tie-in novel, which was written by Jack Pearl. I don't remember anything about it except that I read it while I was a freshman in high school. In addition, there was a juvenile tie-in novel, GARRISON'S GORILLAS AND THE FEAR FORMULA, published by Whitman and also written by Jack Pearl. I never read the Whitman book and don't recall ever seeing it, or I probably would have. It shows you how much things have changed in the tie-in market when a fairly unsuccessful series that lasted only a year could spawn two novels back in those days.

I was surprised to see that quite a few episodes of GARRISON'S GORILLAS are available to watch on YouTube. I don't think it's ever been released on DVD. It must have been at least somewhat enjoyable to me, because I think I watched the entire season when it was new, but I didn't like it as much as COMBAT! I haven't tried watching any of the episodes again to see how they hold up. I ought to do that.

Criminal, Vol. 6: The Last of the Innocent - Ed Brubaker

2012-01-09T06:00:00.002-06:00

As much as I enjoy Ed Brubaker's writing in CAPTAIN AMERICA and other superhero comics, I think his best work is to be found in his on-going series of noir graphic novels, CRIMINAL. The most recent on, THE LAST OF THE INNOCENT, with art by Sean Phillips as usual, pushes the standard for this series even higher.

The narrator, Riley Richards, grows up in a small town in the Fifties and Sixties, hangs around with his pals, and has to decide between two girls, sweet girl-next-door Lizzie and beautiful, sophisticated, rich Felix. Yes, it's all very much like Archie Andrews, and Phillips even draws some of the sequences in that style, very effectively, I might add.

But those sequences are flashbacks, because the main story is set in the Eighties, when Riley finds himself trapped in a loveless marriage, swamped by gambling debts, and driven by desperation to murder and acts even more despicable.

THE LAST OF THE INNOCENT is about as bleak as it can be as Brubaker tightens the screws on Riley, and he saves his last kicker for the final page. It's subtle enough that if you haven't been paying attention all the way through, you might miss it, but when you figure out what's going to happen, it's very effective.

Those of you who enjoy crime comics really should check out CRIMINAL. Each story is a stand-alone and is collected in its own trade paperback, although there are some connections between them that reward reading all of them. THE LAST OF THE INNOCENT is the sixth volume in the series. Highly recommended.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, September 1954

2012-01-07T07:00:00.002-06:00

This is another one I've read, and here are the contents:

"Barbed Wire and Bullets", Jackson Cole (Jim Hatfield novel)

"Gun Job", Will Cook (novelette)

"No Second Chance", Giles A. Lutz (novelette)

"The Measuring", Ben Smith (short story)

"Scalp Lock", Talmage Powell (short story)

"Charlie Yawl's Hat", Ben Frank (short story)

plus The Frontier Post by Captain Starr and a few fillers, but no letters column

This is the first issue of Texas Rangers I've read in a while and a surprisingly good one. I say surprisingly because the Jim Hatfield novel is by Roe Richmond, probably my least favorite of the Hatfield authors. Richmond's stories have always bothered me because he has a habit of saddling Hatfield with so many sidekicks that the Lone Wolf is anything but. In this story, however, only one of Richmond's usual supporting characters, outlaw-turned-Ranger Fox Edley, appears, which means that "Barbed Wire and Bullets" isn't that much different from most of Tom Curry's Hatfield novels, many of which also feature a proxy hero to give Hatfield a hand. This story concerns the introduction of barbed wire into the Texas Panhandle and the resulting trouble, and it reads a lot like a Rio Kid novel because of the appearance of historical characters Joseph Glidden (the inventor of barbed wire), cattleman Shanghai Pierce, and range detective Charlie Siringo. Plenty of action here.

The back-up stories are also good. The hero of "Gun Job" is an ex-convict who was sent to prison for shooting his mistress's husband in the back, a crime which he actually committed, but naturally there's more to the story than that. "No Second Chance" is one of the bleakest, most noir Western stories I've read, which I didn't expect from Lutz at all. I've read some of his novels but don't remember them being this dark. "Scalp Lock" is probably the best story in the issue, a character study in which a rancher and the narrator, a young cowboy, pursue the Indians who killed the rancher's wife and son. "The Measuring" is another character study, this one of a man on the run from a hidden past who has to come to terms with it. The only story I didn't finish was "Charlie Yawl's Hat". Just don't care for Ben Frank's writing.

Back to the matter of Richmond's use of sidekicks. In the Forties, Tom Curry gave Hatfield a kid sidekick in some of his stories, and the readers hated it, complaining frequently in the letters column. By the time of this issue, there is no letters column. I have to wonder how the readers felt about Richmond including so many supporting characters in most of his stories. But we'll never know.

All in all, an excellent issue.

Forgotten Books: Wild Bill #1: Dead Man's Hand - Judd Cole

2012-01-06T06:00:00.010-06:00

This is the first in a series of totally fictional adventures starring Wild

Bill Hickok, published a few years ago by Leisure. The author, Judd Cole, is probably really a New Orleans writer named John Edward Ames, who also wrote the Cheyenne series under that name.

The gimmick, at least in this book, is the old chestnut about a young

reporter from back East tagging along with Wild Bill in order to write a

series of articles about his adventures. It works pretty well in this case

because the reporter, Joshua Robinson, is such a likable character. In

fact, everybody in the book except the villains is pretty likable. Wild

Bill is a little crusty, but he takes Josh under his wing and a real

friendship develops between the two.

As for the plot, Wild Bill is hired by Allan Pinkerton to guard an eccentric scientist who has invented a machine that makes ice. Business rivals want to kill the scientist and steal the secret of his invention during a cross-country train trip intended to show off the newfangled contraption. Wild Bill not only has to deal with that but also with a lovesick Calamity Jane, who has been chasing him around the country determined to marry him.

All this is every bit as silly as it sounds. The book is also crammed full of historical inaccuracies and anachronisms. It's enough to drive anyone who takes Westerns seriously a little nuts. And yet, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The author writes with such enthusiasm and is clearly having so much fun with what he's doing that I was willing to forget about accuracy and accept the setting as some sort of bizarre alternate universe West. I intend to find and read the rest of the books in the series, and I can recommend this one to anybody who is willing to put tongue firmly in cheek and not expect anything too realistic.

Cash Laramie: Manhunter's Mountain - Wayne D. Dundee

2012-01-05T08:34:00.000-06:00

David Cranmer continues to allow other authors to contribute to the on-going saga of U.S. Marshals Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, and he couldn't have made a better choice for MANHUNTER'S MOUNTAIN than Wayne D. Dundee, who has rapidly vaulted into the top ranks of current Western writers.

The manhunter of the title is Arapaho-raised, hardnosed lawman Cash Laramie, who arrives in the dying mining town of Silver Gulch on the trail of a fugitive. He finds and arrests his quarry in pretty short order, but as it turns out, that's not his main challenge. There are other manhunters, too, and Cash's big job will be getting out of the mountains in the middle of a winter storm with some murderous miners and a ruthless bounty hunter on his trail. The two soiled doves he's trying to get back to civilization at the same time will only complicate matters.

Dundee keeps the action moving along at a rapid pace, and as always, Cash Laramie is a compelling character, a testament to Cranmer's creation of him in the first place. The supporting characters are interesting as well, and the fact that not everything turns out exactly as you might expect is an added bonus. So are the excellent descriptions of the landscape and the way the mountains and the weather almost become characters in their own right.

MANHUNTER'S MOUNTAIN is a fast, very entertaining novel, and I'm sure fans of Cash Laramie and of Westerns in general will thoroughly enjoy it. I certainly did.

Music: Knife Fight - Calhoun

2012-01-04T18:36:00.000-06:00

Here's another group and song I came across the other day that I like. Like Burning Hotels, Calhoun is from the North Texas area. I'm not a big music guy, but I've been poking around YouTube quite a bit lately, usually in the middle of the night when I can't sleep.

The Only Things Better Than Free Books . . .

2012-01-04T09:52:00.000-06:00

. . . are free books as good as these. Really, don't pass up this opportunity to get started on an excellent series.

Rusty Burke Interviews Glenn Lord, 2007

2012-01-03T18:39:00.000-06:00

You can listen to Rusty Burke interviewing Glenn Lord at the 2007 Pulpcon here. Thanks to William Lampkin for providing this audio.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Freebie and the Bean

2012-01-03T06:00:00.002-06:00

You may or may not remember this action comedy about a couple of mismatched San Francisco cops -- James Caan as Freebie and Alan Arkin as the Bean, so called in those pre-PC days because his character was Hispanic -- trying to take down a mobster played by Jack Kruschen. I only saw it once and remember it as being fairly entertaining despite some trying circumstances . . . but I'll get to that later.

For now let's say that the movie was directed by Richard Rush, who went on to direct the far superior THE STUNTMAN, and had a good cast that also included the fine character actor Mike Kellin, Loretta Swit, Valerie Harper, and Alex Rocco. As I recall it had lots of well-done action scenes, including all the chase scenes that BULLITT made obligatory in those days for movies set in San Francisco. I suspect it would come across as pretty dated now, but I might watch it again one of these days.

Now, as for those trying circumstances. FREEBIE AND THE BEAN came out on Christmas Day 1974 and was actually pretty popular. I know that because I saw it during the first week of 1975 and the theater was so full we wound up sitting on the front row, not the best place to sit for a loud, frantic action comedy. I say "we" because this was the movie Livia and I saw on our first date, 37 years ago this week. I'm a lucky son of a gun, because she agreed to go out with me again even though I took her to a movie where she had to get a crick in her neck in order to watch it.

And that's why this week's Overlooked Movie is the immortal FREEBIE AND THE BEAN.

Music: Beard - Burning Hotels

2012-01-03T00:24:00.000-06:00

So, you're up in the middle of the night like me and can't sleep and want to listen to some good music by a band you've probably never heard of (I hadn't). Well, here ya go:

About That Favorites List . . .

2012-01-01T06:00:00.002-06:00

In looking over yesterday's post after it went up, I realized that none of the twenty books I listed as my favorites from 2011 were by women. Before somebody calls me on that, I figured I'd better bring it up myself. But it gets worse. I checked my list of all books read, and only seven of the 168 were authored or co-authored by women. I assure you, this was not intentional. In past years Christa Faust and Megan Abbott have appeared on my favorites list, and I'm sure they will again when I get around to reading something else by them. I also have a number of books by female authors on my Kindle, ranging from Patti Abbott's MONKEY JUSTICE and Anonymous-9's HARD BITE to classic SF and mysteries by Andre Norton and Leigh Brackett. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm making a vow to read more by female authors, but I think that's likely to happen in the natural course of things. You have to remember, though, when it comes to reading I'm like a puppy: easily distracted.

A couple of other interesting notes about my reading list, interesting to me, anyway: out of the 168 books, 44 were e-books. Actually, I thought that number would be higher, since it seemed like sometimes everything I read in a long stretch was on the Kindle. The 44 included books I bought on Amazon, books that were sent to me to review or provide a blurb, and manuscripts that were sent to me as Word documents or PDFs that I converted to Kindle. Speaking of review copies, in all the different formats I read a total of 46. I tried to get to everything that was sent to me, but inevitably I failed. If you sent me a book and I didn't blog about it, either I didn't like it (very, very rare) or I just didn't get to it (much more likely, and some of those will still crop up).

If you've read this far, what the hell. You already know I obviously don't have enough to do. So here's how the reading breaks down by genre:

59 Graphic Novels

44 Mystery/Suspense

23 Westerns

14 Horror

11 Science Fiction

11 General Fiction (a catch-all category that include pulp adventure and Sixties erotica that doesn't fall into the crime and suspense category)

4 Non-fiction

2 War Novels

If I did the math right, that jibes with my total of 168. If it doesn't, it would probably be better if you didn't tell me. I'd obsess with digging out the discrepancy.

I could do some other breakdowns, like how many pulp reprints there were, or how many books I checked out from the library, but you get the idea. Like I said, easily distracted, and I don't like to read too many of the same genre in a row. This comes, I think, from growing up in the Sixties before fiction became as balkanized as it is today and people who were big readers read a little bit of everything and never found it the least bit unusual. That's still the way I am, and I don't expect I'll change any time soon.

Glenn Lord, 1931 - 2011

2011-12-31T23:08:00.000-06:00

The way I'll always remember him, with a friendly smile on his face and an eagerness to talk about Robert E. Howard, pulp magazines, or anything else under the sun. He was one of the most truly decent men I've ever known. Rest in peace, Glenn.

(This photo is from Damon Sasser's REH: Two-Gun Raconteur blog.)

The Wrap-Up

2011-12-31T17:58:00.003-06:00

This is my usual end-of-the-year post where I talk about the books I've read and the writing I've done. No movie section this year, because, while I'm still watching quite a few movies, I've pretty much stopped blogging about them except for the Tuesday's Overlooked Movies series. But to touch on a few generalities . . . I watched and liked all the superhero movies. I watched and liked most of the crude comedies. I watched and liked most of the popular animated movies. (Was RANGO this year? I love RANGO, maybe as much as anything I saw all year.) As you've no doubt noted, I'm easy to please when it comes to movies. Ooh, pretty colors! People running and jumping! Boobs! Explosions! Swordfights! Needless to say, a connoisseur of the cinema, I ain't. So let's move on to something else.

READING

I always wait until almost the last minute to come up with my list of favorite books I read during the year. Who knows, the last book you read in a year might be one of the very best. So here are my ten favorites from 2011 in the order in which I read them:

RUN, Blake Crouch

THE BASTARD HAND, Heath Lowrance

EVERY SHALLOW CUT, Tom Piccirilli

THE HOLLYWOOD OP, Terence Faherty

SPIDER-MAN: BLUE, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

HANK AND MUDDY, Stephen Mertz

THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC, Lawrence Block

KIRBY: KING OF COMICS, Mark Evanier

FIGHT CARD: FELONY FISTS, Paul Bishop

GOSHEN HOLE, Wayne D. Dundee

Oh, hell, I read too many good books. Here's my second ten, and on any given day, some of them would be in the other list:

A HOST OF SHADOWS, Harry Shannon

GANG GIRL, Robert Silverberg

CAST IN DARK WATERS, Ed Gorman and Tom Piccirilli

THE HERETIC, Joseph Nasisse

JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE, Dave Zeltserman

IN THE BEGINNING, Robert Silverberg

A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF, Lawrence Block

FIGHT CARD: THE CUTMAN, Mel Odom

HARD TRAIL TO SOCORRO, Wayne D. Dundee

HELL ON CHURCH STREET, Jake Hinkson

I could list a lot more books that I thought were excellent. I had a lot to choose from, too, because I read 168 books in 2011, my best total in a number of years. But pick up any of the ones mentioned above and I guarantee that you'll have a good time. (Not a money-back guarantee, mind you. I'm not dumb, regardless of what you may have heard.)

I think it's worth noting that most of these books are either small press volumes or self-published e-books. That's an indication of just how much this business has changed in the past 12 to 18 months. I think it's a change for the better, too. There are some brilliant books out there that would have had a difficult time, at best, finding a home with a traditional publisher, and they're not only finding readers when they might not have otherwise, in some cases they're even making a living for their authors. This is an exciting time for both readers and writers.

WRITING

Moving on to my own writing, it seems like every time I do one of these wrap-up posts, I find myself saying, "Well, I wrote more this year than I ever did before. I'll probably never write that much again." Then, the next year, I say, "Well, uh . . . I wrote more this year than I ever did before." And this year is no different in that respect. I blew past my previous best from last year about 300 pages ago and topped a million words for the seventh straight year. My output, which I think translates to somewhere between 1.3 and 1.4 million words (I don't keep exact word counts; old guys like me tend to think in terms of pages) encompasses 17 novels and seven short stories and novelettes. Yeah, that's crazy. You're not telling me anything I don't already know. But at least I've learned my lesson about trying to predict how much I'll write next year. I have no idea. At this point I know of ten novels I'm supposed to write in 2012. Beyond that we'll have to just wait and see.

What I do know is that sometime during the morning of New Year's Day, I'll climb the stairs to my office, open the blinds, turn the computer on, read the first cartoon on my GET FUZZY daily calendar for 2012, and then get to work. What else am I gonna do?

Have a great New Year, folks.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ace-High, June 3, 1928

2011-12-31T07:00:00.002-06:00

To finish off the year, here's another Western pulp I've read, from the original incarnation of ACE-HIGH when it was published by Clayton. Later, after a gap in being publishing, the title was sold to Popular Publications, where the title was changed to ACE-HIGH WESTERN and it continued under that name for a number of years.

The lead novel is "The Free Grass Frontier" by J. Edward Leithead. It's a typical yarn about big cattle barons in Montana trying to force out the smaller ranchers. Leithead produced smooth, consistently readable prose without an overabundance of Western dialect, and that's what makes this story a pleasure to read.

"The Badman's Brand", by H. Bedford-Jones, is a novelette about an old-timer in New Mexico helping a girl from the East look for her missing brother while at the same time dealing with a gang of Mexican killers who are after a noble, mysterious bandit. (And yes, the plot twist really is that obvious.) Just as with the Leithead story, Bedford-Jones' style and pacing saves this story, which has a very effective ending and one final twist that I didn't see coming.

The other stories:

"The Abalone Ring" by Hapsburg Liebe, a short actioner about a trick-shooter in a Wild West show who goes home to solve a murder.

"McGrew Comes Through" by J.R. Johnston, the adventures of a canny old lawman and his not so bright but fast on the draw deputy.

"The Wolf Bites" by Glenn A. Connor, in which a young outlaw on the run for a crime he didn't commit throws in with the law to round up a gang of killers.

"Ladies' Day Dugan" by James W. Egan, a baseball story in the middle of all those Westerns (the magazine's masthead does say "Western Adventure and Sport Stories"). Pretty enjoyable, though the comedy ending falls a little flat. I like baseball stories, though, every once in a while.

"Held up in Halfmoon" by A. Clifford Farrell. I assume this is the same author who later goes by Cliff Farrell. If so, I've read and enjoyed some of his novels. This story is about a deputy tracking down a masked outlaw whose identity is supposed to be a surprise.

"Jammin' the Jamboree" by Clee Woods. The only story I started and didn't finish. I usually don't like comedy Westerns, and this one was no exception. It's about a bulldogging competition.

"Rustling Hay" by Bertrand L. Shurtleff, which has a nice plot about rustlers who steal hay instead of cattle. The protagonists are a pair of wandering cowpokes named Big and Little (that almost made me quit reading).The interesting plot kept me going and the characters turned out to be okay.

There's also part of a serial, "Gun Country" by William Colt MacDonald, that I didn't read. I think I have the complete novel under some other title. The main character's name, Blaze Routledge, sounds familiar.

Plus "The Sluice Box", a mining column, and "The Country Store", a department that includes a swap shop, a missing persons section, and letters from readers. Overall this is a pretty good issue, not as strong as the issues of WESTERN STORY and ADVENTURE from the Twenties I've read, but certainly well worth reading.

Now Available from Black Dog Books: Wings of War!

2011-12-30T17:52:00.000-06:00

Our latest title, Wings of War, collecting the first two novel-length adventures of John Masters, The Lone Eagle, is now available for purchase.

Visit our Wings of War listings page to learn more or order your copy today.

Pilot extraordinaire John Masters was an ace operative of the U.S. Secret Service when war broke out. So it was only natural that when the first squadron of Yank flyers went to France to strafe the Boche, Masters went too, only operating undercover.

Masters became the Lone Eagle of the Skies, displaying an indomitable courage and dynamic driving power to push any secret mission to a successful conclusion; a fighting ace whose dark and inscrutable movements became the scourge of all enemy powers.

Suspected by many, some men feared him, some men hated him. The alluring but deadly female German spy R-47 may have loved him. Masters became that mysterious Nemesis of the Western Front known only as—The Lone Eagle!

http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=114

"John Masters blasts his way across the skies in the kind of aerial action that will thrill modern readers as much as it did the pulp readers of the '30s. The Lone Eagle is a hero for the ages!"—Bill Crider, contributing author to the Nick Carter and Stone: M.I.A. Hunter series

"In the 1930s, the Lone Eagle set the bar for realistic action adventure with a tough guy loner able to survive against all comers. John Masters blazed a bullet-strewn path that series heroes of the 1970s and 1980s were hard pressed to follow."—Mel Odom, contributing author to the SuperBolan, Stonyman and Executioner series

"Combat ace John Masters was one of the most realistic air heroes of the pulp era. It's about damn time these bullet-torn tales were reprinted!"—Will Murray, contributing author to the Destroyer series

"Great fun!"—Stephen Mertz, contributing author to the Executioner, Tunnel Rats and Cody's Army series

(I've read both of these novels and really enjoyed them. These aren't the wild, science-fictional adventures of G-8 and his Battle Aces. The Lone Eagle novels are grim and gritty, with an emphasis on espionage and excellent aerial combat sequences. If you've never tried this series, I highly recommend it.)

Forgotten Books: Winter Girl - Harry Whittington

2011-12-30T06:00:00.003-06:00

Harry Whittington's backwoods novels are some of my favorites of his work. WINTER GIRL sort of falls into that category. It's set in Mississippi (probably) and takes place in a mixture of rural and small town settings. It's a coming-of-age novel, too, as the narrator, Calder Fenton, is eighteen when the novel begins. And it's a dog story, as well, since some of it revolves around Calder's Irish Setter Fanny, a hunting dog coveted by a rich Northerner who spends his winters in the area. That Northerner, who's a pretty despicable villain, has a beautiful teenage daughter named Lu Ann, and Calder covets her as much as Lu Ann's father wants Calder's dog.

Well, as you can guess, those elements are ripe for a considerable amount of domestic drama, which Whittington exploits for all they're worth like the top-notch professional he was. As David Laurence Wilson points out in his fine introduction to the upcoming Stark House triple volume that reprints WINTER GIRL (along with Whittington's novels RAPTURE ALLEY and STRICTLY FOR THE BOYS), this isn't one of the crime novels for which Whittington is so well known, but that doesn't mean it's lacking in suspense and violence.

If you haven't heard of WINTER GIRL, that's probably because it was never published under that title during Whittington's lifetime. Instead, it's one of the formerly missing soft-core novels that Whittington wrote for William Hamling's various imprints during the early to mid-Sixties. It was published in 1966 under the title THE TASTE OF DESIRE, as by Curt Colman. Wilson and Stark House have restored the original title, and Wilson also edited the book back as close as he could to Whittington's original manuscript, a trunk novel he dusted off, rewrote, and sold to Hamling. In this form, it reads very much like it could have been published by Gold Medal, Avon, or Ace, and I'm not sure why it didn't sell when Whittington first wrote it.

Possibly because after an absolutely fine first two-thirds that ranks right up there with the best of Whittington's work, the final third seems a little rushed to me, especially the ending. However, that doesn't distract from the book's overall impact. WINTER GIRL is an excellent novel that serves as a prime example of Whittington's skill and versatility as a writer. The Stark House volume comes out in February, but you can pre-order it now. I think that's a good idea . . . and I haven't even read RAPTURE ALLEY or STRICTLY FOR THE BOYS yet! (Soon, though.)

Hell on Church Street - Jake Hinkson

2011-12-28T06:00:00.002-06:00

I'd read some short stories by Jake Hinkson and enjoyed them, so I expected to like his first novel, too. But HELL ON CHURCH STREET turned out to be even better than I thought it would be. It's a very strong debut.

Except for a framing sequence that concerns an armed robbery gone wrong, this novel is narrated in flashback by one Geoffrey Webb, a young man from a bad family background who becomes the youth minister at a small Baptist church in Arkansas. Maybe Geoffrey isn't exactly a sociopath, but it's pretty obvious that, as folks from the country might say, that boy ain't right. For one thing, he gets involved with the underage daughter of the church's pastor, and then when a corrupt local lawman horns his way in on Geoffrey's plans, things get really bad. Then, as they always do in noir novels . . . they get worse.

I don't know anything about Hinkson's background, but I grew up in a Baptist church much like the one in this book, and he really nails the setting and the characters. The prose is very readable, and the pace races along just the way I like. Geoffrey Webb isn't really an unreliable narrator; he's pretty honest about himself and what he's doing. Nor is he the least bit sympathetic. But he is very compelling. I don't think most readers will root for him – I certainly didn't – but I did want to find out what was going to happen to him.

This is the second extremely good debut novel from New Pulp Press that I've read this year, the other one being Heath Lowrance's THE BASTARD HAND. And in both of them, oddly enough, organized religion plays an important part in the plot. Is this the beginning of a new sub-genre? Church noir? Eh, probably not, although that would make a good theme for an anthology, wouldn't it? Let's just say that HELL ON CHURCH STREET is a fine novel, and it's available now in both print and e-book editions. You should check it out.

(By the way, I have my own church noir novel I'm going to write one of these days . . . when I get around to all the novels I'm going to write one of these days.)

The Traditional December 27th Post

2011-12-27T09:32:00.002-06:00

If you go back and look at previous entries on this blog each December 27^th, you'll find some nostalgic ramblings about what happened on that day in 1976. The condensed version is that on December 27^th, 1976, I made my first fiction sale, a confession yarn (some of you may not know what that is) to a long-since-defunct magazine called INTIMATE STORY. The check that arrived 35 years ago today was my first indication that the story had sold. There was no letter of acceptance beforehand or anything like that, or even a contract, just a check from Ideal Publishing for $167.50.

So, after 35 years in this business, what have I learned? Not a hell of a lot, I think most of the time. Recently I've noticed that I'm doing a lot more rewriting during the editing stage on my manuscripts, seeing ways to improve them that I never noticed before. That's got me wondering if maybe I'm lucky enough to keep writing for another 35 years, I might finally begin to figure out what I'm doing. I wouldn't count on it, though.

Mostly I've learned that writing is more fun than anything else I could do for a living and that by and large writers are one of the best groups of people you could ever find. The Internet, which I couldn't have even dreamed of back in '76, has just increased that sense of community. When I sold my first story I didn't know anyone who had ever sold any fiction. The only person I'd ever met who had even had fiction published was my cousin Richard Finley, who had the only story he ever wrote accepted by his college literary magazine. And several more years went by before I even started corresponding with other writers (other than my editor at MSMM, Sam Merwin Jr.), let alone met any of them in person. Of course, I was living with a writer at the time, I just didn't know it yet.

To sum up, I'm old and I've been doing this for a long time. But I hope I can stay at it for a while longer.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Blackthorn

2011-12-27T06:00:00.002-06:00

This is a movie that was barely released to theaters, and it recently came out on DVD with little or no fanfare, so it might easily be overlooked. Which would be a shame since it's well worth watching.

First of all, you have to accept the premise that Butch Cassidy wasn't killed in Bolivia in 1908 but rather survived the battle with the Bolivian army (although the Sundance Kid ultimately didn't) and became a horse rancher in an isolated part of the country instead. Now it's twenty years later, and Butch, now calling himself James Blackthorn, has decided the time has come to go home. Before he can do that, however, he gets involved with a Spanish mining engineer who has stolen $50,000 from a rich mine owner. That starts Butch/Blackthorn off on one last great, dangerous adventure.

There's definitely a "last ride", elegiac feeling to this whole film, helped along considerably by Sam Shepard's powerful performance as the aging Butch Cassidy. He's certainly believable in the part. The flashbacks to earlier years with Butch, Sundance, and Etta Place are quite effective, too. BLACKTHORN is a well written, well acted, and very well photographed film set in some spectacularly beautiful locations. It's maybe a little too low-key in a few places for my taste, but overall I enjoyed it a lot. If you're a Western fan, you should check it out.

After Christmas Sale

2011-12-26T06:30:00.003-06:00

TRACTOR GIRL, my Texas-set 1950s crime novel, is now on sale for .99 for a limited time, for both the Kindle and the Nook. 36,000 words of action and suspense, if I say so myself.

Also, a number of other books by Livia and me are still on sale for .99 if you need to fill up that new e-reader you got for Christmas.

Music: The Comancheros - Elmer Bernstein

2011-12-26T06:00:00.001-06:00

Wake up! Get moving! Christmas is over. Things to do! We're burnin' daylight, pilgrim.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T07:00:00.002-06:00

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Story, December 26, 1942

2011-12-24T07:00:00.002-06:00

I said last week I might change my mind about posting a cover this morning, and sure enough . . . It's another issue of WESTERN STORY, another Christmas cover, but with some action this time. It's not everybody who can deliver Christmas presents and take part in a shootout with a bad hombre at the same time. Let's see Santa do that.

As for the inside of the issue, there's a short story by George Cory Franklin called "Christmas on the Lake Fork" and a poem, "Cow-Range Christmas", by the ubiquitous S. Omar Barker, but that seems to be it for Christmas-related content. There are other stories, though, by old pros L.L. Foreman, Bob Obets, Peter Dawson, Tom W. Blackburn, and Leslie Ernenwein, so it's probably a pretty entertaining selection.

I'll leave you now with the wish that you all enjoy your holiday weekend.

International Goodness

2011-12-23T16:03:00.000-06:00

My short story "The Old College Try", which originally appeared in MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE back in the Seventies, is being reprinted in the final issue of Juri Nummelin's magazine ISKU. I don't read or speak Finnish, but that great cover speaks my language! Congratulations to Juri on ISKU's long and successful run.

Another Great Deal on The Dead Man

2011-12-23T10:38:00.000-06:00

Today only, the first five Dead Man books are Kindle's Daily Deal. You can get each of them for only .99 apiece. It's a great way to start out on the series or catch up if you've already read some of them.

Forgotten Books: A Corpse for Christmas - Henry Kane

2011-12-23T06:00:00.002-06:00

I wanted to write about a Christmas book today, and this one was handy and turned out to be a good candidate. Lawyer-turned-author Henry Kane introduced his New York private eye character in A HALO FOR NOBODY (1947) and continued the series in novels and short stories throughout the Fifties and Sixties and on into the Seventies. Unfortunately for the reputations of Kane and his character, those later novels changed from traditional first-person hardboiled private eye novels into third person, sex-heavy potboilers in which Chambers played a smaller part. Or so I've heard. I've never actually read any of them, although I used to own some of them.

Starting out, though, the Peter Chambers series was a very well-regarded entry in the genre, and this novel from 1951 is a good example of why. I read quite a few Kane novels thirty or forty years ago and may well have read this one, but I didn't remember it so chances are I didn't.

It starts out on Christmas Eve with Chambers, a self-described private richard, doing a favor for another PI, the beautiful model-turned-detective Gene Tiny. Of course, the seemingly innocent little errand turns out to include a dead body, the discovery of which immediately catapults Chambers into a complicated case involving an eccentric scientist who's supposed to be dead but isn't, a fortune in stolen jewels, more murders, gangsters, a crematorium, and a number of beautiful women, all of whom are, of course, attracted to our boy Pete. All of it culminates in a gathering of the suspects on Christmas Day like something out of a more traditional mystery.

In his wise-cracking and colorful use of language, Chambers comes across as sort of a toned-down, East Coast cousin of Dan Turner. And like Robert Leslie Bellem, Kane was a pretty good plotter with the ability to throw in a lot of bizarre, seemingly unrelated elements and have them make sense in the end. There's not a lot of Christmas atmosphere in A CORPSE FOR CHRISTMAS, which was later reprinted by Signet as HOMICIDE AT YULETIDE, but Kane makes use of the fact that it's snowing to include some White Christmas references.

While I don't think the Peter Chambers novels belong in the top rank of private eye fiction, the early books in the series are well written and highly entertaining. As far as I know they're all out of print but fairly easy to obtain in used copies, especially the paperback reprints from Signet, Dell, and Avon. If you're a private eye fan and haven't tried a Peter Chambers novel, you should check them out. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Check Out: The Dead Walked #1: Outbreak - Vincent Stark (Gary Dobbs)

2011-12-21T06:00:00.003-06:00

Writing as Vincent Stark, popular Western author and master of the Tainted Archive Gary Dobbs joins the Zombie Apocalypse:

Some said it was viral.
Others claimed it was an act of God.
Either way the result was the same and the dead walked.

September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed.
The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.
September was a time of promise.
A time of rebirth.
Not this September, though.
This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies, Christmas Edition - Trail of Robin Hood

2011-12-20T06:00:00.003-06:00

Despite the title, TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD is definitely a Christmas movie. The whole plot centers around Christmas trees, after all! It seems that retired actor Jack Holt (father of Tim Holt, by the way) has a Christmas tree farm where he plans to sell his trees at such low prices that every family can afford to have one. This plan doesn't sit well with the bad guys who own the neighboring Christmas tree farm, so they set out to sabotage Holt's operation and run him out of business. This attracts the attention of forest ranger Roy Rogers, who comes to Holt's aid along with his sidekick Splinters McGonigle (Gordon Jones) and Splinters' tomboy little sister, who decides they need more help so she summons a whole passel of cowboy movie stars including William Farnum, Tom Tyler, Rex Allen, Rocky Lane (later the voice of Mr. Ed, the talking horse), Monte Hale, Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Kermit Maynard, and Tom Keene. Even George Chesebro, who always played dog heavies, shows up and has a nice line about how he gets to be one of the good guys for a change.

Yes, the plot's pretty silly, but look at that cast! In addition to all those cowboy stars, Penny Edwards plays the girl (Dale Evans was semi-retired by then), and Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage provide the music, including several Christmas songs like "Every Day is Christmas in the West".

Best of all, though, TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD was directed by William Witney, and one thing you could always count on in his movies was that you'd get plenty of great action, no matter how far-fetched the plot, and that's certainly true here. The climax is especially spectacular, with wagons full of Christmas trees racing over a burning bridge while Roy fights a battle royal against the baddies.

I absolutely love this stuff. Modern viewers might watch this and other Roy Rogers movies and be utterly baffled as to their appeal, but I grew up on 'em, and looking back on them now, I definitely think they had an influence on my writing. Those wild, action-packed, over-the-top climaxes that Witney always provided show up again and again in my Westerns, and some of that has to come from watching Roy Rogers movies on TV nearly every Saturday when I was a kid. TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD is a good one. It was released on December 15, 1950, and if you want to see a Christmas movie that's not one of the old standards, give it a try.

Goshen Hole - Wayne Dundee

2011-12-19T08:44:00.000-06:00

Private eye fans have reason to be very happy. Joe Hannibal is back in Wayne Dundee's new novel GOSHEN HOLE. Nameless, Matt Scudder, and Spenser may be the deans of the currently active PIs, but Joe Hannibal has been cracking cases (and heads) for almost as long.

Relocated from the Chicago area to western Nebraska, Hannibal spends most of his time on the private security service he runs for businesses and residences around a recreational lake. But when he's asked by a friend to look into the disappearance of the man's ex-wife, Hannibal's private eye instincts kick in and he takes the case, which leads him to Cheyenne, Wyoming and a self-made millionaire who owns a chain of truck stops and has some shady business associates. From there, things just get worse, including a couple of murders, a considerable amount of punishment both dealt out and taken by Hannibal, and a thunderous climax.

Dundee does a great job with both the small-town stuff and the gritty mean streets of the city, in this case Cheyenne. He also introduces some great characters, some good, some evil, some it's hard to say, and not everybody turns out to be what they seem at first, either, which is always a good thing. The best thing about this book, though, is Joe Hannibal himself, who may be getting a little older but is still tough, smart, and determined enough to get the job done. His friendship with William Thunderbringer, an ex-mercenary bounty hunter who pitches in to give Hannibal a hand, is reminiscent of Spenser and Hawk, but it would be unfair to characterize them like that. For one thing, they're much more realistic and believable, as well as more likable. (Not a shot at Parker. I like Spenser and Hawk. I'd just rather hang around with Hannibal and Thunderbringer.)

GOSHEN HOLE is a fine addition to a long, consistently excellent series. If you haven't read Dundee before, you can jump on here without much trouble. If you're a long-time Joe Hannibal fan like me, there's no question you're going to want to read GOSHEN HOLE. It's one of the best books I've read this year.

Fight Card #3: Split Decision - Jack Tunney (Eric Beetner)

2011-12-18T08:00:00.002-06:00

Eric Beetner enters the ring for the third volume in the Fight Card series, and his novella SPLIT DECISION lives up to the high standards set by series creators Paul Bishop and Mel Odom. This one takes place in Kansas City and follows Jimmy Wyler, another graduate of the Chicago orphanage known as "Our Lady of the Glass Jaw".

Jimmy's not any sort of contender. He's just a low-level club fighter content to do his best and save his money so he can marry his beautiful girlfriend Lola. Then one of the local mobsters asks him to take part in a fixed fight, and in a nice twist on what usually happens in boxing fiction, Jimmy's not the one who's supposed to take the dive. He's going to win the fight. Against his better judgment, and motivated by his desire to have enough money to get Lola's engagement ring out of layaway, Jimmy agrees. And of course, that's where things start taking turn after turn for the worst.

Beetner's tale is darker than either of the preceding entries, but it's just as compelling and does a fine job of capturing the era. He has the knack of putting his protagonist in an impossible situation and then making the reader race along to find out how it's going to get even worse. SPLIT DECISION is a prime example of the sort of variety and adventurous storytelling we can expect from the Fight Card series, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Story, December 1947

2011-12-17T08:00:00.002-06:00

I’m fudging a little by calling this a pulp, because by 1947 WESTERN STORY, like all the Street & Smith pulps, had turned into a digest. But WESTERN STORY was a true pulp for several decades, so I think I can get by with using it as this week’s entry in this series.

Not only that, but I own this one and read it recently, so I can even comment on the stories.

First, though, a word about the cover, which is one of those non-action scenes that were a nice break from all the blazing guns on the Western pulps. This is a Christmas cover, appropriate for a December issue, and it’s cute in its way. I tend to prefer either shoot-outs or scenery, but H.W. Scott’s version of a Norman Rockwell painting isn't bad.

The issue leads off with Walt Coburn’s “book-length novel” (actually a novella), “Miracle at San Mateo”. By this time in his career Coburn reportedly had quite a problem with booze, and as a result his work was pretty inconsistent. This is a decent yarn about rustling along the Arizona/Mexico border and an election for sheriff. As usual with Coburn’s stories, there are a lot of characters and so much back-story that almost all of “Miracle at San Mateo” is devoted to explaining who everybody is and what the relationships between them are. When it comes time for a powder-burning showdown at the end, though, Coburn delivers just fine.

Next up is “Shooting Star” by L.L. Foreman, an author I hadn’t read before. It’s a good short story about a small-town blacksmith and the secret in his past, completely predictable but still satisfying.

"The Third Dog Musher" is an oddly-titled Northern by Frank Richardson Pierce, a prolific author in that subgenre. I've read some of Pierce's work in ARGOSY and other pulps and enjoyed it, so I wasn't surprised that I liked "The Third Dog Musher", which is about two men involved in a feud over a woman and the danger that forces them to work together. (I believe Pierce also wrote some traditional Westerns under the pseudonym "Seth Ranger".)

The always-dependable Peter Dawson follows that with the novelette “Tinhorn Tyranny”. This one has riverboats and frontier prizefighting, two things I like in a story, so I enjoyed it.

Ray Gaulden wrote a number of Western novels, including (I think) the one on which the movie FIVE CARD STUD is based. I don't recall ever reading any of them, or any of his short stories, either, for that matter. "Lawman's Gamble", his entry in this issue, is a short yarn about old friends who wind up on opposite sides of the law. Like the L.L. Foreman story, it's predictable but well-written.

Van Cort is yet another author I haven't read until now. His novelette "Forked Trails" is about an old outlaw hunting down three former partners who double-crossed him, only to find that they've changed considerably over the years. This story is also a variation of the Gunfightin' Preacher plot. Cort does a good job of mixing these familiar elements together to craft an enjoyable story.

Next up are two range war stories. The first one, about a conflict between cattlemen and sheepherders, is "When a Ranger Rides" by Wayne D. Overholser. When I first read that title I figured it referred to a Texas Ranger, but no, in this story the protagonist is a Forest Ranger, which is a nice change from the standard set-up. I'm not a big Overholser fan, but this is a pretty good story. So is "Ringer Roundup" by Harold R. Stoakes. The range war looming in this one is between a greedy cattle baron and some smaller ranchers, but Stoakes (who I'm not familiar with at all) provides a welcome twist by having his characters settle things with a game of horseshoes. There's some gunplay before the end, but it's still a nice, offbeat yarn.

Dean Owen finishes off the issue with "Choctaw Challenge". I'm a Dean Owen fan, but this is a pretty minor story about an attempted payroll robbery. There are some halfway decent twists but hardly any action, and hardboiled action is what I expect from Dean Owen.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable issue. It would have been nice if it had had a Christmas story in it, but I guess editor John Burr didn't have any on hand.

There probably won't be a new Saturday Morning Western Pulp next week, since Saturday is Christmas Eve, but I reserve the right to change my mind.

Update From Robert J. Randisi

2011-12-16T20:51:00.000-06:00

Hard on the heels of the newly reissued Gunsmith #'s 1 & 2 comes TRACKER #1: THE WINNING HAND and ANGEL EYES #1: THE MIRACLE OF REVENGE. These series appeared in the 80's under the pseudonyms "Tom Cutter" and "W.B. Longely" but are now being published by Speaking Volumes LLC under the Randisi name, with kick-ass covers! Available in POD paper and Ebook, and soon to be on Audio. Order from the Speaking Volumes LLC website, or Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

Another Sale From Black Dog Books

2011-12-16T13:24:00.000-06:00

3 Days Only! Adventure Library Sale

For another of our 2011 Holidays season sales we are offering our Adventure Library Series for sale at a substantial savings!

Take advantage of our huge holiday savings by securing your reading material for those fast-approaching long winter days.

Individually, these three books, The Black Death by Marion Polk Angellotti, In the Grip of the Minotaur by Farnham Bishop and Arthur Gilchrist Broader and King Corrigan's Treasure by H.D. Couzens retail for $65.00.

For THREE DAYS ONLY, December 16–18 we are offering the set for $45.00—A Savings of More than 30%.

Click this link to be taken to our Adventure Library Sale page.

Praised by customes and reviewers alike, The Adventure Library from Black Dog Books offers collections of rare but deserving stories from the pages of Adventure. With historical costume intrigue, stories of the South Seas and a tale of blood and thunder Viking conquest there are stories to appeal to every taste for adventure.

(To learn more about any of the titles offered in this sale, click the blue title links below to review their listings page.)

Praise for The Black Death—

"The Black Death" is an exciting read of adventure that is sure to entice and keep people reading."—Midwest Book Review (Five Stars)

Praise for In the Grip of the Minotaur—

"They don't write them like this anymore. I smiled all the way through."—Historical Novels Review

Praise for King Corrigan's Treasure—

"With the Englehart stories, Couzens came up with the closest to a Conan as he would in his too-short career as a fiction writer: a sturdy man’s man protagonist who survives a variety of hair-raising scrapes, including a shipboard encounter with an orangutan."—Blogcritics

Forgotten Books: Invasion of the Crimson Death Cult - Curtis Steele (Frederick C. Davis)

2011-12-16T06:00:00.002-06:00

(This post originally appeared in somewhat different form on February 1, 2006)

This pulp novel from the September 1935 issue of OPERATOR 5 is the usual mix from a Popular Publications hero pulp: a mysterious villain with a terrible new weapon lays waste to the country, kills thousands of people, and drives our stalwart hero (in this case, Jimmy Christopher, also known as Operator 5 of the American Intelligence Service) to the brink of madness before the villain's evil plan is finally thwarted. The same thing happened month after month, not only in the Operator 5 series but also in Popular's top-of-the-line hero pulp, THE SPIDER. And you either love it or you don't. I think you can guess which category I fall into.

The Operator 5 series is interesting for several reasons, though. For one thing, there was some fairly important story-to-story continuity, something that didn't occur very often in the hero pulps. While there might be the occasional reference in a Doc Savage or Shadow story to something that had happened in the past, for the most part their adventures could be read in any order. The same was true of most of the hero pulps. The novels in OPERATOR 5 often featured sub-plots that ran from issue to issue, though, culminating in the famous "Purple Invasion" series, which ran for thirteen issues and is basically one long novel of what we now call alternate history. "Invasion of the Crimson Death Cult" is from the story arc that features the Hidden Hundred, a group of former Intelligence officers who have been kicked out of the service in a very early example of political correctness run amok. Following their dismissal, they band together to work in secret for the good of the country, and Jimmy Christopher (who is still an active agent) is their leader.

There's also the fact that for a blood-and-thunder pulp series, the Operator 5 stories sometimes seem oddly contemporary. This one opens on the border between Texas and Mexico, as Jimmy Christopher joins forces with the Border Patrol in an attempt to stop what we would now call terrorists from being smuggled into the country. The writing is also pretty good most of the time. The original author behind the Curtis Steele house-name was Frederick C. Davis, a prolific pulpster who also had a fairly well-respected career as a hardback mystery novelist. His Operator 5 novels (and I've read most of them) are uniformly good. The other main writer on the series was the famously enigmatic Emile C. Tepperman, who penned the Purple Invasion story arc and did some of his best work on it.

I bring all this up, though, mainly to wax nostalgic and talk about how I first discovered the Operator 5 series in the mid-Sixties when I picked up a paperback from the spinner rack in Trammell's Grocery Store called LEGIONS OF THE DEATH MASTER. The cover art featured a clean-cut hero type falling into a pit full of serpents, and the copy above the title fairly shouted, "Bounding Out of the Thirties!" Well, that was like a shot of pure adrenaline to me. I was already reading Doc Savage and the Shadow and knew that I liked that sort of pulp stuff. I bought the book, read it right away (it was also part of the Hidden Hundred storyline), and went on to pick up many other Operator 5 books. Well over half the series has been reprinted in one format or another. When I was writing the Revolutionary War series PATRIOTS (published by Bantam under the pseudonym Adam Rutledge), one of my characters became involved with the espionage network set up by the colonists during the early days of the war, and so naturally, his code name became Operative Five. (I had to change it a little.) But it was definitely a tribute to Jimmy Christopher and a way of saying thank you for all the enjoyment I had gotten out of reading the series. (I also liked the idea that somewhere out there, some pulp fans might read those Patriots novels and grin knowingly when they got to the part about Operative Five . . .)

Tales from the Fathomless Abyss

2011-12-15T06:00:00.002-06:00

THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS is a new shared-world e-book anthology leading up to a series of novellas using the same setting. The Abyss of the title is an apparently bottomless pit that opens up with no warning, in different time periods and in different places on Earth, and on other worlds as well. And when it opens . . . well, people fall in. Most of them survive, and they develop a hodgepodge of societies and towns on ledges and in caves along the walls of the Abyss. Naturally enough, more people are actually born in those settlements, and they come to be called Abyssals.

It's a great setting for a shared-world universe, since there are an almost limitless number of cultures up and down the walls of the Abyss and the authors involved can tell all sorts of different stories. The line-up of authors is a good one, too, including Philip Athans (who created the series), J.M. McDermott, my buddy Mel Odom, Mike Resnick and Brad R. Torgerson, Cat Rambo, and Jay Lake, all of whom do fine work here.

TALES FROM THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS reminded me a little of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, but with its own compelling set-up. I'm looking forward to seeing how it continues. Recommended.

Favorite Bookstores #5: Fantastic Worlds

2011-12-14T07:00:00.004-06:00

(This post originally appeared in slightly different form on January 12, 2005.)

While running some errands in Fort Worth today, I happened to pass the original location of Fantastic Worlds Bookstore, where I spent a considerable amount of time during the early Eighties. Fantastic Worlds was primarily a comic-book store, but it also had an excellent selection of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks and magazines. It was just a little hole-in-the-wall space in a breezeway that ran through the middle of a strip shopping center, but it was crammed full of good stuff. We happened to notice the sign for it while driving by one day in 1981 and stopped in just to see what was there. I'd been a comics reader since the early Sixties, but I'd never seen a real comic book store before. Most of my comics had been bought in drugstores and grocery stores, off those old spinner racks that had a sign on top saying "Hey, Kids! Comics!" That was sort of a hit-or-miss way to amass a collection, but it was the only way to buy comics in those days. Now here was a whole store devoted to them.

We became friends with the owner, Bob Wayne, and the manager, Michael Davis, and I went there at least once a week to pick up the new comics and spend an hour or two visiting. '81 was a year of big changes for me. I had quit my regular job and was trying to make it as a full-time writer. I had been corresponding for a couple of years with Bill Crider and Joe Lansdale, but they were the only other writers I knew. But in '81 I met Kerry Newcomb at a bookstore on the other side of Fort Worth, and through my visits to Fantastic Worlds I was soon meeting other SF and comics fans as well as SF authors and comic book professionals who did signings there. I started going to SF conventions, which allowed me to hang around with legendary authors like Jack Williamson and Philip Jose Farmer. And nearly all the pro authors I met immediately accepted me as a member of their fraternity on the basis of my short stories in MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE and my lone novel, TEXAS WIND. It was a heady time, that's for sure, and Fantastic Worlds was a big part of it. I even wrote the store, and Bob and Michael, into one of the Mike Shayne stories I did for MSMM.

Of course, I didn't make it as a full-time writer just yet; that was still several years off and I wound up working at other jobs in the meantime. Fantastic Worlds moved and then grew into a chain of successful comic book stores. Bob Wayne wound up selling the stores and going to work as an executive for DC Comics in New York, and he's still there. The Fantastic Worlds stores are all gone now. I bought my comics at other stores over the years and finally stopped buying them several years ago when I realized I didn't have the time or space for them anymore. (I still buy and read trade paperback reprints of the old stuff, though.) I'm prone to attacks of nostalgia, and when I drove by that old shopping center where Fantastic Worlds started out, it really took me back and I knew I had to do a little reminiscing.

(Update: Of course, as regular visitors to this blog know, I started reading comics on a regular basis again a couple of years ago. Bob Wayne is still at DC and still a friend; I run into him at conventions every few years. Michael Davis is still in the area and he and his wife Kelly are good friends of ours. The shopping center where Fantastic Worlds was located originally is still there, or at least it was the last time I drove along that part of Camp Bowie Boulevard. I have no idea what's in the space where the store was.)

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Time Again

2011-12-13T06:00:00.002-06:00

From time to time (no pun intended) I get a chance to see a film that hasn't been released yet, and that's the case with TIME AGAIN, which sort of fits this series because you shouldn't overlook it when it does come out. In the words of co-writer and director Ray Karwel:

TIME AGAIN is a cross between "Die Hard" and "Time Cop". It’s an old school, over the top tribute to 80’s action films.

I have always been fascinated with the idea of time travel and it only seemed right that my first feature would be a time travel movie. As a child growing up in the ‘60’s I enjoyed TV shows like TIME TUNNEL and THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. These shows were fun to watch and excited the imagination. I spent a lot of time in the movie theaters and in front of the television, so I understand what keeps an audience interested. I really did not want to do another talking heads movie. So my solution was to keep the film moving at a fast pace by cramming lots of action into the scenes. I combined my two favorite genres into a wild and outrageous visual frenzy of exploding fun! TIME AGAIN is a movie for people to sit down, relax, eat popcorn and forget about their everyday problems. I hope they will just get lost in the movie. It is something that people can have fun with!

Karwel certainly succeeds in cramming action into the movie, and those well-staged action scenes are its greatest strength. The complex plot involves two twenty-something sisters who work in a diner and get mixed up in a vicious gangster's quest to obtain some ancient coins rumored to contain the secret of time travel. Things that don't seem to make sense eventually do and come together in a satisfying showdown at the end.

The cast of mostly unknowns do a good job, especially Angela Rachelle as one of the sisters and John T. Woods as a police detective on the trail of the gangster. Woods has a good screen presence and makes an effective action hero.

For a low-budget independent production, TIME AGAIN has a mostly polished look and is consistently entertaining. I don't know when you'll be able to see it, but keep an eye out for it.

"Miles to Little Ridge" - Heath Lowrance

2011-12-12T10:56:00.000-06:00

David Cranmer shows a lot of confidence in turning over his popular characters, deputy U.S. marshals Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, to other authors. Based on the first entry in this new series, that confidence is not misplaced.

Heath Lowrance's novelette "Miles to Little Ridge" is a solo Gideon Miles story that finds the black deputy marshal arriving in the small town of Little Ridge to arrest a fugitive. When he gets there, though, Miles discovers that in the three years the wanted robber has been living in Little Ridge, the man has become a respected member of the community. Naturally there are people who don't want Miles to arrest him.

As if that's not enough for Miles to deal with, an old enemy of his happens to be in Little Ridge, and as soon as he lays eyes on the deputy marshal, he decides that it's time for him to have his revenge.

Lowrance combines these elements into a fine traditional Western yarn. Not surprisingly, it's very well written, with good action scenes and interesting characters. With its somewhat downbeat ending, "Miles to Little Ridge" reminds me of the work of H.A. DeRosso, and you don't get much better than that.

I'm very pleased that authors such as Cranmer, Lowrance, and Wayne Dundee are getting people to read Westerns who never tried one before. As you know, I'm a strong supporter of the genre and think that it's far from dead. In fact, I think it's going to be around for a long time to come. If you're already a Western fan or just want to try one, you definitely should check out "Miles to Little Ridge".

Music: Mutineer - Warren Zevon

2011-12-10T22:41:00.000-06:00

I've never been much of one to play music while I'm writing, although every so often I'll get in the mood to do that. However, in my old studio I used to play a song or two when I'd finished my work for the day, sort of as a way of unwinding, I suppose. I had this song on a Warren Zevon CD and played it a lot as my end-of-the-day song. My other favorite was Herb Alpert's "Flamingo", off his SECOND WIND CD, but I couldn't find that on YouTube. So here's Warren, and if this doesn't mellow out what's left of your evening, I don't know what will.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Fighting Western, July 1948

2011-12-10T07:00:00.003-06:00

Over on the WesternPulps group, Jonathan Jensen mentioned cover artist Joseph Sokoli, and since I was unfamiliar with Sokoli's work, I looked it up on the Fictionmags Index. Here's one of his covers from a later Trojan pulp, FIGHTING WESTERN. Sokoli did quite a few covers for this title, but I chose this issue because it includes a story by Les Reasoner, who is bound to be a distant relative of mine although I have no idea how we're related. There are also stories by J. Edward Leithead (again), pulp old-timer Frank C. Robertson, Ben Frank, and Larry Dunn (who I believe was really Laurence Donovan). Probably a pretty entertaining issue.

Forgotten Books: Slaves of the Scorpion - Brant House (G.T. Fleming-Roberts)

2011-12-09T06:00:00.003-06:00

Secret Agent X returns in "Slaves of the Scorpion", another hardboiled crime yarn by G.T. Fleming-Roberts writing as "Brant House", from the June 1937 issue of the Agent's pulp magazine. The three main authors behind the "House" name (that must have given some yuks to the editors) each had a slightly different appeal. Paul Chadwick, who created the character, turned out stories that have bizarre villains and feature prose that approaches that of the Weird Menace pulps. G.T. Fleming-Roberts' stories are more concerned with crime and gangsters and have a hardboiled, rat-a-tat-tat style to them. Emile Tepperman's entries in the series fall somewhere between those of Chadwick and Fleming-Roberts. I like all of them.

This one features the old "master criminal who wipes out other criminals so he can take over their gangs" plot, but Fleming-Roberts does a good job of it with some ingenious murder methods and the unusual angle of tying in the plot with the labor unrest of the time period. This new mastermind is called The Scorpion, and of course the crooks think that he's really Secret Agent X operating under a new name, since both the police and the underworld believe the Agent to be a criminal. Actually, X is trying to uncover the real identity of The Scorpion. The fact that the Scorpion's true identity should come as no surprise (I spotted him as soon as he first appeared) doesn't detract from the novel's enjoyment. Most criminal masterminds from the pulps might as well be wearing neon signs announcing their nefariousness.

The real appeal of these yarns is watching Secret Agent X get into and out of trouble, along with his sidekicks, plucky girl reporter Betty Dale and square-jawed private eye Harvey Bates. Bates is never very well-developed as a character, but in reading these stories I've come to have a real fondness for him. Betty Dale can be scatterbrained, but she's usually pretty helpful, too.

The last couple of chapters of "Slaves of the Scorpion" have sort of an apocalyptic feel to them, as a blacked-out Manhattan is under attack by an army of gangsters. Something like this, of course, is where a Spider novel by Norvell Page would begin, instead of end, but that's the difference between The Spider and Secret Agent X. Personally, I like both approaches.

This story will be available soon from Beb Books as an inexpensive reprint. I enjoyed it a lot, and if you're a pulp fan, you should check it out.

Three Mike Shayne Stories

2011-12-08T19:19:00.000-06:00

Over on his blog today, Win Scott Eckert mentions three Mike Shayne stories that I wrote for MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE: "Black Lotus" (January 1981), "Death From the Sky" (July 1981), and "Doomsday Island" (February 1982). If you want to know why Win's interested in them, you'll have to check out his blog, but I thought I'd post the covers here to stir up some nostalgia, as well as express my disbelief that I wrote these stories more than THIRTY FRICKIN' YEARS AGO! That's hard to believe. It seems like either last week or a millennium ago.

Nice Review for The Traditional West

2011-12-07T16:11:00.000-06:00

There's a nice review of THE TRADITIONAL WEST in the new issue of AT HOME IN THE SPANISH COSTAS, a Spanish magazine that's mostly in English (including the review). You can read it on-line here. You'll have to page through the magazine to get to it. I believe it's on page 34. Thanks to Nik Morton for the heads-up.

And don't forget that THE TRADITIONAL WEST is currently on sale for $3.99 for the e-book. For more than 120,000 words of top-notch Western fiction, that's a deal you can't beat.

Pearl Harbor

2011-12-07T09:42:00.000-06:00

As I'm sure most of you know, this is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I didn't have any relatives there, but when I was researching my World War II novels several years ago I talked to some veterans who were there that day, as well as participating in such pivotal battles as Midway and the Coral Sea. Fascinating, horrifying, inspiring stuff. And talking to those gentlemen made me very grateful that they were there so decades later a scribbler like me can write about those events. Hats off to them all.

Update From James D. Best

2011-12-07T06:00:00.002-06:00

Honest Westerns. Full of dishonest characters.

A great story is a great gift.

Steve Dancy tales are so real you can taste the dirt.

In 1879, Steve Dancy sells his shop in New York City and ventures west to explore and write a journal about his adventures. Is a New York City shopkeeper tough enough to survive the Wild West?

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Zorro's Black Whip

2011-12-06T06:00:00.003-06:00

(This post originally appeared in somewhat different form on October 4, 2004)

I wouldn't put ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP in the top rank of Republic serials, but it's very enjoyable. The plot is thin even by serial standards, and the villain is a scrawny little guy who doesn't live up to the great villainous standard of Roy Barcroft. But there's plenty of action, with numerous gunfights and a set-destroying brawl in nearly every episode. Stuff blows up real good a couple of times. The stunt work is excellent, with Babe DeFreest doubling Linda Stirling and Dale Van Sickel doubling George J. Lewis. Linda Stirling is considerably shapelier in the Black Whip costume than Babe is, so it's fairly easy to tell when they switch, but that's all right. Hal Taliaferro, also known as the early Western star Wally Wales, does good work as the villain's chief henchman. One of the opening credits says, "Zorro character created by Johnston McCulley". Well, yes, that's true, but it's got nothing to do with this serial, which never even mentions Zorro. I guess Republic figured they had paid for the right to use the name, so they might as well use it to try to boost revenues. All in all I had a very good time watching this and plan to start another serial soon.

(To expand a little on the original post, here's the film's summary from IMDB: Hammond, owner of the town's stagecoach line and a leading citizen, is opposed to Idaho becoming a state, and kills Randolph Meredith, owner of the town's newspaper, for endorsing it. Meredith's sister Barbara, expert with a bullwhip and pistol, dons a black costume and mask and becomes "The Black Whip", dealing a blow to Hammond and his gang each time they perform some heinous act in their efforts to keep the town, and their power over it, unchanged. Aided by government agent Vic Gordon, Barbara confronts Hammond in a final showdown just as the town votes on whether or not to accept statehood.

I haven't watched a serial in quite a while. It's hard to find the time. But I may try again before too much longer.)

Beat to a Pulp: A Rip Through Time - Chris F. Holm, Charles A. Gramlich, Garnett Elliott, Chad Eagleton

2011-12-05T06:00:00.003-06:00

BEAT TO A PULP: A RIP THROUGH TIME is further proof, as if we needed it, that David Cranmer is an inexhaustible source of ideas these days. He came up with the characters and basic plot for this series of short stories, then turned them over to authors Chris F. Holm, Charles Gramlich, Garnett Elliott, and Chad Eagleton to write. The result is this highly entertaining compilation that actually works quite well as a novel.

The story finds Temporal Security agent Simon Rip and the beautiful and brilliant scientist Dr. Serena Ludwig chasing Dr. Robert Berlin through time. Berlin, it seems has stolen his new invention from The Company, the 23^rd Century international cartel that Rip, Ludwig, and Berlin all work for. From prehistoric times to Arthurian England to the Havana of Ernest Hemingway in the late 1940s, the chase proceeds in an action-packed adventure very reminiscent of those fondly remembered AGENT OF T.E.R.R.A. novels by "Larry Maddock" that many of us read back in the Sixties.

Ah, but then things begin to take some unexpected turns. All is not as it seems. The stakes are ramped up until A RIP THROUGH TIME becomes a rather mind-boggling cosmic epic that reaches to the very ends of space and time. After all that, it seems odd at first that the book concludes with what appears to be a Victorian-era horror story, but again, things take an unexpected twist and this story cleverly serves as both prequel and coda to the rest of the novel. Then Ron Scheer provides an excellent afterword that looks at time travel in books and movies and speculates on the science involved in traveling through time.

One thing that seems to be missing in a lot of current science fiction is a sense of fun. A RIP THROUGH TIME has that sense of fun, in spades, and manages to be thought provoking as well. I'm sure there's more to come from the crew that put this together, and I'm looking forward to it. Highly recommended.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, February 1942

2011-12-03T07:00:00.002-06:00

I was in the mood for a Norman Saunders cover, because you know there'll always be plenty of action going on in one of those. That's certainly true here. The inside appears to have been a good issue, with a lead novel by J. Edward Leithead, one of my favorites, and stories by Gunnison Steele, Lee Bond, and Allen K. Echols, among other, more unfamiliar names. Leithead had quite a history with WESTERN ACES during the Forties, appearing in nearly every issue with stories under his own name and the pseudonym Wilson Covert. All the ones I've read have been very good, too.

Blatant Spousal Promotion

2011-12-02T10:15:00.000-06:00

Livia's work pops up in a couple of places today. You can read about "A Day in the Life of Phyllis Newsom" (the protagonist from the Fresh-Baked Mystery series) here. And Scott Cupp blogs about the urban fantasy novel WITCH GOT YOUR TONGUE on the Missions Unknown website. Check 'em out!

Forgotten Books: Steve Canyon 1950 - Milton Caniff

2011-12-02T06:00:00.002-06:00

I've mentioned here before how fond I am of Milton Caniff's work on TERRY AND THE PIRATES. I've never liked STEVE CANYON quite as much, but hey, it's still Caniff, and that means it's well worth reading as far as I'm concerned.

So I didn't hesitate when I came across a trade paperback reprinting roughly an entire year of STEVE CANYON strips, dailies and Sundays. The year in question is 1950, and as we pick up the story, Steve, back on active duty in the Air Force after several years of running his air transport service, finds himself in China helping Chinese guerrillas battle against the Communists who have seized power.

There are five storylines in this year's worth of strips, none of which I had ever read before. Steve and his Gabby Hayes-like sidekick, Happy Easter, help a British missionary and some Chinese orphans escape from the Red Chinese army, then Steve gets separated from his friends and winds up in an espionage plot when an American traitor tries to sell a "mechanical brain" (obviously an early computer) prototype to the Communists. The scene shifts back into the hills for some more adventures with the Chinese guerrillas, but the hero in these is young Reed Kimberly, a friend of Steve's. Finally, Steve travels to Vietnam, or French Indo-China as it's called then, to help track down a gun-runner known as "Monsieur Gros", or Mr. Big.

This is fine stuff, full of plot twists and action and humor, and Caniff's artwork is packed with details the likes of which you won't find in many comic strips today. It certainly doesn't hurt anything that several beautiful femme fatales such as Madame Lynx, Cheetah, and Herself Muldoon show up in these yarns. They don't quite reach the same level of sultry dangerousness that Caniff's previous creation The Dragon Lady did, but who could?

For my money, TERRY AND THE PIRATES is the best adventure comic strip of all time, just as Milton Caniff is the best adventure comic strip creator of all time. But STEVE CANYON is mighty darned good, too. I had a great time reading this collection, which was published by Checker Book Publishing Group in 2005. Checker published several other Steve Canyon collections, and you can bet I'll be tracking them down.

Review of The Paths of Righteousness

2011-12-01T22:16:00.000-06:00

Keith West has posted a very nice review of my science fiction collection THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS on his blog. He says in part:

The stories are serious, meaning they aren't intended to be humorous or funny, but none of them have the dark, almost nihilistic tone that so much contemporary science fiction does, especially near future science fiction. They reminded me of the science fiction I grew up reading, the old fashioned kind where the author told a story, told it well, and didn't try to beat me over the head with how clever he was with words or raise my social consciousness. In other words, I was entertained, which is the primary purpose of good fiction.

You can read the whole review here.

Red Colt, Bounty Hunter

2011-12-01T06:00:00.002-06:00

Want to listen to some hardboiled Western audio drama? Then you definitely need to check out the first installment of RED COLT, BOUNTY HUNTER, a short, gritty yarn called "The Girl". You can download it for free here.

Guest Post on Mysterious Press Blog

2011-11-30T14:44:00.000-06:00

I've written a guest post for the Mysterious Press blog called "The Legacy of George Harmon Coxe" which you can read here. It includes some comments on a Coxe novel, SILENT ARE THE DEAD, which I read recently. Coxe is a long-time favorite of mine, and I'm very glad that Mysterious Press is making a number of his novels available as e-books.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Only Angels Have Wings

2011-11-29T06:00:00.003-06:00

I used to hear a lot about this film being one of Howard Hawks' best. For that matter, I used to hear a lot about Howard Hawks. These days, not so much on either of those things. So recently I watched ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS for the first time in about forty years to see if it holds up.

Boy, does it.

This is the story of a small flying service in South America that's trying to get a contract flying the mail over the Andes Mountains. Cary Grant plays the chief pilot, and he's ably supported by the great Thomas Mitchell, John Carroll, Noah Beery Jr., Don "Red" Barry, and several more fine character actors. Grant's life is complicated by the arrival of down-on-her-luck showgirl Jean Arthur, then another pilot who has a checkered past (Richard Barthelmess) shows up with his wife, who just happens to be the ex-fiancee of Grant's character, in tow. (The wife is played by a young and beautiful Rita Hayworth.)

In other words, what you've got here is a great cast, working with a good script by Jules Furthman, and directed by one of my all-time favorite directors, Howard Hawks. The result is maybe one notch below a classic film, but it's not far from that status. For a movie with no real crime in it, this is one of the most hardboiled films you'll ever see, with plenty of tight-lipped, unsentimental dialogue and a number of flying sequences that are very suspenseful. The miniature work is outstanding, too.

Hawks is famous for his films centered around the interaction of small groups, and that's in full force here. The claustrophobic setting, a small town hemmed in by mountains, just adds to the effect. The plot is maybe a little thin, but other than that, ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS is a great movie and one that I'm glad I watched again after all these years. If you haven't seen it before, you should give it a try. And if it's been a long time, I bet you'd enjoy it all over again.

The Traditional West Now on Sale

2011-11-27T10:50:00.000-06:00

The Kindle edition of THE TRADITIONAL WEST, the first anthology from the Western Fictioneers, is on sale for a limited time for $3.99. This is a great price for a huge collection of stories by the best Western writers in the business. It's also available at the same price for the Nook.

Don't Miss This Sale from Black Dog Books!

2011-11-26T18:22:00.000-06:00

UNBEATABLE HOLIDAY SAVINGS

On Small Business Saturday save big on the following titles for the holiday season from Black Dog Books!

WESTERN ACTION—Trail of the Snake by Norvell Page. With an introduction by Bill Crider.
The complete collected Westerns stories by the author of The Spider.
“Another outstanding collection from Black Dog Books.”—Dispatches From the Last Outlaw.
Published at $10.00........... Now $7.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=115

Unmasked edited by Tom Roberts. With an introduction by Francis M. Nevins.
The forgotten origins of Hollywood’s most famous Western heroes: Hopalong Cassidy, The Cisco Kid, Zorro and The Lone Ranger.
“[A] fascinating glimpse into these characters’ early development stage.”—Western Clippings
Published at $19.95........... Now $16.95http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=101

Dead Man’s Brand by Norbert Davis. With an introduction by Bill Pronzini.
The collected Western stories by a writer best known from his crime fiction.
“This is by far the best collection of Western stories published this past year!”—Dispatches from the Last Outlaw.
Published at $22.95........... Now $17.95http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=93

Lust of the Lawless by Robert Leslie Bellem, with an introduction by James Reasoner.
The complete Western works by this author who would later script The Lone Ranger, Death Valley Days and The Iron Horse for television.
“Moves forward at tremendous pace, . . . are filled with action and terrific characters.”—Western Fiction Review.
Published at $10.00........... Now $7.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=64

ADVENTURESecret Operative K-13 by Joel Townsley Rogers
The fate of thousands rests in the hands of one man—deep behind enemy lines of WWI.
Published at $10.00........... Now $7.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=92

Banished by William Murray Graydon
Fate pays an evil hand when an innocent man is sentenced to the dreaded labor camps of Siberia. From Argosy.Published at $10.00........... Now $7.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=73

The Black Death by Marion Polk Angellotti.
The historical adventures of Sir John Hawkwood and the White Company. From Adventure.Volume 1 in the Adventure Library series.
Published at $24.95........... Now $19.95http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=49

SCIENCE FICTIONThe Space Annihilator edited by Gene Christie
A collection of 16 early Science Fiction tales 1896-1910 from The Argosy.Published at $15.95........... Now $12.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=6

DETECTIVE/MYSTERYHorse Money by Richard Wormser, with an introduction by Robert J. Randisi
The Cases of Chief Van Eyck, Race Track Detective.
Published at $10.00........... Now $7.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=109

Bodyguard by Roger Torrey, with an introduction by Ron Goulart
The first major collection of this hard-boiled writer.
“A strikingly handsome volume.”— Mysteryfile
“A stunning collection.”—Amazon
Published at $19.95........... Now $14.95http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=22

City of Corpses by Norvell Page, with an introduction by Robert Weinberg
This highly recommended collection brings together the complete weird mysteries of Ken Carter.
“I recommend City of Corpses most highly.”—Davy Crockett’s Almanack
Published at $19.95........... Now $14.95http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=15

Twice Murdered by Laurence Donovan, with an introduction by Tom Roberts
“If you’re a pulp fan, I highly recommend it.”—Rough Edges
Published at $22.95........... Now $17.95http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=38

Killer’s Caress by Cary Moran
The moles on a voluptuous siren’s shapely thigh lead Johnny Harding, dapper, wise-cracking columnist of the Daily Telegraph into a web of crime.
Published at $14.95........... Now $10.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=55

Dead Men Tell Tales by Arthur B. Reeve
Craig Kennedy lives again in these previously uncollected tales of scientific deduction.
Published at $14.95........... Now $10.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=13&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=7&item_id=30

NON-FICTIONPulp Vault no.14 edited by Doug Ellis.
The grandest of all pulp journals returns with a new issue at over 250 pages.
Published at $24.95........... Now $19.95http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=14&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=8&item_id=99

Windy City Pulp Stories no.10
An in-depth study of the classic magazine, Adventure.Published at $12.95........... Now $9.95http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=14&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=8&item_id=72

Fundamentals of Fiction Writing by Arthur Sullivant Hoffman
“An excellent book that has a lot to offer in the way of practical advice.” —James Reasoner
“An excellent book.”—Bookman
Published at $10.00........... Now $7.00http://www.blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=14&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=8&item_id=65

We appreciate your patronage.
Tom Roberts, Publisher

Visit www.blackdogbooks.net for more information.
Black Dog Books, 1115 Pine Meadows Ct. Normal, IL 61761-5432Reseller discount options available.

(I've read a number of these books, obviously, and you really can't go wrong with anything Tom Roberts publishes. There are some great deals here that you should take advantage of. And watch this space for more Black Dog Books news as it becomes available!)

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Wild West Weekly, February 11, 1939

2011-11-26T07:00:00.002-06:00

I like sunset covers, and this is a pretty nice one. It appears to be a good issue, too, with stories by Paul S. Powers (a Johnny Forty-five yarn under his Andrew Griffin pseudonym), George C. Henderson, William A. Todd, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), and Emery Jackson (J. Allan Dunn). WILD WEST WEEKLY had the reputation of being somewhat more juvenile than the other main Western pulp from Street & Smith, WESTERN STORY, but I've never read an issue of WILD WEST WEEKLY that was less than thoroughly entertaining.

New Western Anthology: Christmas Campfire Companion

2011-11-25T11:24:00.000-06:00

This is a beautiful new collection from Port Yonder Press, and while it's not a Western Fictioneers project, many of the contributors are WF members. And they're all top-notch Western authors. In addition to Livia and myself, they include Troy D. Smith, Frank Roderus, Tim Champlin, Larry D. Sweazy, Robert Vaughan, Douglas Hirt, Dusty Richards, Kerry Newcomb, Matthew P. Mayo, Robert J. Randisi, Rod Miller, and Terry Burns. Livia's story "Blue Norther", under the L.J. Washburn name, features Lucas Hallam, and my story "'Tis the Season for Justice" marks the return of Judge Earl Stark. This book has a beautiful cover and would make a fine Christmas gift for anyone who enjoys Western fiction.

Forgotten Books, Canadian Edition: The Master of Dragons - H. Bedford-Jones

2011-11-25T06:00:00.002-06:00

The name H. Bedford-Jones is probably not one that springs to mind when you're trying to think of Canadian authors, at least not unless, like me, you're a big fan of the man rightly known as the King of the Pulps.

Henry James O'Brien Bedford-Jones was born in Naponee, Ontario, in 1887 and spent the first twenty years or so of his life in western Canada before moving to the U.S. He started selling fiction to the pulp magazines in 1911, and that's where the vast majority of his work appeared during a career that lasted nearly forty years. Unlike Frederick Faust or Erle Stanley Gardner, who were also referred to as the King of the Pulps at times, Bedford-Jones achieved nearly all of his success in the pages of the pulps, never knowing the sort of acclaim in other media that those other two writers did. That's why I think he's more deserving of the title.

Even though he was definitely Canadian, it's a bit of a stretch to call Bedford-Jones' THE MASTER OF DRAGONS a Forgotten Book, since it first appeared this year and is still readily available from the great small press publisher Black Dog Books. But to the general public, Bedford-Jones probably is completely forgotten, so I'm going to allow it. (Hey, it's my blog. This is a benevolent dictatorship here, folks.) And it's also a heck of a good book.

This volume contains three short stories and one novella about a pair of American soldiers of fortune, Terence O'Neill and Bert Burket, getting into and out of trouble in a China ruled by various warlords during the late 1920s. The excellent introduction by publisher Tom Roberts puts the stories into historical perspective and also provides some interesting information about Bedford-Jones's research methods. As usual, Bedford-Jones crams quite a bit of plot into these yarns, and there's always an intriguing twist or two. Also, his prose is crisp and clean and has aged very well. People who think all pulp writing was purple and overblown have never read Bedford-Jones.

Those stories, originally published in 1932 and '33, would have made an excellent Thirties adventure film starring maybe Randolph Scott or Clark Gable as O'Neill and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams or Victor McLaglen as Burket. I can see it in my head with no trouble. Although they were contemporary to the time Bedford-Jones wrote them, you can read them now as historical adventures and thoroughly enjoy them. I know I did. Highly recommended.

E-Book Sale

2011-11-24T13:37:00.018-06:00

So, you're full from Thanksgiving dinner and you don't want to watch football (or football is over by the time you're reading this). What are you going to do instead? Well, if you have a Kindle and feel like reading a good novel, Livia and I have several e-books on sale for 99 cents for a limited time:

Wind River

The Wilderness Road

Wild Night (A Lucas Hallam Mystery)

Twice As Deadly

Bandera Pass

Ghost River

Alura's Wish (A Medieval Genie Romance)

Spirit Catcher (A Ghost Romance)

Mending Fences

These books are also on sale for the Nook:

Wind River

The Wilderness Road

Wild Night

Twice as Deadly

Bandera Pass

Ghost River

Alura's Wish

Spirit Catcher

Mending Fences

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T07:00:00.002-06:00

Favorite Bookstores #4: Collector's Bookstore

2011-11-23T07:00:00.002-06:00

During the Thanksgiving weekend in 1978, Livia and I went down to Fulton, Texas with her parents for a short vacation. As always whenever I went anywhere, I was interested in hunting up the used bookstores, and there was one listed in the Corpus Christi phone book that sounded intriguing: Collector's Bookstore. (That was how you found bookstores in the days before the Internet: you looked them up in the phone book.)

So we drove over there on a cool, foggy November day, and before we found the bookstore, we stopped at a newsstand we happened to pass. Inside that newsstand, I spotted copies of the December 1978 issue of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, which, behind a garish cover that I've featured on this blog before, contained my first Mike Shayne novella, "Death in Xanadu". That was a pretty big thrill, let me tell you.

But there was more to come.

We drove on, following the directions I'd figured out on a map (the kind you fold up, not download), and there, sitting on a corner lot at an intersection, was a small wooden building with a sign on it that read COLLECTOR'S BOOKSTORE. It was open. We went in, the only customers at that particular time.

I had to stop and catch my breath. There were shelves and shelves of vintage paperbacks. Even better, there was a whole room full of pulps, the most I'd ever seen in one place up to that time. It was amazing.

Since we were the only customers, the guy who owned the place was very friendly and talkative. He introduced himself as Judge Margarito Garza, who in addition to being an actual judge also owned this bookstore and had created the first Hispanic comic book superhero, Relampago. I think at that time there was only one issue of the comic, and the judge had published it himself. That didn't matter to me. I thought it was extremely cool, and since he was selling copies at the store, I bought one, along with stacks of old paperbacks and as many pulps as I thought we could afford, mostly issues of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, ARGOSY, and some coverless, digest-sized issues of DOC SAVAGE and THE SHADOW. Actually, I probably spent more than we could afford that day, but it was the biggest and best book haul of my life to that point. And the judge was a great guy, a colorful character, and a joy to talk to.

Unfortunately, I didn't get back down to the coast for quite a few years after that, but I always wanted to pay a return visit to the judge's place, as we called it. When I finally did, the store still existed, but it had moved into a different building and was primarily a comic book store. The paperbacks were all gone. The judge still owned the store, but he wasn't there the day I dropped in. I was sort of disappointed and discouraged.

But tucked away in a back corner was a small stack of pulps, all that was left of the stock that had been there on my previous visit. There were a few Westerns and maybe half a dozen bedsheet-sized issues of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. I bought them all, of course, and the guys running the place for the judge were clearly happy to get rid of them. So it was a bittersweet visit to say the least.

Even that incarnation of Collector's Bookstore is long gone, but I remembered the intersection where the original store was located, so a couple of years ago while I was in the area, I drove by. Where that little brown frame building stood in 1978 is now the parking lot of a McDonald's. That's all right, I suppose. Things change. Judge Garza died in 1995. All the books and pulps I bought there were lost in the fire. But I can still drive by there and see that building in my mind and hear the judge's laugh and smell all that old paper and remember the thrill I felt that day at finding such great stuff . . .

It is what it is, but I'll take it.

Rancho Diablo: Dark Horse Now Available for the Nook

2011-11-22T15:25:00.000-06:00

And you can find it here.

The Dead Man #6: Kill Them All by Harry Shannon Now Available at a Special Price

2011-11-22T10:20:00.002-06:00

The sixth book in the Dead Man series, KILL THEM ALL by Harry Shannon, is now available for a very limited time at the special introductory price of 99 cents. Like all the other books in the series, this is a hugely entertaining tale. Buy 'em all!

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Three Way

2011-11-22T06:00:00.006-06:00

I came across this DVD on the clearance shelves at Half Price Books a while back, and when I saw that it was based on a novel by Gil Brewer, of course I had to buy it, even though I didn't even know such a movie existed before that.

And since I had a copy of the source novel, WILD TO POSSESS, and hadn't read it yet, the idea occurred to me to read the book, write a Forgotten Books post about it, and then watch the movie and follow up the next Tuesday with an Overlooked Movie post. It made for an interesting experience.

If you read last Friday's post, you'll recall that the protagonist of WILD TO POSSESS, Lew Brookbank, who is on the run from the law for a murder he didn't commit, stumbles onto an entirely different kidnap/murder scheme hatched by a couple in the town where he's sort of hiding out. Lew decides to invite himself in on the plan, save the would-be victim, and snag the ransom money for himself. Needless to say, Lew's decision is not a good one.

THREE WAY retains that basic structure but makes lots of other changes, beginning with updating the action from the Fifties to the present day, which is something I'm not fond of, and moving the setting from Florida to California. Some of the characterizations are changed as well, and the ending is considerably different. However, for a script based on a complicated novel, THREE WAY is a fairly accurate adaptation, more so than a lot of movies I've seen. If you hadn't read the book, you'd never know that the original story was different, and most of the new stuff works okay. The new ending, however, makes very little sense.

The problem I have with this movie is that the execution isn't quite there. Sometimes when I watch a new Western, I find myself thinking that the people who made it really wanted to make a good Western, they just didn't quite know how because they didn't grow up watching good Westerns. Things are just slightly off. That's how I felt about THREE WAY. The filmmakers wanted to make a good film noir (and choosing a Brewer novel to adapt is a fine start), but just missed. For one thing, having the characters say "fuck" all the time doesn't make a movie noir. And it doesn't help that the protagonist is even less likable in the movie than he is in the book. Lew Brookbank in Brewer's novel is a loser who puts himself in a bad situation, but he's not a criminal with a violent past, as the character is in the movie.

After all that complaining, I need to mention some positive things about THREE WAY. The cast is pretty good for the most part. Dominic Purcell, who plays Lew, starred in JOHN DOE and PRISON BREAK on TV, and while I didn't care for the changes in his character, his performance is solid. Ali Larter, pre-HEROES, is a pretty good femme fatale. Gina Gershon, as the kidnap victim, is fine when she's on-screen, but that's only about ten minutes. And good old Dwight Yoakum is a sleazy villain, just as you'd expect.

The lone extended scene featuring gratuitous nudity, for those of you who care about such things, is actually pretty boring.

So is THREE WAY worth your time? It is if you're a Gil Brewer fan. If you've read WILD TO POSSESS, you really ought to watch it, if for no other reason than as a good example of a film adaptation that gets some things right and some things wrong. If you've never read the book, it's still a watchable enough way to spend an hour and a half, but just barely. One of these days somebody will make a movie from a Gil Brewer book that's set in the Fifties and follows the book closely, and a handful of us will love it. Everybody else in the world will yawn, and the movie will tank at the box office, ruining the careers of the people who made it.

Just the sort of noirish outcome you'd expect, eh?

Rancho Diablo #5: Dark Horse Now Available

2011-11-21T19:02:00.000-06:00

I'm very pleased to announce that RANCHO DIABLO #5: DARK HORSE, my second entry in the series, is now available on Amazon. The Nook edition should be live soon as well, and a trade paperback edition is also in the works. I'm very pleased with this one and love the cover by Keith Birdsong. Check it out!

Hard Trail to Socorro - Wayne D. Dundee

2011-11-21T06:00:00.002-06:00

In a fairly short period of time, Wayne Dundee has become one of my favorite Western writers. That opinion is only strengthened by his new novel, HARD TRAIL TO SOCORRO, the first in a series featuring bounty hunter Bodie Kendrick. Here's the publisher's description of the book:

Bounty hunter Bodie Kendrick apprehended his prey without too much trouble. Claiming the reward, however, turns out to be not so easy.

First there is Veronica Fairburn, the beautiful woman who has her own business in Socorro and insists on sticking with Kendrick when he sets out to return there with his prisoner … Then there's the gang of tough ranch hands dead set on relieving him of the prisoner in order to dish out their own brand of personal revenge … Add in the Mexican desperado stalking the woman, and the band of renegade Apaches raiding throughout the region—and Kendrick has his work cut out for him.

Complicating matters even more are the feelings developing between Kendrick and Veronica.

But the greatest challenge of all may come from the daring passage they must attempt over the Jornada del Muerto—the Journey of the Dead, awaiting them in the merciless White Sands desert.

That's a good solid plot, and Dundee makes it even better by throwing in a few twists along the way. Not everything is the way it seems to be at first glance, and that's always a good thing in a book as far as I'm concerned.

Where Dundee really succeeds, though, is in his gritty action scenes, his feel for the landscape, his characters, and his ability to focus on the things that make the classic Western such an appealing genre: honor, courage, determination, and redemption, even at a high price. Dundee's Westerns remind me very much of those by Gordon D. Shirreffs, another favorite of mine.

Maybe it's just because of his name, but all the way through HARD TRAIL TO SOCORRO I kept seeing Bodie Kendrick as Clint Walker. Those of you who grew up in the Fifties and Sixties like I did will understand that reference. This novel would have made a great hardboiled Western movie from that era, although it has some more contemporary touches to it as well. Mostly it's just very entertaining, and I had a great time reading it. If you're a Western fan, you really should read it. And if you know Wayne Dundee's work only from his excellent private eye stories and novels featuring Joe Hannibal, I highly recommend that you try his Westerns as well.

Music: Ain't Goin' Back to Jail - 100 Damned Guns

2011-11-20T19:00:00.003-06:00

First of all, 100 Damned Guns is a great name for a band. They're a local group I heard the other day on the radio (KXT 91.7, for those of you in the Fort Worth/Dallas area). This song is from an album called SONGS OF MURDER, PAIN, AND WOE. Great stuff for those of you who are fans of noir.

Interviews with Livia

2011-11-20T12:02:00.013-06:00

A couple of new interviews with Livia have been published recently. You can read them here and here. Her latest Fresh Baked Mystery is getting great reviews, too. And let's not forget WITCH GOT YOUR TONGUE. There's a new review of it here.

"Deadland USA: Ballroom Blitz" - Heath Lowrance

2011-11-20T07:00:00.002-06:00

This is the second story in Heath Lowrance's new zombie series, and it's just as entertaining as the first. Flashing back to the night the so-called zombie apocalypse started for the narrator Sammy, it features the same highly appealing voice, the moments of pathos and humor, and the frantic action. Plus it ends on a cliffhanger. Bring on the next installment, I say.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Range Riders Western, February 1946

2011-11-19T07:00:00.003-06:00

I don't know about you, but I love a title like "Ghost Killers of Skull River". Actually, it's my inner ten-year-old that loves it, but hey, he's in charge most of the time anyway. I'm also fond of this one because the lead novel featuring range detectives Steve Reese, Hank Ball, and Dusty Trail is by "Gunnison Steele", who was of course Bennie Gardner, father of long-time mystery fan and all-around great guy Barry Gardner, who is no longer with us, unfortunately. Bennie Gardner was a fine writer who often had a strong mystery element to his Western yarns, especially his novels. He was also a master of the short-short story. The back-up stories in this issue are by Cliff Walters, Ralph Yergen, Frederick W. Bales, and Harold Cruikshank. Cruikshank's Pioneer Folk stories are about as bland as they can be, but they're readable. I'm not familiar with those other authors. It's hard to go wrong with a Gunnison Steele story, though.

Forgotten Books: Wild to Possess - Gil Brewer

2011-11-18T06:00:00.002-06:00

There's just something endlessly appealing about the noir formula: an unlucky protagonist, usually already in trouble of some sort, makes a bad decision and winds up in an even worse mess, and things just keep going wrong as he tries to dig himself out of the hole he's fallen into.

Gil Brewer plays this plot like a finely turned instrument in WILD TO POSSESS, a novel originally published by Monarch Books in 1959 and then reprinted a few years ago by Stark House Press in a double volume with Brewer's A TASTE FOR SIN.

In WILD TO POSSESS, Brewer throws in some subtle variations on the standard noir plot. His protagonist Lew Brookbank isn't lured into trouble by a beautiful woman but rather gets into it all on his own. As the book opens, he's already on the run, hiding out in a small Florida town because he discovered his wife and her lover had been murdered and then covered up the crime because he thought he'd be blamed for it. But he's afraid somebody will find out what happened and the cops will come after him, so he's in a bad frame of mind to start with when he accidentally stumbles on a plot by a couple of locals involving kidnapping and murder. Desperate for money and drinking heavily, Lew decides to horn in on the plan and grab the ransom money for himself.

Needless to say, that turns out to be a bad move.

Rather than lust, Lew is driven by greed, guilt, and gin, and naturally things don't turn out the way he expects them to. Then a stranger shows up to complicate things as Lew's past comes back to haunt him. Brewer just piles the trouble on Lew until it seems almost impossible for him to get out of it, and knowing the way books like this work, maybe he will . . . or maybe he won't.

Lew's not a particularly likable protagonist, but he's so blasted unlucky that the reader can't help but root for him. Brewer keeps things racing along, tightening the screws more and more, until an over-the-top climax. To be honest, it struck me as a bit of a deus ex machina, but in the crazy, fate-doomed world Gil Brewer's characters inhabit, what else would you expect? The important thing is that he makes it work and really had me flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen.

Even though it's not a Gold Medal, WILD TO POSSESS is one of the best Gil Brewer novels I've read, and I had a great time with it. Highly recommended.

Update From Hard Case Crime

2011-11-18T05:37:00.000-06:00

We just added a new book to the Hard Case Crime Web site (www.hardcasecrime.com), a first novel by a young Baltimore-based writer named Ariel S. Winter that we’ll be publishing next summer. It’s not the sort of book that generally attracts a lot of coverage merely as a result of being announced – obviously no one knows the author’s name yet, since he hasn’t published any books before. The main thing it does have going for it is that it’s an amazing, amazing book – one that really knocked my socks off – but that’s something no one else will appreciate until they actually get to read it, which is months away.

However –

There is another story here, which is the book’s very unusual structure. The book is called THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH, and it’s the story of a husband and wife whose lives collapse as violence intrudes – not an unusual premise for a noir novel. But the form Winter chose for it is very unusual: he decided to tell the story of these two doomed characters in the form of three separate old-fashioned crime novels, each set in a different decade and written in the style of one of the iconic mystery writers of that time. It feels a little like opening a Christmas package and finding new novels by three of your favorite pulp-era crime writers. The first is set in 1931 and features a French police inspector investigating the death of a convict in a rain gutter 20 miles away from the prison where he was supposed to be serving a 40-year jail sentence. The second is set in 1941 and features a hardboiled private eye in Hollywood who is hired by one of the big movie studios to watch over one of their leading ladies, who either is showing signs of paranoid dementia or is actually being stalked by a mysterious man on the set of her new picture. And the third is set in 1951 and puts us deep inside the dark and troubled mind of a desperate man, a drunken writer who has lost almost everything he had and is about to tip over the edge separating ‘troubled’ from ‘dangerous.’

What’s more, these aren’t just pastiches – what's wonderful is that each book works not only as a tribute to a great mystery writer of the past but also as a standalone novel with substance and emotional heft, and as part of the combined larger whole. It’s fascinating, for instance, to watch a background character in the first book become a more central figure in the second and then the first-person narrator in the third. I don’t know any other book that’s ever done anything like it.

In any event…I fell in love with the book, and bought it even though it’s three times the length of our usual books (by far the longest book we’ve ever published – 180,000 words), and even though you’re always told, as a publisher, that first novels don’t sell. I did it because it’s a stunning performance and just left me grinning the widest grin I’ve had on my face for a long, long time.

Fight Card #2: The Cutman - Jack Tunney (Mel Odom)

2011-11-16T09:36:00.000-06:00

THE CUTMAN, by Mel Odom writing as Jack Tunney, is the second installment of the new Fight Card series, and it's every bit as good as the debut novel, Paul Bishop's FELONY FISTS.

This one is narrated by Mickey Flynn, brother of Patrick Flynn, the hero of the first book. The Flynn brothers are orphans who grew up at St. Vincent's Orphanage (better known as Our Lady of the Glass Jaw) in Chicago, where they were taught to box by the priest Father Tim. Mickey travels the world as a sailor on the cargo ship Wide Bertha, and as THE CUTMAN opens, the ship is docked at Havana, Cuba, where Mickey and his colorful friends among the crew quickly run afoul of gangsters who have moved in and taken over Havana in those pre-Castro days. The friction escalates until Mick finds himself in the ring battling a vicious boxer who works for one of the local mob kingpins, with the fate of his ship riding on the outcome.

That long, epic battle is a classic, and Mickey Flynn would be right at home next to some of the "iron man" characters who populate Robert E. Howard's boxing stories. There's plenty of local color and tough-guy action, and Odom keeps the story moving along at a great pace. The best thing about this novel, though, is Mick's voice, which is just about perfect.

Like FELONY FISTS, THE CUTMAN is pure entertainment, and Fight Card is shaping up to be a great series. Highly recommended.

Wild West Detective

2011-11-15T11:39:00.002-06:00

Fellow Western Fictioneer James Clay is trying an interesting experiment that looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. Every weekday on his blog, Wild West Detective, he's posting an installment of a serialized Western story featuring range detective Rance Dehner. The first two episodes of the first story, "The Redeemed", are up now, and I believe he already has a number of stories written and ready to go. This is an entertaining yarn so far, and I love the concept, sort of a cross between the pulps and movie serials. Check it out.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Albuquerque

2011-11-15T06:00:00.002-06:00

A few weeks back in a Saturday Morning Western Pulp post, I mentioned Luke Short's novel DEAD FREIGHT FOR PIUTE. The movie version of that book, ALBUQUERQUE starring Randolph Scott, was little seen after its 1948 release, almost to the point that it was considered to be a lost film. It was finally released on DVD, though, in a set with four other Western movies (THE DUEL AT SILVER CREEK, WHISPERING SMITH, and WAR ARROW). Even though I've been a Randolph Scott fan for as far back as I can remember, this is one I'd never seen until now.

Scott plays Cole Armin, a Texan summoned to New Mexico Territory by his uncle, who owns a successful freight business in Albuquerque. The uncle, who is in poor health and confined to a wheelchair, wants Cole to take over the business. Following a stagecoach holdup that opens the movie, Cole arrives in town and quickly discovers that his uncle is, in fact, a crook who wants to wipe out his competition, another freight outfit owned by the beautiful Celia Wallace and her brother Ted. Celia was on the stagecoach that was held up, and none other than Cole's uncle was behind that robbery. (This all becomes obvious very quickly, so I'm not really giving anything away.)

Cole, being an upstanding Texan and Randolph Scott to boot, wants nothing to do with such chicanery, of course, so he goes to work for his uncle's rivals, which naturally leads to a war between the two freight outfits.

ALBUQUERQUE is a movie with a few weaknesses but considerable strengths. To get the flaws out of the way first, there's a fairly major continuity gaffe about halfway through, and a lot of the time the movie is pretty talky and light on action. The villains are a fairly tame bunch, and there's a feeling that Cole could take care of them whenever he wants to. A lengthy fistfight between Scott and Lon Chaney Jr., playing the bad guy's chief henchman, isn't staged well at all. However, there are a few other action scenes that are very well done, including some runaway freight wagons careening down a steep mountain road and an epic shootout at the end. The real strength of the movie is its cast. Scott is always a stalwart cowboy hero, and he's got the number one sidekick of all time with him in this one, Gabby Hayes, playing a driver named Juke. Maybe I'm just showing my age here, but when Gabby Hayes starts ranting, it's always funny to me. Lon Chaney Jr. makes a pretty good henchman, although he doesn't have a lot to do, and the lovely Barbara Britton has a nice juicy role as a femme fatale who's maybe not all bad.

ALBUQUERQUE certainly isn't top-rank Randolph Scott. That tier is reserved for RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY and the Fifties films Scott made with Budd Boetticher. But it's a solid lower-level A Western with a good cast, mostly good production values, a few nice stunts, and a so-so script. I'm glad I watched it, and if you're a Randolph Scott fan, you should check it out. It's a nice enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half.

Coming Next Year: The Lone Ranger Chronicles

2011-11-14T07:43:00.000-06:00

Since this book has been announced officially, I might as well jump in and mention that I have a story in it. I've been a Lone Ranger fan literally as far back as I can remember. One of my first memories of television is watching the origin episodes of THE LONE RANGER. (They were in reruns, mind you; I'm not quite old enough to have seen them the first time around.) I also have very fond memories of listening to the Lone Ranger radio show when it was being broadcast in syndicated reruns in the early Sixties. And here's something I've probably mentioned before: the first novel I ever attempted to write was a Lone Ranger novel I started when I was in high school. (Never finished and long since lost.) So being asked to write a story for this anthology was really a dream come true, to fall back on a cliche. My story is called "Hell on the Border" and also features Judge Isaac Parker, the famous "Hanging Judge". I'm looking forward to seeing it in print and also to reading all the other stories by a great lineup of authors!

Fast Five

2011-11-13T07:00:00.002-06:00

What, after I've watched and loved the first four movies in this series, you thought I wouldn't watch and love this one, too? (Actually, "love" is too strong a word for TOKYO DRIFT, but it's okay.)

As someone I know once said, "You know what's been missing from the Fast and Furious series right from the start? The Rock!" Well, he's in this one, and of course he has an epic slugfest with Vin Diesel. Throw in the usual assortment of spectacular car stunts, motorcycle stunts, train stunts, some colorful Brazilian scenery, shootouts, fistfights, an evil drug lord, a 100 million dollar caper, and that pretty well sums up FAST FIVE. I didn't think it was quite as good as the last one, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. There was a late plot twist I didn't see coming (but should have) and a nice teaser at the end setting up the next installment in the franchise. Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson are going to be in that one, too, and it's rumored that Jason Statham will also be on board, as proof, I suppose, of the theory that you can never have too many bald guys trying to kick each other's ass in a movie.

Hey, you already know I'm gonna watch it and love it . . .

Fight Card #1: Felony Fists - Jack Tunney (Paul Bishop)

2011-11-12T11:41:00.000-06:00

The eagerly-awaited FIGHT CARD series makes its debut with the novel FELONY FISTS, written by Paul Bishop under the house-name Jack Tunney. Set in 1954, an era that really resonates with me, it's the story of Patrick "Felony" Flynn, a Los Angeles cop who's also an amateur boxer. Flynn gets a chance to combine those two parts of his life when he's offered a promotion to Detective that involves him taking down a fighter owned by gangster Mickey Cohen, thereby thwarting Cohen's attempt to take over the boxing game in LA.

As if that's not enough for Flynn to deal with, Bishop also includes counterfeiting, kidnapping, and a beautiful redheaded torch singer, as well as setting up the back-story for the rest of the series, which will be written by assorted top-notch hardboiled authors. He does a great job of capturing the time period with its swanky nightclubs, sweaty boxing gyms, and seedy back alleys. The story races along at a fine pace, culminating in an epic battle in the ring between Flynn and Cohen's fighter.

Boxing scenes are harder to write than you might think, but Bishop makes the action easy to follow for the reader, as well as skillfully mixing the fisticuffs with the hardboiled crime angle. I haven't read a lot of boxing fiction – Robert E. Howard's boxing stories are some of my favorites among his work, and the Battlin' Jack Murdock scenes in DAREDEVIL #1 by Stan Lee and Bill Everett are still etched in my mind more than forty years later – but Bishop's efforts here are right up there with those yarns. FELONY FISTS is a great debut for what promises to be a highly entertaining series.

And next up is THE CUTMAN, by Mel Odom writing as Jack Tunney.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: All Western, December 1933

2011-11-12T07:30:00.000-06:00

Here's another pretty good stampede cover (the painting is called "Prairie Fire" and is by R. Farrington Elwell), this time from an early pulp published by Dell. There are quite a few excellent authors represented inside: Walt Coburn, Eugene Cunningham, J.E. Grinstead, Robert J. Hogan, Hapsburg Liebe, Tom J. Hopkins, William Freeman Hough, and George Cory Franklin. All of those authors showed up frequently in a variety of pulps. I wouldn't quite call it an all-star lineup (Coburn and Cunningham are probably the only ones who fall into that category), but it's close.