Three Star Books

Steve Mertz comments below about that Jerry Cotton book I read, and that prompted me to do a little digging into the publisher, Three Star Books of Chicago. A search on ABE turns up two more books they published: an anthology called GREAT SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Tony Licata and including stories by Ray Bradbury, Fredric Brown, Avram Davidson, L. Sprague de Camp, Arthur C. Clarke, Arthur Porges, Lester del Rey, and Brad Steiger; and IAN FLEMING'S INCREDIBLE CREATION, consisting of "Part I: My Friend Ian Fleming, by Paul Anthony (Fleming's drinking partner), and Part II: The World of James Bond, by Jacquelyn Friedman, an analysis of Fleming's work and of his character James Bond". Throw in the Jerry Cotton book, and that's a really odd trio. Three Star Books was a division of Camerarts Publishing Company, which also produced Merit Books, the publisher of most of Ennis Willie's novels. (For more on Ennis Willie, see recent installments of Ed's Place, as Steve also mentions.)

I'm reading a 1936 ARGOSY serial by H. Bedford-Jones called "River Devil", in which Mike Fink plays a prominent role. I've been a fan of Mike Fink fiction since watching "Davy Crockett and the River Pirates" as a kid. For a more recent Mike Fink novel, look for a copy of Kerry Newcomb's excellent CALL DOWN THUNDER, published several years ago by Harper Paperbacks.