A Rough Edges Rerun Review: The Hide Hunters - Lewis B. Patten

Unlike most of the Lewis B. Patten novels I’ve read, this one is based on a historical incident, the epic battle between thirty or forty buffalo hunters and hundreds of Comanche, Kiowa, and Southern Cheyenne warriors under the command of Quanah Parker at Adobe Walls in the Texas Panhandle. I think it’s a rule that every Western author has to write an Adobe Walls book sooner or later. It’s such a good, dramatic story, with the buffalo hunters, including Billy Dixon and a young Bat Masterson, standing off what should have been an overwhelming force of Indians.

In this novel, Patten creates a few fictional characters and gives them reasons to be at Adobe Walls when the attack takes place. Would-be buffalo hunter Jess Burdett rescues beautiful Edith Clinger from her abusive husband, who of course follows them to Adobe Walls bent on reclaiming his wife and having his revenge on Burdett. For some reason, a lot of Patten’s heroes wind up in love with other men’s wives, and that’s the case here. He usually has some sort of violent death conveniently befall the husband, freeing the woman to wind up with the hero, but the resolution isn’t quite so neat in this book.

As always with Patten’s work, there’s a good deal of moral ambiguity, plenty of terse prose, and some hard-nosed action scenes in THE HIDE HUNTERS. He gets the history right and does a fine job of portraying the battle itself, so the reader winds up with a very good blend of fact and fiction. I enjoyed this one enough that I’m tempted to read his Custer book, THE RED SABBATH, another historically-based novel.

(It'll come as no surprise to most of you that I haven't, in fact, read THE RED SABBATH in the years since this post first appeared on October 9, 2009. But I still might someday. There's no reprint of THE HIDE HUNTERS currently available, but used copies are out there in the wild and not too expensive.)

Review: Commando #5603: The Buffer - Brent Towns

A while back I read J.E. Macdonnell’s World War II naval adventure novel THE BUFFER and really enjoyed it. Recently I noticed that an issue of COMMANDO, the British series of digest-sized graphic novels about war, also has an entry called THE BUFFER, and it was written by one of my favorite authors, Brent Towns. Well, you don’t have to hit this old boy over the head. I immediately grabbed the Kindle version of that issue and read it, too.

The characters and story are completely different, of course, no relation to Macdonnell’s novel. In this version, the Buffer is Michael O’Rourke, a chief petty officer on the Australian destroyer Norse. O’Rourke has issues with his temper, and whenever the Norse is in port, he’s constantly getting into fights and thrown into the brig by the MPs. He’s a top-notch sailor, though. When the destroyer encounters a Japanese submarine while patrolling and is sunk, O’Rourke and one other sailor are the only survivors. Other members of the crew would have made it if the sub hadn’t surfaced and killed them all with machine gun fire.

O’Rourke and his companion make it ashore on an island where they’re found by an Australian coastwatcher. A team of Australian commandos come into play, too, because they’re on the island to carry out a vital mission. Unfortunately, O’Rourke’s volatile temper endangers not only that mission but all of their lives. Can he get control of himself long enough to keep from costing them everything?

I’ve said it before, but man, Brent Towns knows how to spin a yarn. The pace in this one is almost non-stop, but in the midst of all that action he also manages to create some compelling characters. The art is by Paolo Ongaro and does a good job of keeping the story rocketing along. THE BUFFER is half naval adventure, half jungle warfare, and Towns and Ongaro capture both very well. I had a great time reading it, and if you’re a fan of fast-moving World War II fiction, I give it a high recommendation.

By the way, while I was there I bought all the other issues of COMMANDO scripted by Towns that I hadn’t already bought and read, so there’ll probably be more of these reviews coming up in the near future.

#437

I just sent novel #437 to my editor. I'm creeping closer to 450. This is only my fifth novel this year, a far cry from the old days but still pretty productive. And I'm already making plans for next year. I may be old, but I still have some pages left in me.

Review: A Crooked Mile - L.D. Whitney

Some years I try to read some horror fiction during October for Halloween, and other years I just ignore it. This year I’m kind of in the mood for some spooky stuff, so when I came across this new novella from L.D. Whitney, I didn’t hesitate to give it a try. I enjoyed the prehistoric adventure novella I read by him a few weeks ago, so I had high hopes for A CROOKED MILE.

Set in the early years of the Twentieth Century, this yarn is narrated by the editor of the weekly newspaper in Wilmarth, Nebraska, a small farming and ranching community. It seems there’s a long-running boundary dispute between the owners of two adjoining homesteads, and one of them has hired a surveyor to try to settle the matter. Now that surveyor has disappeared while out on the plains mapping the boundary, and the local sheriff’s deputy sets out to investigate and try to find the missing man. That investigation leads to some strange happenings, several violent deaths, and an explanation—if you can call it that—that’s downright otherworldly.

This is a really good story. Whitney’s prose has a deliberately Lovecraftian tone to it without being a slavish imitation, and he does a fine job of capturing the feeling of the setting and time period. A CROOKED MILE proves that the windswept plains of Nebraska can be just as creepy as New England. I’d love to see more like this from Whitney, who demonstrates that he’s just as adept at horror as he is at adventure fiction. This story is available in an e-book edition on Amazon, and I give it a high recommendation. It’s a very good start to my horror reading this month.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, February 1941

I always think of Emmett Watson in relation to his covers for various Munsey pulps, but he did some work for other houses, too, such as this cover for THRILLING ADVENTURES. It's not one of his best, but it's okay. And the contents look pretty good, too. The lead story is by my old editor and mentor, Sam Merwin Jr. It's always nice to see Sam featured on a cover. Also on hand are Louis L'Amour (with a Turk Madden yarn), Ray Cummings, Rolland Lynch, Whit Ellsworth (before he was the editor of all the Superman titles at DC), and a couple of lesser-known authors, Jack Terry and Clay Perry, who appear to have no connection other than the fact that their names rhyme.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Speed Western Stories, November 1945

I'm pretty sure the cover on this issue of SPEED WESTERN STORIES is by H.W. Scott. There's a little bit of a signature visible at the very bottom of the cover, and from what I can see, I think it matches Scott's signature. And the painting just looks like his work to me. He was the first one I thought of before I spotted the portion of a signature, so maybe I'm letting that influence me. But in the long run, it doesn't really matter, does it? It's a pretty good cover no matter who painted it. Inside this issue are stories by Laurence Donovan, Giff Cheshire, Charles Handley, and house-names Paul Hanna and Max Neilson. Probably some entertaining ones, too. 

Review: Beagle Scented Murder - Frank Gruber

I enjoyed that Frank Gruber novel I read a couple of weeks ago so much that I wanted to read something else by him. It’s unusual that I revisit an author so quickly, but it happens. I picked up BEAGLE SCENTED MURDER, published originally in hardcover by Rinehart in 1946 and reprinted in paperback in 1973 by Belmont Tower under the title MARKET FOR MURDER. Neither of those titles really fit the book, in my opinion, but as for the novel itself . . . man, I loved it.

This is the second of three books in a short series featuring Los Angeles private detective Otis Beagle and his assistant, Joe Peel. Beagle and Peel are, to put mildly, somewhat shady. They’re not above bending the law to promote cases they can take, such as in this novel where Peel approaches a previous client, a man who was a victim of the ol’ badger game, and convinces him that he needs the agency’s services again. Beagle and Peel are just looking for a fast buck, of course, but what they get instead are a couple of murders, trouble with the law, and violent encounters with various gangsters. Joe Peel gets knocked out twice. Otis Beagle gets taken for a ride. Naturally, there are several good-looking dames involved, too.

This is exactly the sort of book I grew up reading and loving, and it reminds me of two other series that are long-time favorites. The pairing of Otis Beagle and Joe Peel is very reminiscent of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, but even more so of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. The writing isn’t as good as Rex Stout, and the plotting isn’t as complex as Erle Stanley Gardner, but BEAGLE SCENTED MURDER comes close in both respects. The main difference is that this book is written in third person rather than first, but other than that, Joe Peel really reminds me of Donald Lam. He does nearly all the heavy lifting in solving this case, despite the fact that Otis Beagle owns the agency.

Another thing I enjoyed about this novel is that part of the plot revolves around a rare dime novel. Now, I’m not much of a dime novel reader and I don’t collect them at all, but I know enough about them to know that Gruber was very familiar with the subject. I didn’t spot any mistakes, and the various comments about collectors put a smile on my face more than once.

In case you can’t tell, I had an absolutely great time reading this book. It’s not in print, and copies of the hardback seem to be pretty uncommon. You can find the paperback, and it’s only moderately expensive. If you ever run across either edition, I’d say grab it. And if you already have a copy on your shelves and haven’t read it yet, I give it a very high recommendation. I’m going to have to read the other two books in the series soon.

Review: Misfit Lil Robs the Bank - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

I’m a long-time fan of the Misfit Lil series by Chap O’Keefe (who’s really our old friend, writer and editor Keith Chapman, of course), so it’s a real pleasure when I come across one that I haven’t read before. MISFIT LIL ROBS THE BANK was published originally in hardcover by Robert Hale as part of the Black Horse Westerns series in 2009. It was reprinted in a large print edition by Ulverscroft in 2010, and now it’s available again in e-book and paperback editions.

Lilian Goodnight’s friend and mentor, army scout Jackson Farraday, is out of town guiding a scientific expedition, so there’s no one around to provide wise counsel when Lil takes up with reckless, hotheaded cowboy Lucky M’Cline. Their misadventures get them in trouble with the law, and some of the upright citizens of Silver Vein, Utah (including a young woman who’s jealous because she thinks Lil took Lucky away from her) convince her father, rancher Ben Goodnight, to turn her over to the care of a French physician visiting the area, Dr. Francois Guiscard. Guiscard, you see, is famous for using hypnotism and other new-fangled treatments to cure females of hysteria and other psychological ailments. Dr. Guiscard, it is hoped, will be able to cure Lil of her troublemaking ways.

I think we all know what’s going to happen here. Guiscard isn’t the brilliant doctor he pretends to be, although he is a master hypnotist. Lil winds up in more trouble than ever and back behind bars, charged with bank robbery and murder. She and Lucky have to break out of jail and track down the real villain to clear Lil’s name.

One of the great things about Keith Chapman’s Westerns is that his writing has a distinctive voice. Nobody else would write these books exactly the way he does. As a result, he always comes up with great characters and plots that spin traditional elements in fresh and compelling ways. MISFIT LIL ROBS THE BANK races along in a fast, entertaining fashion, and I had a great time reading it. If you’re looking for an enjoyable, somewhat offbeat Western, I give it a high recommendation.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace G-Man Stories, October 1942

This issue of ACE G-MAN STORIES features a striking cover by Rafael De Soto. The lead story is a Suicide Squad novelette by Emile C. Tepperman. I've read several stories in this series and really enjoyed all of them. Kerrigan, Murdoch, and Klaw make quite a team, and Tepperman's stories are always fast moving. Another top-notch writer, Day Keene, has a story in this issue, and rounding things out are yarns by lesser-known but prolific pulpsters Don James, Harry Lee Fellinge, and Edward S. Williams.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Fifteen Western Tales, March 1944

Smoking isn't good for you, especially when you have to pause in the middle of a gunfight to roll a quirley. This fine, slightly humorous cover is by Sam Cherry, who always delivered the goods. There are some good authors in this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES. William R. Cox has two stories, one as himself and one under the name Joel Reeve. Also on hand are C. William Harrison, Theodore J. Roemer, Al Storm, James Shaffer, M. Howard Lane, and four house-names: Lance Kermit, David Crewe, Ray P. Shotwell, and Logan C. Claybourne. Often when I'm stuck for the name of a minor character in a manuscript, I'll use a pulp house-name or pseudonym. Or I'll mix and match the real names of pulp authors. Obscure little references like that always entertain me, help keep me sane, and help keep the pages rolling along.