The D.C. Man #1: Top Secret Kill - James P. Cody (Peter T. Rohrbach)

I vaguely remember seeing copies of the original editions of the D.C. Man series in used bookstores back in the Seventies, but I never bought or read any of them. I guess they just didn’t stand out enough from the many, many men’s adventure and mystery series being published then. But they resurfaced a few years ago when my friend Tom Simon of the Paperback Warrior website and podcast became interested in them and decided to find out the true identity of the author of those four novels, who was by-lined as James P. Cody. (To digress for a moment, I was asked once by a fan if I was James P. Cody, given my first name and the fact that the protagonist of my first novel is named Cody. I answered honestly that I had nothing to do with those books and hadn’t even read them.)

Well, to sum up what you can read in Simon’s entertaining and informative introduction to these new reprints of the series, “James P. Cody” turned out to be Peter T. Rohrbach, a former Catholic priest from Washington, D.C., who left the priesthood, married and had a daughter, and wrote the four novels in the D.C. Man series as well as numerous works of non-fiction. Simon’s investigation into the author led, in turn, to the series being reprinted by Brash Books, and that led to me reading the first novel, TOP SECRET KILL, fifty years after it was first published.

The D.C. Man is Brian Peterson, former football player and member of Army Intelligence. Having married the daughter of a politician, he becomes a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., only to have his comfortable life shattered by tragedy when his wife and infant daughter are killed in a car crash. After a period of mourning and generally going to seed, Peterson resumes his career as a lobbyist, only he has a sideline now: he's a fixer for anybody who has an embarrassing and/or dangerous problem they need taken care of discreetly. And since he operates in Washington, there’s never a shortage of dangerous jobs for Peterson to take on. This set-up allows him to put his physical toughness and his investigative background to work.

All this is back-story, which Rohrbach takes a while to set up, but he does it painlessly enough that it’s easy to keep reading. Peterson, who narrates the story in first-person, has been a behind-the-scenes troubleshooter for a while when TOP SECRET KILL opens. After a brief sequence to set the stage and show us Peterson in action, he’s hired by a senator to investigate a leak in a committee dealing with military expenditures. This serves as a fairly low-key Macguffin, since the whole thing doesn’t really amount to any sort of earth-shaking threat, but it works well enough to get Peterson involved in some tough-guy stuff and a couple of murders. There’s also a beautiful blonde along the way to liven things up for him.

As you can tell from that description, TOP SECRET KILL is pretty much a private eye yarn in everything but name. As such, it reminds me of a couple of other tough guy series set in Washington, Stephen Marlowe’s Chester Drum novels (and Drum actually is a private eye) and the Steve Bentley novels by E. Howard Hunt writing as Robert Dietrich (Bentley is a two-fisted CPA). Rohrbach wasn’t as polished a writer as Marlowe or Hunt, but he spins this yarn in entertaining fashion and it moves along quite nicely once everything is in place. I enjoyed this one enough that I’m sure I’ll read the other novels in the series, and if you’re a fan of Seventies men’s adventure or hardboiled detective fiction, I certainly recommend getting to know the D.C. Man. This one is available in paperback and e-book editions from Amazon, as are the others in the series.

The Flying Z - Leo W. Banks

Leo W. Banks is the author of two critically acclaimed thrillers featuring former professional baseball player turned trailer park owner Whip Stark, DOUBLE WIDE and CHAMPAGNE COWBOYS, and a stand-alone about politics, crime, and corruption called ,45-CALIBER PERFUME. All of them are set in Arizona, as is his fourth novel THE FLYING Z, which also happens to be the first book I’ve read by Banks.

As you might or might not guess from the title, the Flying Z is the name of a ranch. Specifically, a ranch not far above the Arizona/Mexico border which has been home to the Zachary family for generations. Will Zachary and his uncle Buck, along with a colorful cast of friends and employees, are trying to keep it going despite a bad economy and the growing encroachments of drug smugglers working for the Mexican cartels. Then one day, a beautiful young grad student driving across the country to Stanford decides to follow an Arizona dirt road looking for a brief adventure and finds much more than she bargained for, turning Will Zachary’s life upside down in the process.

That’s the set-up. So what does THE FLYING Z turn into from there? Is it a romance? Well, not exactly, although the love story between Will Zachary and Merry O’Hara is at the heart of it and is handled with skill and sensitivity. Is it a modern-day Western? That’s a little closer, since there’s plenty of ridin’ and shootin’ and cowboyin’. Is it a crime thriller? I suppose, since Will’s violent clashes with the cartel and uncovering the identity of a murderer all play important parts in the plot. Or is it maybe a fantasy, since some things that have no reasonable explanation are crucial to how everything turns out? In a lot of scenes where Banks is writing about life on the ranch and in the nearby small town, THE FLYING Z reads very much like a mainstream literary novel because of his deft touch with character, setting, and dialogue.

I don’t know, and with some books, such questions are more for marketing purposes than anything else. I can tell you what I think THE FLYING Z is.

It's one of the best books I’ve read this year. You should read it. It's available in paperback and e-book editions.

Check 'Em Out: Outrage at Blanco and Texas Vigilante - Bill Crider

OUTRAGE AT BLANCO 

It’s True Grit meets Gran Torino in a blazingly original crime novel from Bill Crider, an Edgar and Shamus finalist and a two-time winner of the Anthony Award 

On a bloody day in 1887, death came to Blanco, Texas. 

Before the sun went down, the livery stable was torched, an outlaw gang robbed the bank, two men were killed, and young newlywed Ellie Taine was raped. One of the dead was the man who planned the robbery – the son of dying, legendary Texas Ranger Jonathan Crossland – the other was Ellie’s husband, an innocent bystander. 

The dead don’t know fear. 

Ellie is dead inside. She takes a gun and rides out after the desperadoes, cold-blooded and fearless, determined to kill the men who ruined her life. She’s joined by Jonathan Crossland, who only has days left to live… but would rather die in his saddle making amends for his son than rot in his bed. Together, Ellie and Jonathan set out on a mission of vengeance and justice, one that neither of them expects nor hopes to survive. 

“In the hands of Bill Crider, noir seems as atmospheric and doomful as ever,” Publisher’s Weekly 

"Bill Crider is one of the most unpretentious and versatile pure entertainers in the mystery field." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine 

TEXAS VIGILANTE

The powerful sequel to Outrage at Blanco, Edgar & Shamus Award nominee Bill Crider’s startlingly original western crime novel 

Six months ago, Ellie was a newlywed, working the dry land in 1880s Texas. Then the desperados came. They raped her and killed her husband, leaving her for dead. But she hunted them down and, along the way, found an inner strength and relentless determination that no man can match. Ellie thought the killing was over…that she’d put her guns away for good to run a ranch that she’d inherited from a legendary Texas Ranger. She was wrong. 

A prison wagon is on its way to Huntsville when one of the prisoners, ruthless killer Angel Ware, engineers a bold escape. Now free, and blaming his sister Sue for his arrest, Angel and a gang of three other escaped murderers track her and her family down to Ellie’s ranch. Angel and his gang mount a bloody attack and take Sue’s young child with them. There’s a posse on its way, but Ellie Taine isn’t going to wait. She saddles her horse and loads her guns, prepared to enforce the only justice she can rely on...her own. 

“As clean and sharp as a fine Bowie knife. Crider’s prose slices through conventions and expectations,” –Booklist 

I read the original editions of these books and think they're excellent. They're probably my favorites of all the Westerns Bill has written and two of my favorites of his books, period. They're now available again in e-book and print editions from Brash Books. Check 'em out!