Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Big-Book Detective Magazine, February 1942

I've read several issues of BIG-BOOK WESTERN MAGAZINE over the years, but I've never read or even seen an issue of BIG-BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, Popular Publications' attempt to launch another detective pulp. Unlike its Western cousin, BIG-BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE wasn't successful and ran only eight issues from December 1941 to February 1943. This is the second issue, and based on the good cover (don't know who painted it) and the lineup of authors, the magazine's failure wasn't warranted based on its quality. Authors on hand in this issue are T.T. Flynn, W.T. Ballard, Russell Gray (actually Bruno Fischer), Robert Sidney Bowen, Jackson Gregory Jr., and house-names Daniel Winters, Ray P. Shotwell, and David Crewe. The thing about those house-names is that this being Popular Publications, the actual authors were probably pretty darned good. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, April 1951

Even late in the pulp era, you could still find some mighty good reading in the magazines that remained. This issue of DETECTIVE TALES features stories by John D. MacDonald, Hugh B. Cave, Cornell Woolrich, and Leslie Turner White, along with lesser-known authors Dan Gordon, Don James, and P.B. Bishop. Granted, the Cave, Woolrich, and White stories are reprints from DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, but hey, if you've never read a story before, it's as good as new to you, right? I don't know who painted this cover, but it's pretty effective, too.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Slice of Hell - Mike Roscoe (John Roscoe and Mike Russo)

During the Fifties, following the huge success of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels, everybody was looking for more books in the same vein, including Spillane’s own publisher. Mike Roscoe contributed to the cause by writing five novels featuring tough Kansas City private eye Johnny April. One difference is that “Mike Roscoe” is actually a pseudonym for two real-life private investigators, John Roscoe and Mike Russo. And to me, “his” work seems to be influenced not so much by Spillane, but by the author some people consider an influence on Spillane as well: Carroll John Daly.

SLICE OF HELL is the first Mike Roscoe book I’ve read, although it’s the middle book in the series. In this one, Johnny April is hired to leave his usual Kansas City stomping grounds and go to San Francisco to investigate a crooked trucking company executive who’s rumored to be on the verge of expanding his operation to Kansas City. Since he’s going to San Francisco anyway, Johnny takes on another case that has come his way, a low-paying job for an elderly woman who wants him to arrange a funeral for a friend of hers who has just passed away.

Well, you don’t have to have read many of these books to know that those two cases are going to wind up being connected. The predictability of the plot is one of this book’s failings. So is the overall thinness of the story. And a lot of the tough guy dialogue doesn’t really resemble anything that might actually come out of a human mouth. “Mike Roscoe” has the same sort of tin ear for dialogue that could be found in much of Carroll John Daly’s work.

So why am I recommending this novel? Well, it’s written in an odd, punchy style that takes some getting used to but is very effective once you do. Even the stiff dialogue didn’t bother me as much after a while. And I wound up liking big, dumb Johnny April. (But, Lord, he really is dumb.) The authors keep the pace moving nicely. April has a touch of the same vigilante mentality as Race Williams, and there’s a scene that seems like a direct homage to one of Daly’s stories. Really, that’s a good yardstick. If you enjoy Carroll John Daly’s work, which I certainly do, then you’ll probably enjoy the Mike Roscoe novels, too.

(I'm a little surprised I haven't read any more of the Mike Roscoe books since this post first appeared in somewhat different form on February 6, 2009. Despite my quibbles about the plot, I seem to have liked it pretty well, and overall, I enjoy books with a distinctive voice. I'm pretty sure I own at least some of the other books in the Johnny April series, so maybe I'll dig out one of them. I'm kind of surprised they haven't been reprinted as e-books. By the way, that's a Robert Maguire cover on the Signet edition pictured above. Maguire did some great covers, and this one is very dramatic and eye-catching.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Clues Detective Stories, March 1941

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of CLUES. It's okay, but I'm not overly impressed with it. However, I am impressed with the contents. There's a Race Williams novella by Carroll John Daly, a novelette by Norvell Page, and short stories by Lawrence Treat and Edward S. Aarons writing as Edward Ronns. That's a pretty good lineup!

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Mammoth Mystery, January 1946

MAMMOTH MYSTERY was a fairly short-lived pulp from Ziff-Davis that put out only a dozen issues in 1945, '46, and '47. The first issue truly was mammoth at 276 pages, but by the second issue--this one--it had shrunk to 178 pages, still pretty hefty by pulp standards. This cover is by an artist named Richard R. Epperly, who's not familiar to me at all. Pretty nice back on that lady, though. The lead novel is by Bruno Fischer, an author whose work I've enjoyed quite a bit. I need to read more by him. Also on hand are Larry Holden (actually Lorenz Heller, many of whose novels have been reprinted by Stark House in recent years), Z-D regular Chester S. Geier, and lesser-known authors Phyllis Dayton and A. Boyd Correll. If you want to check out this issue, a PDF of it can be found here.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Fiction Weekly, June 15, 1935

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, but it's certainly eye-catching. George F. Worts, the author of the lead novel, was a fine writer, too, and always worth reading, at least in my experience. He's the biggest name in this issue, although there's an installment of a serial by Anthony Rud, certainly a prolific and popular pulpster, and one of the other authors, H.W. Guernsey, was really Howard Wandrei. Other than that, we have Edward S. Williams, whose name I at least recognize, Mary Plum, Richard S. Hobart, and Maurice Beam. They may have been fine writers, for all I know, but Worts is enough to make this issue worthwhile, especially with that striking cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Gold Seal Detective, January 1936

I don't know if the cover painting by Rafael DeSoto on this issue of GOLD SEAL DETECTIVE was meant to illustrate the story "Rough-'Em-Up Radigan", but if it wasn't, it should have been! This is actually the first of five novelettes starring Rough-'Em-Up Radigan by Clark Aiken, who was really the great pulpster Frederick C. Davis. I've suggested before that we need a reprint volume called THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF ROUGH-'EM-UP RADIGAN, and I stand by that. Also in this issue are stories by Norman A. Daniels (once as himself and once as by David M. Norman), Paul Chadwick, Frederick C. Painton, Tom Roan, and Darrell Jordan. If you want to check out this issue, it's available on the Internet Archive. I've downloaded it myself, and I hope I get around to reading it in the relatively near future.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine, March 1939

Hubert Rogers provides a nice deep sea diving cover for this issue of STREET & SMITH'S DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE. Inside are well-known authors Erle Stanley Gardner (with a Lester Leith novella), Steve Fisher, and William G. Bogart, along with lesser known (at least to me) Edmund M. Littell, Chris Sieyes, and Carl Clausen. Of all the ESG characters I've read, Lester Leith is probably my least-favorite. However, I'm not sure I've ever read any of the stories except the one in Ron Goulart's iconic anthology THE HARDBOILED DICKS, so that's hardly a fair trial. I ought to see if I can hunt up a few more Leith yarns and give them a try. I own a few issues of DETECTIVE STORY (not this one) but I don't believe I've ever read any of them. I probably ought to do that, too. 

Review: South of the Border - Edwin Truett Long (Red Star Detective, August 1940)

“South of the Border”, which appeared in the August 1940 issue of RED STAR DETECTIVE, is the third and final novel in Edwin Truett Long’s unfortunately short-lived series of mysteries featuring Dr. Thaddeus C. Harker. Doc Harker, as you may remember, travels around the Southwest with his medicine show, driving a big red car and pulling a trailer from which he peddles the world-famous Chickasha Remedies, but this is actually just a cover for his activities as one of the world’s top criminologists and detectives. His two assistants, beautiful Brenda Sloan and burly, bald-headed former circus strongman Hercules Jones, help out with both the medicine show and battling the various criminal schemes Doc Harker uncovers.

As this yarn opens, the three of them are enjoying a well-earned vacation in Nuevo Laredo and taking in a bullfight at the local bullring. But of course, Doc’s curiosity and nose for trouble gets them involved with a private detective and a couple of beautiful blondes who apparently are mixed up in something shady. Then a bullfighter falls in love with Brenda, a sleazy reporter working for a crusading newspaper publisher sticks his nose in, the blondes and the private detective disappear, a Mexican gangster and his henchmen show up, a murdered bellhop is found in Doc’s hotel room, and off we go at a gallop that never really slows down.

As you can tell, Long was definitely of the “Throw stuff at the wall and see if enough of it sticks” school of plotting. In this one, we get all of the above, plus a gang war over a white slavery ring and a beautiful, mysterious brunette who keeps trying to kill the Mexican gangster. Does it all work? Well, let’s not ask inconvenient questions. Is the story a lot of fun to read with its breakneck pace, snappy banter, and colorful characters? It sure is. “South of the Border” is the best of the three Doc Harker novels, the first half being especially strong before getting a little muddled as Long tries to fit everything together.

It’s a real shame that Long passed away only a few years later after contracting an illness while serving as a codebreaker in Burma during World War II. If he had lived and written longer, I think there’s a good chance he would have developed into a better plotter, and we might have gotten dozens of screwball, action-packed mystery novels from him. As it is, we have a handful of novels and scores of short stories, and I’ve never read one that I didn’t enjoy. “South of the Border” is well worth reading. It was reprinted, along with the other two Doc Harker novels, by Altus Press in DR. THADDEUS C. HARKER: THE COMPLETE TALES, which is available from Amazon in e-book and trade paperback editions.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Detective, August 1933

I don’t actually own that many detective pulps (although a 1931 issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY was the first actual pulp I ever owned), so when I’m in the mood to read one, I often head for the Internet Archive. That’s where I recently read the August 1933 issue of THRILLING DETECTIVE. I don’t know who painted the cover. While it’s not a great one, it’s certainly not bad.

Ed Lybeck is a mostly forgotten writer these days. A few years ago, Altus Press published a collection of the four stories he wrote for BLACK MASK, which I read and thought was excellent. Lybeck wrote the lead novella in this issue, “Coins of Murder”, in which a Secret Service agent with the unlikely name Everard Kynaston literally stumbles over a case involving murder, a Chinese tong, and a scheme to destroy the American economy by flooding it with a previously unknown supply of gold. The plot is pretty weak, the criminal mastermind might as well be wearing a big sign on his back that reads CRIMINAL MASTERMIND, and the story reminds me a little of some of Sax Rohmer’s later Fu Manchu novels without being anywhere near as good. However, Lybeck’s lean, gritty prose is fun to read, and the opening pages of this yarn are particularly effective. This isn’t as good as the stories Lybeck wrote for BLACK MASK, but it’s worth reading if your expectations aren’t too high.

“The Corpse From Chicago” is a novelette with an intriguing opening: a hotshot gangster from the Windy City is murdered while sitting in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in New York City, surrounded by people, and yet nobody saw who killed him. A tough police detective gets the case and the story is almost non-stop action after that as he uncovers a war between two gangs of crooks trying to take over the marijuana racket. I’d never heard of the author of this one, James H.S. Moynihan, but he published almost a hundred detective and gang stories in various pulps during the Thirties and Forties. This one is okay. I’m not sure the plot completely makes sense, but Moynihan’s terse prose races right along nicely.

“The Giordano Mob” actually is non-stop action, as private detective Ed King goes after the gangsters responsible for the death of a young operative who works for the same agency. King is known as the Speed Demon, for some reason, and refuses to use a gun or knife, relying only on his fists as he battles the bad guys. This story is part of a series of his adventures written by a forgotten pulpster named Barry Brandon. Other than King’s canine sidekick, there’s not much memorable about this one. The plot’s just too thin to amount to much.

“Picture Frame” by H.M. Appel is an actual murder mystery built around photographic tricks and an isolated cabin on the shores of Lake Michigan where a group of men have an informal gun club devoted to skeet shooting. One of them winds up dead, of course, and it’s pretty obvious the killer can be found among the other three. This is the sort of short, bland yarn that showed up frequently in the mystery digests of later decades such as EQMM and AHMM. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not very compelling.

Perley Poore Sheehan was a prolific, well-regarded author of adventure fiction in the pulps, but he also wrote detective yarns, including a series about a masked crimefighter known as Doctor Coffin, who was actually a retired Hollywood character actor who also owned a chain of undertaking parlors. I think there were 15 of these novelettes, some of which have been collected, but I’d never read any until “The Chicken King” in this issue. And it really has me scratching my head, because this tale of Doctor Coffin battling the head of “the poultry racket” is just terrible. The plot makes no sense, and the writing, other than a few outbursts of lurid violence, is bland and boring. This is the next-to-last story in the series, and it reads as if the author were tired of it. I really ought to try some of Sheehan’s other work, because he couldn’t have been this bad all the way through his career.

Allan K. Echols is remembered mostly as a Western writer, but he wrote crime, detective, and Weird Menace stories, too. “The Murder Trail” in this issue is about a would-be crook who decides to hold up a gambling den in Harlem. Everything goes wrong, and the fellow has to go on the run, after which things just get worse and worse. This is a fairly good story that reminds me of Cornell Woolrich’s work, without being as well-written. It’s bleak as all get-out, with a relentless sense of doom that Echols captures well.

Arthur J. Burks was another very prolific pulpster who wrote just about every genre except Westerns. “The Gun” in this issue is a short story about a hitman. It’s well-written, effective, but doesn’t end quite as dramatically as it might have. This may be the first thing I’ve read by Burks, and it wouldn’t excite me about reading more by him, but his work has a pretty good reputation and I’m sure I’ll try something else by him.

The issue wraps up with “The Crimson Blade” by “John L. Benton”, a well-known Thrilling Group house-name, so there’s no telling who actually wrote it. A scene in the story matches the cover illustration, which makes me think the painting came first and one of the regular authors wrote the story to match. In this one, a cop investigates the murder of a society doctor who’s rumored to be pushing dope to wealthy women. It appears that a low-class junkie killed the doctor, but the cop believes the guy was framed and sets out to prove it. This is a solid little yarn that’s well-written. The plot might have been better with another twist or two, but it works okay.

Overall, I can’t really recommend this issue. I found a couple of the stories almost unreadable, and the best ones were no more than okay. Maybe this isn’t a fair comparison, but the same month this issue of THRILLING DETECTIVE was on the stands, BLACK MASK featured stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, Frederick Nebel (a Donahue story), Raoul Whitfield, Roger Torrey, Norvell Page, and Donald Barr Chidsey, while DIME DETECTIVE had stories by T.T. Flynn, Frederick Nebel (a Cardigan story), Leslie T. White, and John Lawrence. Next time I’m in the mood for a detective pulp, I’ll probably go for one of those titles.

Review: The Kissed Corpse - Asa Baker (Davis Dresser)

Davis Dresser was the kind of writer I really admire and have tried to be in my career, a guy who was willing and able to turn his hand to different kinds of fiction and do all of them well. In the late Thirties, he was writing Western novels, spicy romances, and of course mysteries. He’d already had some success with MUM’S THE WORD FOR MURDER, published under the pseudonym Asa Baker, set in El Paso, Texas, Dresser’s home town, and starring special police detective Jerry Burke. In 1939, he published his second Burke novel, THE KISSED CORPSE, which Carlyle House brought out in hardcover.

Asa Baker isn’t just the pseudonym Dresser used on these books. Baker is also a character in them, a Western and mystery novelist who’s pretty obviously a stand-in for Dresser himself. He tags along with his friend Jerry Burke and narrates the stories of Burke’s investigations. In THE KISSED CORPSE, though, it’s Baker who turns up a murder and gets Burke involved.

He’s staying at a friend’s cabin in a canyon just outside El Paso. Millionaire oilman Raymond Dwight has an estate in the same canyon. Also not far away is the bungalow where former soldier of fortune Leslie Young lives with his beautiful wife Myra. Baker discovers that the oil tycoon is a peeping tom, spying on a sunbathing Myra Young through a telescope. Unfortunately, Myra’s husband makes that same discovery, and not long after that, Baker discovers his body while walking through the canyon.

Since this is a Davis Dresser novel, things are nowhere near as simple as they appear to be starting out, though. It seems that the Mexican government has taken over Dwight’s oilfield properties below the border, and he’s trying to put together a shady deal to recoup the loss. There are mysterious notes and threats and a seedy hacienda below the Rio Grande where the beautiful leader of a Mexican nationalist group holds secret meetings. There’s a beautiful, ambitious female reporter poking around who may or may not have been romantically involved with the murdered man. The oilman has a hard-drinking, gorgeous teenage daughter. Throw in a little blackmail, too, and Jerry Burke will have his hands full untangling the whole mess.

With its dangerous nighttime visit to the mysterious hacienda below the border, THE KISSED CORPSE has a rather pulpish feel starting out, but for a long stretch, it settles down and becomes almost an English country house type of mystery, with a bunch of suspects at a fancy estate and the dogged detective interrogating them. It’s a millionaire’s mansion in the Franklin Mountains, but the idea is the same. There’s some moving around later on, but eventually all the suspects come together again so Burke can reveal the killer and explain everything.

Dresser was a master of this sort of blend between the traditional and hardboiled mysteries. I don’t think he has the plot nailed down quite as well in THE KISSED CORPSE as he would in the Mike Shayne novels he wrote over the next decade, but it works well enough. Jerry Burke is a good character, too: a former cowboy, Texas Ranger, intelligence operative during World War I, soldier of fortune, and cop. Asa Baker is a likable narrator. Dresser spins his yarn in fast-moving prose that mostly has a breezy feel to it, although things can get rough now and then.

The same year this novel came out, Dresser also published DIVIDEND ON DEATH, the first book in the Mike Shayne series, and although he worked on other things besides Shayne over the next couple of decades, he never went back to Jerry Burke. I think the Shaynes are much better overall, but I wouldn’t have minded a few more Jerry Burke novels, too. Both books featuring him are pretty entertaining. MUM’S THE WORD FOR MURDER was reprinted twice under the Brett Halliday name. THE KISSED CORPSE got a single digest paperback reprint under the Asa Baker pseudonym. It is, however, available these days in an e-book edition under the Halliday name, and if you’re a Mike Shayne fan, I think you’ll enjoy both of the Jerry Burke novels, too.

Review: The Monkey's Raincoat - Robert Crais

I remember when THE MONKEY’S RAINCOAT was published to great reviews, followed by more critically acclaimed novels featuring Los Angeles private detectives Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. But even though I read and really enjoyed several stand-alones by author Robert Crais, I never get around to reading any of this series. Until now. Several friends recommended it to me, so I figured it was finally time to give it a try.

So naturally, I read the first book, published as a paperback original by Bantam in 1987. For comparison purposes, me reading THE MONKEY’S RAINCOAT now is the same as me reading THE MALTESE FALCON in 1969, although THE MONKEY’S RAINCOAT feels a lot more contemporary until you start noticing that there aren’t any computers and Elvis Cole has to find a phone booth when he’s away from his office or home and has to make a call.

Elvis is the narrator of this yarn. He owns a private detective agency in partnership with the violent, enigmatic mercenary Joe Pike, who also owns a gun shop. Elvis is hired to find a missing talent agent by the man’s wife, and that’s the start of a case that spirals into murder, kidnapping, and drug dealing.

That’s really are there is to say about the plot, because there’s nothing even resembling a twist in this novel. It’s straight ahead, about as linear as a mystery novel can get and still be considered a mystery. The characters are all good, though. Elvis is a likable narrator with a talent for banter, and Pike is particularly intriguing. The writing is fast-paced and paints a good portrait of Hollywood in the Eighties. The case comes to a satisfying conclusion.

But something still seemed lacking to me. There are a few echoes of Raymond Chandler, but the Robert B. Parker influence is much heavier and I’ve seen other readers refer to the first several books in this series as Spenser in Hollywood. That’s a fairly apt description. But I’ve also been assured that the series develops into something more than that. Crais is a talented writer and I’m certainly willing to read more by him. After my mixed reaction to this one, I may wait a little while to do it.

Review: Desperate Times: Stories From the Great Depression - Cornell Woolrich

My recent reading of Cornell Woolrich’s MARIHUANA put me in the mood to read more of his work, which I’ve enjoyed for many years. My attention span hasn’t been very conducive to reading novels lately, but luckily there are a number of Woolrich collections available on Amazon, reprinting some of his shorter work from the pulps. DESPERATE TIMES: STORIES FROM THE GREAT DEPRESSION caught my eye, so I started there.

The first story is “The Heavy Sugar” from the January 1937 issue of POCKET DETECTIVE. A down-and-outer in New York City finds a diamond necklace hidden in a sugar bowl in a seedy cafeteria. He figures, correctly, that some crook stashed it there to keep from having the cops find it on him. Our protagonist quickly discovers, however, that having a valuable necklace in his possession is a dangerous thing, since the gang that stole it in the first place is on his trail. As always, Woolrich does a great job depicting a squalid world of bars and flophouses, and he ratchets the suspense up skillfully to a twist ending that I should have seen coming but didn’t.

A guy tries to rob his miserly, corrupt former employer to recoup some lost wages he was cheated out of. Things go wrong. And then they get worse. That’s the plot of “Murder Always Gathers Momentum” from the December 14, 1940 issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. Once again, this tale is pure headlong suspense, barreling along to a twist ending, and yes, Woolrich got me again. It’s a very effective gut punch.

“Goodbye, New York” (STORY, October 1937) also concerns a robbery that turns into murder and the killer’s flight from the law. Only this time, his wife accompanies him, and she’s the narrator of this story. It’s tense and well-written, but it never grabbed me quite as much as the others and I didn’t care much for the ending. Interestingly, at least to me, the version that appears in this e-book edition seems to have been taken from a later reprinting rather than the original, because there’s a reference to the characters watching TV, not likely something they would have been doing in 1937. I suspect it was originally listening to the radio. I also suspect this version comes from the reprint in the March 1953 issue of ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, since TV was a huge fad in those days and EQMM editor Fred Dannay was known to edit/revise some of the stories he reprinted.

“Borrowed Crime”, from the July 1939 issue of BLACK MASK, once again concerns a robbery that turns into murder, but this time the protagonist of the story has nothing to do with the crime. However, he has a very good reason for confessing to it anyway. He also has an alibi that will keep him from being found guilty. But then something happens to that alibi, and he’s facing conviction and a trip to the electric chair unless he can convince someone that his wild story is true. Something similar could be said for Woolrich, who was famous, or infamous, for his far-fetched plots. This story is a good example of that. Did I find it believable? Not at all. Did I keep flipping the digital pages to find out what was going to happen? I sure did. Woolrich’s slick prose and storytelling ability get all the credit for that.

“Dormant Account” appeared in the May 1942 issue of BLACK MASK. The narrator, down on his luck George Palmer, comes up with an unusual way to try to turn his life around. He sees a list of dormant bank accounts in a newspaper and decides to pretend to be one of the people listed who has money coming to them. Through Woolrich’s careful manipulation of the plot, Palmer makes this crazy scheme work, but only up to a point. Then everything falls apart and he winds up running for his life. Once again, Woolrich spins a yarn that seems too ridiculous when you look at it logically. But who looks at a Cornell Woolrich story logically? And since when is life logical? All I know is that I enjoyed this story, and I loved the final twist even though you could see it coming the proverbial mile away.

“I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes”, from the March 12, 1938 issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, is one of Woolrich’s best-known stories and a prime example of how he could stretch coincidences and unlikely twists into a suspense yarn that gallops along and keeps the reader enthralled. A guy loses his temper and throws his shoes out the window at some yowling cats who are keeping him awake. Then, before you know it, he’s arrested and charged with murder. He’s tried, convicted, and on the brink of execution, his only chance a police detective who comes to believe his wild story. Not only does Woolrich construct a compelling story out of not much more than thin air, he even throws in a couple of entirely logical late twists that give this yarn a really bittersweet ending.

The earliest story in this collection, “The Death of Me” appeared originally in the December 7, 1935 issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. It opens with a man attempting to commit suicide because of his financial straits, but bad luck prevents him from taking his life. Or is it good luck, because a short time later, an opportunity to start over falls into his lap. Or is that bad luck, too? Nothing works out as you might think in a Woolrich story, or at least nothing works out as the characters think it will. Things pile up in this one until it seems that the protagonist has no way out. Or will fate come to his rescue yet again?

This volume wraps up with “Even God Felt the Depression”, a lightly fictionalized autobiographical essay that went unpublished when Woolrich was alive but appeared in BLUES OF A LIFETIME, a collection of such essays published in 1991. Set in the early Thirties, it centers around Woolrich’s attempt to write and sell a novel that will then sell to the movies and make him enough money to rescue him from poverty. Along the way, it presents a vivid portrait of those unfortunate times and the people who suffered through them. I missed BLUES OF A LIFETIME when it came out, but it’s still available and after reading this, I ordered a copy.

This is a fine collection, although the similarity of plots in some of the stories means it might be best to space them out a little, as I did. Twin themes of the vagaries of fate and the lengths to which desperate people will go run through all of them, and that’s a great framework for Woolrich’s distinctive style. If you’ve never read his work before, this might not be the best place to start because of those plot similarities I mentioned, but if you’re already a fan, I give this collection a high recommendation. It's available in print and e-book editions on Amazon.

Review: Return of the Maltese Falcon - Max Allan Collins

I’m starting the new year off well with an excellent novel from Max Allan Collins. I’ve been a fan of THE MALTESE FALCON since I read the novel in high school, the first thing by Dashiell Hammett I ever read, I believe. Needless to say, I was hooked. Now the original magazine version of the novel, as serialized in the iconic pulp BLACK MASK, is in public domain, and that’s what Collins has used as the starting point for his new novel RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON, which, as he points out, is a continuation rather than a true sequel.

And if, by some chance, you’ve never read Hammett’s novel, stop right now and read it before you read this review, and absolutely don’t tackle Collins’ novel until you’ve read the original, because they’re both, of necessity, full of spoilers. I mean it!

The action starts a week after the end of THE MALTESE FALCON, in December 1928. The dead Miles Archer’s desk has been removed from the office of Spade & Archer, and Effie Perrine, Sam Spade’s secretary, has put up a Christmas tree in its place. (Does that make this a Christmas novel? It sure does!)

A potential client pays a visit to Spade’s office. She’s Rhea Gutman, Casper Gutman’s daughter, and she wants to hire Spade to find the real Falcon. The one in Hammett’s novel was a fake, remember? Rhea is the first of four clients who give Spade a retainer to find the dingus. The others are Chicago gambler Dixie Monahan, Corrine Wonderly, the younger sister of femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and Steward Blackwood, an official from the British Museum who claims that institution is the true owner of the Falcon.

Spade plays all these characters against each other. He has run-ins with the cops. A dead body turns up. Spade is hit on the head and knocked out, and he’s captured by a gunman who wants to kill him. This is great stuff in the classic hardboiled private eye mode, the kind of thing that Dashiell Hammett invented, along with Carroll John Daly. Stylistically, Collins’ fast-moving, straight-ahead prose isn’t quite as stripped down as Hammett’s, but it’s certainly in the same ballpark.

Being constrained to use only the elements to be found in the original novel’s pulp serialization turns out to be a good thing. Collins is able to bring on-stage characters who were only mentioned before and invent new ones who fit perfectly in that setting. The resolution of the mystery and the way the book wraps everything up are extremely satisfying.

A number of years ago, I read and loved Joe Gores’ prequel novel SPADE & ARCHER. RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON is even better. I’m glad Max Allen Collins wrote it, and I’m grateful to Hard Case Crime for publishing it. It’ll be out officially in e-book and hardcover editions tomorrow. For hardboiled fans, I give it my highest recommendation.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, June 1947

We start the year on these Sunday pulp posts with an issue of TEN DETECTIVE ACES that sports a really dynamic cover by Norman Saunders. Of course, I repeat myself. Saunders' covers were always really dramatic. However, that may be the best thing about this issue. Hard to say because I don't recognize the names of most of the authors. The ones I do recognize are C.M. Kornbluth, Robert Turner, Joe Archibald, and Ray Cummings. Still, just because I don't know them doesn't mean their stories aren't any good. I don't own this issue and it doesn't appear to be on-line anywhere, so for me, it'll have to remain a mystery. But I do like that cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Detective Magazine, July 1936

Walter Baumhofer did some great covers for DIME DETECTIVE during this era, and here's another of 'em. The lineup of authors in this issue is top-notch, as well: Carroll John Daly with a Vee Brown story, T.T. Flynn, Frederick C. Davis, William E. Barrett, and Robert Sidney Bowen. Excellent writers, every one of them. DIME DETECTIVE was a consistently superb pulp during the mid-Thirties. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: 15 Story Detective, April 1950

John D. MacDonald is the biggest name in this issue of 15 STORY DETECTIVE, and of course, he wasn't as big a name in March 1950, when this issue was on the stands, as he soon would be as one of the leading author of paperback original novels from Gold Medal and other publishers. His first novel, THE BRASS CUPCAKE, was also published in 1950, but I don't know what month it came out. MacDonald was a well-regarded pulpster, though. The second biggest name is Norman Saunders, who painted the cover for this one, and as always with Saunders' work, it's eye-catching and crowded with action. The other authors in this issue include J.L. Bouma, best remembered for his Western novels, Ejler Jakobsson, Donn Mullaney, and a bunch of guys I'd never heard of.

Review: Woe to the Vanquished - Edwin Truett (Edwin Truett Long) (RED STAR DETECTIVE, June 1940)

“Woe to the Vanquished” is the second novel featuring Dr. Thaddeus Clay Harker, traveling medicine showman and top-notch criminologist and detective, and his assistants, former wrestler Hercules Jones and the beautiful Brenda Sloan. It was published in the June 1940 issue of RED STAR DETECTIVE with a great cover by Emmett Watson. RED STAR DETECTIVE is the retitled pulp that ran for one issue as DETECTIVE DIME NOVELS, where the first Doc Harker novel, “Crime Nest”, appeared. As this story begins Doc, Hercules, and Brenda aren’t involved in a case, they’re just on their way to the next stop where they’ll set up and sell the world-famous Chickasha Remedies that are Doc Harker’s stock-in-trade.

But then they run into a meeting of the Valiants of the Flaming Circle, a black-robed Ku Klux Klan sort of organization that firebombs and destroys a school run by a man they consider a Bolshevik. Doc and Hercules wind up being arrested and changed with murder. Crime and chaos ensue. Doc has his hands full sorting everything out and uncovering the truth about what’s really going on. Obviously, not everything turns out the way it appears at first.

The Doc Harker novels were written by prolific pulpster Edwin Truett Long under the transparent pseudonym Edwin Truett. Long was born in Missouri but spent most of his life in Texas, and according to Tom Johnson, who wrote the introduction to the Altus Press volume that collects all three of the novels, “Woe to the Vanquished” takes place in and around a thinly disguised Wichita Falls, Texas. That by itself is enough to make it of interest to me.

I’ve become an Edwin Truett Long fan. He was not the most rigorous plotter in the world, but his stories are fast-moving, full of action, blessed with colorful, interesting characters, and have occasional touches of humor. He was just a good yarn-spinner, and it’s a shame that his service in World War II as a cryptographer in Burma left him with medical issues that took his life in 1945 when he was only 44 years old.

DR. THADDEUS C. HARKER: THE COMPLETE TALES is available on Amazon in e-book and paperback editions. I’ve read two of the three novels now and really enjoyed both of them, so I don’t hesitate to give this collection a high recommendation if you like off-beat, fast-paced pulp adventure and detective stories.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Black Mask, September 1933

What would 20 cents buy in 1933? Well, it would buy a lot of things I suppose, but one possible answer is that it would buy an issue of BLACK MASK with stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, Frederick Nebel, Raoul Whitfield, W.T. Ballard, Roger Torrey, and Eugene Cunningham. That's just a spectacular group of authors. Cunningham is best remembered as a Western author, but he wrote quite a few hardboiled yarns, too. His story in this issue is the first in a series about hotel detective Cleve Corby. Nebel's story is part of his Kennedy and McBride series, Gardner's features the phantom crook Ed Jenkins, Ballard writes about Hollywood troubleshooter Bill Lennox, Torrey's story is about policeman Dal Prentice, and Whitfield's is the first of two about private eye Dion Davies. Several of the stories from this issue have been reprinted, and I'm sure they're well worth seeking out. By the way, the cover of this issue is by J.W. Schlaikjer, who did quite a few covers for BLACK MASK during this era.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Feds, October 1936

THE FEDS was a G-Man pulp published by Street & Smith, a company that usually was very successful with anything they put out there. Not so with THE FEDS, which lasted for only 15 issues in 1936 and '37. But its lack of longevity can't be attributed to the generally pretty good covers, including this one on the second issue which is probably collectable because of the presence of all those Ku Klux Klansmen on it. I don't know who painted it. Nor were the writers any slouches. This issue features stories by Steve Fisher, Wyatt Blassingame, W.T. Ballard, Arthur J. Burks, William G. Bogart, Laurence Donovan, Jean Francis Webb, George Allan Moffatt (Edwin V. Burkholder), James Duncan (Arthur Pincus), and house-name Bruce Harley. Probably some good reading there. I don't own this issue and it doesn't appear to be available on-line, but if I did have a copy of it, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a try.