Review: The Corrupters - William Francis

One of my favorite types of hardboiled novel is the one where the protagonist takes on the organization of a crooked boss who runs the whole town. That’s the basic set-up of THE CORRUPTERS by William Francis, published originally by Lion Books and coming soon in a new reprint edition from the fine folks at Black Gat Books.

The narrator/protagonist of THE CORRUPTERS is Mike Moyden, a former cop in an unnamed city four hours up the coast from Los Angeles. Framed with a bribery charge because he made enemies, he was kicked off the force five years earlier and moved to Texas, where good luck made him a fortune in the oil business. Now he’s come back to his hometown because his ex-wife has been charged with murder. She’s a nightclub singer and has been arrested for killing the owner of the club where she worked, who happens to have been the younger brother of the town boss. She was also the guy’s mistress, rumor has it. Mike’s feelings about her are conflicted, but he believes she’s no killer and doesn’t want to see her railroaded for a crime she didn’t commit.

We’ve all read enough of these books to have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen. Mike charges around poking his nose in where it’s not wanted, he meets some good-looking dames including a newspaper reporter who’s sort of an old flame, and he clashes repeatedly with gangsters, goons, and brutal cops. Oh, and he stumbles over dead bodies. Lots and lots of dead bodies. I kind of lost count of how many murders there are in this book, over and above the one that kicks off the action, but the corpses definitely pile up before Mike sorts out the whole complicated plot.

Familiar it may be in some respects, but man, THE CORRUPTERS is fun to read. I’d never heard of William Francis, let alone sampled any of his books, but he spins this yarn in a fast-moving, tough yet breezy style that’s a pure pleasure to read. This is the kind of book I grew up reading, and I enjoyed it a lot and give it a high recommendation for hardboiled fans. You can pre-order the Black Gat edition on Amazon.

Review: The Outlaw and the Lady - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

THE OUTLAW AND THE LADY by Chap O'Keefe (really our friend Keith Chapman) was published originally by Robert Hale in 1994 as part of Hale's Black Horse Western line. It's now available in newly revised e-book and paperback editions that include an entertaining foreword about how this book almost became a movie.

THE OUTLAW AND THE LADY is certainly deserving of finding a whole new audience of Western readers. The protagonist is Tod Larraby, a former Confederate guerrilla who rode with Quantrill until he got sick of the violence and bloodshed. Although he tried to go straight after the war, he was charged unfairly with crimes he didn't commit and has spent nearly twenty years on the dodge, growing wearier all the time. Because of his status as an outlaw, he has to take whatever jobs he can, so when he's blackmailed by a corrupt lawman into helping an English nobleman find his missing son, Larraby is forced to shoulder this dangerous chore. It's made even more hazardous by the fact that the Englishman insists on coming along on the quest and bringing his beautiful young wife with him.

Chapman's work continues to remind me of the hardboiled Westerns published by Gold Medal during the Fifties and Sixties, and this one also has echoes of the early Lassiter novels by "Jack Slade" (really W.T. Ballard, Ben Haas, and Peter Germano, among others). The plot moves along at a suitably brisk pace, and the action scenes have a nice gritty feel to them. Larraby is a good hero, too, world-weary but not so full of angst that it leads to an excess of navel-gazing. As always, Chapman includes some effective twists and complications in the plot.

THE OUTLAW AND THE LADY is lean, fast, and very entertaining, and as usual when I finish a Chap O'Keefe book, I'm eager to read more. If you're a Western fan I think you'll enjoy it, too.

(An earlier version of this review appeared on March 11, 2012. Keith Chapman is doing a fine job of making his novels available again, and Western readers who haven't yet discovered his work definitely need to check out his books. The Amazon links for this one are above, and you can find it for all the other platforms here.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, April 1951

Even late in the pulp era, you could still find some mighty good reading in the magazines that remained. This issue of DETECTIVE TALES features stories by John D. MacDonald, Hugh B. Cave, Cornell Woolrich, and Leslie Turner White, along with lesser-known authors Dan Gordon, Don James, and P.B. Bishop. Granted, the Cave, Woolrich, and White stories are reprints from DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, but hey, if you've never read a story before, it's as good as new to you, right? I don't know who painted this cover, but it's pretty effective, too.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Golden West Magazine, February 1937

That's a pretty graphic clinch for a Western romance pulp cover. It was painted by Harry Fisk, who did several dozen pulp covers and interior illustrations. I wasn't familiar with his name or work, but he seems to have been a decent artist. This incarnation of GOLDEN WEST MAGAZINE didn't last very long, only half a dozen issues in 1936 and '37. There's a later GOLDEN WEST ROMANCES from the Thrilling Group, but it also ran for only six issues in 1949 and '50. But to get back to this one, there are only four stories in it, three of them by fairly well-known Western authors: Charles M. Martin, W.D. Hoffman, and Kenneth Sinclair. The fourth story is by Lulita Crawford Pritchett, who published quite a few stories in RANCH ROMANCES among other Western romance pulps. I don't recall ever hearing of her, though. I was curious enough to do a little investigating and found that there's a website devoted to her and her work. Pretty interesting stuff, too. You never know what you're going to find when you start looking into the backgrounds of some of these pulp authors.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Slice of Hell - Mike Roscoe (John Roscoe and Mike Russo)

During the Fifties, following the huge success of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels, everybody was looking for more books in the same vein, including Spillane’s own publisher. Mike Roscoe contributed to the cause by writing five novels featuring tough Kansas City private eye Johnny April. One difference is that “Mike Roscoe” is actually a pseudonym for two real-life private investigators, John Roscoe and Mike Russo. And to me, “his” work seems to be influenced not so much by Spillane, but by the author some people consider an influence on Spillane as well: Carroll John Daly.

SLICE OF HELL is the first Mike Roscoe book I’ve read, although it’s the middle book in the series. In this one, Johnny April is hired to leave his usual Kansas City stomping grounds and go to San Francisco to investigate a crooked trucking company executive who’s rumored to be on the verge of expanding his operation to Kansas City. Since he’s going to San Francisco anyway, Johnny takes on another case that has come his way, a low-paying job for an elderly woman who wants him to arrange a funeral for a friend of hers who has just passed away.

Well, you don’t have to have read many of these books to know that those two cases are going to wind up being connected. The predictability of the plot is one of this book’s failings. So is the overall thinness of the story. And a lot of the tough guy dialogue doesn’t really resemble anything that might actually come out of a human mouth. “Mike Roscoe” has the same sort of tin ear for dialogue that could be found in much of Carroll John Daly’s work.

So why am I recommending this novel? Well, it’s written in an odd, punchy style that takes some getting used to but is very effective once you do. Even the stiff dialogue didn’t bother me as much after a while. And I wound up liking big, dumb Johnny April. (But, Lord, he really is dumb.) The authors keep the pace moving nicely. April has a touch of the same vigilante mentality as Race Williams, and there’s a scene that seems like a direct homage to one of Daly’s stories. Really, that’s a good yardstick. If you enjoy Carroll John Daly’s work, which I certainly do, then you’ll probably enjoy the Mike Roscoe novels, too.

(I'm a little surprised I haven't read any more of the Mike Roscoe books since this post first appeared in somewhat different form on February 6, 2009. Despite my quibbles about the plot, I seem to have liked it pretty well, and overall, I enjoy books with a distinctive voice. I'm pretty sure I own at least some of the other books in the Johnny April series, so maybe I'll dig out one of them. I'm kind of surprised they haven't been reprinted as e-books. By the way, that's a Robert Maguire cover on the Signet edition pictured above. Maguire did some great covers, and this one is very dramatic and eye-catching.)

Review: On the Dodge - D.B. Newton

Jim Bannister rides into the town of Antelope, Colorado, on the morning of the Fourth of July, but he’s not there to celebrate. Bannister is a fugitive from the law, the victim of an unjust murder conviction and a death sentence. But he escaped from jail and is now on a quest to clear his name, and there’s a chance that a man he hopes to find in Antelope can help with that goal.

Unfortunately, there’s a range war brewing in the area, and even though the town is full of Independence Day festivities, trouble is lurking right under the surface and quickly crops up, catching Bannister right in the middle of it.

I’ve been a fan of D.B. Newton’s Western novels for more than forty years. I first discovered them in the late Seventies when he was writing hardback Westerns for Doubleday’s Double D line under the pseudonym Dwight Bennett (his first and middle names, of course). It wasn’t long before I found out that he was also a prolific contributor to the Western pulps and even wrote a few of the Jim Hatfield novels in TEXAS RANGERS under the house-name Jackson Cole.

Eventually, when I became a writer myself, my first Westerns were entries in the Stagecoach Station series, which was created by D.B. Newton, who also wrote a number of them. I’ve always liked the fact that I shared a house-name with someone who wrote Jim Hatfield novels.

In the Sixties, Newton wrote an eight-book series for Berkley featuring a hero named Jim Bannister who was a fugitive from the law but not really an outlaw. ON THE DODGE is the first of those novels, all of which are in the process of being reprinted by Piccadilly Publishing. I just read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Newton drops the reader down at a point where all hell’s fixin’ to bust loose, and I always appreciate an author who doesn’t waste any time getting the story going. Newton is from the same school of Western writing as L.P. Holmes and T.T. Flynn. He uses traditional plots but elevates them to a higher level with fine writing, well-developed characters, and moral and emotional complexity. ON THE DODGE has a real air of Greek tragedy about it, along with plenty of action and a very human and likable protagonist.

I had a paperback copy of the Berkley edition of ON THE DODGE for many years but never got around to reading it. That’s a good thing in a way because now I can read the new editions as they come out from Piccadilly. This one is a superb hardboiled Western that’s available in e-book and paperback editions. It gets a high recommendation from me. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Clues Detective Stories, March 1941

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of CLUES. It's okay, but I'm not overly impressed with it. However, I am impressed with the contents. There's a Race Williams novella by Carroll John Daly, a novelette by Norvell Page, and short stories by Lawrence Treat and Edward S. Aarons writing as Edward Ronns. That's a pretty good lineup!

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, December 1945

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my brittle, battered, and tattered copy in the scan. The dramatic, eye-catching cover, as usual, is by Sam Cherry, who never painted a bad cover as far as I’m concerned, although of course I like some better than others.

The Jim Hatfield novel in this issue, “The Timber War”, has been attributed to Tom Curry, but I believe that’s incorrect. I’m convinced this one is actually by Leslie Scott. The terms “skalleyhooting” and “big skookum he-wolf”, common in his work, are used numerous times. There are quite a few vivid descriptive passages, although maybe not as many as you often find in a Scott novel. My theory is that Scott could always fill a few pages with description when he needed to, but also that whenever an editor needed to cut a few pages, those lengthy portraits of the landscape would be his first target. The plot, which finds a hidden criminal pitting two opposing forces—in this case, loggers and cowboys—against each other for his own benefit, is also classic Scott. To be fair, that’s a common Western plot no matter who the author is. I’ve written a few loggers vs. cowboys yarns myself. But this one, including the villain’s identity and the motivation for his scheming, is pure Scott and easy to see coming if you’ve read as many of his novels as I have. As further evidence, most of Curry’s Hatfield novels feature a proxy hero who winds up with the pretty girl. That happens in “The Timber War”, too, but it’s pretty much an afterthought, not a major part of the plot like it usually is with Curry. That’s my reasoning, but basically it boils down to knowing a Scott novel when I read one, and that’s what I think this is.

But is “The Timber War” any good, you ask? Oh, heck, yeah. Hatfield is sent to get to the bottom of the trouble brewing between Justin Flint’s logging crew and Clyde Cranley’s Double C ranch outfit. Sabotage has taken place on both sides. Tensions are running high and threaten to break out into open warfare. Hatfield gets ambushed a few times, helps out both sides, and figures out what’s really going on. There’s plenty of well-written action, and the pace never lets up for long. It’s formulaic, but nobody ever worked that formula better than Scott. I had a great time reading this, as I nearly always do with his work.

“Tenor on Horseback” is the only credit in the Fictionmags Index for Matt Sprague. Was that a pseudonym, or just the only story that Matt Sprague managed to sell? I don’t know, but I can say that this story about a couple of ranchers getting mixed up with an opera company touring the West is pretty polished and entertaining. It’s a humorous yarn without ever descending into slapstick, and there’s a nice twist at the end. I liked this one more than I expected to.

The issue wraps up with a story by an author I always expect to enjoy, Johnston McCulley. “Merry Christmas, Ranger” is about a Texas Ranger’s encounter with two outlaws when all he wants to do is make it home for Christmas so he can propose to the girl he wants to marry and then resign from the Rangers. The plot is pretty simple, but McCulley executes it very well and his fast-moving prose is always fun to read. The holiday is just a minor plot device; the story could have been written just as effectively without it. But the whole thing is enjoyable, and I’d say it’s another winner for McCulley.

This whole issue is a winner, in fact. All three stories are top-notch, and I greatly enjoyed reading this pulp. It’s well worth your time if you have a copy.

Happy Fourth of July!

I hope it's a great 250th anniversary of our country's founding for those of you in the United States, and a great day for those you elsewhere, as well. This is the Second July 1922 Number of SNAPPY STORIES with a cover by Carl Becker, an artist I'm not familiar with. I've never read or even seen an actual issue of SNAPPY STORIES as far as I recall, and the only authors whose names I recognize in this one are J.U. Giesy and C.S. Montanye. So it's not a pulp in which I have a particular interest except for the covers . . . and this one ain't bad. Again, Happy Fourth of July to one and all!  

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Way Station - Clifford D. Simak

Tucked away in an isolated corner of Wisconsin farmland is an old house that dates from before the Civil War, but it’s strangely unchanged in all that time. So is the man who lives there, Enoch Wallace, who fought with the Union Army in that conflict and is now still alive more than a hundred years later and apparently not much older than when he fought at Gettysburg. Enoch’s secret is that inside the house is an intergalactic transport apparatus, and he’s the keeper of Galactic Central’s way station on Earth.

That’s the set-up of Clifford D. Simak’s Hugo-winning novel WAY STATION, first published in 1963 and reprinted several times since. Simak was a veteran of the science fiction pulps dating back to before what’s now considered the Golden Age of those magazines, and as the pulps faded he made a seamless transition to writing well-received hardback SF novels. Although he wrote some Western stories for the pulps and later dabbled in fantasy novels as well, he’s best remembered for what some have called pastoral SF – stories and novels usually taking place in rural settings, with low-key, somewhat unsophisticated (at least on the surface) protagonists. WAY STATION fits neatly into that sub-category and may well be the best example of it I’ve encountered.

Simak was never a flashy writer. His prose style is functional and plain-spoken, like the people he writes about. In WAY STATION, the story unfolds in a gentle, leisurely fashion, with the main elements of the plot never really getting into gear until about halfway through the book. Most writers today couldn’t get away with that, but Simak makes it work. And once things do start rolling, the scope of the story rapidly expands, with the fate of entire galaxies ultimately at stake, even though all the action takes place here on Earth.

When I was younger, I read a number of Simak’s novels, and while I enjoyed them, he was never a particular favorite of mine. I think maybe I just wasn’t ready to appreciate his virtues. WAY STATION is a fine novel and has dated hardly at all. I plan to read more of his work soon.

(I swear, if I had the attention span even of a six-week-old puppy, I might be dangerous. Despite my good intentions, I haven't read anything else by Simak since this post first appeared on January 30, 2009. I still plan to one of these days, though. Bill Crider recommended CITY to me at least 40 years ago. I'll get to it.)