Review: The Lotus and the Dragon - Brent Towns

Brent Towns has been highly successful writing Westerns, men’s adventure novels, hardboiled private detective yarns, and World War II action tales. Now he’s moving into yet another genre, the epic historical adventure novel, with his latest release, THE LOTUS AND THE DRAGON.

Taking place in Australia in the 1870s and ’80s, THE LOTUS AND THE DRAGON is narrated by Jack Crowe, a tough, hardbitten protagonist who starts out as a bounty hunter. After being unjustly convicted of a crime, he’s sent to an isolated sheep station to work off his sentence. When that is finally behind him, he starts a freight business, only to run afoul of violence and tragedy again and start a vendetta against a renegade police officer that will last for years.

The rather episodic plot of this novel follows Jack through stretches involving mining, riverboating, and romances with several beautiful women who may or may not be trustworthy. Encounters with various enemies result in him being beaten up, shot, nearly drowned, and left for dead more than once. Those enemies include not only corrupt policemen and politicians but also bushrangers, whoremongers, slavers, and an American business tycoon who ruthlessly takes over the Australian riverboat trade.

THE LOTUS AND THE DRAGON is one tough, gritty book. The action never lets up for long, and Jack Crowe takes enough punishment for several novels but is resilient enough to keep fighting all the way to an ending that’s crying out for a sequel. If you’re a fan of Wilbur Smith and Bernard Cornwell, you really need to check out this novel. It’s the same sort of epic, sweeping adventure and is very well-done. THE LOTUS AND THE DRAGON is one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I give it a high recommendation. It's available from Wolfpack Publishing on Amazon in e-book and paperback editions.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, June 16, 1934

As I've said before, mid-Thirties ARGOSY is one of my favorite pulps. It might be my top favorite if not for the abundance of serials. I love the covers by Paul Stahr, though, and you can't beat the assortment of authors. In this issue, you'll find stories by W.C. Tuttle, Theodore Roscoe, F.V.W. Mason, Frank Richardson Pierce, and Eustace L. Adams, top writers, all of them, as well as the lesser-known Sinclair Gluck and Tip Bliss. Never having read anything by Gluck or Bliss, they may top-notch, too, for all I know. The serial installments are by Pierce, Adams, and Mason, so if I were to read this issue (I don't own a copy), I would probably skip those stories, which knocks out a considerable chunk of wordage, but I'm sure I would enjoy the others.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Complete Western Book Magazine, August 1950

Norman Saunders provides his usual action-packed cover on this issue of COMPLETE WESTERN BOOK MAGAZINE, and as an added bonus, we get another appearance of that iconic trio: the stalwart cowboy (you can tell he's stalwart, he's wearing a red shirt), a beautiful redhead (looks more frightened than angry, but she's definitely gun-toting, although her iron is still pouched), and a beleaguered old geezer (not wounded but in recent danger of being lynched, by the looks of it). And isn't the old geezer a dead ringer for Sam Elliott? Saunders was prescient. There are only three stories in this issue, but they're by good authors: Frank P. Castle, Rod Patterson, and John Callahan. Appears to be well worth reading. I don't own a copy and scans don't appear to be on-line, but I can admire the cover.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Dead Men's Letters - Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner is a long-time favorite of mine. One of his Donald Lam/Bertha Cool books as A.A. Fair, SHILLS CAN’T CASH CHIPS, is one of the first adult mysteries I remember reading, and that was so long ago I checked it out from the bookmobile that came out to our little town every Saturday from the public library in Fort Worth, a practice that ended in 1964 when our town opened its own small library. (I also checked out THIS IS IT, MICHAEL SHAYNE from the bookmobile, the first Mike Shayne novel I ever read. I believe I read other Shaynes and some more A.A. Fair novels from there, as well. But I digress . . .)

Gardner was a very prolific author for the pulps before he ever achieved fame and fortune as the creator of Perry Mason, spinning yarns about a multitude of series characters. One of them was Ed Jenkins, also known as the Phantom Crook, who appeared in scores of stories in BLACK MASK. Despite being branded a criminal, Jenkins was really a good guy who preyed mostly on other criminals, usually when they tried to blackmail him or frame him into helping them, when all the time, of course, they’re planning to set him up to take the fall. Ed always finds a way to turn the tables on them, though.

Six Ed Jenkins novelettes, originally published in BLACK MASK in 1926 and ’27, were reprinted by Carroll & Graf in l990 in a volume called DEAD MEN’S LETTERS. Several of these stories are linked together, a common practice in the pulps of that time. (Hammett’s RED HARVEST and THE DAIN CURSE were both “fix-up” novels put together from linked novelettes.) What surprised me in reading this book was how good the writing is. Gardner’s prose is a little dated and melodramatic in places, but for the most part it’s as clear and sharp as anything being written today. And in places it approaches a sort of terse poetry unlike what you find for the most part in his Perry Mason and A.A. Fair books. Ed Jenkins is about as hardboiled a character as I’ve encountered in Gardner’s work, chuckling after he sends off one of the bad guys to be riddled by machine gun fire in an ambush intended for him by another gang of crooks. As usual, the stories are packed full of plot, and Ed is always two or three steps ahead of not only his enemies but the reader as well.

If all you know of Gardner’s work is Perry Mason, Donald Lam, Bertha Cool, or DA Doug Selby, give DEAD MEN’S LETTERS a try. There’s another collection of Ed Jenkins stories from Carroll & Graf, THE BLONDE IN LOWER SIX, and I intend to read it soon.

(This post first appeared on August 1, 2008. DEAD MEN'S LETTERS is long out of print, but affordable used copies can be found without much trouble. For once, I followed through on my stated intention to read something soon, and I'll be rerunning my review of THE BLONDE IN LOWER SIX next Friday. I hope those of you who are long-time readers of the blog aren't getting tired of these reruns. Enough time has passed that some of them seem like new to me, but then, I don't have the greatest memory in the world, either.)

Movies I've Missed Until Now: Dreamland (2020)

I had never heard of this movie, but the description sounded promising: a Depression-era crime yarn set in the Dust Bowl-blighted Texas Panhandle, with Margot Robbie playing a beautiful bank robber who encounters the teenage stepson of a deputy sheriff.

There are two ways a movie like this can go. Either you get a raucous, AIP/Roger Corman-style, Seventies drive-in epic complete with boobs, chase scenes, Tommy-gun shootouts, and lots of bluegrass music, or you get a leisurely paced, beautifully photographed, moody film reminiscent of Terence Malick’s BADLANDS (a movie I liked a lot, by the way).

Well, DREAMLAND goes the moody, leisurely paced route for the most part, although there are some decent chase scenes and gun battles. The slowly developing relationship between angsty Eugene Baker (Finn Cole, an actor I’m not familiar with) and fugitive Allison Wells (Robbie) after he finds her wounded in his family’s barn takes up the lion’s share of the movie. There are a few flashbacks to fill in the background of both characters. Eugene’s younger half-sister provides voice-over narration from the perspective of twenty years later. Allison wants to escape to Mexico, and of course it’s easy for her to persuade Eugene to help her. Eventually they take off together, banks get robbed, and the law, including Eugene’s deputy sheriff stepfather, pursues them.

The on-line reviews for this one are definitely mixed, with a lot of bad reviews and a few really glowing ones. I can’t give it a full-fledged recommendation, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. The cast, which includes Travis Fimmel (Ragnar from VIKINGS) as Eugene’s stepfather, does a good job. The photography is excellent. The movie was filmed in New Mexico, not the Texas Panhandle, and sometimes you can tell that, but it’s not too distracting. I didn’t spot any anachronisms, but I wasn’t watching too closely for them, either. At least there was nothing blatantly wrong. (That sounds like I’m damning with faint praise, and I don’t intend it that way.)

DREAMLAND is no lost classic, but I think it’s worth watching. And I’ve left what I liked best for last: Eugene is a big reader of crime and detective pulps, and issues of BLACK MASK and DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY are not only featured prominently on-screen, they even play a part in the plot. What’s the last movie you could say that about?

Review: Stripper! - John Dexter (Robert Silverberg)

I’ve probably read more soft-core novels by Robert Silverberg than by any other author except Orrie Hitt, so I’m glad Stark House keeps reprinting them. Their latest double volume is STRIPPER!/NEVER AN EVEN BREAK, and I’ve just read the first of that pair.

STRIPPER! is one of Silverberg’s soft-core novels originally published under the house-name John Dexter rather than his usual Don Elliott pseudonym. The Nightstand Books edition came out in 1960. A revised version was reprinted in 1973 under the title ONE BED TOO MANY and the pseudonym Jeremy Dunn. This was one of the so-called Reed Nightstand editions where the sex scenes were rewritten by some unknown editor to be even more graphic than the originals while leaving the rest of the story alone. The Reed Nightstands are okay if you can’t find the originals, but in the ones I’ve compared (which doesn’t include this one), the first versions were better.

Okay, with that bibliographic digression out of the way, STRIPPER! is the story of Diana DeLisle, the stage name of Donna Hallinger, a young woman from a small town in Maryland. She’s a beautiful redhead in her early twenties who has just been promoted to doing a solo act in one of a chain of strip clubs owned by notorious gambler/gangster Johnny Lukas. Her boss at the club is Mack Gardner. And one of the regular customers is clean-cut young Ned Fawcett. Diana, who is also the narrator of this book, winds up sexually involved with all three of those men and also has actual romantic feelings for both Johnny and Ned. But since this is a book full of crime and criminals, it’s no surprise that she also winds up in a dangerous web of scheming being spun by the evil and ambitious Mack Gardner.

Silverberg tells this tale in his usual smooth, fast-moving prose that’s a great blend of dialogue and action, interspersed with a few flashbacks to give us something of Diana’s history. The sex scenes are plentiful and fairly graphic, but Silverberg does a fine job of integrating them into the plot. Let’s face it, those scenes are a large part of why these books existed, but most of the authors made something more of them, and Silverberg was one of the best.

STRIPPER! does have a late twist that’s pretty easy to predict, and I didn’t find the ending quite as satisfying as in some of the other soft-core books by Silverberg that I’ve read, but I still raced through the novel and had a fine time reading it. Silverberg is one of the most consistently entertaining authors I’ve found, and I’m always happy to read anything he’s written. This double volume is available on Amazon in e-book and paperback editions, and if you’re a fan of these wonderful examples of mid-century erotica (I forget if it was Silverberg or Lawrence Block, another prolific author in the genre, who called them that), I recommend it.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Pirate Stories, May 1935

PIRATE STORIES was a short-lived adventure pulp edited and published by Hugo Gernsback. This is the fourth of only six issues. The cover is by Sidney Reisenberg. Two of the authors inside are prolific and well-respected pulpsters: J. Allan Dunn and Nels Leroy Jorgensen. I hadn't heard of any of the others, who include Norman White Jr., Jack Covington, and Jaques Edouard Durand. This is Durand's only credit in the Fictionmags Index. I wonder if he was really J. Allan Dunn. Nothing to base that on, just a stray thought.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ace-High Western Stories, January 1949

I don't own this pulp, but like most of the Western pulps from Popular Publications, this issue of ACE-HIGH WESTERN STORIES has a good bunch of authors inside and an eye-catching cover. My hunch is that Robert Stanley painted it, but I'm not sure about that. Walt Coburn leads things off, as he so often does, and also on hand are Roe Richmond, Tom Roan, William R. Cox, Eli Colter, James Shaffer, Harold F. Cruickshank, Spencer Frost (whose name isn't familiar to me), and Richard L. Nelson, who's interesting because that's a pseudonym of William L. Hamling, much more famous as an author and editor and the publisher of the science fiction digests IMAGINATION and IMAGINATIVE TALES, as well the founder of the soft-core empire that included Nightstand Books, Midnight Reader, etc., books written by Robert Silverberg, Lawrence Block, Donald E. Westlake, Evan Hunter, Ben Haas, Harry Whittington, and many other legendary authors under assorted pseudonyms and house-names.

Review: Guns of Tascosa - Ryan D. Fowler

Bounty hunters Frank Nolan and Ed Cole find themselves pinning on tin stars for the first time in their adventurous lives as they agree to be the co-marshals of Tascosa, a wild new town in the Texas Panhandle. The respectable citizens are living in fear of outlaw Brett Harding and his gang, and they turn to Nolan and Cole to deliver some law and order and make Tascosa a decent place to live. The new lawmen try to rally the town behind them, but there may be more hidden dangers in Tascosa than the two long-time trail partners are aware of.

GUNS OF TASCOSA is a traditional Western in the very best sense of the term, with stalwart heroes, despicable villains, a little humor and romance, and plenty of well-written action. Author Ryan Fowler, a prolific writer under his own and other names, spins his yarn with a breakneck pace and well-developed characterization.

And then, part of the way through the book, he springs a plot twist that I didn’t see coming at all. This is always a huge bonus as far as I’m concerned because I love it when a book surprises me. Fowler also brings a sense of gritty authenticity to this tale. It’s easy to see that he knows and loves the Texas Panhandle. This is excellent reading for fans of classic Westerns, and I give it a high recommendation. It's available on Amazon.

Movies I've Missed Until Now: The Eagle (2011)

Given my fondness for historical adventure movies, I’m surprised I never saw THE EAGLE, a 2011 film about ancient Romans versus ancient Britons, another favorite plot element for me. Channing Tatum is the new commander of an outpost in northern Britain who carries a family shame: his father was one of the officers in the infamous Lost Legion, the Ninth Legion that marched even farther north and vanished, their disappearance prompting the construction of Hadrian’s Wall.

Now there are rumors that the golden eagle standard carried by the Ninth has been seen being used in religious rites by the savages north of the wall, and so Tatum’s character decides to find and retrieve it, accompanied only by a slave (Jamie Bell) he’s saved from being killed by a gladiator.

Plenty of running, riding, and swordfighting ensue. THE EAGLE is a bloody, violent movie, but the gore isn’t overdone. It uses ’way too much quick-cut editing during some of the fight scenes, a cinematic technique I really dislike, but there’s enough regular action to more than make up for that, and the movie captures a sweeping, epic feel at times that really works for me. There’s a scene involving the surviving remnants of the Ninth that’s great, almost a stand-up-and-cheer moment.

I like Channing Tatum. He usually plays a lovable goofball and does a good job of it. He plays his role in THE EAGLE absolutely straight and turns in a decent performance, although he’s overshadowed a little by Jamie Bell as his morally conflicted sidekick. Donald Sutherland and Dakin Matthews play ancient Romans and are fine as always.

This is kind of an odd movie for me, because in tales like this, my natural sympathy tends to fall more on the side of the Britons than the Romans. But by boiling the focus down to just a few characters, the overall conflict doesn’t matter as much, so I had no trouble rooting for the Romans this time.

THE EAGLE is a well-made film that I thoroughly enjoyed. If you enjoy historical adventure movies, I think it’s well worth watching.