Coming Soon: The Manhunt Companion - Peter Enfantino and Jeff Vorzimmer

Following the success of their great anthologies THE BEST OF MANHUNT and THE BEST OF MANHUNT, VOLUME 2, Stark House soon will be publishing THE MANHUNT COMPANION by Peter Enfantino and Jeff Vorzimmer. This book contains a history of the magazine, indexes of authors and stories that MANHUNT published, plus reviews of every story from every issue. I'm not sure anything like this has ever been attempted before, let alone pulled off in such great style. I may not agree with every review, but they're all entertaining and informative and present a compelling picture of what's regarded (rightly so) as the top crime fiction digest of the Fifties. But MANHUNT lasted well into the Sixties, and Enfantino and Vorzimmer don't shy away from its slow decline, either, although there were still some very good stories to be found in those later years. Overall, if you're interested in crime fiction and/or digest magazines, there's plenty here that you'll find enjoyable and enthralling. I give THE MANHUNT COMPANION a very high recommendation. (And while you're at it, if you haven't read the two BEST OF MANHUNT volumes, I can't recommend them highly enough, either. They're great books.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Crack Detective Stories, May 1946

I think it's the expression on the blonde's face and the look in her eyes that really make this cover work. James Blish (writing as Marcus Lyons) and Tom Thursday are the only authors in this issue of CRACK DETECTIVE STORIES whose names ring a bell, although of course Cliff Campbell is a house-name and could be anybody. But other than that we have Frances Beck and Ken Lewis, neither remembered much today. I like the skeleton hands, and in that situation, I think I'd feel just about as dubious as the blonde looks.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Big-Book Western Magazine, June 1948

What a great cover! I think the art is by Robert Stanley, but I'm not sure about that. The artist has really piled trouble on this guy. Evidently he's being shot at, he has a knife wound in his arm, he's in jail, and he's about to get blown up! What's next? A coyote's going to drop an anvil on his head? The stories in this issue sound pretty darned good, too, with authors like Harry F. Olmsted, Giff Cheshire, Joseph Chadwick, Rod Patterson, C. William Harrison, and Ray Townsend. Like the other Popular Publications Western pulps, BIG-BOOK WESTERN was consistently entertaining.

Forgotten Books: Shootout at Sioux Wells - Cliff Farrell

Cliff Farrell was a prolific pulpster who wrote hundreds of stories, mostly Westerns but a good number of sports stories, too, for a variety of Western and general fiction pulps. His career began in the mid-Twenties and lasted until the end of the pulp era. But he wasn’t done then. In the Fifties, he began selling Western novels to hardback publishers and was still at it in the Seventies, writing new books for Doubleday’s Double D line until his death in 1977. Over the years, I’ve read quite a few of Farrell’s pulp stories and enjoyed them all. I’ve found that he was more inconsistent as a novelist but still produced some excellent work, including SHOOTOUT AT SIOUX WELLS, published by Doubleday in 1973. It’s a top-notch traditional Western novel.

The protagonist of this one is Zach Keech, a Texas cowboy from the Brazos country who’s part of a cattle drive heading for Montana. The herd belongs to Zach’s father (a rather Gabby Hayes-like character), and while they’re in Kansas, the engineer of a passing train blows the locomotive’s whistle and deliberately stampedes the herd, resulting in the loss of some of the cattle.

Angry over this, Zach leaves the drive and heads for the nearest town, Sioux Wells, where the railroad’s headquarters are, determined to settle the score and make the railroad pay for the lost cattle. That could have been a book in itself, but instead, Zach hasn’t been in town long before the local marshal ropes him into becoming an undercover agent and infiltrating a gang of train robbers. That will be the best way for Zach to collect what he thinks the railroad owes to his father, the lawman argues. And that marshal’s name? Why, Wild Bill Hickok. The fact that a couple of beautiful young women are mixed up somehow in the affair helps Zach make up his mind to help Hickok bust up the gang.

The big twist in this plot will be pretty obvious to most readers, and I don’t think anybody will be surprised by the identity of the mastermind behind the gang, either. But man, Farrell has a lot of fun spinning this yarn. Everything perks along nicely, and there’s some good hardboiled action along the way, especially the epic shootout at the end. There’s even some “yuh mangy polecat” dialogue, a nod to Farrell’s pulp origins, perhaps. That kind of stuff never bothers me. All in all, despite being published in the Seventies, SHOOTOUT AT SIOUX WELLS reads like it could have been written in the Forties or Fifties.

I read the Double D hardback, an ex-library edition I picked up somewhere, but this book was reprinted in paperback a couple of times by Signet, too. I really enjoyed it, and if you’re looking for a solid traditional Western, I give SHOOTOUT AT SIOUX WELLS a high recommendation.

Commando: Lords of the Vortex - Stephen Walsh

US Army Nurse Emma Wade was no stranger to wacky adventures but this was a new one... Granted, she hadn't slept in the thirty hours she'd been at the Anzio beachhead, but it was strange indeed that she found herself tagging along with Rek Starlo, a self-confessed galactic avenger. Stranger still, he was determined to vanquish a group of Nazis he claimed were trying to drag Earth into their cosmic war. But was Rek really who he said he was? And -- more importantly -- was Emma?

I admit, I picked up this issue of COMMANDO because of the great Ian Kennedy cover. Also, "wacky" isn't a word I'm accustomed to seeing in COMMANDO sales copy. I mean, some of the stories are a little offbeat, sure, but I'm used to a certain level of grit and realism. "Lords of the Vortex", however, with its tale of an American nurse roped into a galactic war, is just pure goofy fun that never takes itself seriously. Stephen Walsh's script is fast-paced and very entertaining. He's written a couple of earlier COMMANDO stories and, based on this one, I've already bought them. One word of warning: "Lords of the Vortex" ends on a cliffhanger, so if you're expecting the usual stand-alone story, it's not. I don't know when the next part will be published, but I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

Overlooked Movies: The Sapphires (2012)

I’d never heard of this movie until a friend of mine mentioned it favorably, but it has Chris O’Dowd in it and he’s great in THE IT CROWD and GET SHORTY, so I figured it might be worth watching. Turns out, it definitely is.

Set mostly in the Sixties, THE SAPPHIRES is the story of three aborginal sisters and their cousin who form a singing group in Australia, wind up with a washed-up musician (O’Dowd) as their manager, switch from country and western to soul music, and get a job entertaining American troops in Vietnam. Comedy, tragedy, and romance ensue.

The plot of this movie is fairly predictable, but fine acting and great music elevate it into a well above average film. O’Dowd is wonderful, as usual, in a sad sack but good-hearted role, and the Australian actresses playing the Sapphires are all excellent. This is a heart-warming movie, but not in a mawkish sense. I really enjoyed it and give it a high recommendation.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Planet Stories, Winter 1948

I always like Allen Anderson's covers, and this one for PLANET STORIES is no exception. Based on the authors inside, this is a fine issue: Leigh Brackett, Ray Bradbury, A. Bertram Chandler, Frank Belknap Long, Ray Cummings, Bryce Walton, Alfred Coppel, and a couple of lesser known writers, W.J. Matthews and William Brittain. One of the things I want to do this year is read more science fiction. Some stuff from PLANET STORIES would be a good place to start.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, First February Number, 1952

A really nice cover on this issue of RANCH ROMANCES. I think I want to write a story with that redhead in it! I don't know the artist. There's a signature in the bottom right corner, but I can't make it out. There's a great group of writers inside, too: Wayne D. Overholser, Todhunter (W.T.) Ballard, Giff Cheshire, Elmer Kelton, Tom W. Blackburn, and Arthur Lawson. It would be hard to go wrong with that bunch.

Forgotten Books: North Fork to Hell - Dan Cushman

Remember those great, gritty 1950s Western movies starring James Stewart and directed by Anthony Mann? Well, that’s what Dan Cushman’s 1964 novel NORTH FORK TO HELL reminds me of. As the book opens, protagonist Morgan McCoy and his friend Doc Tiller are on the run from a gang of vigilantes after helping steal back some gold from the vigilantes, who stole it in the first place. They run afoul of some Indians and McCoy is wounded in the fight, but they’re taken in by the members of a wagon train heading north for a new town that’s supposed to be founded by their leader, the charismatic Major Garside.

There are several problems with this plan, starting with the fact that winter is coming on, and the wagons may not make it before they’re trapped by the snow. On top of that, Garside is a tyrant, driven half-crazy by ambition and lust, and he and McCoy are both interested in the same beautiful Mormon girl. Some of the pilgrims want to split off and head for the gold fields in Montana, but Garside is determined to keep the group together, even if it means killing those who want to leave. Throw in blizzards, starvation, and more Indian trouble, and it starts to look as if they’ll be lucky to have any of the bunch survive.

Cushman got his start writing Westerns, Northerns, and jungle yarns for the pulps, and he’s very good at handling setting and action. However, in this original paperback, he gets a little too long-winded and literary for his own good. Morgan McCoy isn’t a very likable protagonist, either. The irredeemably evil Major Garside is a pretty interesting character, though, and after meandering around for a while, NORTH FORK TO HELL does develop some nice momentum and suspense in its second half. Cushman has used the theme of the group wanting to split up but being held together by the villain in at least two earlier novels. That gives the book a moral complexity that you don’t find in all Westerns.

From what I’ve read of his work, I prefer Cushman’s pulp stories to his later novels, mostly because he concentrates on the action in them. But I’ve found that his books are always worth reading. He has a distinctive style that takes a little getting used to, but once you do, it’s very effective. Despite my criticisms above, NORTH FORK TO HELL is a pretty good book, especially if you enjoy traditional Westerns that are a little offbeat at the same time. I’ll certainly be reading more of Dan Cushman’s novels and stories.

Commando: The Bayonet Fighters - Eric Hebden

When a man has served for five years in the Foreign Legion you can reckon he knows a thing of two about fighting. Dirk Lassiter had come through many a savage battle, but the grimmest fight of his whole life was against a man who knew just as much as he did -- another Legionnaire!

This issue of COMMANDO, published last year, is actually a reprint of a yarn from 1972. I don't know if that's the original cover, but I really like it and that's what caused to pick up the e-book edition, along with the fact that it's written by Eric Hebden, father of long-time British war comic author Alan Hebden and a really fine writer himself. I'm a sucker for a French Foreign Legion story, but that's only the way this one starts out. The story has some nice scope to it, covering several years and ranging in setting from Libya to Madagascar. As always, a top-notch war tale, and I enjoyed it very much.