Lie Catchers - Paul Bishop

Paul Bishop has been one of my favorite writers for a long time, but he may have set a new standard for himself with his latest novel, LIE CATCHERS. This is the first book in a new series featuring LAPD detectives Ray Pagan and "Calamity" Jane Randall, who is also the narrator. Both of them have special abilities that make them better at what they do—interrogating prisoners—than anybody else.

As LIE CATCHERS opens, Randall is recuperating from a gunshot wound suffered in the line of duty, during an incident that's one of several which have given her the nickname "Calamity". She wants to get back to work but is uncertain about being teamed with the eccentric Pagan, who doesn't really dress, talk, or act like any of the other cops she has known or worked with. It doesn't take her long to figure that he's a genius at interrogation, though, and he thinks she can be, too.

After working together on a gang shooting case, the new team launches into the investigation that will keep them busy for the rest of the book: the kidnapping of the six-year-old daughter of a rap music mogul. Before long there's the seemingly unrelated kidnapping of another child and a couple of murders to complicate things, but Pagan and Randall sort through everything with a mixture of dogged police work and brilliant questioning of suspects.

The police procedural element is fascinating, as is the developing relationship between the two protagonists. Bishop's prose races right along, never losing control of the complex plot. LIE CATCHERS is easily one of the best novels I've read this year. Also included in this book are two autobiographical essays by Bishop about his first interrogation and his last arrest before retiring from the LAPD, and they're worth the price of the book by themselves. You won't go wrong with this one. It gets my highest recommendation.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, August 1940

I think this may be the first trapeze shootout I've ever seen on a pulp cover. Seems pretty dramatic. Inside this issue of DETECTIVE TALES you've got a Satan Hall story by Carroll John Daly, plus yarns by Arthur Leo Zagat, Philip Ketchum, Dale Clark, and more.

Coming Soon: Tales From the Otherverse

Other times, other places, other stories than the ones we know...These are the Tales From the Otherverse, where anything is possible and things never work out quite the way you'd expect. Some of today's top talents in popular fiction turn their hands to tales of alternate history. Featuring new stories by bestselling, award-winning authors Bill Crider, Lou Antonelli, Scott A. Cupp, Robert E. Vardeman, James Reasoner, and more. Explore the Otherverse and see what might have been!

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: 10 Story Western, July 1945

Now that's a cover! Two tough hombres riding the cowcatcher of a locomotive barreling down the tracks! From the looks of it, they're having a shootout with the bad guys, too. I've got to write a scene with a setup like this in it. What's inside this issue of 10 STORY WESTERN looks good, too, with stories by William Heuman, Frank Bonham, Tom W. Blackburn, Gunnison Steele, Giff Cheshire, Philip Ketchum, and Barry Gardner (actually Bennie Gardner, who was also Gunnison Steele).

Now Available: The Big Shutdown - John M. Whalen

NEWS FROM FLYING W PRESS  . . . .

The Big Shutdown

Flying W Press announces the return of a space western classic. ‘’THE BIG SHUTDOWN.” First published as a series in the famed Ray Gun Revival e-zine in 2006-2007, and in 2010 as a paperback and e-book novel under the title “Jack Brand,” this space western saga is back in a revised edition, under a new title – “THE BIG SHUTDOWN.” 

An entire planet is about to be shutdown. Once exploited by Earth’s conglomerates for its rich oil resources, the planet Tulon has become obsolete due to the rise of alternative fuel technologies. The powers that be are ready to pull the plug. Chaos rules as Nomad gangs terrorize what’s left of Tulon’s cities. Jack Brand, ex-Army Ranger, semi-retired Tulon Security Officer, searches for his missing sister, Terry. His journey takes him from desert wasteland, to a domed city, through savage jungles, and down into a kingdom below the sea. Along the way he meets the unforgettable Christy Jones, but love will have to wait until Brand finds his sister, and soon the last ship will leave for Earth.

The new edition includes an introduction by Ray Gun Revival Overlord, Johne Cook, and a bonus story from Whalen’s This Ray Gun for Hire series.

Don’t miss this exciting space western adventure, which some have said combines the Space Opera thrills of Flash Gordon and the gritty feeling of a Sam Peckinpah western. Available now on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.

Forgotten Books: Marilyn K. - Lionel White

As far as I recall, I've read only two books by Lionel White before now. Liked one quite a bit, didn't care for the other one. But MARILYN K., originally published by Monarch Books in 1960, is a good yarn, no doubt about that.

The set-up is pure noir. Narrator/protagonist Sam Russell, ex-Marine, ex-casino croupier who lost his job in Havana when Castro took over, is driving from Florida to New York when he comes across a beautiful girl stranded on an isolated stretch of road in Maryland. She needs help, and she's attractive enough that Sam wants to help her.

The fact that she has a suitcase full of money with her is an added inducement. But the situation is complicated by a wrecked car nearby with a dead mobster in it, and once Sam finds out what's going on, he's is smart enough to know that what he ought to do is just keep driving.

But of course, he doesn't. He tries to help the girl and finds himself up to his neck in a mess involving mob money, murder, brutal cops, ambitious politicians, and more than one beautiful young woman who may or may not be trustworthy.

White handles all this in highly entertaining fashion, juggling the elements of his plot so that the reader really doesn't know what to expect next. It helps that much of the action takes place around a couple of motels (that staple of noir fiction), one a ritzy motor lodge, the other a set of rundown tourist cabins. It all leads to a satisfying, if somewhat predictable, climax.

MARILYN K. generates a considerable amount of suspense and hardboiled thrills, and it's good enough to make me want to read more by Lionel White. Luckily, it's being reprinted this month by Stark House in a double volume with THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, and it's available for pre-order. Well worth reading is my verdict.

Now Available: The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer - Livia J. Washburn

In the latest from the national bestselling author of Trick or Deadly Treat, Phyllis Newsom returns with a festive Christmas recipe that’s to die for…

‘Tis the season in Weatherford, Texas, and everyone in town is gearing up for the annual holiday parade and tree-lighting ceremony in the town square, where Phyllis Newsom will be serving her much-anticipated candy cane cupcakes. Local rancher Barney McCrory manages to charm one away from her before the ceremony begins. But unfortunately, when the minty confection is finished, so is he.

This isn’t the first time someone has dropped dead after eating one of Phyllis’s treats. But when the paramedics determine the rancher was shot, suspicion swiftly falls on McCrory’s daughter and her husband—who both stand to reap some sweet rewards from his death. Though Phyllis doesn’t want to get mixed up in another murder investigation, something about this case doesn’t sit right with her. With a little help from a tabloid TV news crew, Phyllis must unwrap the truth and restore good cheer to Weatherford before it’s too late…

Includes recipes!

(And on a personal note, while I'm hardly unbiased, I think this is one of the best in the series, with some great characters and really funny dialogue, not to mention a fine mystery.) 

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Jupiter Ascending

JUPITER ASCENDING is another movie that got mostly bad reviews, and if you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that means there's a pretty good chance I liked it. And so I did.

Mila Kunis is Jupiter Jones, a Russian immigrant working as a maid in Chicago. Channing Tatum is Caine, an intergalactic bounty hunter. It shouldn't come as any surprise that the two wind up being connected, as a three-pronged war that involves two brothers and a sister who control one of the universe's biggest business dynasties comes to Earth. (Earth, of course, despite being just a backwater planet, is key to every intergalactic war. Just ask the Kree and the Skrulls, or Apokalips and New Genesis.)

So, lots of stuff blows up real good. Tatum zips around like the Silver Surfer, only instead of a cosmic surfboard he has flying boots. Kunis dresses up like a space empress. The great Sean Bean is Tatum's tough, grizzled old mentor. The villains are thoroughly despicable. Spaceships dart around through wormholes. Planets explode (speaking of stuff blowing up real good). What's not to like? This ain't cinema, folks. It's a flashy, over-the-top space opera, and I had a grand time watching it. It was made by the Wachowski siblings, and honestly, I liked it considerably better than either of the Matrix sequels. As always with movies like this, I expect to be in the minority, but I think JUPITER ASCENDING is pretty darned good.

Now Available: Blaze! Ride Hard, Shoot Fast - Wayne D. Dundee

It was the biggest endurance race the West had ever seen—hundreds of miles across grueling territory, with a fortune riding on the outcome. Kate and J.D. Blaze, the West's only team of husband-and-wife gunfighters, are hired to make sure no one cheats and that riders and horses are safe, but before the race even begins, trouble crops up. Greed, old hatreds, and sudden death are riding in this race, and Kate and J.D. will need all their cunning and gun skill to keep murder from winning!

Best-selling, award-winning Western author Wayne D. Dundee returns to the BLAZE! series with another fast-paced entry full of hardboiled action, compelling characters, and plot twists. Read RIDE HARD, SHOOT FAST and find out why BLAZE! is today's top Adult Western series!

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: All Aces Magazine, May/June 1936

A short-lived pulp from Popular Publications, ALL ACES certainly had some good authors writing for it in this issue: Talbot Mundy, Murray Leinster, James B. Hendryx, and Dale Clark, along with a few others not familiar to me. That's not a particularly attractive cover, but I'll bet the stories are entertaining.