The Wrap Up

As we all know, 2021 has been a rough year in many respects. At times, I’ve felt as if I were keeping busy just so I wouldn’t think about how many unpleasant and downright tragic things were happening in the world.

But I did keep busy: I wrote somewhere around 1.1 million words, the most in several years. I read 202 books, the most I’ve ever read since I started keeping records 41 years ago. (My previous record was 186.) I not only kept my own writing going, but I also sold my publishing imprint, Rough Edges Press, to Wolfpack Publishing and stayed on as the editor, guiding the development of a line that I think can compete with anybody in the mystery/suspense/men’s adventure field. So I think I accomplished quite a bit, although it wasn’t enough for me to feel caught up. I’ll never be caught up . . .

Not for a while yet, anyway. But another thing I’ve done this year is decide on the date when I actually will retire, except for maybe writing a few more books of my own and keeping this blog and the WesternPulps email group going, assuming those platforms still exist. More about that later, as the time approaches. For now, full speed ahead.

Which means listing my top ten favorites of all the books I read this year, in the order in which I read them:

GUN RUNNER, Larry Correia and John Brown
THE SPIDER: FURY IN STEEL, Will Murray
A WRITER PREPARES, Lawrence Block
MAGAZINES I REMEMBER, Hugh B. Cave
THE COMANCHE KID, James Robert Daniels
5 DECEMBERS, James Kestrel
MASTER OF MYSTERY: THE RISE OF THE SHADOW, Will Murray
STRIPPED AND BRANDED, Peter Brandvold
AMBA, Andrew Hallman
DROWNING ARE THE DEAD, Brent Towns

The last two on that list aren’t available yet. They’re books I’m publishing at Rough Edges Press, and they’ll be out next year. I read a lot of good books this year, and there are twenty or thirty more that could have made the cut for the top ten. I especially want to acknowledge the three issues of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY from Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham, BATTLING BRITONS and the two follow-up issues from Justin Marriott, the Levon Cade series by Chuck Dixon, THE COMPLETE CASES OF THE RAMBLER, VOLUME 1 by Fred MacIsaac, THE GUN WITH THE WAITING NOTCH by Stone Cody (Thomas E. Mount), and two thrillers by William Christie that I’ll also be publishing next year, DARKNESS UNDER HEAVEN and BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL. I’m very glad I had so many good books to read, and I want to give a big thank you to all the authors, editors, and publishers who made that possible.

I mentioned above that I wrote around 1.1 million words this year, the 17^th straight year I’ve hit the million word mark. This is where I always say I won’t do that much next year, and then I wind up writing that much anyway. Right now, I’d say it’s doubtful that I’ll do a million words in 2022, but stranger things have happened. I still have some ghost work lined up, and I plan to write a few books under my own name, if I can get around to them. So we’ll see.

And that pretty much sums up my attitude toward everything that’s waiting for us in 2022. We’ll see. Because there’s nothing else we can do.

The Price of a Dime: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Ben Shaley - Norbert Davis

The first Norbert Davis story I ever read was “Don’t Give Your Right Name”, a Max Latin yarn included in the iconic anthology THE HARDBOILED DICKS. That was the first time I’d heard of Davis, but I loved the story and in the years since have read dozens of other pulp stories by him. They’ve never disappointed me.

Davis is best remembered for stories that were both humorous and hardboiled, but he could do straight tough guy tales, too, which he did early in his career. THE PRICE OF A DIME, a new Davis collection from Black Mask/Steeger Books, features five of those early hardboiled stories, two starring private detective Ben Shaley.

“Red Goose” is the first of the Shaley stories, from the February 1934 issue of BLACK MASK. It was reprinted in Joseph T. Shaw’s THE HARD-BOILED OMNIBUS, so I know I’ve read it before, but I didn’t have any recollection of it when I sat down to read this volume. Not surprisingly, it’s a very entertaining story in which Shaley is hired to recover a valuable painting stolen from a museum. There are a lot of twists and turns in a relatively short story, and it takes some explaining from Shaley at the end to straighten everything out, and even then, Davis has a final twist lined up.

Shaley’s second, and final recorded, case is “The Price of a Dime” (April 1934). This involves a hotel bellhop who receives a dime as a tip, an incident that leads to murder, blackmail, and a shootout on the Western lot at a movie studio. Shaley reminds me a little of Mike Shayne, because his thinking always seems to be two steps ahead of everybody else in the story and three steps ahead of the reader. With its movie studio background, this yarn also reminds me of Robert Leslie Bellem’s Dan Turner series, and it has something in common with one of Fred MacIsaac’s Rambler stories I read recently. A very entertaining tale, all around.

Davis’s first appearance in BLACK MASK was in the June 1932 issue, with a story called “Reform Racket”. This is a pretty straightforward story in which the protagonist returns to his hometown and finds himself in the middle of some dangerous political intrigue involving his sister, gangsters, and a candidate vowing to clean up the town. With its very terse prose, ultra-hardboiled protagonist, and understated but brutal violence, this made me think of some of Paul Cain’s stories. It’s an auspicious beginning for Davis.

“Kansas City Flash” was published in the March 1933 issue of BLACK MASK, and despite the title, it’s another Bellem-like yarn about a Hollywood troubleshooter, a former stuntman named Mark Hull. Given that, it’s also reminiscent of W.T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox stories, which also ran in BLACK MASK. I enjoyed this one, and it would have been fine with me if Davis had written more stories about Mark Hull, but this is the only one.

This volume wraps up with “Hit and Run”, from the April 1935 issue of BLACK MASK. It’s a tale of another one-shot private eye, Jake Tait, who goes in search of a hit-and-run victim and finds himself neck deep in a case involving bank robbery and murder. It’s surprising just how much plot Davis could work into these novelettes. Tait’s another tough but likable protagonist, able to absorb a lot of punishment but dish it out, too.

All these stories are very good and well worth reading if you’re a fan of hardboiled detective fiction. My Norbert Davis streak continues: he’s never disappointed me. I give this collection a high recommendation.

The Annual December 27th Post

When I wrote the first of these posts back in 2004, it never occurred to me that I'd still be writing them seventeen years later. I've missed posting about it a year or two along the way, but I've never forgotten what it was like to make that first sale on December 27, 1976, and to be able to consider myself a professional writer.

This year I was trying to think of something to write about those days that I haven't rehashed before. I've talked about the first story that sold and how I came to write it . . . but I don't think I've ever written anything about the stories that didn't sell, for the very good reason that I don't remember much about them. But I recall a few titles and plot details, yarns that I scribbled out with a fountain pen on notebook paper or in a spiral notebook while I was working in my father's TV repair shop. Then either Livia or I would type them, I'd go over them and make revisions, then one of us would type a final draft to go in the manila envelope (with SASE, of course) to go winging off to editorial offices in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago . . . where they went right back in those SASEs and limped back home to me. Those manuscripts are long gone, of course, so I'm working by memory, but here are a few I recall.

"On the Dead Run" -- this was a mystery story about a heist crew that targeted a big party held by degenerate jetsetters in Cancun. All elements about which 23-year-old me knew little or nothing.

"Over on the Hot Side" -- a science fiction story about a radioactive zone, mutants, and other stuff that had been done to death even then.

"The Long and the Short of It" -- another science fiction story. I don't remember anything about it except that one of the editors who saw it handwrote a note on the rejection slip about what an offensive story it was.

"Key Allegro" -- some sort of tropical adventure yarn that I targeted at the men's adventure magazine market. The title came from a housing development in Rockport, Texas, a town I had visited with Livia a few months earlier. That's all I remember.

"No-Hitter" -- now this one, I remember a little better, because Sam Merwin Jr. almost bought it for MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE. It was about a major league baseball pitcher who got in trouble with the Mob. He was ordered to tank a game he was pitching, but a few innings in, he realizes he has a no-hitter going, and he's torn between his competitive nature and his desire to save his skin from the gangsters. It was a suspense story, told from inside his head as the game progresses, and probably the best story I'd written up to that time. But Merwin hated the ending so much that he didn't even ask me to revise it, as he did with another story of mine that he wound up buying a short time later.

For every one of these stories, I wrote at least five or six others that never sold, either. I tried to have three or four stories out in the mail, minimum, all the time. I look back on those days now with nostalgia and think about what a great time it was to be alive, a newlywed with a beautiful bride and a head full of hopes and dreams, but I'm also realistic enough to know that it was a lot of hard, grinding work, too, and I'm not surprised that I almost gave up a few times.

But I'm glad that I didn't, because today marks 45 years that I've been in this business of telling stories. I hope I have a few more years of it left in me. For now, a big thanks as always to the editors who bought the stories and the novels, those of you who read them, and Livia, Shayna, and Joanna, who continue to make it all worthwhile and possible. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, August 17, 1935

Yes, the serials are annoying and the bane of a collector's existence, but I love ARGOSY anyway. There was just so much fine fiction and so many great authors to be found in its pages. This issue has a cover by Paul Stahr, who did most of them for the magazine during the Thirties. The lead story is a circus yarn by John Wilstach. I haven't read this one, but I've read other circus stories by Wilstach and enjoyed them all. Also on hand are Frederick Faust (twice, as Max Brand and Dennis Lawton), H. Bedford-Jones, Borden Chase, Anthony M. Rud, and Hapsburg Liebe. And that's just a typical issue of ARGOSY in the Thirties, the magazine's glory days as far as I'm concerned. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Rangeland Romances, January 1952

A very nice Christmas-themed cover on this issue of RANGELAND ROMANCES, Popular Publications' answer to RANCH ROMANCES. By the Fifties, this pulp leaned more toward actual romances rather than traditional Westerns and featured more female authors. One of those in this issue, Helen Meinzer, who wrote the lead novella under the pseudonym A.C. Abbott, was just about as hardboiled in her writing as her male counterparts, though. Her novels WILD BLOOD and BRANDED are excellent. Other notable names in this issue are Marian O'Hearn, Kenneth Fowler, and Theodore J. Roemer. None of the story titles sound Christmas-like, but the cover's enough to generate some holiday spirit. 

Merry Christmas

A COWBOY'S CHRISTMAS PRAYER
By S. Omar Barker (1894-1985)
 
I ain't much good at prayin', and You may not know me, Lord-
I ain't much seen in churches where they preach Thy Holy Word,
But you may have observed me out here on the lonely plains,
A-lookin' after cattle, feelin' thankful when it rains,
Admirin' Thy great handiwork, the miracle of grass,
Aware of Thy kind spirit in the way it comes to pass
That hired men on horseback and the livestock we tend
Can look up at the stars at night and know we've got a friend.
 
So here's ol' Christmas comin' on, remindin' us again
Of Him whose coming brought good will into the hearts of men.
A cowboy ain't no preacher, Lord, but if You'll hear my prayer,
I'll ask as good as we have got for all men everywhere.
Don't let no hearts be bitter, Lord.
Don't let no child be cold.
Make easy beds for them that's sick and them that's weak and old.
Let kindness bless the trail we ride, no matter what we're after,
And sorter keep us on Your side, in tears as well as laughter.
 
I've seen ol' cows a-starvin, and it ain't no happy sight:
Please don't leave no one hungry, Lord, on thy good Christmas night-
No man, no child, no woman, and no critter on four feet-
I'll aim to do my best to help You find 'em chuck to eat.
 
I'm just a sinful cowpoke, Lord-ain't got no business prayin'-
But still I hope You'll ketch a word or two of what I'm sayin':
We speak of Merry Christmas, Lord-I reckon you'll agree
There ain't no Merry Christmas for nobody that ain't free.
So one thing more I'll ask You, Lord: Just help us what you can
To save some seeds of freedom for the future sons of man.
 
Merry Christmas, everyone, and good night.

The Gunsmith: The Jingle Bell Trail - J.R. Roberts (Robert J. Randisi)

In the past I've read Christmas-themed books from the Edge, Longarm, and Trailsman series, and this year it's the Gunsmith's turn. I've been reading Gunsmith novels almost as long as Bob Randisi has been writing them, since I bought the first one at a newsstand in Fort Worth as soon as it came out.

The Gunsmith, for those of you who don't know, is Clint Adams, a famous gunfighter who wanders the West getting into various adventures and often running into an assortment of historical characters, making friends and enemies among them. There are no historical characters in this Christmas tale, however, which finds Clint in North Dakota as the holiday approaches, far from his usual stomping grounds of the Southwest. He visits a town that decorates heavily for Christmas, and while he's there, the sheriff from a neighboring town--which celebrates the holiday even more than the one where Clint is--asks him to help out with the pursuit of three outlaws who robbed and murdered a ranching couple. The lawman wants to get back to his wife and their five-year-old son before Christmas, so against his better judgment, Clint agrees to help track down the outlaws.

The owlhoots wind up dead, not surprisingly, but so does the sheriff, which leaves Clint with the grim task of returning the body and breaking the bad news to the man's family. From that point, things take some unexpected turns and more trouble looms in the form of a vicious gang that strikes only on holidays.

As always in Randisi's novels, THE JINGLE BELL TRAIL is a fast-paced, dialogue-driven yarn. This one has a little more action than some, with a nice epic battle at the end. Clint is more introspective than most series Western protagonists, struggling with some moral issues and not always making the right choices, which makes him a very human, sympathetic hero. I've always liked him and still do.

THE JINGLE BELL TRAIL is a good addition to that group of Christmas-themed series Westerns. I don't think there was ever a Christmas Slocum or Lone Star or Raider and Doc novel, but if there was, somebody let me know and I'll read it for next year. Meanwhile, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas this year.

Coming Soon: Outlaw Ranger: Ravagers of the Border - James Reasoner

Coming next month. I had a great time writing this one. With interesting characters and lots of all-out action, I think it's my favorite of the Outlaw Ranger series so far. I love the cover from Wolfpack Publishing, too.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Novels, June 1944

Both stories featured on the cover of this issue of DETECTIVE NOVELS are by Norman A. Daniels, a stand-alone novella under his own name and a novella in the Candid Camera Kid series as by John L. Benton. Other authors in this issue include Oscar J. Friend (perhaps better known as an agent) writing as Owen Fox Jerome and lesser-known pulpsters Hal White and W. Fredric Kruger. I don't know the cover artist, but that guy looks suitably menacing. In 1944, I doubt if that little mustache was a coincidence, although he doesn't look like Hitler in any other respect.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, May 1936

This looks like a pretty good mid-Thirties issue of WESTERN TRAILS, with a cover by William F. Soare and entries in two long-running series, Duke Buckland by Frederick C. Davis and Bert Little by Clyde B. Warden. The other authors on hand are all top-notch pulpsters, as well: Philip Ketchum writing as Carl McK. Saunders, Frank Gruber, James P. Olsen, Peter Germano (as Peter Germane), and Bruce Douglas.