Review: Apache Rising - Marvin H. Albert

First of all, check out the upper right corner of this cover: “A Whipcrack Western”. That’s right, this is the first book in a brand-new imprint devoted to reprinting classic hardboiled Western novels. It’s from the fine folks at Stark House Press, who have reprinted some Westerns in their regular Stark House books and in their Black Gat Books line. Now the Westerns have a line of their own, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Nor could they have picked a better book to launch Whipcrack Westerns. APACHE RISING by Marvin H. Albert was published originally by Gold Medal in 1957 and later reprinted by GM under that title as well as DUEL AT DIABLO, the title of the movie based on this novel. It’s been out of print for a long time, though, and it’s great to see it back. I had never read it, so I’m glad to get this chance.

Oddly enough, considering my history of watching Western movies, I’ve never seen DUEL AT DIABLO, so I went into this source novel with no real preconceptions. The protagonist is Jess Remsberg, a tough, seasoned civilian scout for the army who is searching for the man who raped and murdered his wife. That search takes him to southern Arizona Territory and involves him with a cavalry detail taking some wagons full of ammunition from one fort to another. There are rumors that an Apache war chief is about to bring his followers out of Mexico and start raiding again, and the army is getting ready to campaign against him.

At the same time, Jess’s quest is complicated by an American woman who was captured by the Apaches and held captive for a couple of years, only to be rescued by the army and brought back to her husband, who no longer wants her. And she wants to return to the Apaches and the baby she had with the war chief’s son. Both she and her estranged husband wind up traveling with the same cavalry detail as Jess, as does a gambler who’s a former Confederate soldier.

You may think this sounds a little like a frontier soap opera, and it could have been if not for Albert’s storytelling ability and his skill at creating morally complex characters. It helps that there’s plenty of tough, gritty action as the group gets attacked by Apaches numerous times, and the reader honestly doesn’t know who’s going to survive to the end of the perilous journey. This is a really suspenseful novel that had me flipping the pages swiftly to find out what was going to happen.

The Whipcrack Western edition of this book also includes a fine introduction by Eric Compton and Tom Simon, the guys behind the Paperback Warrior blog and podcast, who provide an entertaining, informative look at Albert’s life and career.

I’ve never read a book by Marvin Albert I didn’t enjoy, and APACHE RISING continues that history. It’s a superb hardboiled Western novel, and I give it a very high recommendation. The paperback edition will be out later this week, and it’s available for pre-order now. I assume there’ll be an e-book edition, too, once the book is released.

And I’m very much looking forward to seeing what the next Whipcrack Western will be.

The Girl With No Place to Hide - Nick Quarry (Marvin Albert)

Marvin Albert was both prolific and talented and turned out a steady stream of very good to excellent mystery, adventure, and Western novels for more than three decades. In the late Fifties and early Sixties, he wrote six novels featuring New York City private eye Jake Barrow, using the pseudonym Nick Quarry. I've known about these books for many years but have never gotten around to reading any of them until now. The great Black Gat Books line is reprinting THE GIRL WITH NO PLACE TO HIDE, widely regarded as one of the best Jake Barrow books.

It gets off to a promising start with Jake, our narrator/protagonist, watched a very provocative dance act in a nightclub. He's in the company of a friend of his, a prizefight manager whose boxer has an important bout coming up. A short time later, Jake runs into a beautiful dame who has a thug trying to kill her. Jake rescues the woman, of course, and lets her hide out in his apartment while he tries to get the story of her trouble out of her. But before he can do so, he's decoyed out of the place on what sounds like an important case, and when he gets back after finding he's been tricked, the gal is gone. Jake, you really should have seen that coming.

In classic private eye fashion, of course, Jake's not going to the woman's disappearance go uninvestigated, and so, over the course of the next few days and 180 or so pages, Albert really pours on the complications. You've got a murder involving a garment district tycoon, the death of a photographer, some brutal, corrupt cops, several beautiful women, and a bunch of gangsters and thugs and gamblers. Jake gets beaten up, tortured, and knocked out numerous times. But he always bounces back from whatever punishment the bad guys dish out and keeps digging for the truth.

There's nothing in this book you haven't read before in plenty of other Fifties private eye novels. In fact, at times it almost seems like Albert has overloaded it with plot elements. But he juggles them all very skillfully and, in the end, weaves everything together in a pretty clever solution. Jake Barrow is a good protagonist, smart and reasonably tough. He reminded me of a somewhat less intense Mike Hammer, and in fact, this could have been a Mickey Spillane yarn. There are some brutal but very effective action scenes along the way.

THE GIRL WITH NO PLACE TO HIDE is a front porch book, and as you know, that's a pretty high rating for me. If I'd read it back in the Sixties, sitting on my parents' front porch, I really would've been flipping the pages to find out who was going to try to kill Jake next and how far he was going to get with the luscious dames he keeps running into. It was just great fun, and if you're a fan of private eye novels, it's well worth reading. The Black Gat edition is available for pre-order.

Forgotten Books: The Road's End - Albert Conroy (Marvin H. Albert)

During the Fifties and early Sixties, Marvin H. Albert was a prolific and dependable author for Gold Medal, turning out Westerns, hardboiled novels, and even movie novelizations of movies you wouldn't have thought would have novelizations, let alone from Gold Medal (THAT JANE FROM MAINE, starring Doris Day, Jack Lemmon, and Ernie Kovacs, for example). He wrote under his own name and the pseudonyms Albert Conroy (sometimes Al Conroy) and Nick Quarry.

THE ROAD'S END (1952) is a hardboiled yarn under the Albert Conroy name, and it's a good one. Albert uses the old amnesia plot in this one but throws a clever twist on it. The narrator/protagonist doesn't know who he is when the book opens, but he finds out pretty quickly. He's Dan Ginger, a bar owner in a small Gulf Coast town, married to the daughter of the local rich man but carrying on affairs with numerous other women, including one who turns up murdered on the same night Dan was clobbered on the head and dropped off a bridge, seemingly to his death. He survives, but he's the leading suspect in his girlfriend's murder, and before you know it, somebody else has been killed, and Dan's caught between the wife he decides he loves after all, the beautiful country girl whose father fished him out of the river, his partner in the bar who maybe hates him, a doggedly determined sheriff, and some mobsters who want to move in with their gambling operation.

Those of us who are Gold Medal fans have seen all these elements before, but Albert weaves them together expertly with some fine writing and characters. THE ROAD'S END almost belongs in the upper level of Gold Medals. I liked it a lot, except for the ending, which made me go "Wait. What?" I almost wanted to see if some pages were missing from my copy, a later printing from 1958. (That's it in the scan.) I decided that, no, that's the way Albert intended to do it, but I don't agree with him.

That said, THE ROAD'S END is still well worth reading. Albert does a great job with the small town setting and the book has some really nice lines in it, as well as some excellent action scenes. I really need to read more by him.

UPDATE: I've discovered that this is actually Albert's first novel.

Forgotten Books: Clayburn - Al Conroy (Marvin H. Albert)

This is the first book in a four-book series about a gambler, gunman, and former detective named Clayburn (no first name given in this book, though he's occasionally referred to as Clay). We don't find out many details about Clayburn's background except that he used to work as a private detective for an agency headed by a Colonel Remsburg. The colonel and his agency seem modeled on Allan Pinkerton and the Pinkerton Agency, but Albert doesn't go overboard with it.

The plot is a combination of the standard revenge/save the ranch scenarios. One of Clayburn's old friends is murdered by outlaw Ross Slater. Clayburn digs up the fact that Slater's brother is cattleman John Thompson, who is trying to take over the ranch owned by Ruby McClintock and her two no-account brothers. Clayburn throws in with Ruby and plans to make life so difficult for Thompson that Thompson will summon Slater to help him, thus giving Clayburn his chance for revenge.

Though the plot is traditional, Albert makes this book fresh and entertaining with his lean, fast-paced style and his characterization of Clayburn, who veers back and forth between hero and anti-hero. Clayburn is not the fastest gun or the best brawler, but he is determined and thinks well on his feet. He's not above using people to get what he wants, either. He emerges as more sympathetic than unsympathetic, but there are enough rough edges about him to make him at least a little non-traditional. Overall, a very enjoyable book, and I plan to read the other three novels in the series, which are THREE RODE NORTH, LAST TRAIN TO BANNOCK, and THE MAN IN BLACK.