Review: Men's Adventure Quarterly #12: The Private Eyes Issue - Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham, eds.

I’ve been a fan of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY since it began, and it’s a real pleasure and honor to have an article in the latest issue, #12, The Private Eyes Issue. My contribution is about detectives in Western fiction, and I hope it’s both entertaining and informative, but I’m here today to talk about the rest of the contents. Which, of course, are absolutely top-notch, as I’ve come to expect from editors Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham.

For starters, there are stories from two of my favorite authors featuring two of my favorite fictional private eyes: Michael Avallone and his iconic character Ed Noon, and Frank Kane and his equally legendary private eye Johnny Liddell. The Avallone story is “Make Out Mob Girl”, a Book Bonus condensation of the first Ed Noon novel THE TALL DOLORES, from the October 1962 issue of MAN'S WORLD. David Spencer, author of THE NOVELIZERS, provides a fine introduction to Avallone and his career, and Mike's son David Avallone contributes a touching essay about his dad. As a long time fan of Mike Avallone and his work, I'm really glad I got be his friend-by-correspondence for many years. 

Frank Kane’s “Party Girl” (KEN FOR MEN, May 1957) is a retitled reprint of the story “Frame” from the August 1954 issue of MANHUNT, the great crime fiction digest. This story was also reprinted in the paperback collection JOHNNY LIDDELL’S MORGUE from Dell. Both are really strong stories, and if you’ve never read any Ed Noon or Johnny Liddell stories or novels, this would be a fine place to start.

But of course there’s more. Honey West is probably the most famous fictional female private eye, and this issue includes the only Honey West short story, “The Red Hairing” by G.G. Fickling, actually the husband and wife writing team Forrest (“Skip”) and Gloria Fickling. This one appeared originally in the June 1965 issue of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE. In addition, there’s an article about the TV series HONEY WEST featuring numerous photos of its beautiful star, Anne Francis. I was a fan of the show when it aired originally in the Sixties and am always happy to revisit it.

Walter Kaylin, one of the best authors who wrote for the men’s adventure magazine, contributes “I Had to Amputate My Leg to Save My Life!”, the tale of a private detective trapped by a mad killer, and it’s every bit as harrowing and gruesome as the title makes it sound. It’s also lightning-fast, compelling reading. Kaylin was a master, and this story is a good example of his work.

A story from a short-lived men’s adventure magazine actually called PRIVATE EYE features detective Adam Baxter in “Sing a Song of Sex-Mail”. It’s an entertaining yarn written in a fast-moving, breezy style. The story was published anonymously and I have no idea who wrote it, but I had fun reading it.

There’s also a non-fiction reprint from Alan Hynd called “The Case of the Murdering Detective” (CAVALIER, September 1956) about a real-life murder case from 1910 and the clever detective who solves it. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not much of a fan of true crime stories, but Hynd does a fine job with this one and kept me flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen.

New articles in this issue include the one by me on Western detectives that I mentioned above, a look at some of the latest Sherlock Holmes pastiches, both literary and TV, from Holmes scholar and fan Paul Bishop, and film critic John Harrison on detectives in science fiction films. Plus a feature on early Sixties TV series 77 SUNSET STRIP and HAWAIAN EYE, both of which were favorites of mine, especially 77 SUNSET STRIP. I never missed an episode back in those days. If you're the right age, you can hear the show's theme song in your head right now, can't you? I miss the Sixties just thinking about all this stuff!

I know I’ve said it before, but this is the best issue yet of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY. You can find it on Amazon, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Men's Adventure Quarterly #10: The Vietnam Issue -- Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham, eds.

The tenth issue of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY is out, this time around focusing on the best stories and artwork from the men’s adventure magazines dealing with the Vietnam war. Those of you who have been following MAQ from the beginning know that it’s one of the best publications out there, and this new issue more than maintains that very high standard. You’d expect nothing less from editors Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham, ably assisted on this issue by Paul Bishop and Rob Morris.

As before, the stories reprinted in this issue are split between true tales (or mostly true) and those that are entirely or almost entirely fictional. For me, the high point of the non-fiction pieces is “MIG Bait” by the prolific MAM writer and military historian Robert F. Dorr, from the February 1968 issue of MAN’S MAGAZINE. It was my pleasure and honor to get to know Bob Dorr a little before he passed away several years ago, and I’ve become a big fan of his work. His story about the first supersonic dogfight in the air over Vietnam is exciting and well-written. I also enjoyed the profile of Barry Sadler by Garth Roberts that appeared in the October 1966 issue of MAN’S WORLD. I remember quite well when Sadler’s song “The Ballad of the Green Berets” was a huge hit and played on the radio all the time. That article also mentions author Robin Moore and his bestselling novel THE GREEN BERETS, which I remember buying off the spinner rack at Lester’s Pharmacy when it was brand-new, so that just adds to the nostalgic appeal of that piece for me. Also in the non-fiction realm, but fiction-related, Paul Bishop contributes a terrific article about the various series of paperback novels centering around the war in Vietnam.

As for the fiction, one of my favorites is “Saigon Nymph Who Led the Green Berets to the Cong’s Terror Headquarters” (MALE, August 1966) by Mario Cleri, who, as all of you already know, was really Mario Puzo, the author of THE GODFATHER and numerous other novels. Puzo was a prolific contributor to the MAMs as both a writer and an editor. I think this story is the first thing I’ve read by him other than THE GODFATHER, all those years ago, and it’s an excellent yarn about a colonel in Army Intelligence going after the VC terrorists responsible for his younger brother’s death.

The other top fictional tale for me is “Saga of Mad Mike Kovacs and His Battling Lepers of Vietnam”, from the January 1967 issue of MALE, by Glenn Infield. This is the first thing I’ve read by Infield, and it’s great, every bit as over-the-top as you might imagine from the title. Fast-paced and very well-written, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Rob Morris contributes informative introductions to both this story and to Robert F. Dorr’s “MIG Pilot”.

On the visual front, this issue is as beautifully produced as all the other issues of MAQ, featuring dozens of covers and interior illustrations along with two lengthy galleries, one spotlighting many of the Vietnam-related covers on which the legendary Steve Holland appeared, and the other featuring Raquel Welch accompanying Bob Hope to Vietnam on one of his famous USO tours. Back in those days I never missed the TV specials drawn from footage of those UFO shows, and I remember quite well the one on which Raquel appeared. It was nice revisiting those days.

So this is another great job all around, and I give a big old recommendation to the Vietnam Issue of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY. It’s available in two different formats on Amazon: a full-color paperback edition and a black-and-whitepaperback edition, or you can buy the full-color edition directly from editor and publisher Robert Deis on eBay.

Men's Adventure Quarterly #6: The Heist Issue - Robert Deis, Bill Cunningham, Paul Bishop, and Jules Burt, eds.

Somehow I fell behind in my reading of MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY, absolutely one of the best publications on the market today. This situation cannot be allowed to stand, of course. So I've now read the sixth volume in the series, The Heist Issue, and no surprise, it continues the high standards of the previous issues.

MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY reprints the best stories and art from the dozens of men's adventure magazines published in the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. As I've mentioned before, I always wanted to buy and read these magazines when I was a kid but seldom did because of the difficulty of smuggling them into the house. (Racy covers, you know. I ran into the same problem with a lot of paperbacks.)

The Heist Issue contains stories by some top-notch writers: bestsellers Martin Cruz Smith and Thomas Chastain (under pseudonyms), veteran wordsmith Donald Honig (who's had a story in every issue of MAQ so far for a good reason: they're all excellent yarns), and paperbacker Grant Freeling, who authored several movie novelizations.

My favorite story in this issue, though, is by the obscure Eugene Joseph, quite possibly a pseudonym for a better-known writer. His story "G.I. Stickup Mob That Heisted $33 Million in Nazi Gold", from the November 1967 issue of MALE, is a well-written, fast-moving tale that includes a lengthy flashback full of top-notch World War II action. This would have made a great movie in the Sixties.

Honig's "Band of Misfits" from the January 1970 issue of ACTION FOR MEN is another stand-out. Editor Robert Deis compares this story of a casino robbery to Donald E. Westlake's Parker series, and that's a legitimate comparison. The hardboiled tone in this one is really good.

All the stories are a lot of fun, as are the introductions by Deis and his fellow editor Bill Cunningham, along with guest editors Paul Bishop and Jules Burt. Cunningham's design work, as always, is spectacular, making MAQ a great showcase for art by Mort Kunstler, Gil Cohen, Samson Pollen, Earl Norem, and others.

The photo feature this time around focuses on Angie Dickinson, who made several heist and caper movies in her career. Angie is an all-time favorite of mine, and more than a dozen pages of sultry photos of her just makes this an even better issue. I give it a very high recommendation.

You can buy MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY: THE HEIST ISSUE on Bob Deis's website or his eBay store. And I'll be back in the near future with a look at the next issue, GANG GIRLS!, which is already on hand.

Men's Adventure Quarterly, Volume 1, Number 1: The Most Wanted Wild West Issue

Nobody knows more about the Men’s Adventure Magazines, those lurid mixtures of fact and fiction that were common on newsstands and magazine racks in the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies, than Bob Deis. He’s teamed up with Bill Cunningham (and an assist by Paul Bishop) to produce a terrific new anthology series called MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY, each issue of which will focus on a different genre from the Men’s Adventure Magazines. The first one is out now and is loaded with Western stories and artwork from a variety of sources.

There are non-fiction articles about madams of the Old West and the TV series GUNSMOKE, but most of the contents are fictional, although some stories are based on historical characters such as Clay Allison and Buckskin Frank Leslie. Not surprisingly, my favorites are the tales by old pros Lou Cameron, Dean W. Ballenger, and Donald Honig. All the stories are well-written and entertaining, though.

Visually, MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY is a real treat. The production values are excellent, and it features dozens of magazine covers and interior illustrations by some of the top artists of the mid-Twentieth Century era. It’s a wonderful recreation of that time.

By the time I was trying to break into writing in the mid-Seventies, the Men’s Adventure Magazines were still around but mostly a pale shadow of what they had once been. I sent them dozens of stories anyway but never sold any. I’m sorry I didn’t crack that market, but I really enjoy revisiting it now. MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY gets a high recommendation from me. You can buy it on Amazon or directly from the publisher.

YouTube Interview

Last week I took part in a Zoom discussion about writing with Paul Bishop and Robert Vaughan, and it was posted this morning on Wolfpack Publishing's YouTube channel. I always enjoy talking about books and writing, and both guys are old friends, so I had a great time.

52 Weeks * 52 Western Novels - Scott Harris and Paul Bishop, eds.

52 WEEKS • 52 WESTERN NOVELS is the first in a new series edited by my friends Scott Harris and Paul Bishop spotlighting some of the best in Western entertainment, starting with books both old and new and followed by volumes on Western movies and TV shows. It’s a great beginning to a very worthwhile project.

Written by a variety of Western authors and readers, including me, the entries in this book range from H.A. DeRosso’s bleak Western noir .44 to Will Murray’s classic history of the Western pulps, WORDSLINGERS. Each essay discusses a particular book and its author, along personal connections, behind-the-scenes facts, and movie adaptations for the books that were turned into films. It’s a fascinating approach that traces the traditional Western from its beginnings with THE VIRGINIAN and RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE to THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane, published in 2015. Anyone who hasn’t read Westerns before could read one a week, using this volume as a guide, and get a good sense of just what a wide range the genre really has. Plus there are plenty of really nice cover illustrations.

For what it’s worth, I’ve read 30 of the 52 books covered here, and I don’t doubt that I’ll read many of the others in the future. Quite a few of them are already on my shelves, just waiting for me to find the time. Whether you’re a Western fan or not, 52 WEEKS • 52 WESTERN NOVELS get the highest recommendation from me.

The Wrap Up

READING

I read 127 books this year, a small increase from last year's 116. 77 of them were e-books, so while that makes up the majority of my reading, I still read quite a few print books, too, and I expect that rough split to continue. 33 of the 127 were review copies. I wasn't able to review all the books that were sent to me, but I read and blogged about as many of them as I could and I'm sure some of the others will show up on the blog in the future. 21 of the 127 were books that I edited and published. In looking through the list, I noticed that I didn't read any books published in 2015 by the so-called Big Five. The only new books I read from traditional publishers came from Kensington and Baen, companies that have distribution deals with the Big Five but are independently owned, and there were only a few of those. Everything else I read was either small press, self-published, or decades old. This wasn't intentional. I'm certainly not boycotting the Big Five. But it's an unavoidable fact that they're publishing less and less that I want to take the time to read these days, while there's so much good stuff coming out from those other sources that I couldn't even hope to keep up with it. The important thing to me is that I don't think I'll ever run out of good books to read.

Which brings us to my top ten favorites of the books I read this year, in alphabetical order by author:

LIE CATCHERS, Paul Bishop

THE CRIME OF OUR LIVES, Lawrence Block

THE SHOTGUN RIDER, Peter Brandvold

TARZAN THE TERRIBLE, Edgar Rice Burroughs

THE BIG DRIFT, Patrick Dearen

101 ESSENTIAL TEXAS BOOKS, Glenn Dromgoole and Carlton Stowers

FIRE WITH FIRE, Charles E. Gannon

TURN ON THE HEAT, A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)

RIVER RANGE, L.P. Holmes

WAITING FOR A COMET, Richard Prosch

My short list had 17 books on it, and I could have added another dozen or more that were pretty close. So it wasn't easy getting this list down to 10, but there they are, for what it's worth.

WRITING

As those of you who have read yesterday's post are aware, I wrote just over a million words this year, the 11^th consecutive year I've reached that mark. That breaks down to 12 novels and 7 shorter pieces of fiction, most of them novelette or novella length. Right now my plan is write at least that much in 2016. I'll need to if I'm going to keep up with the projects I've committed to do. It's a lot of hard work, but I'm still having fun so I don't see any reason to stop now.

PUBLISHING

Rough Edges Press continues to occupy a significant portion of my time. With plenty of invaluable technical help from Livia, along with some great covers, REP brought out 9 books in the Blaze! Adult Western series, along with a number of reprints and originals from Stephen Mertz, Ed Gorman, John Hegenberger, James J. Griffin, and David Hardy. We published three original anthologies, the two WEIRD MENACE volumes and the Alternate History anthology TALES FROM THE OTHERVERSE. The Blaze! series will continue in 2016, along with a full slate of original and reprint novels and collections, and we'll also have a big science fiction anthology next summer, if all goes according to plan. More details on that later. UPDATE: I added a picture of all the books REP published in 2015 to the top of the post.

So you can see there's plenty going on to keep me busy. I guess I stay out of trouble that way. Many thanks to those of you who have stuck with the blog for another year. I'll be around.

Lie Catchers - Paul Bishop

Paul Bishop has been one of my favorite writers for a long time, but he may have set a new standard for himself with his latest novel, LIE CATCHERS. This is the first book in a new series featuring LAPD detectives Ray Pagan and "Calamity" Jane Randall, who is also the narrator. Both of them have special abilities that make them better at what they do—interrogating prisoners—than anybody else.

As LIE CATCHERS opens, Randall is recuperating from a gunshot wound suffered in the line of duty, during an incident that's one of several which have given her the nickname "Calamity". She wants to get back to work but is uncertain about being teamed with the eccentric Pagan, who doesn't really dress, talk, or act like any of the other cops she has known or worked with. It doesn't take her long to figure that he's a genius at interrogation, though, and he thinks she can be, too.

After working together on a gang shooting case, the new team launches into the investigation that will keep them busy for the rest of the book: the kidnapping of the six-year-old daughter of a rap music mogul. Before long there's the seemingly unrelated kidnapping of another child and a couple of murders to complicate things, but Pagan and Randall sort through everything with a mixture of dogged police work and brilliant questioning of suspects.

The police procedural element is fascinating, as is the developing relationship between the two protagonists. Bishop's prose races right along, never losing control of the complex plot. LIE CATCHERS is easily one of the best novels I've read this year. Also included in this book are two autobiographical essays by Bishop about his first interrogation and his last arrest before retiring from the LAPD, and they're worth the price of the book by themselves. You won't go wrong with this one. It gets my highest recommendation.