Travelogue

Since the last time I posted here, I've been almost a thousand miles, down to San Antonio and then on to the Texas Gulf Coast and back.I didn't have any Internet access while I was gone, but I wrote a little something each day to post here when I got back. So here it is, and I warn you, it's sort of long.

Part 1

I’m writing this on April 12, although it probably won’t get posted for several days yet. I’m in San Antonio, where tonight I attended a dinner event at the historic Menger Hotel that was part of the Texas Library Association convention. It was called “Dying to Meet You” and was set up like speed dating: each table in the ballroom had an author sitting at it, and every fifteen minutes or so we got up and moved to another table. It was fun, I plugged my books, and I saw a few people I know from other conventions, like Lillian Stewart Carl and William Manchee. I met Michael Bracken, one of the most prolific short story authors in the world today, I imagine, whose blog is one of my regular stops, and I enjoyed talking to him for a while before the event got started. The TLA people all did a great job setting this up. They even had valet parking for the authors. Being an old country boy, I’d never had a valet park my car before. Fancy stuff.

As those of you who know me are well aware, I’m a hermit by nature and don’t like to travel. This trip isn’t over, though. From San Antonio, I’m going on down to the Texas coast tomorrow to take care of some family business. I’ll be there for several days and will probably write a post or two while I’m down there. I brought the computer along so that I can get some pages done on the current book, too.

I avoid interstate highways whenever I can because I don’t like the traffic, so today I came down Highway 281 through the Hill Country (for those of you familiar with the area) and the bluebonnets are really blooming. Whole fields were filled with them. Probably the prettiest display of wildflowers I’ve seen in a while.

This is the first time I’ve blogged while traveling, and of course the posts won’t be up until after I’m back. Lowell Thomas I ain’t.

Part 2 – Friday the 13th

Livia’s parents have a vacation cabin on the Gulf Coast. Since they’ve been in poor health they haven’t been able to get down here to take care of the place and mow the grass. So since I was going to San Antonio anyway, I volunteered to tend to those errands. The drive went just fine. I got here, checked the place out, got the mower out and started working. I hadn’t been at for very long when the mower quit working. I’m not much of a mechanic, but I was able to monkey with it for a while and get it started again. Mowed some more and was about a fourth of the way through the job when the mower quit again. This was a different problem, one that I couldn’t fix. Well, after coming this far I wasn’t going to let the work go unfinished. So it was down the road to Wal-Mart, where I bought a new mower. Got it back to the cabin, put it together, put oil and gas in it . . . and it wouldn’t start. I knew crying wouldn’t do any good, but I was tempted. Well, when all else fails, read the instructions. Problem was, although the instructions were in about seven different languages, they were also self-contradictory – in all seven languages, I assume. Anyway, I finally figured out what I was doing wrong, got the mower started, and the rest of the mowing actually went pretty fast. I finished around seven o’clock this evening.

Now after all the driving and mowing, I’m going to rest up for a couple of days before going home. Of course, by resting up, I mean trying to see how many pages I can get done on the current book while I’m down here. But I might take a little while to go booking and maybe even walk on the beach a little.

Part 3

I recovered all right from my eventful Friday the 13th and spent most of today, Saturday, April 14th, working as I said. I wasn’t sure how much I could get done. Strange place, different computer, none of my usual routine . . . Writers are creatures of habit as much as anybody else. But the work went really well. And I even went down to the beach to walk some.

In the middle of the day I also took a break to check out the local used bookstores. When I was here the last time, nearly five years ago, there were four bookstores in town. Now there are two, and one of them appears to be on its last legs. However, the best one (Bill Crider knows the one I’m talking about) is still thriving, despite having been damaged by a fire since I was here last. The people who run it told me they lost all the books except for some of the Westerns, but they’ve managed to restock it fairly well. The owner said he thought they only had about a fifth as many books as they used to . . . but there are still tens of thousands of books inside the store, which has been remodeled and rearranged considerably because of the fire. I spent at least an hour there, happily going through all the shelves. I didn’t come across any great finds, mind you, but I got some good books, including Westerns I didn’t have by Walt Coburn, Philip Ketchum, and William Heuman, good writers all. Also CUTLER #2: THE GUNHAWKS, by John Benteen (Ben Haas), a book I’ve been looking for. I read the first Cutler novel and thought it was excellent. Haas is one of my favorite writers. Still in the Westerns, I found one called PLUMB DRILLIN’ by David Case, who is best known, if at all, for his horror novels, but he’s also supposed to have written quite a few of the Nightstand books, the same line of soft-core porn novels that Silverberg, Block, Westlake, etc., wrote for in the Sixties. Then there’s BARLOW’S KINGDOM by John Redgate, “A Western Tale of Lust and Violence”, according to the cover. What makes this interesting to me is that “John Redgate” is also the author of a suspense novel called THE KILLING SEASON that I read and enjoyed a great deal when it came out in the Sixties. I found out later that “John Redgate” (if I remember correctly, and if I don’t, someone please correct me) was really Gregory McDonald, the author of the Fletch novels. I had no idea that he’d ever written a Western. The other item of interest is THE UNKNOWN, a Pyramid anthology of eleven stories from the pulp magazine (you guessed it) UNKNOWN. Some of the stories in here have been anthologized many times, like H.L. Gold’s “Trouble With Water” and L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Gnarly Man”, but most of the others are new to me. Not a great haul, but definitely a good one.

Part 4

One more day, Sunday, April 15th, spent working for the most part, although I read a little and watched a couple of old movies, BORDER FEUD with Lash LaRue and BORDERLINE with Fred MacMurray and Claire Trevor. I’ll write individual posts about them later. And the similarity in titles is just a coincidence, not a theme.

I also went back to the used bookstore, which is open on Sunday, and found a few things I overlooked yesterday, like a copy of the Black Lizard edition of David Goodis’s THE BURGLAR, which I didn’t have in any edition, and .357 VIGILANTE by Ian Ludlow, actually the first novel by our old friend Lee Goldberg, who must have been about 12 years old when he wrote this one. (Actually, I believe he was in college . . . but he was still a kid.)

I’ve always wondered just how much I could write if I was holed up somewhere by myself, with not much else to do, and I forced myself to stay at it for longer than I normally do. The answer is – a lot. But I sure wouldn’t want to do it on a regular basis. I’ll be heading for home tomorrow, and I’m certainly glad and ready to be there.

Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence

Back in the Seventies, one of my favorite comic book characters was Jonah Hex. Hex was an anti-hero, a scar-faced ex-Confederate bounty hunter in the Old West who appeared in ALL-STAR WESTERN, WEIRD WESTERN TALES (the same book with a title change), and his own comic book, JONAH HEX. The stories by John Albano and Michael Fleischer were gritty and violent, influenced by spaghetti Westerns and possibly by the various Western paperback series such as EDGE that were written by a group of English authors who dubbed themselves the Piccadilly Cowboys, and the art, usually by Tony DeZuniga, was outstanding. DC has reprinted a lot of these early Jonah Hex stories in one of their black-and-white SHOWCASE volumes, but that will be the subject of another post later on.

Today I’m concerned with the revival of Jonah Hex in his own title a couple of years ago. DC is reprinting these stories in trade paperback collections, starting with JONAH HEX: FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE. It’s a great comeback for a great character. Written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, these stories are stand-alone Western yarns, and they’re every bit as hard-edged as the originals. Hex takes on outlaws, Indians, the plague, crooked lawmen, and killer nuns. As befitting a character who once appeared in a comic book called WEIRD WESTERN TALES, most of these stories have some bizarre, even grotesque elements (though not supernatural). The artwork in five out of the six stories in this volume is by Luke Ross. It’s a slicker style than in Hex’s previous incarnations, but it works very well. The other story in this book was drawn by Hex’s original artist and co-creator, Tony DeZuniga, and his work is as powerful and effective as ever. If you’re an old fan of Jonah Hex who hasn’t tried this new series yet, or if you just like offbeat Westerns, I can’t recommend FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE strongly enough.

The Labyrinth -- Francis Stevens

Sometimes you find little gems in unexpected places. This is the case with THE LABYRINTH, a novel by Francis Stevens that was originally serialized in the pulp ALL-STORY WEEKLY in 1918. A new edition will be published later this year by Beb Books. (Email me for info about that if you’re interested, and I’ll put you in touch with the publisher.)

THE LABYRINTH doesn’t start out too promising. The narrator is wealthy playboy Hildreth Wyndham, whose cousin Veronica disappears under mysterious circumstances. Veronica is the former secretary of the state’s governor (Stevens doesn’t specify which state, but it’s vaguely Midwestern), and Wyndham believes that the politician may have something to do with her disappearance. Along with Veronica’s fiancee Rex Tolliver, Wyndham embarks on a search that takes them to the corridors of power and hints at a sinister conspiracy.

For its first half, THE LABYRINTH is concerned with that search and seems to be nothing more than a pretty lightweight romantic thriller. But then there’s an abrupt plot twist that changes everything, and it’s only the first of a dizzying series of reversals and revelations and grim, eerie scenes that are nothing like what has come before. I love books where nothing is what it seems to be, and Stevens delivers the goods on that, at least for a while.

Unfortunately, if THE LABYRINTH is a gem, it’s a flawed one, because Stevens allows the plot to spiral out of control and the ending is terrible. Also, while the old-fashioned writing style didn’t bother me (I’ve always been able to sort of project myself into whatever era a story was written), some modern readers might find it too stilted. So while I recommend THE LABYRINTH for the offbeat risks that it takes and some creepy, highly effective scenes, it’s not the book that it could have been.

I’d never read anything by Francis Stevens before. Her real name was Gertrude Bennett, and she’s remembered today as one of the first American female authors of fantasy and science fiction, having published quite a few fantastic-themed stories in pulps like ARGOSY and WEIRD TALES, some of which were reprinted in paperback during the Seventies. The promise she demonstrated in THE LABYRINTH is intriguing enough that I’d read more of her work if I came across it.

Batman: Detective

BATMAN: DETECTIVE is a new trade paperback reprinting a six-issue run of stories from DETECTIVE COMICS that were originally published a year or so ago. Five of them were written by Paul Dini, the driving force behind the Batman animated TV series, and the other is by Royal McGraw, with art by various hands.

Batman first appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS #27, of course, ’way back in the late Thirties, and ever since, his abilities as a crime-solver have set him apart from most of the other superheroes out there. All the stories in this volume are stand-alones, and most of them focus on Batman functioning as a detective as he takes on classic villains such as The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler, and Poison Ivy. There are a couple of villains who were new to me, Façade and Dr. Phosphorus. All of them make fine opponents for Batman.

This is an excellent collection with fine scripts and art from everyone involved. Batman remains my all-time favorite DC Comics character. I’ve read stories from every era of his history and liked them all (even the goofy, SF-dominated stuff from the Fifties). It’s nice to know that he’s still in good hands today.

The Heist -- Michael A. Black

I’m no expert on caper novels, but I know a good story when I read one. Michael A. Black’s THE HEIST definitely falls into that category. Set in 1992, it finds a pair of ex-Marine, Desert Storm veterans hatching a plan to rob a safe deposit box belonging to the number two man in the Chicago mob. They expect to find millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains, but instead they find something even more valuable: a videotape implicating the Outfit’s boss in a couple of murders. Naturally, once word of this gets out, everybody wants the tape, including assorted mobsters, hitmen, government lawyers, federal agents, and cops. The two protagonists, of course, find themselves in the middle of this dangerous hunt, and naturally, things go from bad to worse.

This is a large-cast book with a lot of stuff going on all the time, but Black handles this juggling act with consummate skill, never letting the pace slow down for very long. Great characters, great action scenes, and a poignant but satisfying ending make this a fine crime novel. This is a stand-alone, but Mike Black is also the author of a series of novels featuring Chicago PI Ron Shade. I haven’t read any of these, but I intend to. A long-time pulp fan as well, he’s written a Doc Savage-like pastiche called MELODY OF VENGEANCE that I’ll be reading soon.

The Illusionist

Set mostly in 19th Century Vienna, this strikes me as a determinedly old-fashioned film. The setting, the music, the sepia-toned photography, the cinematic techniques like the iris shots that are used frequently, all combine to give THE ILLUSIONIST a vintage feeling. And the plot, with its love lost, regained, and lost again because of a romantic triangle, is also the stuff of classic film. It all works very well, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, even though it's not the sort of movie I usually watch. The pace is pretty slow, which is usually the kiss of death for a film where I'm concerned. But the story was interesting enough to keep me awake and watching, no small feat these days. My plotting ability seems to be slipping, though. I didn't see the big twist at the end coming at all, and I should have.

Twisted -- Jeffery Deaver

As I mentioned in my comments on Jeffery Deaver's second collection of short stories, MORE TWISTED, he who lives by the twist ending dies by the twist ending. Happy to report, Deaver lives more than he dies in this first collection, which I thought was considerably better than the second one, which I still liked. There were more stories in this one where I wasn't able to figure out the ending, including one that really had my jaw dropping on the last page. And there weren't any stories that came to a crashing halt while Deaver explained everything that was going on. This collection's well worth reading, and now the question is whether or not I want to try one of Deaver's novels again. If I do, I'm sure I'll have something to say about it here.

Peanuts: A Golden Celebration -- Charles M. Schulz

This oversized volume was published a few years ago to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the PEANUTS comic strip, but I'm just now getting around to reading it. I first became a PEANUTS fan by picking up the Crest paperbacks in the Sixties, which led to me buying the other collections that were available then. I couldn't read the current strips in the newspaper, because the Fort Worth Star-Telegram didn't carry PEANUTS. The Fort Worth Press did, and my family didn't subscribe to it. But eventually the Press went out of business and the Star-Telegram picked up PEANUTS, where I read it until the strip ended and where I still read the reprints of old strips every day.

This book reprints hundreds of strips from all five decades of PEANUTS history, interspersed with text by creator Charles M. Schulz about a variety of subjects related to it. Most of them I'd read before, but there were some I hadn't. What struck me was just how dark PEANUTS was, going all the way back to the beginning. Like the protagonists of countless noir novels, Charlie Brown is doomed no matter what he does. But if the comedy in the strip is pretty black on occasion, it's also very, very funny most of the time. It's true that the quality declined in later years, but Schulz was still capable of brilliance every now and then. And in these days when cartoonists seem to burn out in a relatively short time, I'm not sure any comic strip will ever again be as good, for as long, as PEANUTS was. Reading this book brought back a lot of wonderful memories.

Donald Hamilton

Even though others have already written about it quite eloquently, I can't let Donald Hamilton's death pass without mentioning how much I truly enjoyed his books. THE SILENCERS was the first one I read, back in the Sixties, and as with so many books from that era, I even remember where I bought it: the book section of Leonard's Department Store in downtown Fort Worth. At the time there were eight or nine books in the Matt Helm series, and I read all of them as fast as I could get my hands on them. Later on when the books got longer I didn't like them quite as well, but I still read them. I haven't read any of Hamilton's non-series mystery and suspense novels, but I've read several of his Westerns and liked them. Not as much as those short, mean, early Matt Helm books, though. Boy, those were good. If you've never read anything by Hamilton, you owe it to yourself to hit the used bookstores as soon as possible.

Sin in Their Blood -- Ed Lacy

This early (1952) novel by Ed Lacy was published by Eton Books, an imprint of Avon. I don’t think I’ve ever run across any Eton Books before, so when I found this one last week at Recycled Books in Denton, of course I had to buy it. I read it over the weekend.

It starts out as pretty standard stuff. Tough private eye Matt Ranzino returns to his home town (an unnamed city on the west coast) after serving in the army during the Korean War. He discovers that his former partner, who was sort of a shady character to start with, has turned downright crooked and is involved in an elaborate blackmail scheme. The ex-partner has also taken up with Matt’s ex-girlfriend. Matt is unsure whether or not he wants to be a PI again, but before you know it, he’s mixed up in a complicated murder-suicide case. But then Lacy takes what could have been a generic Fifties private eye novel and turns most of the conventions of such tales upside-down. Matt Ranzino turns out not to be the usual tough guy PI after all. I can’t say much more than that without ruining the book, but those of you who have read some of Lacy’s other novels (I hadn’t) or even read much about him can probably guess some of what I’m talking about.

I have to give Lacy, whose real name was Leonard Zinberg, credit for trying to do something different, but as far as I’m concerned SIN IN THEIR BLOOD is a book that’s more interesting than good. Everything is so heavy-handed that it just didn’t work for me. However, the prose is very slick and fast-paced, and the ending is so over-the-top that it almost saves the whole book. I enjoyed this novel enough despite its flaws that I wouldn’t hesitate to read more by Lacy. That’s good, because over the years I’ve acquired a lot of his books.