Once More Into the Breech - Peter Brandvold

Every time I read one of Peter Brandvold's Sheriff Ben Stillman books, I decide that Stillman is my favorite Brandvold character. Of course, the same thing happens whenever I read one of his Yakima Henry or Gideon Hawk novels. Those characters become my favorite, for the moment, anyway.

But no doubt about it, Ben Stillman, who has "retired" from a career as a deputy U.S. marshal to become a sheriff in Montana, is a compelling character. In ONCE MORE INTO THE BREECH, the latest novel to feature him, Stillman has to deal not only with an old enemy who may or may not have come to town to kill him and his wife and infant son, he also has his hands full with a troublemaking young drifter, a beautiful but deadly female outlaw, the gang she double-crossed that's now after her, and a bounty that's been placed on his head. On top of all that, a bullet lodged near his spine from an old injury is causing him problems and threatening to paralyze him, or worse.

Ol' Mean Pete really lives up to his nickname in this one, piling troubles on his hero until the reader really starts to doubt whether Stillman will survive. As always, Brandvold is a master at choosing just the right details to make a scene come alive, and he's one of the best at writing gritty, hardboiled action. I had a great time reading ONCE MORE INTO THE BREECH and give it a high recommendation.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Yarns, April 1941

David Goodis is by far the biggest name in this issue of DETECTIVE YARNS, although he wasn't as big a name in 1941 as he was during the 1950s as an author of noir paperback novels. William G. Bogart, who was a solid pulpster and even ghosted some of the Doc Savage novels, is also present, along with J. Lane Linklater and several Columbia Publications house-names.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Giant Western, February 1950

Kind of a tranquil cover by Sam Cherry on this issue of GIANT WESTERN, but I'll bet a hat that trouble is about to break out any minute. I'm sure it does in the stories by Paul Evan Lehman, Leslie Scott (as A. Leslie), Norrell Gregory, Wilbur S. Peacock, Donald Bayne Hobart, and Allan K. Echols.

Forgotten Books: Gone North - Charles Alden Seltzer

Technically this novel may not be forgotten, since Altus Press just reprinted it as one of the first entries in the Argosy Library, but I think it's safe to say that before that, not many people other than Matt Moring remembered it. Charles Alden Seltzer is best known as a Western author, but he wrote other sorts of adventure fiction, too. GONE NORTH, as its title implies, is a Northern, since it takes place in Canada's Great North Woods, but it doesn't have Mounties or snowstorms or dogsleds or many of the other trappings we associate with that genre. It does, however, have a varied cast of characters after a fortune in gold.

What else does it have, you ask? Well, how about a great stone castle in the middle of the woods, complete with towers and cannon and secret passages, populated by bloodthirsty pirates (the sea-going kind, who have moved north), foppish but deadly European aristocrats, a beautiful young girl raised by the above-mentioned pirates, and a prisoner who knows the location of a fabulously valuable gold mine. If that's not enough, how about a two-fisted protagonist who made a fortune in the Klondike and now roams the world in search of adventure and wrongs to right? Then there's his sidekick, a giant Indian who steps on his enemies' necks in order to break them. Throw in some sword fights, a lot of running around in those secret passages and tunnels, epic brawls like you'd find in movie serials from Republic Pictures, riding the rapids in canoes, and assorted other mayhem. How Seltzer overlooked a quicksand scene, I'll never know.

This novel appeared as a six-part serial in ARGOSY in March and April of 1930, and the readers must have been holding their breath from one installment to the next. GONE NORTH is old-fashioned, sure, but it's also extremely entertaining if you're a fan of the adventure pulps. I loved it. It's exactly the sort of thing Ace Books would have reprinted in one of those small-size paperbacks in the early Sixties, and I would have read it on my parents' front porch on a summer day, utterly enthralled. It's hard to recapture that feeling now, but GONE NORTH does at times, and I'm grateful to Altus Press for bringing it back.

I've been wanting to read some of Charles Alden Seltzer's Westerns for a while. Now I want to even more.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: It Could Happen to You

Most of you probably saw this years ago, so it's overlooked only in the sense that we didn't watch it until now. Because of that, I won't spend much time on the plot: good-hearted cop who lives in Queens (Nicolas Cage) promises a hard-luck waitress (Bridget Fonda) half of his potential winnings from a lottery ticket because he doesn't have the money to give her a tip. Complications ensue, mostly because of the cop's greedy wife (Rosie Perez). Human decency wins out in the end.

I kept thinking this ought to be a remake of a Frank Capra movie starring Jimmy Stewart, because that's sure the way it plays. It's aggressively old-fashioned, right down to the music (David Rose's "Holiday for Strings" plays over one scene, making me flash back to all those evenings spent watching THE RED SKELTON SHOW with my parents when I was a kid). Nicolas Cage, in an understated performance for him, even seems now and then to be delivering his lines like Stewart would have. The rest of the cast, which includes a young Stanley Tucci, a not-young Red Buttons, and an oddly cast but effective Isaac Hayes, is good, too.

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU (see, that's even a Capra-esque title) is very predictable, but it's also very good-hearted, and more and more that seems to be what I'm in the mood for these days. If you haven't seen it and feel the same way, check it out.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, November 1932

Pirate stories were common in the pulps, and the featured story in this issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES looks like a pretty good one. Jack D'Arcy was really D.L. Champion, creator of The Phantom Detective and author of many pulp detective and adventure yarns. Other authors in this issue are G. Wayman Jones (a Thrilling Group house-name and the byline on the first few Phantom Detective novels, to bring up that character again), Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Wayne Rogers, Perley Poore Sheehan, and Anthony M. Rud, all well-regarded writers in their day but long forgotten now except by the most devoted pulp fans.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Complete Cowboy Novel Magazine, August 1949

That looks like an H.W. Scott cover to me, and I know he did some work for Columbia around this time. There are only four stories in this issue of COMPLETE COWBOY NOVEL MAGAZINE: the lead novel by Roe Richmond and short stories by Harold Preece, Richard Brister, and Chuck Martin, all decent writers. I don't care for Richmond's Jim Hatfield novels, but his stand-alone work is okay.

Forgotten Books: Spawn of Jupiter - Ed Earl Repp

Ed Earl Repp is best known as a Western writer, of course (and these days, for Frank Bonham's marvelous autobiographical essay "Tarzana Nights", about ghosting for Repp), but he wrote a considerable amount of science fiction, too, from the early days of the genre up through the 1940s.

I'm fudging a little by calling SPAWN OF JUPITER a book, since it's actually a novella originally published in the March 1944 issue of AMAZING STORIES. But it's available as an e-book on Amazon, so hey, close enough. (I assume the tiny naked guys on the pulp cover are from Robert Bloch's story "It's a Small World", because they're sure not in Repp's yarn.)

This one certainly has some similarities to Repp's Westerns, since it's set in Death Valley and has a couple of old desert rats as supporting characters. The protagonist is astrophysicist Dave Weston, who as the story opens is searching in Death Valley for his missing father, also a scientist who was on the trail of a mysterious meteor that supposedly landed in those arid badlands. In the course of his search, Dave encounters a mysterious, beautiful blonde, tangles with an old enemy of his father's, and eventually uncovers a deadly secret in the Last Chance Mountains bordering Death Valley. There's plenty of two-fisted action along the way, and while nobody would ever accuse Repp's prose of being stylish, he knew how to keep a story clipping along at a nice pace.

The science involved in the plot is pure handwavium, implausible even for the pulp era, but nobody reads this kind of SF story for the scientific speculation. It's an adventure yarn, and if I'd read it when I was ten years old, I probably would have thought it was one of the greatest stories ever written. At more than fifty years older than that, I still thought it was pretty entertaining.

Of course, you can't write about one of Repp's stories without wondering if he really wrote it or farmed out the first draft to somebody else and just plotted and polished it. As far as I recall, I've never heard any rumors about his science fiction being ghosted, only his Westerns, so maybe he wrote SPAWN OF JUPITER. My hunch is that he did, but I can't prove that. Regardless of who really wrote it, if you can approach this one with the mindset of a ten-year-old just discovering science fiction, it's a fast-moving, enjoyable tale.

Now Available: Sapphires Aren't Forever - Christine Matthews

A random act of violence sets the stage for SAPPHIRES AREN’T FOREVER, a chilling novel of mystery and suspense, as one woman faces an unseen adversary…and an unforeseen future. Chloe Weber, once a promising law student, still can’t remember the details of the crime that stole one of her best friends’ lives…and forever changed hers. Fearful of the big city dangers in Chicago, she finds refuge in Endo, a small “artsy” town found along the northern shores of Lake Michigan. A wannabe jewelry designer, Chloe meets a kindred spirit in Dinah, who helps her get settled. But all the while, the mystery of what happened to Chloe and her friends is heightened when the second of the victims is found murdered. Chloe realizes she’ll never be at peace until she takes matters into her own hands—despite the protests of her cop-boyfriend--and unravels the startling reason behind the vicious attacks.

Now Available: The Mad Man of the Mountains - James J. Griffin

Again and again, bodies are discovered near the summits of some of New Hampshire's most picturesque mountains, brutally murdered by an ingenious serial killer who moves around this scenic wilderness like a deadly phantom. With few if any clues to go on, state police detective Paul Talbot sets out to track down this vicious killer before more innocent people die at the hands of a lunatic! 

Acclaimed, bestselling historical novelist James J. Griffin makes a stunning debut as an author of contemporary thrillers with THE MAD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS. Fast-paced, populated with compelling, intriguing characters, and filled with fascinating police procedure and breathtaking suspense, THE MAD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS is great reading! 

James J. Griffin has had four passions for most of his life: Horses, the United States West, the Texas Rangers, and New Hampshire. He has penned several series of Texas Ranger novels and stories. THE MAD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS is his first Detective Paul Talbot novel. 

Griffin has spent many happy hours riding his horse through the forests and fields, and exploring the White Mountains. Some of his fondest memories are swimming in the Saco River at First and Second Irons in Bartlett, and trips to the summit of Mount Washington in all kinds of weather, from nice to horrendous. He has spent overnights on the summit, and made a wintertime trip to the top in the Observatory Sno-cat, in howling winds and near-blinding snow. He is a lifelong member of the Mount Washington Observatory, and contributed to the building fund for the Sherman Adams Building. 

A native New Englander, Jim is a member of Western Fictioneers and the Western Writers of America. He now makes his home in Keene, New Hampshire.

(Those of you who are fans of Jim Griffin's Western fiction need to check out this fine thriller from him, the first of what I'm sure will be many excellent suspense novels. I'm proud to publish it as part of the Rough Edges Press line. Right now it's available only as an e-book, but the print edition will be published soon.)