Review: The Case of the Terrified Typist - Erle Stanley Gardner

Any time I feel like a reading funk might be coming on, a Perry Mason novel is a sure-fire way of nipping it in the bud. THE CASE OF THE TERRIFIED TYPIST was published originally by William Morrow in 1956 and has been reprinted in paperback many times since then, like most of the Perry Mason novels. It’s currently available in e-book and paperback editions from Amazon.

In this one, Mason needs to hire a temporary typist to type up a legal brief in a hurry. His secretary Della Street calls the temp agency and tells them to send a girl right over. So, when a young woman shows up at Mason’s office a short time later, everybody assumes she’s the typist. She’s actually really good at it, too. But the reader is going to figure out right away that she’s not really the one sent by the temp agency, and she’s actually there because she’s mixed up in a complicated criminal conspiracy involving smuggled diamonds, an apparent suicide, a lobotomized mental patient, several beautiful women, and an alleged murder even though the victim’s body has been lost at sea.

If you like the courtroom scenes in the Perry Mason novels—and who doesn’t?—this novel is a veritable feast. Except for a few short interludes, the entire second half of the book is a series of one crackling courtroom scene after another as Mason, with the help of Della Street and private detective Paul Drake, untangles the whole thing and exposes the real killer.

I’m not sure Erle Stanley Gardner nails down the plot quite as well as he usually does. There’s at least one hole that’s not really resolved. But Gardner does spring a surprise that’s never occurred in the series up to this point, then neatly uses it to turn everything on its head. Anyway, I’ve long since reached the point where I stopped reading these books for the plots. The plots are just an excuse to watch Mason at work and enjoy the fast-paced prose and the occasional bursts of humor. Plus the friendship between Perry, Della, and Paul is one of the most appealing in fiction. THE CASE OF THE TERRIFIED TYPIST isn’t one of the best Perry Mason novels, but did I race right through it and have a very good time reading it? You bet I did.

Review: Peace at Any Price - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been a fan of Chap O’Keefe’s Western novels for quite a while now. O’Keefe, of course, is actually Keith Chapman, who has been in the genre fiction business as a writer and editor for a long time. His novel PEACE AT ANY PRICE is set in Texas in the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, fertile ground for many great Western yarns over the years.

Actually, this one starts during the war, as ranchers Jim Hunter and Matt Harrison dissolve their partnership after their herd is rustled and their barn and bunkhouse are burned down. Jim supports the Confederacy and Matt the Union, so they each go off to join those respective armies, although unlike some friends who found themselves on opposite sides, their parting is amicable.

Instead of fighting in the regular army, Jim finds himself riding with a group of irregulars and involved in smuggling across the Mexican border. After the war, when Jim returns to the small town in South Texas near the ranch he and Matt established, he finds that Matt is back, too, trying to get the ranch up and running again—but Matt has also married the girl Jim was in love with. Jim can’t stay, so he goes off and gets mixed up with the smuggling gang again, but circumstances keep dragging the fates of the former partners together.

The plot and tone of this novel remind me of some of the classic Gold Medal Westerns from the Fifties and Sixties. Femme fatales, double crosses, and a gritty, noirish feel make it a very entertaining tale. And for someone who’s never actually been to Texas, O’Keefe really nails the Gulf Coast setting, including a humdinger of a hurricane that’s very realistic. PEACE AT ANY PRICE really races along and I had a fine time reading it. If you’re a fan of traditional Westerns, I think there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it a lot, as well. It’s available on Amazon in paperback and e-book editions.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Famous Detective Stories, June 1954

The cover on this issue of FAMOUS DETECTIVE STORIES is by Norman Saunders, and he's by far the best known name involved with this issue. The lead novella is by Wilbur S. Peacock, a fairly prolific pulp author and editor, but the other stories are by writers I'm not familiar with: Norman Ober, Marc Millen, Gene Rodgers, and Wallace McKinley. None of these are known to be pseudonyms or house-names, but they don't ring any bells for me, either. The cover is okay, but I'm not sure if I would have gambled a quarter on this one if I'd seen it on the stands back in 1954. (I was alive when this issue was on the stands, but since I was only a year old, I doubt if I'd have been reading it anyway.)

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Gun-Swift Western, September 1938

This is a pretty obscure Western pulp. I don't know how many issues there were, since only one has been indexed on the Fictionmags Index. This is Volume 1, Number 5. Nor do I know who painted the cover. But the group of authors inside is a decent one: Ed Earl Repp, J.E. Grinstead, Hapsburg Liebe, Carmony Gove, and Clem Yore. Those hombres generally knew what they were writing about.

UPDATE: On Facebook, John Locke provided some information from the magazine AUTHORS & JOURNALISTS about GUN-SWIFT WESTERN and its editor/publisher (?) Z.S. Sklar. From the October 1939 issue:

Who Is Z.S. Sklar?

Col. John J. Boniface, who writes under the pseudonym of Wilton West and various others for the adventure magazines, sends us a heavy sheaf of correspondence which he defines as a serial entitled, "The Mystery of Z.S. Sklar."

The opening installments of this engrossing serial relate to the call of a magazine entitled Gun-Swift Western, of 19 Avon Place, Springfield, Mass., for manuscripts. The call brought a manuscript last spring from Col. Boniface under one of his pennames, Gordon Strong. Not hearing from the manuscript, the author wrote several letters of inquiry, which were never answered, although the letters were not returned. The Railway Express Agency, in whose hands the matter then was placed, had no better luck, reporting: “Unable to contact the party.”

THE AUTHOR & JOURNALIST, writing in behalf of the author, had a little better luck. In response to its inquiry, came a brief typewritten note: “Magazine has been discontinued.--Z.S. Sklar.”

Acting on this information, the author put the matter into the hands of the post office department. Though declining to take action, the inspector at Boston, Mass., informed him that other writers had complained, and reported that their manuscripts were later returned by the Double-Action Publishing Co., of New York. But Cliff Campbell of the D-A group reported when queried that he had no record of the yarn.

Final appeal was made to the police department of Springfield--and here the mystery not merely persisted, but deepened. Quoting from the letter of John L. Maloney, chief of police:

“While I have caused a thorough investigation to be made, I am unable to locate Z.S Sklar or the Gun-Swift Western magazine at 19 Avon Place, this city. Inquiries were made of the janitor of the above-mentioned address, which is an apartment block in the residential section, who informed our investigating officer that Sklar or this magazine company which you mention has never been located at that address. Inquiries were also made of the letter carrier who delivers mail in this district, who states that he has never delivered mail to Sklar at 19 Avon Place. He is not receiving mail at our local post office. His name does not appear in our city or telephone directory.”

Evidently it all never happened--but others who are in like position must join the author in wondering how come that the magazine did receive manuscripts at that address, return some, and contrive that others were returned through the Double-Action group. We hate to see a masterly and persistent job of sleuthing for a lost manuscript, such as that conducted by Col. Boniface, end up in a blind trail.

 
From the November 1939 AUTHOR & JOURNALIST:

 
Responding to the editorial in our last issue, relating to the mystery of Gunswift Western and Z.S. Sklar, Louis H. Silberkleit, president of Winford Publications, Inc., writes: “Gunswift Western was not connected in any way with the Double Action Group. It so happens that when the magazine was discontinued, the editor, who certainly did run his business from 19 Avon Place, Springfield, Mass., approached us for a job, and was hired. He asked if we would permit him to have his mail forwarded from Springfield to this office. We said yes. That's all we know about the situation.”

I'm always fascinated by stuff like this, and many thanks to John Locke for providing it.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Altar of Eden - James Rollins

A while back I read James Rollins’ novel SANDSTORM and liked it quite a bit. Since then I’ve been meaning to read something else by him, but his new books have been entries in his Sigma Force series and I’m a little obsessive about reading series novels in order, and also many of them have been longer than I wanted to tackle. I could backtrack to his earlier stand-alone novels, and I still intend to, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

However, his most recent book, ALTAR OF EDEN, is not only a stand-alone, but it comes in just short of 400 pages, which is my entirely arbitrary and often violated limit for how long a book I’ll read these days. So I gave it a try and was glad I did.

As Rollins (whose real name is James Czajkowski) explains in an introductory note, he was a veterinarian before he became a best-selling thriller writer and wanted to write a book with a protagonist who’s a vet. Dr. Lorna Polk works at an animal medical research center in Louisiana and is called on to examine the cargo of a mysterious freighter that runs aground during a hurricane. This throws her back in contact with Border Patrol agent Jack Menard, with whom she shares a tragic past. They discover that there’s plenty that’s odd – and dangerous – about the animals on the wrecked freighter, and that discovery plunges them into an international conspiracy that threatens their lives and the lives of several of their friends.

The real strength of this book is its speed. Nearly the entire book takes place in a span of about twenty-four hours, with the action racing along through three distinct set-pieces. The way Rollins paces the book and cuts back and forth between the characters is very effective. The compressed time-frame means that some things happen maybe just a hair too quickly to be believable, but that didn’t really bother me. I’m not enough of a science buff to say whether or not all the cutting-edge science in the book is plausible, but Rollins certainly makes it sound like it is.

I really enjoyed ALTAR OF EDEN. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a big fan of a lot of modern thrillers, but based on what I’ve read so far, Rollins’ books are fine adventure novels. I’ll definitely be reading more.

(You're waiting for me to say that I haven't read anything else by James Rollins since this post appeared originally on June 1, 2010, aren't you? But I actually have. I read the novella TRACKER, which was the start of a new series related to his Sigma Force series. But I haven't read any of the full-length novels that followed it. In the meantime, ALTAR OF EDEN is still available in e-book, hardcover, and paperback editions.)

Review: The Albino Ogre - Anthony M. Rud (Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 3, 1928)

Pulp author and editor Anthony M. Rud is almost forgotten today, other than maybe for the fact that his novella “Ooze” was the cover-featured story on the very first issue of WEIRD TALES. I admire him because he worked in a number of different genres and was a pretty solid author in all of them.

His novella “The Albino Ogre” is the cover story on the November 3, 1928 issue of ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY, said cover being painted by Howard Brown. It’s a South Seas adventure, all right, just as the cover copy claims. The tale is narrated by an American named Spark Starke (terrible name), a former boxer who is on the run from a murder charge because he killed a guy (unintentionally) in the ring. He falls in with Denmark Ordway Treleaven, a British secret agent of some sort who is in love with Jessie Seagrue, the beautiful owner of a copra plantation whose beautiful redheaded niece Pat O’Hearn also lives with her. Got all that? Den Treleaven wants to save Jessie from the clutches of Pappas the Pink, a giant albino pirate/slaver who has his sights set on not only Jessie but also the plantation she owns. He enlists Spark to help him in this battle against Pappas, and Spark is more than happy to throw in with him, especially after some of Pappas’s minions try to wipe them out in a machine gun attack. Treleaven’s romance with Jessie is complicated by the fact that she’s married, and Pappas has kidnapped her husband and young son to use as leverage against her.

The whole thing is complicated and, yes, a little silly and melodramatic. But that’s in keeping with the times in which it was written, and Rud makes it work by giving the reader interesting characters and almost non-stop action. Chattering machine guns, savage natives with spears, captures, escapes, rescues, sneaking around the jungle, taking over ships, he throws all that stuff in, and as a long-time pulp adventure reader, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Pappas even gets more character development than most despicable villains, and I kind of wish we’d learned more about him.

Speaking of the times in which it was written, “The Albino Ogre” might well offend some readers with modern sensibilities, so consider yourself warned. I’ve never had any trouble accepting fiction for what it is and when it was written, so it didn’t bother me. There’s an inexpensive e-book edition of this available on Amazon, and you can find it for free on-line as well, if you know where to look. It’s the sort of story that H. Bedford-Jones did so well (although HB-J was a considerably better writer than Rud, if I’m being honest) and I had a good time reading it.

Review: Greylorn - Keith Laumer

Recently a friend mentioned the science fiction writer Keith Laumer to me, and I recalled reading quite a bit of Laumer’s fiction with enjoyment back when I was in high school. But I hadn’t read anything by him in many years, so I checked to see what’s available. As it turns out, there’s a free e-book edition of GREYLORN, a novella that appeared originally in the April 1959 issue of the digest AMAZING SCIENCE FICTION STORIES. It also happens to be Laumer’s first published fiction, according to the Fictionmags Index. So I thought sure, why not give it a try?

This is set in the future, naturally, when Earth is ruled by a one-world government and has sent colony ships out into the universe, none of which have ever been heard from again. Some sort of mysterious ecological catastrophe called the Red Tide has struck the planet and wiped out most of civilization except for North America. The government sends out ships to search for their lost colonies, hoping to get help from one of them, but these expeditions fail. As a last ditch effort, one more ship is sent out, equipped with a newly discovered faster than light drive, to try to find the last of the lost colonies. Its captain is Commander Greylorn, who invented the FTL drive and who narrates most of this novella.

Laumer raises the stakes even more by including a mutiny and the first contact with an alien race, a contact which quickly turns perilous. Greylorn has his hands full just surviving this trip, let alone succeeding in his mission and saving Earth.

GREYLORN is cleverly plotted and Laumer keeps things moving along at a nice pace. In some ways, such as the rather shallow characterization and the lack of female characters, it's reminiscent of the science fiction from the Twenties and Thirties, but I like the SF from that era so that doesn’t bother me. This isn’t a lost classic or anything (it’s actually been reprinted in numerous collections of Laumer’s stories), but I enjoyed reading it and it makes me think I should read more of his work. I own several of his full-length novels and maybe will tackle one of them in the reasonably near future.

Review: Twisted Bars - Max Brand (Frederick Faust)

Frederick Faust, better known as Max Brand, is one of those authors I’ve been reading for more than 60 years, and I suspect I’ll continue to read his work for as long as I’m around. TWISTED BARS, currently available from Amazon in e-book and paperback editions, reprints three pulp novellas: “The Duster”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 2, 1929; “Twisted Bars”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 16, 1929; and “The Duster Returns”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 30, 1929.

Although they were published originally as individual novellas, these stories flow right from one into the next and actually form a novel. It’s narrated by a middle-aged cowboy named Baldy Wye, who works on a spread near the town of Christmas. When he hears that the notorious outlaw known as The Duster has shown up in town, Baldy indulges his curiosity and goes to see the famous desperado. The Duster has come to Christmas not to commit some daring crime, though. Instead, what he wants is to bury the ashes of his former partner, Hector Manness, in the local cemetery. Manness, mortally wounded by a posse, had asked The Duster to have him buried there. Unfortunately, the local minister is adamant that a criminal like Manness will never be laid to rest in the church’s graveyard.

The Duster sets out to change the minister’s mind, and the result is a dramatic story but one that’s almost totally lacking in action. That lack is a continuing problem in this book. There’s a bank robbery in the second story that’s very well done, and of course, everybody blames The Duster, but is he really guilty? In the third story, The Duster and the minister’s daughter have fallen in love, but in order to win her hand in marriage, he has to prove that he’s actually gone straight and given up his outlaw ways. There’s a twist that most readers will see coming, but it’s still effective and raises the stakes nicely.

The stories in TWISTED BARS are very well-written. Faust could turn a phrase with great skill, and he was one of the best at tormenting his protagonists and creating a lot of psychological drama. But most of this book consists of people sitting around and talking, and there’s very little of the action for which Faust is also famous. I think this is a very minor entry in his work, and if you haven’t read him before, I sure wouldn’t start here. If you’re a fan and just enjoy the way he writes, it’s worth reading, but don’t expect it to be in the top rank of his yarns.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, October 1948

A pegleg, a pith helmet, a pistol, a dagger, and a dead body! You don't get much more adventure pulp than this cover by Peter Stevens on, what else, ADVENTURE. This issue is also of interest because it contains the novella "Jewel of the Java Sea" by Dan Cushman, which I assume he expanded into the novel of the same title that Gold Medal published a few years later. Also on hand are Georges Surdez, Jim Kjelgaard, Max Kesler, and William Fuller, along with lesser-known authors Robinson McLean, Ian Lasry, and Richard S. Porteous, who wrote under the odd pseudonym "Standby". I don't own this issue, but if I did, Cushman and Surdez would be enough to prompt me to read it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Famous Western, April 1940

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of FAMOUS WESTERN, but some old friends show up on it: a stalwart cowboy in a red shirt, a good-looking redhead who's getting in on the action, and if you look closely, you can see an old codger peering out the jailhouse door. Is he wounded? I'm betting he is, although we can't tell for sure. There are only four stories in this issue. Two of them are by Anthony Rud (better known for mystery, adventure, and weird fiction, but he turned out some Westerns, too) and W.D. Hoffman, a prolific Western pulpster. The other two are credited to Mat Rand and James Rourke, two Columbia Publications house-names. I don't own this issue, but it looks like a pretty good one. 

Wayne D. Dundee RIP

I'm having a hard time processing the fact that Wayne Dundee has passed away. I knew his health was bad and so I'm not really surprised by the news, but at the same time, the idea of the world without that big galoot in it just seems so wrong. It seemed like Wayne would just always be around. Like Bill Crider, Ed Gorman, Bob Randisi, and Steve Mertz before him, Wayne was a great friend for more than 40 years. He went from being a fine author of private detective novels (seriously, if you're a fan of the genre, you need to read all of his Joe Hannibal novels) to being one of the best Western writers in the business. Early on, he was the editor and publisher of an excellent small press magazine called HARDBOILED; many of us who broke in during the Seventies and Eighties published in its pages and were proud and honored to be there. Years later, I was privileged to edit a number of his novels and always loved working with him. He could flat-out write and was a terrific storyteller. I was never fortunate enough to meet him in person, but we spoke on the phone several times and traded countless emails. He managed to be both a gentle giant and a genuine tough guy. Mostly he was my friend, and I'm going to miss him. As I told a mutual friend this morning, the circle just keeps getting smaller and smaller.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Starhaven - Ivar Jorgenson (Robert Silverberg)

I seem to remember reading an interview with Robert Silverberg in which he talked about reading stories by “Ivar Jorgenson” when he was a kid and later growing up to be “Ivar Jorgenson”. I can certainly understand that feeling, having been lucky enough to write as “Brett Halliday” after reading many, many books under that byline when I was younger.

STARHAVEN is Silverberg’s only novel under the Jorgenson name, originally published by Thomas Bouregy in 1958 and reprinted a year later by Ace as the other half of Edmond Hamilton’s THE SUN SMASHER, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. It’s the story of Johnny Mantell, a beachcomber and bum on the resort planet Mulciber, who has to flee from his peaceful existence because he’s unjustly accused of murder. He steals a spaceship and heads for Starhaven, a giant metal-enclosed sanctuary world where criminals of all sorts, even murderers, can find, well, haven. Naturally enough, on a world populated by criminals there aren’t any laws, so Johnny may have his work cut out just surviving on Starhaven.

Once he gets there, however, he finds himself taken under the wing of the benevolent dictator who runs the place. Unfortunately, he also finds himself attracted to the dictator’s beautiful girlfriend, and then there’s this sinister conspiracy in which he gets involved . . .

This is a pretty simple plot and could probably work as a straight crime novel or a Western with a few changes. But then about halfway through, Silverberg pulls a nice SF-nal twist. It doesn’t come as a big shocker, but it’s still effective, and there’s another good twist later on. And of course, being Silverberg’s work, the prose is very smooth and readable.

I’m going by memory here, but it seems to me that “Ivar Jorgenson” started out as a personal pseudonym for Paul W. Fairman but eventually became a house-name used in the Ziff-Davis science fiction magazines edited by Fairman, as well as a few other places. STARHAVEN may well be an expansion of one of Silverberg’s yarns for the SF digests; I haven’t been able to find out about that. I believe it’s gone unreprinted since this Ace edition.

I’m one of those oddballs who likes Silverberg’s early novels as well or better than his later ones, but that’s because I prefer my science fiction more action-oriented. STARHAVEN is an entertaining yarn, and taken in tandem with THE SUN SMASHER, they make this one of the better Ace SF Doubles I’ve read.

(This post originally appeared on June 11, 2010. STARHAVEN doesn't appear to be in print under either the Ivar Jorgenson name or Silverberg's real name. Which kind of surprises me. Reasonably affordable copies of the Ace Double containing this and Edmond Hamilton's THE SUN SMASHER are available from various sellers on-line.)

Review: Sharpe's Tiger - Bernard Cornwell

My history with Bernard Cornwell’s fiction has been odd. I read THE ARCHER’S TALE, the first book in his Grail Quest series, loved it, and never read any more of them. I read REBEL, the first of his Nathaniel Starbuck series, loved it, and never read any more of them. For a long time, I’ve been wanting to try what’s arguably his best-known series about British soldier Richard Sharpe, but I worried I’d read one and never get back to them. But you never know without trying, and since I own almost all of the series in one form or another, I decided I might as well go ahead and read the first one, SHARPE’S TIGER.

Actually, this is the first Sharpe book chronologically but not the first one published. After the series was well-established, Cornwell went back and wrote several books filling in the character’s early history in the army, beginning with Sharpe being a private during the British forces siege of the Indian city of Seringapatam in 1799. Sharpe, who was a thief before joining the army, is pretty much of a rogue, but he’s a great fighting man and has a core of decency to him. He runs afoul of a truly despicable villain, a brutal sergeant named Obadiah Hakeswill, and is tricked into committing a crime that gets him sentenced to a flogging of two thousand lashes, an extreme punishment that will probably kill him.

However, before the sentence can be carried out fully, Sharpe is picked for a vital espionage mission. He has to pretend to be a deserter, get into the besieged city, and rescue a captured British officer who has some vital intelligence that may mean all the difference between victory and defeat. Failing a rescue, Sharpe is supposed to obtain the information from the officer and then escape.

That’s the basic plot, but while it’s fairly simple, Cornwell layers in some twists and turns that are very clever and still sticks pretty close to the actual history while at the same time giving the fictional Richard Sharpe plenty of important stuff to do. I was really impressed by the way Cornwell manipulated his plot and characters in this novel. To be honest, I thought this book started on the slow side and I was beginning to wonder about the series’ sterling reputation, but when things kicked into gear about a quarter of the way in, I was really hooked and dragged along. I mean, Sharpe fights giant warriors, has to escape from a vicious tiger, and blows a bunch of stuff up. I was really flipping the pages to see what was going to happen next.

There are also epic, very well-written battle scenes, vividly drawn historical characters, effective touches of humor and pathos, good supporting characters, and a top-notch protagonist in Richard Sharpe himself. SHARPE’S TIGER is a terrific book, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. If you’re a fan of historical adventure novels, I give it a very high recommendation. It's available on Amazon in e-book, audio, hardcover, and paperback editions.

And now the question remains . . . will I read more of the series? I’m pretty sure I will, but as always, we’ll have to wait and see.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Adventure Magazine, December 1935

Popular Publications had big successes with DIME DETECTIVE and DIME WESTERN, but DIME ADVENTURE MAGAZINE doesn't seem to have done nearly as well. Maybe the competition from ADVENTURE, ARGOSY, BLUE BOOK, and SHORT STORIES was just too much. But DIME ADVENTURE had some good covers, like this one (pith helmet alert!) by Hubert Rogers, and good authors, as well, such as Luke Short, Carl Jacobi, Samuel W. Taylor, and L. Ron Hubbard in this issue. Also on hand were lesser-known authors Alexander Key, John Amid, Donald S. Aitken, Gerald V. Stamm, and Arnold Jeffers. Admittedly, out of those last five guys I only vaguely remember seeing the names of Key and Aitken on pulp TOCs, and I don't think I've read anything by them. Looking at the listings of the other issues in the Fictionmags Index, that seems to be a trend: two or three well-known authors and half a dozen from the lower ranks of pulpsters. That may well explain why DIME ADVENTURE MAGAZINE didn't run as long as its fellow magazines from Popular Publications.