The Wrap Up

I don’t have to tell any of you that this has been a pretty rotten year in many ways, but around here, Livia and I have been fortunate in that we’ve been able to carry on working as usual. Because of that, I topped one million words of fiction for the 16^th straight year (my usual goal of slowing down not having panned out, also as usual). That million words encompassed eight solo novels and five collaborative novels. No short fiction this year, but I plan to do at least one novella in 2021. No fiction under my own name, either, but that will change next year.

On the reading front, I had my second-best year since I started keeping records in 1980, with 164 books read. The fact that we were home more than usual may have had something to do with that. Here are my top ten favorites from the books I read, in alphabetical order by author and with links to my reviews of them:

WILD BLOOD, A.C. Abbott
THE SPICY-ADVENTURE MEGAPACK, Robert Leslie Bellem, Victor Rousseau, et al.
HOLOCAUST HOUSE, Norbert Davis
A HACK’S NOTEBOOK, Ben Haas
DEATH SQUAD, Alan Hebden
FOREVER AND A DAY, Anthony Horowitz
DEAD EVIDENCE: THE COMPLETE BLACK MASK CASES OF HARRIGAN, Ed Lybeck
ENGINEERING INFINITY #1: THE DUST OF STARS, Robert E. Vardeman
WHEN TIGERS ARE HUNTING: THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF CORDIE, SOLDIER OF FORTUNE,VOLUME 1, W. Wirt
A TRAWL AMONG THE SHELVES: LAWRENCE BLOCK BIBLIOGRAPHY 1958-2020, Terry Zobeck

That’s four books reprinted from the pulps and two more by authors who sold to the pulps (Abbott and Haas). There were a lot of other good books on my list that came close to cracking the top ten. Overall, it was a good year for reading, and I already have a lot of great stuff lined up to read in 2021.

Which I hope will be a vast improvement for all of us. I’m not at all convinced that it will be, mind you . . . but there’s nothing wrong with hoping.

Commando: Cardiff Blitz - Gary Dobbs

Cardiff, 2nd January, 1941. For over ten hours, the Welsh capital was blitzed by over one hundred German bombers who were determined to turn the city to ruins. On the ground and among the rubble was the Martin family. The father, Charlie, was a firefighter in the AFS and his daughter, Freda, was an Air Raid Warden. While Charlie put out the flames from the incendiary bombs, Freda helped civilians get to the safety of the shelters. But the Blitz wouldn't be the only challenge the pair would encounter that cold Cardiff night...

CARDIFF BLITZ is the first COMMANDO story written by Gary Dobbs, also known as blogger and Western writer Gary Martin Dobbs. I believe he has several more scripts in the pipeline, and I hope so because this is an excellent homefront tale of World War II. The characters are very good and we can't help rooting for them, including a cat known as The General who prompts some of the action. I really enjoyed this one and look forward to reading more issues of COMMANDO written by Dobbs.

Overlooked Movies: They Got Me Covered (1943)

 

THEY GOT ME COVERED is another early Bob Hope movie that I somehow never saw until now. It’s got a great premise: Hope is an inept newspaper correspondent, Dorothy L’amour is his girl Friday/girlfriend who shares an apartment with five other young women in war-crowded Washington D.C., and together they uncover a Nazi spy ring run by Otto Preminger, Eduardo Ciannelli, and Philip Ahn. Hope and L’Amour have the Nazis after them while they run around trying to get the proof they need to expose the spy ring. Many hijinks ensue.

This is an odd movie that relies more on funny situations and physical comedy for its laughs rather than the snappy banter that Hope was known for. There’s some of that in Harry Kurnitz’s script, of course, but overall it’s not as funny as many of Hope’s movies. It is, however, a fairly complex, well-plotted little spy thriller, and as usual, for all of his cowardly posturing, Hope’s character turns out to be quite a scrapper when he’s forced into it.

For the most part, the cast carries this movie. I always like Hope, Dorothy L’amour is beautiful and funny, all the bad guys are suitably sinister, and character actor Donald Meek does a weird scene in which he’s a crazy old man who thinks the Civil War is still going on. It’s amusing, but it almost seems like a scene from a different movie. There’s a Bing Crosby joke (always welcome). THEY GOT ME COVERED never quite rises above the level of average . . . but an average Bob Hope movie from that era is still pretty entertaining. I’m glad I finally got around to watching it.

Commando: HMAS Expendable - Brent Towns

The crews of The Wombat and The Tiger are reunited once again, on a mission to uncover the truth about a new terror lurking in the Coral Sea! Are they really being betrayed by their American allies -- or is there more to this than meets the eye? They've been fooled once by radio transmissions, but now Captain Griffin has a cunning plan...

Brent Towns spins another fine yarn of naval warfare in this sequel to THE WOMBAT AND THE TIGER. The feuding battleship captains--who are also reluctant allies--are excellent characters, and there are plenty of battle scenes and plot twists. As an added bonus, an Admiral Towns makes an appearance in this one as well. As always, this is a very entertaining story.

The Annual December 27th Post

44 years ago today, I made my first sale as a professional fiction writer. I've done a post to mark that anniversary every year since 2004, when I started this blog. The first and most detailed of those posts can be found here. Back on December 27, 1976, I had no way of knowing how my career was going to turn out, of course. That one sale might have been one-and-done. That happens to a lot of people less fortunate than I've been. Yeah, I have a certain amount of talent for the writing game and I've worked pretty hard at it at times, but luck has also followed me every step of the way and don't think I don't know it. The biggest stroke of luck I ever had, in more ways than one, was marrying Livia four months before I made that first sale. One thing definitely has a lot to do with the other. So here's a big thanks to her, to our daughters, to all the editors who've had faith in me, to all the friends I've made, and to all of you reading this post. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Detective Magazine, March 1938

For the last pulp cover post of the year, we have a dandy cover by Walter Baumhofer on one of the iconic pulp magazines, DIME DETECTIVE. Inside this issue, there's a Race Williams story by Carroll John Daly, Raymond Chandler's "The King in Yellow", a Keyhole Kerry story by Frederick C. Davis, and stories by a couple of lesser known writers, William Edward Hayes and Maxwell Hawkins. Baumhofer, Chandler, Daly, and Davis are more than reason enough to think this was a great issue of DIME DETECTIVE. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, August 1947

For our last Western pulp cover of the year, we've got a pretty tough-looking hombre on this STAR WESTERN cover by the ubiquitious Sam Cherry, as regular commenter Tiziano Agnelli referred to him last week. Cherry doesn't get as much attention as some pulp and paperback cover artists do, but man, he turned out a lot of work and nearly all of it was excellent. He's one of my favorite artists, no doubt about it. And a couple of my favorite Western pulp authors, Walt Coburn and Harry F. Olmsted, have stories in this issue, along with other top-notchers Philip Ketchum, Joseph Chadwick, Giff Cheshire, Lee E. Wells, and Marvin De Vries. STAR WESTERN was always good.

Forgotten Books: The Trailsman #314 North Country Cutthroats - Jon Sharpe (Peter Brandvold)

(This post originally appeared on December 14, 2009.)

I’m not exactly what you’d call a Scrooge, but I’m generally not as filled with the Christmas spirit as some people are. So I thought maybe it would help me get in a holiday mood if I read a sweet, heartwarming, inspirational Christmas novel. What did I pick?

NORTH COUNTRY CUTTHROATS.

This entry in the long-running Trailsman series was published a couple of years ago and is definitely a Christmas novel, taking place on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as Skye Fargo finds himself in Dakota Territory, riding shotgun on a stagecoach driven by his old friend Grizzly Olaffson. Fargo would rather be wintering some place warm and tropical, but that’s not how things have worked out. And of course, getting caught in a blizzard is almost the least of Fargo’s troubles, since the stage is carrying a strongbox full of army payroll money that’s bound to attract outlaws, and one of the passengers is a beautiful Russian woman with a secret in her past that may prove deadly to Fargo.

The author behind the Jon Sharpe house-name on this novel is the always dependable Peter Brandvold. As usual in Pete’s work, there’s plenty of gritty action and colorful characters, a few touches of dark humor, and a vividly described setting. NORTH COUNTRY CUTTHROATS may not be exactly what you’d call sweet and heartwarming, but I thought it was a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you’re a Trailsman fan, you’ll want to read this one, and if you haven’t tried that series yet, this would be a good place to start, especially given the time of year.

(Update: I'm fudging a little by calling this a Forgotten Book, because the e-book version is still available on Amazon, but it's an excellent book, and if you need something entertaining to read after whatever festivities you have going on today, I give it a high recommendation. I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas!)

Merry Christmas

 

Classic Adventure Pulp: The Spicy-Adventure Megapack - Robert Leslie Bellem, Victor Rousseau, et al.

 

I’ve been reading this big e-book anthology for the past year or so, a story or two (or three) between novels, or when I just didn’t have the attention span for anything longer, an all too common condition these days. I’ve also discovered that they’re also great to read while sitting and waiting at the doctor’s office, fast-paced and always interesting. The contents are as follows, all of them originally published in SPICY-ADVENTURE STORIES, with a few exceptions as noted.

THE SHANGHAI JESTER, by Robert Leslie Bellem (July 1934)

BLACK MURDER, by Carl Moore (Edwin Truett Long) (April 1935)

SUEZ SOUVENIR, by Jerome Hyams (Robert Leslie Bellem) (SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, September 1934)

THE HOUSE OF WEIRD SLEEP, by Charles R. Allen (January 1935)

CAVE OF THE CRISS-CROSS KNIVES, by C.C. Spruce (April 1935)

HOT BLOOD, by Arthur Wallace (April 1935)

THE MOON GOD TAKES, by Robert Leslie Bellem (SPICY MYSTERY STORIES, December 1936)

SMUGGLER’S ISLAND, by Atwater Culpepper (April 1935)

TALISMAN OF DOOM, by James W. Marvin (Robert Leslie Bellem) (April 1935)

TATTOOED BLONDE, by Ellery Watson Calder (Robert Leslie Bellem) (April 1935)

WHITE MEAT, by Don King (Gunard Hjertstedt, better known as Day Keene) (April 1934)

RED BAMBOO, by Jason Lyttell (SPICY MYSTERY STORIES, June 1935; apparently Lyttell’s only published story)

THE BLACK 13, by Ellery Watson Calder (Robert Leslie Bellem) (August 1935)

THE ISLE OF MONSTERS, by Jane Thomas (August 1935)

TUFFY AND HIS HAREM, by Nick Anderson (August 1935; the second of only two stories by Anderson)

QUEEN OF THE FLAMING ARROWS, by Frank E. Marks (September 1936)

VALLEY OF BLOOD, by Lew Merrill (Victor Rousseau) (September 1936)

LUST TO KILL, by Jose Vaca (Edwin Truett Long) (March 1937)

MARRIAGE FOR MURDER, by C.A.M. Donne (Donald Clough Cameron) (March 1937)

MESSAGE TO MORGAN, by Guy Russell (March 1937)

RIVER OF FIRE, by Ken Cooper (March 1937)

SKY GODDESS, by Clive Trent (Victor Rousseau) (March 1937)

LEAF OF THE LOTUS, by Guy Russell (May 1937)

THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER, by Clark Nelson (house name) (December 1939)

ADVENTURE'S END, by Robert Leslie Bellem (April 1935)

As you might expect, these stories tend to run together after a while, which is why you need to space them out. Also as you might expect, they’re all lurid, over the top, and very politically incorrect. But they’re full of action and enormous fun to read, at least for me. The Spicy level is really pretty tame. Girls tend to lose their clothes fairly often, leading to frequent flowery descriptions of their anatomy, but that’s about it. The stories all fade to black before anything actually happens.

With seven stories, more than a fourth of the total, Robert Leslie Bellem dominates the table of contents, which comes as no surprise. And every one of Bellem’s stories is good, with “Talisman of Doom”, a World War I espionage yarn under the name James W. Marvin, standing out in my memory. For sheer luridness, it would be hard to top “White Meat” by Day Keene (I’m going to call him that since that’s the name he’s best known by) and “River of Fire” by Ken Cooper. I didn’t know Keene had written for the Spicy Pulps, but I’m not surprised. I don’t know anything about Cooper except that he was fairly prolific, although nowhere near Bellem-level.

Honestly, some modern readers are going to find these stories offensive. There’s little characterization, and the plots are rushed and don’t always make sense. But I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, and it’s going on my list of top ten favorite books I read this year. I’m just a little sad that I finished it and don’t have more of them to read when I don’t feel like tackling anything else.

But wait. What’s this I see on my Kindle? THE E. HOFFMANN PRICE SPICY ADVENTURE MEGAPACK, you say? Fourteen stories by another of the prolific contributors to the Spicy Pulps who doesn’t have any stories in the collection I just finished? Well, all right. I know what I’ll be reading between books and in doctor’s offices for a while.