A Rough Edges Rerun Review: I Should Have Stayed Home - Horace McCoy

(This post originally appeared on June 19, 2009, and it seemed like a good time to rerun it because one of my favorite publishers, Black Gat Books, has just brought out a well-deserved reprint of it.)

Cullen Gallagher mentioned this novel a couple of weeks ago on his blog, and since I happened to have a copy on hand, I thought I’d go ahead and read it. I’d never read any of McCoy’s novels before, although I’ve read several of his pulp stories and enjoyed them. Also, I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME is dedicated in part to Joseph T. Shaw, the famous editor of BLACK MASK, so I figured it might be worthwhile.

Which it certainly is, although it’s not a crime novel at all. A few minor crimes take place, but they’re hardly the focus of the book. Instead it’s a Hollywood novel set in the Thirties, narrated by Ralph Carston, a young would-be actor from Georgia who’s determined to make it big in the movies. As the book opens, he’s working sporadically as an extra and living, platonically, with a bit-part actress named Mona Matthews. Ralph makes the acquaintance of a wealthy widow known for throwing lavish Hollywood parties, and despite being rather naïve, he knows that she can help him advance his career if he goes along with what she wants, which is him.

Along with Ralph’s affair with the widow, the plot features a big star who turns out to be a lesbian, an interracial couple, some nights spent in jail, a suicide, and lots of boozing and sex. What makes I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME worth reading is McCoy’s bleak, fast-paced prose. The plot may be melodramatic, but the writing is pure hardboiled, with a grim, fatalistic tone that makes the book qualify as noir, as well. I’ll definitely have to get around to McCoy’s other novels, and in the meantime, if you like Hollywood novels, this one gets my recommendation.

(I second my own recommendation. You can find the Black Gat edition here.)

One More Reason I Love the Internet

This comment from Joseph Grieco was on my blog this morning, on a post from last year in which I reran my 2008 review of this novel:

It was a pleasure and a surprise to find your review of The Fast Buck. Your observations about this novel and its author hit home. You asked if anyone knew more information about the author. The book was written by my uncle, Joseph Rositani, under the pseudonym Ross Laurence. He used other names in his poems, short stories, articles and essays for magazines; but TFB was the first (and I believe only) Ross Laurence novel. As you might have guessed, he grew up in the gritty, Italian neighborhoods of Chicago. Though formal education beyond high school was cut short by the Third Army infantry/Europe/WWII, he was an energized writer until his tragic death as a passenger in a Los Angeles auto accident when he was about 40...I think that was 1960? While big money as a writer wasn't in the cards, he was a big deal in our family: our first writer...inspiring several of us to enter careers in which writing is central to our professions and our generational success. Thanks for covering his book.

Thank you for commenting, Joseph! I'm very happy you found the post about your uncle's book and could tell us about him. I love making contact with the friends and relatives of writers who have entertained so many of us in years past. It's a shame he passed away at such a young age. I think he could have had a fine career as a mystery novelist.

Review: Bullets on the Wind - D.B. Newton

Winter is closing in, and the last thing Jim Bannister is looking for is trouble. He’s already on the run from the law, unjustly convicted of murder, and toting around a $12,000 bounty on his head that has put a pair of killers on his trail. The last thing he needs is to get caught in a tangle of violence involving a wealthy cattle baron, his beautiful and much younger wife, her not-to-be-trusted brother, and a blackmailing saloon owner. But that’s where Bannister winds up anyway, trying to stay alive when there are folks who want him dead on all sides.

BULLETS ON THE WIND is the second novel in the Jim Bannister series by D.B. Newton, published originally as a paperback original by Berkley in 1964 and available these days in e-book and paperback editions from Piccadilly Publishing. I’ve been a fan of Newton’s work for a long time, and I really enjoyed the first novel in the Bannister series, ON THE DODGE. This one continues that streak. It’s an excellent hardboiled Western with lots of gritty action and a plot with enough twists to be interesting. Jim Bannister is a fine protagonist, and the young rancher he befriends is a top-notch supporting character. In another very nice touch, the cattle baron isn’t the villain in this book. Although a little rough around the edges, he’s actually a pretty sympathetic character.

I thoroughly enjoyed BULLETS ON THE WIND, and if you’re a fan of traditional Western novels, it gets a strong recommendation from me. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the Jim Bannister novels.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, October 1946

I think I'll start using this Malvin Singer cover as my author photo. There's a certain resemblance, and that's the way I feel a lot of days when I'm trying to write. By this point in its run, ADVENTURE featured a mix of well-known authors and others whose names aren't really familiar to me. This issue includes Sidney Herschell Small with a Koropok story (I have the collections of that series but have never read them), Nard Jones, who wrote some well-regarded historical novels and historical non-fiction, veteran pulpster Kenneth Perkins, Ted Stratton, who wrote paperbacks as Terry Spain, and Dave Grubb, who as Davis Grubb wrote the popular novels THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and FOOL'S PARADE, both of which were adapted into movies. Also on hand are R.G. Emery, Douglas F. Young, and Henry John Colyton, the authors who fall into the unfamiliar category for me.

Saturday Morning Western Pulps: Western Trails, March 1937

The cover on this issue of WESTERN TRAILS is by Ray Quigley. I don't know anything about him except that he painted a dozen or so pulp covers in the late Thirties and early Forties. The lineup of authors in this issue is a good one: L.P. Holmes, Carl McK. Saunders (really Philip Ketchum), Van Cort (really Wyatt Blassingame), Clyde A. Warden (with a Bert Little story), Robert E. Mahaffey, Andor de Soos (who did about 15 stories for various Western and gang pulps in the late Thirties), and Kenneth P. Wood. I've read and enjoyed all those authors except de Soos and Wood.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: The Midnight Room - Ed Gorman

I’ll admit, I’m not a big fan of serial killer novels. You can trust Ed Gorman to give you something different, though, even when he’s writing about a serial killer. Because he doesn’t just write about the person who’s murdering teenage girls in a small Midwestern city. In THE MIDNIGHT ROOM, he also gives you the team of police detectives looking for the killer, their friends and families, the family of a girl who has disappeared and is believed to have been abducted by the killer, the politicians, the news media, the ex-con looking for revenge, and the burglar who discovers the killer’s true identity . . . and decides to try his hand at a little blackmail.

Yes, there’s a lot packed into this book. The wonder of it is that while the plot never slows down for long, Ed also manages to include enough details to make all these characters come to vivid life. I think that may be one of the secrets to why his books are so good. In too many contemporary thrillers, the reader never learns much about the characters beyond what they need to know for the plot. In too much literary fiction, the author provides such an abundance of information about the characters that nothing ever happens; there’s no room for anything else. But Ed strikes a perfect balance in his work between the characters and the plot.

And speaking of plot . . . I thought I knew what was going to happen in this book, but then Ed surprised me not once but twice, changing the game part of the way through in a move that most writers wouldn’t even attempt, let alone pull off successfully. For me as a reader, being able to look at a book and say, “Huh. I didn’t see that coming,” is pure joy.

Obviously, objectivity goes out the window when I’m talking about Ed Gorman’s work, since he’s been one of my best friends for more years than I like to think about. Luckily, a lot of people who don’t even know him like his books. (That didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean.) Trust me on this. THE MIDNIGHT ROOM is really, really good, one of the best thrillers I’ve read in ages. Treat yourself and pick up a copy.

(And even though this post appeared originally on May 18, 2009, you can still follow the advice in the last line, because THE MIDNIGHT ROOM is still available in an e-book edition. I miss Ed. As I've mentioned before, he's partially responsible for me still being in this business, because numerous times when it looked like I was about to be out of work, Ed somehow knew and the phone would ring and he'd ask me to ghost a book for him or point me at somebody else who needed a book written. Not only that, he was just a great guy, and we could spend hours on the phone talking about anything and everything. We'll not see his like again. I say that about all too many people these days.)

Review: Verdugo's Vendetta - James J. Griffin

U.S. Marshal Vic Verdugo returns in VERDUGO’S VENDETTA, the second book in the traditional Western series by James J. Griffin. Verdugo, who was a deputy marshal assigned to Fort Griffin, Texas, in the first book, gets a promotion in this one and becomes the chief marshal for a vast, untamed district that includes the southeastern part of New Mexico Territory and the far western reaches of Texas, including El Paso.

Unfortunately, Verdugo’s supervisor in this new role is an arrogant, by-the-book federal judge who has some unsavory secrets in his past. A clash with a murderous family of outlaws and rustlers complicates things even more. Luckily, Verdugo has some competent deputies to help him, chief among them William Cloud Gatherer, a half-Paiute lawman who works very well with Verdugo.

You could call this book a frontier police procedural, because there’s not really a main plot that runs through the entire book. It’s more a series of cases worked by Verdugo and Cloud Gatherer, although the trouble with the vicious Benson clan does take up much of the second half and leads to a satisfying conclusion. What makes it work is Griffin’s skill in depicting the setting, as well as his sure hand with indomitable protagonists and despicable villains. Vic Verdugo is a very likable hero, and William Cloud Gatherer is a great supporting character, as is Verdugo’s horse Topper. The action scenes are plentiful and suitably gritty.

Griffin has been writing Western novels for a long time and has a legion of fans. VERDUGO’S VENDETTA should please all of them. I certainly had a good time reading it. It’s available from Amazon in e-book and paperback editions.

Review: Six White Horses - James Robert Daniels

Several years ago, James Robert Daniels published his first novel, THE COMANCHE KID, and accomplished a rare feat: he wrote a classic Western novel first time out of the gate. He followed that with a sequel, JANE FURY, that was almost as good. His third novel, SIX WHITE HORSES, will be released tomorrow, and I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy. I was hoping it would live up to the tradition of excellence Daniels has already established.

I’m happy to report that it does.

The narrator/protagonist of SIX WHITE HORSES is James Quinn, a Texas Ranger who became a lawman after fighting in the Civil War and then heading west to try life as a cowboy. Packing a star hasn’t necessarily been an improvement, however. When the book opens, he’s in pretty bad shape, having suffered serious bullet and knife wounds in the process of apprehending the notorious outlaw Cole Twist. But Quinn manages to make it to Corpus Christi (a town I know pretty well, by the way, and it rings true in Daniels’ version) with Twist as his prisoner. Twist gets locked up in the local jail, and Quinn lands in the hospital, where he meets the beautiful Quaker nurse/schoolteacher China Smallwood.

Quinn’s recuperation, his romance with China, his efforts to track down the rest of Twist’s gang, and the struggle to keep the colorful and charismatic but thoroughly evil owlhoot behind bars make up the rest of the novel. As in his previous books, Daniels makes good use of the traditional Western elements, but he raises SIX WHITE HORSES to a higher level with vivid, finely polished writing and compelling characters. James Quinn has a great voice, and you can’t help but like and root for him.

SIX WHITE HORSES may not be quite as good a book as THE COMANCHE KID—as I said, that one’s a classic—but it is a superb Western, and I give it a very high recommendation. It’ll be available tomorrow in e-book, paperback, and audio editions, but you can pre-order any of them now.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Street & Smith's Top-Notch, March 1933

This issue of TOP-NOTCH has a good cover by John Coughlin, an artist I associate more with DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE, whether that impression is correct or not. The lead novella is by an author whose name wasn't familiar to me, R.E. Dupuy. But a little investigation revealed a pretty interesting story. Richard Ernest Dupuy was a newspaper reporter who served as an artilleryman in World War I, then stayed in the army and made a career out of it. But he had sold a few pulp stories before the war and took it up again in the late Twenties, placing a story in WEIRD TALES but concentrating on war and adventure yarns for various pulps. That came to an end when World War II began and Dupuy became the Director of Public Information at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, where he reported directly to General Eisenhower. It was Dupuy who announced to the world via radio when the invasion of Normandy began on D-Day. Pretty good for an old pulpster. After the war, Dupuy retired as a colonel and wrote military history books. I've never read anything by him, as far as I recall. There are only three other pieces of fiction in this issue of TOP-NOTCH, all of them by authors who wrote a lot of Westerns: Galen C. Colin, J. Allan Dunn, and Walker A. Tompkins, who has one of his Ozar the Aztec/Lost Race novelettes in this issue under the house-name Valentine Wood. Dunn, of course, wrote a lot of other genres besides Westerns, but he was a stalwart in that field. Quite a few issues of TOP-NOTCH can be found on-line, but this doesn't appear to be one of them.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Exciting Western, January 1950

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I think the cover is by Sam Cherry, although I’m not as sure of that as I sometimes am, and I find it pretty interesting. In all the books I’ve written, I don’t recall ever writing a shootout that involves a windmill. It doesn’t strike me as being a very good place to take cover, but maybe this hombre didn’t have any choice.

Range detectives Tombstone Jones and Speedy Smith are on hand, as usual, as the issue opens with W.C. Tuttle’s novelette “A Mixture of Mavericks”. The boys are assigned to a case where they’re supposed to settle a dispute over unbranded yearlings, but they wind up with another sort of “maverick”: a baby. And that baby is part of a case involving a mine payroll robbery, a kidnapping, and some fistfights and shootouts. Yep, it’s the old “heroes get stuck taking care of a baby” plot. I’ve used it myself. It nearly always works. It does so in this story, which is funny and action-packed, as well as pretty well-plotted. This is a strong entry in a consistently strong series.

Most of the stories by Lee Bond that I’ve read were parts of series, but “The Desert Builds a Noose” in this issue is a stand-alone, which finds a sheriff trying to discover the truth about the murder of an old prospector. This is a good story, and I like the title. The only problem I had with it is that I found the ending a little muddled, but that could always be just me.

I don’t know anything about John C. Ropke except that he published about 30 stories between 1950 and 1955 and nothing after that. A mixture of Westerns, sports stories, and jungle adventure yarns. “Boomerang” in this issue is a rodeo story about brothers who are both bronc riders. The younger brother is jealous of his older brother’s success. This starts out like a YA story in which lessons are learned. Well, lessons are learned, all right, but it turns a lot darker along the way, which was not what I expected. It’s well-written and packs a punch, enough so that it makes me interested in reading something else by Ropke.

“Devil in the Cook Shack” is by Robert J. Hogan, author of the G-8 series. Hogan did quite a few Westerns, too, and I tend to like his work. This one is a more lighthearted yarn about a young man from the East who inherits his grandfather’s ranch. It’s not really a tenderfoot-makes-good story like you might expect, though. Although the protagonist isn’t an experienced cowboy, he’s spent enough time on the ranch in the past that he’s not totally lost, either. The ranch cook has a man-crazy teenage sister who plays all the ranch hands against each other. There’s also a swindling horse buyer and a gunslinging gambler. It’s a mildly amusing blend of romance and action, a minor effort from Hogan but enjoyable enough.

“Sure Sign of Trouble” is by Donald Bayne Hobart, one of my favorites, and finds a young rancher in conflict with his older neighbor. The twist in this story is pretty easy to spot, but it’s interesting because the final shootout takes place with the protagonist on a windmill platform, just as depicted on this issue’s cover. When that happens, I always wonder if the publisher already had the cover painting and the editor asked the author to write a story to fit it. Hobart is a good enough writer that even though there’s not much to this story, it’s still entertaining.

The last novelette by Nels Leroy Jorgensen I read wasn’t very good, so I was a little wary heading into “Gunflame Survey”, which wraps up this issue. It’s not bad, though. The protagonist is a tough, two-gun surveyor who’s blackmailed into carrying out a phony survey for a land-grabbing villain. Things don’t play out exactly as the bad guy intends, though. Some of the writing is pretty rushed and awkward, and since Jorgensen had been in the business since 1923, I can only surmise that his talents deteriorated some with age. I know all too well how that can happen! Anyway, this story has some decent action and an interesting plot, even if the writing is inconsistent.

I was a little disappointed that there’s no Navajo Tom Raine story in this issue, since I’ve grown really fond of that series, but a top-notch Tombstone and Speedy yarn makes up for a lot. None of the other stories are exceptional, but they’re all entertaining. This one’s worth a look if you have a copy.