Don Pendleton and P.C. Wren

Some interesting comments on the previous post, so I thought I'd address them here.

Bill, thanks for the kind words regarding the World War II books. I just wish I'd gotten to write more of them.

Aaron, I have those other two Don Pendleton science fiction novels you mention but have never read them. I remember reading the first dozen or so Executioner novels while I was in college and getting completely caught up in them. I still remember staying up all night reading MIAMI MASSACRE, which I think is the fourth in the series. I eventually read all the ones that Pendleton wrote. Later I read and enjoyed very much several of his novels about private eye Joe Copp. He wrote another mystery series about a detective named Ashton Ford, but I never read any of those. Seems like they had some sort of paranormal angle to them, if I'm remembering correctly.

Juri, thanks for the info on John D. Newsom. I didn't know anything about him other than seeing his name on pulp covers.

Frank, glad you mentioned P.C. Wren, the best-known Foreign Legion author of all. About 25 years ago, I ripped through BEAU GESTE, BEAU SABREUR, and BEAU IDEAL one after the other and had a great time reading them. I liked even better one of his non-series novels called THE SNAKE AND THE SWORD, which I believe was set in India. As good as the movie of BEAU GESTE is, the books are even better. I need to read more of Wren's work. I don't think Robert Carse wrote any Foreign Legion novels, but Georges Surdez did, as well as many pulp stories on the subject. In the Eighties, Starmont House published TOUGHEST IN THE LEGION, a good collection of Theodore Roscoe's Thibault Corday stories from ARGOSY. You can still find copies for sale on-line, but they're pricey.

Speaking of Robert Carse, he wrote the novelization of MORGAN THE PIRATE, the early Sixties Italian pirate movie starring Steve Reeves, and it's a pretty good swashbuckler, as both book and movie.