The Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction/Bouchercon Anthology

Bill Crider and James Reasoner, Jackson, Wyoming, 1992

As most if not all of you know, Bill Crider was one of my best friends for many, many years, and Bouchercon is honoring his memory with the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction. You can find all the details on this page, but here are some highlights.

Prizes

• First Prize: $1000
• Second Prize: $750
• Third Prize: $500
• Bill Crider Memorial Scholarship: Registration to Bouchercon 2020

Submissions

• Open to all writers regardless of Bouchercon registration or residency
• Stories must be an original work, not previously published, submitted anonymously (as provided in these rules), and without identifiable series characters
• Theme: Deep in the Heart (relating to Texas, whether locale, characters, history, etc.) with an element of mystery or crime

Lots more info on the Bouchercon page.

Also this from Rick Ollerman regarding the convention anthology:

Attention Writers and Attendees of the 50th Anniversary Bouchercon, 2019:

YES, there will be an anthology this year! And yes, you can submit a story for consideration as long as you’re a registered conference attendee! Here’s all you need to know:

– One of Bouchercon 50’s goals is to make the largest charitable contribution in the history of the conference. All proceeds from the sale of the books will go toward that effort! LIFT, Literary Instruction For Texas, works to enhance and strengthen communities by teaching adults to read. And Bouchercon gets to help in that mission this year!

– For a theme, think no further than the conference slogan: Denim, Diamonds, and Death!

–  Original stories are vastly preferred. Absolutely no reprints, please.

– Stories should be less than five thousand words. Approximately. Sort of. But you know writers.

–  The book itself will once again be published by the fine folks at Down & Out Books.

–  The deadline for all stories will be June 1st.

If you think you’ve got the story for the anthology, not just a story, please send it to rick@downandoutmagazine.com. We’ll have the book for sale in the book room with some signings and hopefully we’ll be able to make a meaningful contribution to LIFT as well as showcase some of the amazing talent in the Bouchercon writing community.

I plan to be in attendance at this Bouchercon, only the second one I've ever been to, and it would be great to meet some of you there.

Overlooked Movies: Hearts Beat Loud (2018)

I watched this movie because I’m a fan of Nick Offerman’s droll sense of humor and delivery. He’s one of those guys who’s just funny no matter what he’s saying. And he’s a decent actor on top of it, so I was hoping HEARTS BEAT LOUD would be worth watching, although I’m always a little leery of indie comedy/dramas. They always have the potential to a) not be funny, and b) get too pretentious.

I’m happy to report that HEARTS BEAT LOUD is at least mildly amusing at times, has likable characters, and moves right along with the story. Offerman plays the owner of a vintage record store, a single, widowed dad whose teenage daughter is about to move across the country to go to college. They’re both heavily into music, Offerman having been in a band with his late wife when they were younger, and he doesn’t really want his daughter to leave so he tries to get her to stay and form a band with him. He uploads a song they wrote together and it becomes popular, so he has some leverage to persuade her to abandon her college plans.

That’s pretty much the whole plot, since this movie is mostly about the music and the characters, but it’s done well and comes to a satisfactory conclusion. It’s about music, not writing, but the stuff about being creative resonated with me. I thought a few of the scenes went on a little too long, but that’s a minor complaint. Mostly, HEARTS BEAT LOUD is just a pleasant little film with its heart in the right place. If that’s what you’re looking for, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it.

The Honky Tonk Big Hoss Boogie - Robert J. Randisi

A new mystery novel by Bob Randisi is always good news, and it's even better when it's the first book in what promises to be a fine series. The protagonist and narrator of THE HONKY TONK BIG HOSS BOOGIE is Auggie Velez, a session musician and part-time private eye in Nashville. Auggie is hired by a couple of record company executives to deliver a mysterious briefcase to an equally mysterious stranger in a nighttime meeting at the end of a bridge over the Cumberland River.

Well, you don't have to have read many private eye novels to suspect that not everything is going to go as planned, and sure enough, the mysterious stranger winds up dead, the briefcase goes missing, and Auggie finds himself up to his guitar in trouble with the cops and with whoever is masterminding this twisty scheme. At the same time he has to deal with the life-threatening illness of an older private detective who is his best friend and mentor, which gives the novel a poignant added dimension.

As usual with a Randisi novel, this one features a lightning-fast pace and a dialogue-driven plot. The Macguffin turns out to be a particularly good one, too. Randisi also provides a vivid portrait of Nashville, not only the town but also the music scene there.

I'm glad this is the first book in a series, because I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next case for Auggie Velez. Meanwhile, if you're a fan of private eye fiction you need to check out THE HONKY TONK BIG HOSS BOOGIE. It's available in both trade paperback and e-book editions.

(This post originally appeared in somewhat different form on September 4, 2013. THE HONKY TONK BIG HOSS BOOGIE has been reprinted in new paperback and e-book editions from a different publisher and deserves your support if you missed it the first time around. It's one of my favorite books by Bob Randisi and I'm very happy to hear that the series is going to continue.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Popular Detective, April 1945

Never trust a guy in a powdered wig, that's my motto. I'm not too sure about the guy in the captain's hat, either, and I'm really curious what the heck is going on here. So I guess the cover on this issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE did what it was supposed to. I would've had to pick it up off the newsstand rack and take a gander at the contents . . . where I would have found stories by T.W. Ford (best known for his Westerns and sports stories), Joe Archibald (one of his Willie Klump series), long-time pulpster Thomson Burtis, and Thrilling Group house-names J.S. Endicott and Frank Johnson.

Now Available for Pre-Order: Faraday: The Iron Horse - James Reasoner

The race is on to span the continent with steel rails—and someone is willing to do anything to stop it, even if it means spilling rivers of innocent blood!

Matthew Faraday is president of the Faraday Security Service, a detective agency specializing in work for the ever-expanding railroad empires. Hired to find out who is stirring up the Sioux and sabotaging the Kansas Pacific line as it builds westward, Faraday sends tough young agent Daniel Britten to the railhead, where he finds himself embroiled with surveyors, track layers, buffalo hunters, and a pair of beautiful young women. But there’s a killer stalking the railhead as well, and not only the fate of the railroad but also Britten’s very life depends on him uncovering the truth.

The original version of this epic Western adventure by legendary author James Reasoner has been out of print for decades. Newly revised and expanded, it’s now available again with all the historical sweep and gun-blazing action readers have come to expect from James Reasoner.

(This is the first book in the Faraday series, originally published by Lynx Books in the late Eighties under the name William Grant. Other authors who contributed to the series were Paul Block, Robert Vaughan, and Bill Crider. Robert Vaughan's entries in the series are also being reprinted, and they're excellent books. I recommend them.)

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, August 1946

The cover by Grant Hargis on this issue of WESTERN ACES makes me want to write a story based on it, but I feel that way about a lot of Western pulp covers. The featured story is by J. Edward Leithead, as it usually was during this era of WESTERN ACES, and also as usual, he had a second story in this issue under his Wilson L. Covert pseudonym. Other authors include Wayne D. Overholser, Giff Cheshire, and Glenn Low.

Forgotten Books: The Galaxy Raiders - William P. McGivern

This short novel was published originally in the February 1950 issue of the pulp AMAZING STORIES and reprinted a few years ago as half of one of the Armchair Fiction science fiction doubles. Author William P. McGivern eventually became a very well-regarded author of mystery and suspense novels, with bestselling books and movie adaptations to his credit. He started out, though, as one of the mainstays of the Ziff-Davis pulp line, contributing many stories to their science fiction and fantasy magazines, AMAZING STORIES and FANTASTIC ADVENTURES.

The protagonist of this one is Commander John Storm, a hard-nosed spaceman who was part of a disastrous expedition to Jupiter ten years earlier. Disgraced and drummed out of the service because of his part in that, Storm is brought back because the Earth Federation finds itself facing a dangerous threat that he’s uniquely qualified to deal with. The leaders of the Federation believe that Earth is facing an imminent invasion from the mysterious Galaxy X, and Storm is sent back to Jupiter to establish a base there that will serve as an early warning station and first line of defense.

Things don’t go well, of course. Storm has to deal with a beautiful female stowaway, a mutiny, a threat from his past, and, sure enough, an alien invasion. There’s enough plot here for a modern-day SF doorstopper or maybe even a trilogy, but McGivern never lets things slow down long enough for that. It’s action and conflict nearly all the way.

The science in this yarn is shaky to non-existent. For example, McGivern never even addresses how come Jupiter has a breathable atmosphere. But 12-year-old boys in 1950 didn’t read stories like this for the science, and neither do old geezers like me in 2019. We read them to feel 12 years old again, and in that respect, THE GALAXY RAIDERS succeeds admirably. The cover painting by Robert Gibson Jones does a great job of depicting the Empress of Jupiter and her robot army. In fact, that phrase right there—“the Empress of Jupiter and her robot army”—ought to go a long way toward telling you whether or not you’d enjoy this story. If you think that’s the silliest, stupidest thing you’ve ever heard, this is probably not the yarn for you, and that's fine.

Me, I’ll be over there with my 12-year-old self, sitting on my parents’ front porch and having a great time reading it.

Overlooked Old Time Radio: Here Comes McBride

I enjoy old time radio programs and have ever since I started listening to syndicated reruns of THE LONE RANGER, THE SHADOW, THE GREEN HORNET and GANGBUSTERS in the early Sixties. There are a lot of shows available on-line, and I wish I had more time to listen to them. I may have to start making some time.

The most recent program I've listened to is HERE COMES McBRIDE, which my friend Brian Ritt told me about. From May of 1949, it stars Frank Lovejoy as private eye Rex McBride, who appeared in pulp stories and novels by Cleve F. Adams. I've read and enjoyed some of them but had no idea there had ever been a radio show based on the character. I don't know how many episodes there were, but only one, the first one, appears to have survived.

McBride is actually an insurance investigator based in Los Angeles in the radio version. But as the episode opens, he's in San Francisco on a case, trying to track down a valuable stolen necklace. Unfortunately, he finds a corpse in his hotel room and winds up having to solve that murder, and another that follows it, while navigating the usual troubled waters of nightclubs, crooked gamblers, suspicious cops, beautiful but maybe not trustworthy dames, etc. It's standard private eye stuff but done pretty well, and Frank Lovejoy, an actor I've always liked, is good as McBride. If they had ever made any Rex McBride movies, he would have played the character quite well, I think.

One nice thing about this program is that Cleve Adams is mentioned in the opening credits "above the title", as it were. I always like to see the guy who created something acknowledged. The episode itself was written by someone named Robert Ryf, who wrote some early cops-and-robbers TV in addition to his radio work.

This single episode of HERE COMES McBRIDE is available in several places on-line. I downloaded it here, and you can also just listen to it there if you don't want to download it. Also, SABOTAGE, the first of Adams' novels about Rex McBride is in print from Altus Press, if you want to check out the original version of the character.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, August 1937

It's hard to go wrong with a Norman Saunders cover, but this one is particularly eye-catching, if you know what I mean and I think you do. But of course there's more to any pulp than a beautiful blonde on the cover, and in this issue of TEN DETECTIVE ACES are stories by the dependably entertaining G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Joe Archibald, John H. Knox, and Maitland Scott, better known as R.T.M. Scott, the author of the first two Spider novels. The other authors I've only vaguely heard of. I don't know if the cover alone would have prompted me to buy it if I'd been around in 1937 and had an extra dime in my pocket . . . but I would have had to think about it, at least.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, April 1954

This issue of STAR WESTERN from April 1954 is one of the latest appearances I've seen of that trio who appear on so many Western pulp covers: the stalwart cowboy, the redheaded gal, and the old geezer. Often the girl is toting a gun and sporting a fierce expression on her face. Not so much this time, but the way the figures are arranged, she could have a gun in her hand and we just can't see it. Anyway, this is far past the glory days for STAR WESTERN, but there are still some pretty good authors in its pages: Joseph Chadwick, Will Cook, William Vance, Paul W. Fairman, T.C. McClary, Richard Ferber, and Robert L. Trimnell. A pulp still worth reading, I suspect.

Forgotten Books: Blonde Verdict - Carter Brown (Alan G. Yates)

The original edition

BLONDE VERDICT (the title of the original Australian edition) is the second book in the Lt. Al Wheeler series by Carter Brown, who, as you all know, was really English ex-pat Alan G. Yates. A revised version was published in the U.S. by Signet under the title THE BRAZEN, but the real deal is available in Stark House’s great series of omnibus reprints of the Al Wheeler series, from the start in chronological order.

This is still not quite the Al Wheeler those of us who grew up reading the Signet editions know and love, but he’s pretty darned close. Or rather, Al is the same guy, but his supporting cast is slightly different. He works for Captain Parker, and the police commissioner is named Lavers. In the Signet editions, Al is a sheriff’s department investigator working for Sheriff Lavers. There’s a Sergeant Mcnamara mentioned, but no Sergeant Polnick.

A later, retitled Australian edition

Doesn’t matter. Al is still the same wise-cracking hotshot with an eye for beautiful babes, of whom there are plenty in this book, starting with the blonde Al is with in a nightclub when one of the other patrons drops dead at his feet. Turns out the guy is a lawyer with a beautiful wife who hates him, a beautiful mistress who’s really in love with somebody else, and a partner with a good reason to want him dead. Oh, and there’s the gangster who was being represented by the dead man in a murder trial, and the even bigger gangster that guy works for, and . . . But you get the idea. Lots of suspects for Al to interrogate and cheerfully insult, and plenty of babes to come back to his bachelor pad and listen to his hi-fi with him, as well as giving him an alibi when he’s accused of one of the many murders that take place.

An early Signet edition

It’s hard to believe any book could race by faster than this one. It’s like an early Sixties Warner Brothers private eye TV show several years before there even was such a thing. Great pace, funny lines, a very likable protagonist, and a workable plot. I’ve been reading Carter Brown books for more than fifty years now and still really enjoy them. Thanks to Stark House for reprinting these original editions, and I hope there are many more to come. (A second collection is already out, and a third one is coming soon.)

Later Signet edition with Robert McGinnis cover

Overlooked Movies: Fort Worth (1951)

I remember it was kind of a big deal when the movie FORT WORTH played on TV when I was a kid, because it took place in, well, Fort Worth, 15 miles down the road from where I lived. Not that it was filmed there, of course, although the California locations don't look too unreasonable for the setting. I hadn't seen it in more than 50 years, so I decided it was time to watch it again.

And, of course, it stars Randolph Scott, and I'm always ready to watch Randolph Scott. (At least once in every movie he's in, I hear the line from BLAZING SADDLES in the back of my head: "You'd do it for Randolph Scott.")

Anyway, in this one he plays a former gunfighter turned newspaper publisher who comes back to his hometown of Fort Worth with his partner just in time to get in the middle of a romantic triangle with his old buddy David Brian and the girl they both love, Phyllis Thaxter, as well as efforts to get the railroad to come to Fort Worth and a gang of cattle drivers who don't want the railroad to come in because it'll ruin their business. It makes for a movie that's a little on the talky side, but some nice action scenes crop up along the way. There's also a good supporting cast, with Ray Teal, Bob Steele, and Paul Picerni among the bad guys.

The problem with this one is that the script by veteran screenwriter John Twist has numerous holes in it, and the direction by journeyman Edwin L. Marin keeps things pretty bland. (This was the last movie Marin directed.) Several scenes that could have been pretty good are set up but then nothing really happens.

Despite that, FORT WORTH is a watchable Western because, well, Randolph Scott. He's perfectly cast as the noble, dignified, crusading newspaperman who can still buckle on his guns and be a tough hombre when he needs to. It's a minor entry in his career, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Coming Soon From Stark House: Carter Brown, Volume 3

Al Wheeler was Carter Brown's most popular mystery series, and these are his seventh, eighth, and ninth adventures, reprinted from the original Australian editions. The first two were revised for their U.S. Signet editions as THE BODY and THE BOMBSHELL, but CHORINE MAKES A KILLING has never been published in the U.S. before.

NO LAW AGAINST ANGELS
In which Lt. Al Wheeler investigates the murder of two young ladies--
both of whom worked at the Haven of Rest Mortuary--
both of whom had a tattoo on their upper shoulder in the shape of a dollar sign that turns into a snake--
and both of whom worked at part-time call-girls for the mysterious fellow known as Snake Lannigan, a man no one has ever seen.

DOLL FOR THE BIG HOUSE
In which Lt. Al Wheeler is reassigned to the Eighth Precinct under Captain Bligh in order to--
find Lili Hertz, whose sister has reported her missing--
track her to the big house of Absolem Kirch, despotic owner of a newspaper empire and the man behind a lot of dirty politics--
and crack the kidnapping ring that provides Kirch with the young girls he keeps in his mansion against their will.

CHORINE MAKES A KILLING
In which Lt. Al Wheeler turns in his badge to become a private investigator for a lawyer's firm in order to--
investigate an open-and-shut murder case involving Walter Byrne, friend of the lawyer and now married to the lawyer's ex-wife--
determine just who really did kill the chorus girl, who was also Byrne's mistress--
and figure out who is trying to kill Byrne's wife Myra, while fending off the advances of the man's sexy daughter.

(I'm really glad Stark House is reprinting these original Australian editions. They're fast, funny, well-plotted, and great fun to read. This collection will be out in March and is available for pre-order now.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Skipper, December 1936

You know, I've never read any of this series. Are they any good? With the lead novels being written by Laurence Donovan under the name Wallace Brooker, I imagine they'd at least be entertaining. This first issue also contains back-up stories by Harold A. Davis, Carmony Gove, and Kenneth MacNicol.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Fighting Western, January 1947

This issue of FIGHTING WESTERN is almost all reprints from various issues of SPICY WESTERN STORIES, but among the multitude of house-names can be found stories by James P. Olsen, Edwin Truett Long (twice each), and Laurence Donovan, all stalwarts of the Spicy pulps, as well as pulps from other publishers. And all pretty darned good writers, too, making me think this would be an entertaining issue. The cover is by the prolific and dependable H.W. Scott.

Forgotten Books: Lust Tycoon - J.X. Williams

(This post originally appeared on March 22, 2008.)

This book is almost one of those little gems that you find in unexpected places. Forget the sleaze novel trappings. LUST TYCOON is actually a hardboiled mystery yarn that reads more like a Fifties Gold Medal than a Sixties Nightstand Book. The narrator is Tom Dash, a former New York City police detective who retires because he accidentally killed an innocent bystander during a shootout with an armed robber. Dash buys a wrecked ketch, rebuilds and refurbishes it, and charters it for cruises on Long Island Sound. He’s just begun a casual affair with a beautiful young woman who works for him when she’s murdered. Dash isn’t a suspect in her killing, but when he starts investigating her death on his own, two more murders quickly follow, and the cops do think he committed those. So in classic fashion, Dash has to go on the run from the police while trying to find the real killer.

There’s nothing in this book you haven’t read a hundred times before, but whoever the real author was behind the J.X. Williams house-name, he tells the story fairly well and keeps the pace crackling right along for most of the book. There are some nice turns of phrase along the way and some decent action. The character of Tom Dash bears a certain resemblance to Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder and Donald Westlake’s Mitch Tobin, but the writing isn’t that good. I don’t think either Block or Westlake wrote LUST TYCOON, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual author was published under other names, too.

Reading LUST TYCOON isn’t quite the same as discovering a previously unknown Harry Whittington or Charles Williams or Gil Brewer novel, but it’s pretty entertaining. The plot sort of falls apart at the end, as if the author couldn’t quite figure out how to wrap things up properly. I’m still glad that I read it, and if you happen to run across a copy somewhere, you might consider picking it up.

Now Available: Grip of Death - Len Levinson

Someone is murdering prominent Wall Street financiers in New York City during the first year of the Civil War.  Is the culprit a disgruntled investor?  Marxist revolutionaries?  A Confederate conspiracy to destabilize the Union banking system?

To make matters worse, a crime wave has been engulfing New York City since the War Between the States began, as if that conflict has loosened the darkest passions in the hearts of men and women. Amidst this turmoil, the Detective Precinct is under political pressure to figure out who is killing financiers.  Unfortunately, the best detectives have enlisted in the New York regiments.

Out of desperation, Deputy Chief of Detectives Timothy Flanagan hires a former army officer wounded at the Battle of Bull Run, and a former Southern Belle stranded in the Empire City.  Flanagan calls her his secretary because women can’t be detectives, but she carries a revolver and does actual detective work.

Their investigation takes them from Fifth Avenue mansions to the dangerous slum called Five Points, from Gramercy Park to Battery Park, from fashionable men’s clubs to elegant and not so elegant whorehouses, gambling dens, the glittering Broadway theater district, and the Peyster Street docks where a man’s life isn’t worth a dead fish.

Will the Detective Precinct solve the case?  They dare not fail.  The future of the war and fate of the nation is at stake!

(This is a really top-notch historical mystery, and I'm proud to have published it.)

Back Mask - Richard Prosch

Dan Spalding, former State Police investigator and owner of Spalding's Groove, a vintage record store he inherited from his late brother, is back in BACK MASK, the third novel in this fine mystery series by Richard Prosch. As most of Dan's cases do, this one involves a record that someone wants to get their hands on, an old gospel recording by the former pastor of the local mega-church, who has passed on but left his son, who has political ambitions, in charge of things. In trying to turn up a copy of the album, Dan is attacked, as well as an old friend of his, and he discovers that there may be some sort of sinister message embedded in the album if it's played backwards (the back-masking of the title, which is also clever because some readers . . . coughs, raises hand . . . can't help but think BLACK MASK when they look at that title, BLACK MASK, of course, being the most iconic hardboiled detective pulp of all time).

But I'm wandering off into the weeds here. BACK MASK is the best book in this series so far, with echoes of Ross Macdonald in the plot (secrets of the past affecting the present) and Robert B. Parker in the great dialogue and the characterization of Dan and his friends. Plus the setting, the tourist town of Ozark City, is always interesting. There's also a very good dog in it, always a bonus where I'm concerned. In the short space of a few books, this has become my favorite current mystery series. Reading them in order isn't absolutely necessary, but I'd certainly recommend it. I give BACK MASK and all the Dan Spalding books a very high recommendation.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Fiction Weekly, August 18, 1934

I'll bet Fred MacIsaac's serial (Part 1 of 5 in this issue) isn't as funny as STRIP FOR MURDER, the similarly themed Shell Scott novel by Richard S. Prather, but the title is still intriguing. Just the idea seems unusually racy for DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. Elsewhere in this issue are stories by Cornell Woolrich, J. Allan Dunn, Laurence Donovan, Richard Howells Watkins, and John H. Knox, so it looks pretty good.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Western, January 1953

This is a pulp I own and read recently. The scan is of the copy I read. The cover is by Kirk Wilson, one of the lesser-known pulp cover artists who did about a dozen and a half covers for various Western pulps during the Fifties, as well as interior illustrations for men’s adventure magazines during the Sixties. That’s really all I know about him.

For many years, THRILLING WESTERN was the home of the Walt Slade series by A. Leslie Scott, writing as Bradford Scott, as well as the Swap and Whopper series by Syl McDowell. By this point in its run, those series had dried up and the magazine was publishing all stand-alone stories. The lead novel in this issue is “Satan’s Range” by Joseph Chadwick, and at 55 double-columned pages, it actually is long enough to be called a novel, at least one that could have been published as, say, half of an Ace Double.

Years ago I read some of Chadwick’s pulp novels featuring the Thrilling Group’s series characters Jim Hatfield, the Rio Kid, and the Range Riders, and I didn’t like them much. The writing was okay, but I felt like he didn’t have a good grasp of the characters. So I’ve tended to avoid his work. In recent years, though, I’ve read some of his stand-alone Western stories that I liked a lot better, so it may be he was just one of those authors who’s not cut out for writing series books. “Satan’s Range” is an excellent hardboiled range war yarn that finds the protagonist, rancher Ed Conover, caught between the local cattle baron/range hog and the smaller ranchers in the area, who are not very trustworthy or likable, either. Conover has enemies on all sides, but the situation worsens when he has to testify in the murder trial of a neighboring rancher, who is married to a beautiful woman for whom Conover has fallen, although he’s too honorable to act on his feelings. Chadwick really puts Conover through a lot in this story, and every time it looks like he’s going to come out on top, something else bad happens. I enjoyed “Satan’s Range” quite a bit, enough that I’m going to have to pull some of my Chadwick paperbacks down from the shelves, and I may see if I have any of the hardboiled mysteries he wrote under the name John Creighton.

John Prescott wrote a number of paperback Westerns during the Fifties and Sixties, none of which I’ve read, but based on his short story “The Medicine of Malpais”, he was a pretty good author. This tale of a couple of prospectors in Arizona and their encounters with a band of Apaches is very well-written and doesn’t play out like you might think it would. Prescott does a good job with the narrator’s distinctive voice.

D.D. Sharp wrote both Westerns and science fiction and turned out a couple of dozen stories in his career, but I don’t recall ever reading anything by him other than his short story in this issue, “Tenderfoot Beef”. It concerns an elderly sodbuster put on trial for rustling and is also well-written, but it suffers from never really amounting to much, plot-wise, and reads almost like the first chapter of a larger work.

“If We Die, We Die” by Worley G. Hawthorne has an unusual setting for a Western pulp yarn, the end of the Civil War, as a stagecoach driver faces problems delivering the message that the war is over. It’s an interesting plot and the story has some good action. Hawthorne is totally unknown to me and has only three stories listed in the Fictionmags Index, all around this time and appearing in Thrilling Group Western pulps. I don’t know what happened to him, but based on this story, he had some talent.

There’s one novelette in this issue, Ray Gaulden’s “Me, Gunman”. It’s a bit of an oddity for the Western pulps in that it’s written in first person. The narrator is hired gun Wes Durgan, who’s on his way to a job when he comes across a beautiful redhead taking a bath in a creek. Before you know it, he’s mixed up in a mystery that involves not only the redhead but also a beautiful saloon singer who’s an old flame of Wes’s. He’s accused of murder, and while he’s never in any real danger of being convicted for the crime, he still wants to get to the bottom of things, which he does in very good hardboiled fashion. This is the second pulp story of Gaulden’s that I’ve read in recent months, and I enjoyed both of them quite a bit. I really do need to read some of his novels.

There are also assorted features in this issue, which as usual I skimmed but didn’t really read. The features aren’t why I collect Western pulps, although I do enjoy the occasional poem or column by S. Omar Barker. Overall, this is a really good issue of THRILLING WESTERN. The Chadwick and Gaulden stories are excellent, the Prescott is pretty good, and the other two are reasonably entertaining. If you have a copy on your shelves, it’s worth pulling down and reading.

Forgotten Books: Buz Sawyer, Volume 1: The War in the Pacific - Roy Crane

When I was a kid, one of the comic strips I always read in the “funny paper”, as my dad called it, was BUZ SAWYER, created, written, and drawn by Roy Crane, although as was often the case, Crane had the assistance of other writers and artists in producing the strip. (I didn’t know or care about any of that at the time.)

When I was reading it, BUZ SAWYER was an adventure strip featuring a lot of international intrigue, but when it started in 1943, it was a war yarn, as you might expect. Buz Sawyer is a young Navy pilot who flies a Douglass SBD Dauntless dive bomber off the aircraft carrier Tippecanoe in the South Pacific, along with his rear gunner/radioman Rosco Sweeney. After a few dogfights with Japanese Zeros, Buz and Sweeney are shot down and wind up on a Japanese-occupied island, along with a German planter who owned a plantation there before the war and his beautiful American stepdaughter (the first of many beautiful girls to be featured in this comic strip).

Another stretch of air combat follows, and in one of the dogfights, Rosco Sweeney is wounded and winds up in the hospital at Pearl Harbor. Buz is picked to fly a captured Japanese Kate bomber on a secret mission to deliver an American intelligence officer to a Japanese-held island. Of course, once they get there everything goes wrong and Buz winds up in a lengthy storyline involving a guerrilla band led by a beautiful young woman known as the Cobra. (As a jealous buddy comments, Buz can stumble on a beautiful babe no matter where he is or what he’s doing.)

Following that adventure, Buz is sent stateside for a 30-day leave and returns home to Willow Springs, U.S.A., taking a now recuperated Rosco Sweeney with him. He winds up in a romantic triangle with a local society deb who’s long had her eye on him and figures they’re going to get married, and the tomboyish girl next door who’s grown up into a lovely young woman. Nothing is resolved before Buz’s leave is up and he’s sent to a base in California to train on some new torpedo bombers before returning to combat status. He also runs afoul of a tyrannical new commanding officer, and things are complicated even more by a visit from the society girl who’s still after him.

After that it’s more combat and some harrowing adventures, all the way to the end of the war and the unexpected return of an old friend . . . or is that an old enemy?

This is an excellent collection of a comic strip that’s faded from most people’s memory. Roy Crane has often been compared to Milton Caniff, and there are definite similarities in the use of light and dark, the beautiful women, the exotic locations, the unmistakable air of high adventure. I still prefer Caniff—TERRY AND THE PIRATES will never be topped as an adventure strip—but Crane is very, very good and may be Caniff’s equal in the military stuff. I was a little surprised that the homefront storyline turned out to be my favorite in this volume. Sure, the plotting is a little hokey and predictable, pure soap opera, but Crane makes it work extremely well, thanks to some great dialogue and characterization. Those strips really capture the era and form a wonderful piece of Americana.

There are several more volumes in this series, and I’m thinking I’ll read at least one more of them and maybe the whole run if the quality holds up. If you’re a comic strip fan and have never checked out BUZ SAWYER, or if you read the strip decades ago and remember it fondly, like me, I give this first volume a very high recommendation.