Night Forms - Francis M. Nevins

David Cranmer posted about this book the other day, and let me second his recommendation. I’d been aware of Francis M. “Mike” Nevins’ work for many years, but mostly as an editor and author of non-fiction about the mystery genre. I hadn’t read that much of his fiction. NIGHT FORMS is a massive collection of his short stories, and they’re all excellent.


The book includes a selection of stories about each of Nevins’ series characters, law professor Loren Mensing, con man Milo Turner, and police detective Gene Holt. There are also pastiches of Ellery Queen, Raymond Chandler, and Harry Stephen Keeler, as well as a number of non-series stories. The stories’ original publication dates range from 1972 (Nevins’ first story) to 2003. A few of them are pure suspense, but most of them are classic traditional fair-play detective stories, and they serve as a great reminder, in this era dominated by cozies on one end of the spectrum and ultra-hardboiled noir on the other, of just how entertaining that genre can be. More than anything else, NIGHT FORMS is just flat-out fun to read.


My favorite of the series characters is Milo Turner. The stories featuring him are expert blends of con man capers and murder mysteries. My favorite stories overall are the ones that deal with old Western B-movies (one of Nevins’ fields of expertise, along with the law) and copyright issues. Nevins provides afterwords to every story discussing how they came to be written (I love that stuff) and a fine autobiographical introduction that focuses on his friendship and working relationship with Fred Dannay, one half of the Ellery Queen writing partnership and editor of EQMM for many years.


Perfect Crime Books continues to be one of the most impressive independent publishers out there, and NIGHT FORMS is an excellent addition to their list. Highly recommended.

eI53 Now On-line

The latest issue of Earl Kemp's great fanzine eI, the 2010 Annual edition, is now on-line here.  With contributions by Lawrence Block, Michael Moorcock, Victor J. Banis, and Michael Hemmingson, among others, there's plenty of fine reading to be found.  If you've never read eI, I suggest you explore the archives while you're over there.  Allow plenty of time, though.  You may be there all day.

Another Baseball Book

Here's an update from Barbara Gregorich:

I've just published Research Notes for Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball, Vol. I: Maud Nelson, Margaret Nabel. This is an 8x10 book (notebook sized) of 114 pages, consisting of original newspaper articles written between 1875 and 1935. Most of the articles are quoted in their entirety, some are summarized. These are a portion of the research notes from which I wrote Women at Play back in 1992.


This book will be of interest to baseball researchers, to women in baseball who want to know their history, perhaps to baseball fans who aren't interested in research but would enjoy reading old-timey articles, maybe to novelists looking for the flavor of the times, and, I hope, to high school English teachers who assign research papers to students.


Since publishing this book last month, I’ve already heard from baseball researchers who said that information in my book led them to some aspect of their own research they didn’t know about or hadn’t considered.


The book is available only through Amazon, $12 for the softbound format, $5 for the Kindle format.

Fantastic Four: Solve Everything - Jonathan Hickman

It wouldn’t have taken much of an improvement for me to like this collection of Fantastic Four stories more than I did the previous one, Mark Millar’s THE MASTER OF DOOM. Jonathan Hickman picks up where Millar left off and has Reed Richards joining forces with a seemingly infinite number of Reeds from alternate universes to solve the problems of all creation. Not surprisingly, things don’t go well. Once that’s resolved in a fairly satisfactory way, Hickman spends a story dealing with some dangling plotlines from Millar’s run, and then this volume concludes with a story setting up a plot that’s still running in the monthly FANTASTIC FOUR comic.


I liked SOLVE EVERYTHING considerably more than I did THE MASTER OF DOOM, but I was still somewhat disappointed in it. The characterizations aren’t quite there, and the plots are still a little too muddled for my taste. Big, sweeping, time-hopping cosmic epics are hard to do, though, and for me, a little of them go a long way. I prefer stories that are on a slightly smaller scale. I’ve read some of the current issues scripted by Hickman and he seems to have settled in, at least to a certain extent. The art’s pretty good, too.


I probably won’t read the collections reprinting the issues between SOLVE EVERYTHING and the current issues. I think I’m caught up enough just to continue on with the monthly book for now. While FANTASTIC FOUR continues to be my all-time favorite comic book, it wouldn’t be on the basis on what’s being published now. But overall, not bad, and probably worth reading for long-time fans.

Forgotten Books: Rescued in the Clouds, or Ted Scott, Hero of the Air - Franklin W. Dixon (Frank Duffield)

A couple of weeks ago there was some discussion in the comments on one of the posts about the Hardy Boys series. I remembered that while I don’t have any of the original Hardy Boys books on hand (or any of the newer ones, either, for that matter), I do have several books in another series by “Franklin W. Dixon”, so I decided to read one of them.


The Ted Scott Flying Stories were launched about the same time as the Hardy Boys, and according to what I’ve read on the Internet, Ted Scott, dashing young aviator, was even more popular than Frank and Joe for a while, with the books about him outselling the Hardy Boys novels. Ted Scott is a pretty blatant fictionalization of Charles Lindbergh, to whom the books are rather brazenly dedicated, along with a number of other early aviators. The first book in the series, OVER THE OCEAN TO PARIS, has plucky young flier Ted Scott becoming the first man to fly the Atlantic and becoming America’s hero in the process. I don’t have that one, but I do have RESCUED IN THE CLOUDS, the second book in the series, and it picks up with Ted returning to a hero’s welcome in his Midwestern home town, only to run afoul of some old enemies.


The plot of this novel really meanders around, as Ted has a series of adventures centered around flying. He stops a train from crashing off a bridge that’s collapsed. He organizes an air show to raise money to build a hospital. He locates a witness against the con man who swindled his elderly foster parents out of a fortune. He rescues flood victims, performs a daring mid-air rescue of two men from a burning plane, and even (attention Bill Crider!) fights alligators. But no matter what the odds against him, Ted Scott never gives up and fights on with a smile on his face, because Ted Scott is nothing if not stalwart.


The writing in this book is really old-fashioned, not surprising since it was published in 1927. It’s hokey, melodramatic, and driven by incredible coincidences. And yet RESCUED IN THE CLOUDS has its moments. Some of the flying scenes, if put on film, would make spectacular stunts. There are also some nice satiric bits about the commercialization of heroes and how everybody but Ted Scott tries to cash in on his fame. According to one website, the actual author of these books was someone named Frank Duffield, whose only other publications seem to be in the field of non-fiction about coin collecting. He certainly wasn’t a polished writer, but as I said above, at times there’s some decent yarn-spinning in this book. As far as I know, Duffield didn’t write any of the Hardy Boys books as Franklin W. Dixon, but he may have done other boys’ series work for Edward Stratemeyer.


While most readers today probably wouldn’t make it very far in a book like this, those old boys’ series novels are, in their own way, historical documents. This one gives what’s probably a pretty accurate picture of the adulation that greeted Charles Lindbergh on his return to the States. And as creaky as it may be, it has a certain charm to it. I may never read another Ted Scott Flying Story, but I have to admit, I’m a little curious about what happens in the next one, OVER THE ROCKIES WITH THE AIR MAIL, OR TED SCOTT LOST IN THE WILDERNESS. Gee whillikers, I wonder if good old Ted will survive?

Merlin

I posted about the recent ROBIN HOOD movie the other day, so to go from one British legend to another . . . We’ve been watching the first season of the BBC series MERLIN on DVD and just finished it up. Like ROBIN HOOD, MERLIN takes considerable liberties with the traditional version of the legend. In this one, Merlin isn’t a wise old wizard but rather a young man struggling to come to grips with the powers he possesses, while living in a kingdom where magic has been banned by its ruler, Uther Pendragon. Merlin winds up working as a servant for Uther’s son, Prince Arthur, and discovers that there’s a dragon – the last of the dragons – chained up in a cavern underneath Uther’s castle. The dragon, who talks and sounds just like John Hurt, informs Merlin that his destiny is to protect Arthur and insure that he becomes a great king. And from that set-up, off we go adventuring, as various threats to Camelot crop up and have to be dealt with, mostly by Merlin who has to keep his powers a secret, otherwise Uther will have him killed as an evil magician.


There are a lot of special effects, nothing really fancy but reasonably good most of the time, considerable sword-fighting (always a plus in my book), and a few hints of romance. In this version, Morgan le Fey is Morgana, Uther’s ward and the daughter of one of the king’s old friends who died in battle, and Guiniviere is Morgana’s maid. Arthur is a well-meaning but somewhat dense young knight. At times the mostly young and pretty cast make this come off almost like CAMELOT 90210 (yes, I know that’s a cheap shot), but I got caught up in the storylines and wound up enjoying the series quite a bit. The writing is okay, and the cast does a good job, especially Anthony Head (who was Giles in BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) as Uther, taking a basically unsympathetic character and giving him some depth.


I believe our friend Gary Dobbs, proprietor of The Tainted Archive, is in either this season or the second one, which hasn’t come out yet on DVD. I looked from him in these episodes but didn’t see him. This gives me another reason to watch Season Two when it’s released, but I probably would have anyway. MERLIN is decent fantasy adventure, and if you’re a fan of that genre, it’s worth watching.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie. I didn’t know anything about the books on which it’s based except that they’re extremely popular and successful. But as sometimes happens, the unknown turned out to be a very pleasant surprise.


DIARY OF A WIMPY KID is a movie about a kid in middle school. That’s it. Although the script has some lines about how school is a metaphor for life, I’m not sure if the writers intended them seriously or meant them as a subtle dig at movies that take themselves too seriously. The filmmakers manage to avoid most of the other clichés that crop up in movies like this. There’s no voice-over narration by the main character as an adult, looking back on his childhood and drawing valuable lessons from it. They don’t have the kid fall in love with some beautiful, unattainable girl and fail to realize that the girl who’s his buddy is a lot smarter and better-looking. Instead it’s just a movie about the stuff that happens during Greg Heffley’s first year of middle school. The plot is episodic and just sort of meanders along (much like real life). Greg is driven by the desire to be popular, and as a result he does some dumb things, some mean things, and occasionally some noble things. The other characters aren’t as well-developed, but this is Greg’s story, after all. The script has a lot of funny lines and situations, and the cast, mostly unknown to me except for Steve Zahn, who plays Greg’s dad, does a fine job.


This is a prime example of a low-key but very good film, filled with characters you’ll probably recognize from your own school days. Yeah, it’s a movie about kids, made more for kids than adults, but I liked it a lot anyway and highly recommend it. Whether it’ll prompt me to read some of the books is doubtful, but who knows? It might happen.

Fantastic Four: The Master of Doom - Mark Millar

Since I decided to give Marvel a try again and started reading some of the current books and catching up on the past few years by picking up collected editions, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed most of what I’ve read. And I’ve mentioned before that FANTASTIC FOUR is my all-time favorite comic book. So I had high hopes for this trade paperback collecting an eight-issue run from a couple of years ago that featured the classic FF villain, Doctor Doom. But . . . but . . . boy, I didn’t like it. Characterizations that seemed ’way off, a plot that barely made sense, and art that was good at times but filled with giant panels and double-page spreads that just seemed like a waste of space to me. I know, I know, I’m being a curmudgeon, and I hardly ever post negative reviews of anything, but this one just left a bad taste in my mouth. A new writer, Jonathan Hickman, picked up the title after this run, and I have the first collection featuring his work, too. I’m sure hoping I’ll like it more.

Stark House Newsletter

“Hitch was with this great, high-heeled monster of a woman and the only reason I was along, I spoke Italian and Hitch did not. It turned out that the woman was not Italian at all, she was Sicilian, and her glue-voiced accent was so heavy that I understood almost as little as Hitch. Not that it mattered.”

Hello Everyone--
Stark House Press is happy to announce the long-awaited publication of the late, great Peter Rabe’s final manuscripts, The Silent Wall and The Return of Marvin Palaver. Along with a very rare Rabe short story, “Hard Case Redhead,” the books will appear in a single volume this coming January. The above passage is the opening from The Silent Wall, which Booklist calls “a claustrophobic noir, at times almost unbearably tense.” And it is certainly that. Matty Matheson has the run of an entire town but he is not allowed to leave, held captive by the Mafia for reasons he only thinks he knows.

The Return of Marvin Palaver is a darkly comic, highly complex short book about a swindle, payback and the incredible lengths one man will go to get his revenge against the man who ruined him. Rabe never wrote the same book twice and even with his talent for writing different kinds of crime fiction, the story will leave you breathless with its unique voice and dark sense of humor.

Shortly before his death in 1990, Rabe had sent these manuscripts to friend and author Ed Gorman, who’s had them in his possession until now. We’re ecstatic to be the ones who are finally bringing these books, along with the short story “Hard Case Redhead,” into the world. In “Redhead,” two thieves and their uninvited guest try to wait out the aftermath of a troublesome heist. It’s hard-boiled and noir and shows that Rabe could write just as well at shorter lengths.

Donald E. Westlake named Rabe and Hammett his two major genre influences, Bill Pronzini called him “a kind of fictional surgeon,” and Bill Crider said, “Few writers are Rabe’s equal in the field of the hardboiled gangster story.” If you’ve never read Peter Rabe, there’s no better time to start.

We’re also announcing the creation of the Stark House Book Club with a special offer of free shipping on all our books to everyone who signs up now. No minimum to buy, no obligation, just sign up and you’ll receive each new release, hassle free and with no shipping, as they are published. For a limited time, each new member can order as many backlist titles as they’d like for 15% off list price and again, free shipping. To sign up for the club, e-mail us at griffinskye3@sbcglobal.net. And to check out our list of authors and titles, visit our website at www.starkhousepress.com.

On tap for the near future are a two-in-one volume of vintage sleaze crime novels from the famous (under his real name) Don Elliott and a nice trio from Day Keene, and many other exciting titles. So sign up now and don’t miss a book!

To receive this newsletter automatically, please send your e-mail address. We look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,
Greg Shepard, publisher
Stark House Press

Robin Hood

From everything I’ve read about it, the latest version of ROBIN HOOD is so historically inaccurate that it might be best just to approach it as an alternate history version of the legend. So that’s what I decided to do, and looking at it that way, this ROBIN HOOD is a halfway decent adventure movie.


It starts during the Crusades and focuses on a common archer named Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), who, through an incredibly convoluted bit of plot business, winds up impersonating a minor nobleman named Robert Loxley when he returns to England. Political intrigue abounds – in fact, there’s probably too much of it for my taste – but there’s still room for a number of good action scenes. Armies clash in battle. Swords get swung. Arrows fly through the air. The editing is okay for the most part. Eventually it becomes obvious that this is just a prequel, a set-up for future movies, but whether or not they’ll ever get made is anybody’s guess.


I tend to like Russell Crowe, and he’s fine as Robin. His supporting cast of merry men, which includes the great Mark Addy as Friar Tuck (surely the role he was born to play), is good, too. Cate Blanchett is Lady Marion, a widow in this version, and the always-welcome Max Von Sydow is an elderly nobleman. There are several villains, and they’re all suitably dethpicable, as Daffy Duck would say. There’s a nice little in-joke in the script that harkens back to Crowe’s A BEAUTIFUL MIND. The problems are all that political intrigue I mentioned above, which gets a little dull and hard to follow at times, and the fact that the movie is more than two and a half hours long and feels a little too leisurely in some stretches. Overall, though, I enjoyed it and think it’s worth watching. However, it really makes me want to go back and watch THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD again, the classic version starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, and Trigger, and I just don’t have time right now to watch movies I’ve already seen. Maybe someday.