Coming Soon: Texas Bushwhack - James Reasoner

In the Texas panhandle, a stagecoach full of passengers rolls southward over lonely, dangerous trails. A group of buffalo hunters led by a brutal, ruthless killer stalks one of the last of the great herds of the shaggy beasts. And a Comanche war party under the command of the legendary chief Quanah sets out to drive the white invaders from their lands.

These three groups will come together in a frenzy of fire, blood, and death in TEXAS BUSHWHACK, the latest Western from bestselling author James Reasoner. Full of violent action and compelling characters, this is a novel sure to please readers of traditional Western tales.

(This will be out next week but it's up for pre-order now.)

The Chronicles of Hanuvar #1: Lord of a Shattered Land - Howard Andrew Jones

I’ve been online friends with Howard Andrew Jones for a number of years now and have enjoyed his essays on various pulp-related subjects on his own blog and in various other places. He was one of the first people I came across who was also a fan of the Ki-Gor series from JUNGLE STORIES, for example. But I’d never read any of his fiction until now. I picked up LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND, the first book in his new series THE CHRONICLES OF HANUVAR, and tackled it, although it’s considerably longer than the books I normally read.

This series is loosely based on the wars between Rome and Carthage, with Derva being Rome, Volanus being Carthage, and Hanuvar being Hannibal. But that’s just a starting point as Jones creates a very different world from our own, one with dragons and sorcerers and monsters and spirits, and the events in Hanuvar’s life don’t play out the same way Hannibal’s did. Hanuvar is both the political and military leader of Volanus, but as the book opens he’s believed to be dead following the conclusion of the third war between Derva and Volanus. But Hanuvar actually survived the death of the dragon he was riding and a plunge into the sea, and now, alone and friendless, he sets out to rescue the survivors of his people and take them to the colony of New Volanus, which he started across the ocean several years earlier.

LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND is a fix-up novel comprised of fourteen novelettes and novellas, some of which were published previously in magazines and anthologies, and this episodic nature really works in its favor, allowing Jones to keep the story moving at a good pace as we follow Hanuvar on his quest. So many books like this are full of padding, but LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND really isn’t. Each section builds on the previous tales as Hanuvar gathers information, makes friends, battles both new threats and old, travels with a circus, and finally, at the end of the book, positions himself to launch the next step of his plan to free his people. This novel has an epic feel to it that works very well.

As for the stories—the characters, the writing, the action—I felt like I was reading Robert E. Howard in the Lancer editions, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories in the Ace editions, John Jake’s original Brak the Barbarian stories in the Avon paperback, and even good old Thongor in the first Ace edition of Lin Carter’s THE WIZARD OF LEMURIA. In other words, I was right back there in the Sixties, sitting on my parents’ front porch, having a spectacularly good time reading rousing sword and sorcery yarns. LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND is that good. Better than Jakes and Carter, for my money, and if it doesn’t quite rise to the level of Howard and Leiber . . . well, those guys have nostalgia going for them, too, while Jones’ novel is brand new. In time, as I continue reading the Hanuvar books (the second one will be out next month, and I already have it pre-ordered), he may give those giants a run for their money. I can’t wait to find out. If you’re a fan of sword and sorcery fiction, this one has my highest recommendation. It's available in ebook and hardcover editions.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Astounding Science-Fiction, November 1941

Hubert Rogers did some good covers for the issues of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION that had Lensman stories by E.E. "Doc" Smith in them. This issue features the opening installment of the novel SECOND STAGE LENSMAN. Other authors of note in this issue are Eric Frank Russell (I've enjoyed everything I've read by him, I need to read more), L. Sprague de Camp, Malcolm Jameson, John Hawkins, and forgotten SF authors E.A. Grosser and Oliver Saari (forgotten by me, anyway, or more precisely, I don't recall ever hearing of them before). Even though when it comes to Forties science fiction my tastes run more toward STARTLING STORIES, THRILLING WONDER STORIES, and PLANET STORIES, there was a lot of classic work published in ASTOUNDING.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Max Brand's Western Magazine, July 1952

MAX BRAND'S WESTERN MAGAZINE started out as a reprint pulp, using older stories not only by Frederick Faust under his Max Brand pseudonym and other pen-names but also stories by other Western pulpsters. As time went on, though, the magazine published more and more new stories. By the time the July 1952 issue came out, there was only one reprint in the Table of Contents, a John Colohan story from the July 1936 issue of DIME WESTERN. Authors with new stories in this issue include Philip Ketchum, Ray Townsend, Lee Floren, Allan K. Echols, Cy Kees, Robert L. Trimnell, and Marvin De Vries. Most of those may not be big names, but they published regularly in the Western pulps. And that dramatic cover, which I like, is by H.W. Scott.

The Wild Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Volume Three - Will Murray

I really enjoyed the first two collections of Will Murray’s Sherlock Holmes stories. He pulls out all the stops in THE WILD ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME THREE, which reprints (with one exception) stories that were published originally in various Holmes anthologies.

That exception is the centerpiece of the book, a never-before-published novella that finds Holmes, his brother Mycroft, and Dr. Watson battling H.G. Wells’ Martian invaders in a second war of the worlds. This is a great yarn that also features a cameo appearance, of sorts, of a Jules Verne character.

But that’s not all you get in the way of crossovers. Holmes also encounters Frank L. Packard’s Jimmie Dale, the Gray Seal, one of the first masked crimefighters with a secret identity who was an influence on Batman, The Shadow, The Spider, The Green Hornet, and numerous other characters. There’s a fateful meeting between Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West, Reanimator. Colonel Richard Savage, the inspiration for Doc Savage, makes a return appearance in the series as well.

In addition to those stories, Murray creates his own recurring villain for Holmes to cross swords with, metaphorically speaking. While Giles Greengold may not equal Professor Moriarty as Holmes’ mortal enemy, he’s pretty darned villainous and proves to be a worthy opponent in several stories.

THE WILD ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME THREE is the best of these collections so far, and that’s saying quite a bit. If you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan, I give it a very high recommendation. It's available in e-book and paperback editions. I had a great time reading it.

Blood In Your Eye - Robert Patrick Wilmot

First of all, Steve Considine is a great name for a fictional private detective. I mean, just say it out loud: “Steve Considine, Private Eye.” With a name like that, what else could the guy be? A gunfighter in a 1950s Western paperback, maybe. But he really needs to be packing a gat and making his way down rain-wet, big city streets.

Which Steve Considine does in Robert Patrick Wilmot’s debut novel BLOOD IN YOUR EYE, published in hardback by Lippincott in 1952 and reprinted in paperback by Pocket Books in 1953. Steve, who narrates the book, isn’t a lone wolf private eye. He’s an operative for Confidential Investigations, which caters to wealthy, upper-crust clients. His boss is Mike Zacharias. As this book opens on a rainy day in New York, the agency is hired to make sure that the alcoholic scion of a rich family makes it to England all right, where he’s going to get a drying-out treatment from a fancy doctor. Steve is given the job of babysitting the lush until the next day, then accompanying him to England on a plane. But wouldn’t you know it? Before that can happen, the lush witnesses a murder and then disappears, and Steve has to find him before the killer can locate him and rub him out so he can’t spill his guts to the cops.

Naturally, there are some beautiful dames involved, two of them in fact: a rich blonde who’s in love with the drunk guy, and a gorgeous brunette who’s either a kindergarten teacher or a high-class call girl . . . or could she maybe be both? Steve also has to contend with a hired killer and various goons. In classic private eye fashion, he gets beaten up and knocked out more than once.

Then, three-quarters of the way through the book, the plot takes an abrupt left turn into a storyline that seems completely unrelated at first, but any veteran reader of PI novels is going to suspect that eventually everything will be tied together, and I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to tell you that’s exactly what happens, leading to a genuinely suspenseful climax.

Robert Patrick Wilmot made quite a splash, publishing three novels (all featuring Steve Considine) and half a dozen stories in MANHUNT and THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, all during a short stretch from 1952 to 1954, plus one last MANHUNT story in 1965. The books got good reviews and the stories were well-received. But then that was it for Wilmot’s writing career, for some reason unknown to me.

BLOOD IN YOUR EYE, which I read in the Pocket Books edition with a cover by James Meese, seems like a book that would be right up my alley. And at times it is. There are some good action scenes here and there and some nice tough-guy dialogue, but I have to be honest with you: I didn’t like this book very much. Steve Considine isn’t a very compelling protagonist and too much of the book just plods along. The plot seems too thin most of the way and then abruptly gets extremely complicated at the end. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a terrible novel, but I don’t get the critics’ comparisons to Raymond Chandler at all. Chandler had a much more interesting and entertaining voice than what Wilmot displays here.

I have the second book in the series, MURDER ON MONDAY, and there’s a good chance I’ll read it sooner or later . . . but there’s also a chance I may never get around to it, based on my disappointment with BLOOD IN YOUR EYE.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, May 11, 1940

This issue is a good example of why ARGOSY was a great magazine, even in the later years of its pulp run. Start with a good cover by Rudolph Belarski that promises action, and follow that inside with stories by E. Hoffmann Price, Theodore Roscoe, Murray Leinster, Robert Arthur, Charles Marquis Warren, Willliam Du Bois, and forgotten pulpster William Templeton. The only drawback, as usual, is that two of the stories are serial installments (Warren and Du Bois) and you're out of luck if you don't have the other parts. Well, in Warren's case you're not completely out of luck because his serial "Bugles Are For Soldiers" was reprinted as a novel, used copies of which are readily available. The title was changed, and I honestly don't remember which of Warren's Western novels it is, either ONLY THE VALIANT or VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. But I know it's one of them because at one point I had both the serial version and the novel version. And this will come as no surprise, I never got around to reading either of them. Warren is supposed to have been a pretty good writer. He wrote, produced, and/or directed a number of Western movies and TV shows, including GUNSMOKE and RAWHIDE.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: 2 Western-Action Books, Winter 1951

Double covers are usually pretty good. There's still enough room for a decent scene, while the triple covers (such as on the Thrilling Group's TRIPLE WESTERN) are often too small to be very effective. I like this double cover on the Winter 1951 issue of 2 WESTERN-ACTION BOOKS. I don't know the artist(s). I believe this is a Fiction House pulp, although officially it was published by Fight Stories Inc. As you'd expect from the title, there are only two stories in it, both novellas. One is by Lee Floren, not a favorite author of mine but one capable of decent work. The other is by Dave Ricks, and it's his only credit in the Fictionmags Index. My sneaking suspicion is that the name is a pseudonym, possibly for Lee Floren since he has the other story in this issue. But I don't know and would be happy to learn more about him, if any of you have any info.

The Gunman and the Actress - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

I’ve read several books featuring Chap O’Keefe’s range detective character Joshua Dillard and always enjoyed them. Dillard is a former Pinkerton agent who quit that agency after his wife’s murder at the hands of an outlaw gang he was pursuing. Now he’s a drifter, hiring out his gun and his detective skills and usually winding up taking hard luck cases that put him in danger and never net him much profit.

In THE GUNMAN AND THE ACTRESS, Dillard’s second recorded case, originally published in 1995 by Robert Hale as part of the Black Horse Western line and now available in a revised and expanded e-book edition, he’s hired by a theater impresario to protect the scandalous French actress Giséle Bourdette, who is on a tour of the West with her troupe, putting on shows at various frontier opera houses. Dillard joins the troupe in Argos City, Texas, where they will perform at a fancy new opera house built by the local cattle baron.

That cattle baron has a beautiful, headstrong daughter who dislikes the potential husband her father has picked out for her, and there’s a gang of Mexican bandits raising havoc in the borderlands, too. Both of those things will complicate Joshua Dillard’s efforts to keep Giséle safe and incidentally protect the proceeds from her tour, and he also has to navigate an unexpected passionate affair with the actress.

Chap O’Keefe, who is really veteran author and editor Keith Chapman, is a fine storyteller and keeps the action moving along at a very nice pace in THE GUNMAN AND THE ACTRESS. Joshua Dillard’s adventures always play a bit like hardboiled detective yarns set in the Old West, and this one is no exception. Chapman throws in a number of plot twists and brings everything to a suitably rousing climax. I had a lot of fun reading THE GUNMAN AND THE ACTRESS, and if you’re a traditional Western fan, there’s a good chance you will, too. Recommended.

The Flying Z - Leo W. Banks

Leo W. Banks is the author of two critically acclaimed thrillers featuring former professional baseball player turned trailer park owner Whip Stark, DOUBLE WIDE and CHAMPAGNE COWBOYS, and a stand-alone about politics, crime, and corruption called ,45-CALIBER PERFUME. All of them are set in Arizona, as is his fourth novel THE FLYING Z, which also happens to be the first book I’ve read by Banks.

As you might or might not guess from the title, the Flying Z is the name of a ranch. Specifically, a ranch not far above the Arizona/Mexico border which has been home to the Zachary family for generations. Will Zachary and his uncle Buck, along with a colorful cast of friends and employees, are trying to keep it going despite a bad economy and the growing encroachments of drug smugglers working for the Mexican cartels. Then one day, a beautiful young grad student driving across the country to Stanford decides to follow an Arizona dirt road looking for a brief adventure and finds much more than she bargained for, turning Will Zachary’s life upside down in the process.

That’s the set-up. So what does THE FLYING Z turn into from there? Is it a romance? Well, not exactly, although the love story between Will Zachary and Merry O’Hara is at the heart of it and is handled with skill and sensitivity. Is it a modern-day Western? That’s a little closer, since there’s plenty of ridin’ and shootin’ and cowboyin’. Is it a crime thriller? I suppose, since Will’s violent clashes with the cartel and uncovering the identity of a murderer all play important parts in the plot. Or is it maybe a fantasy, since some things that have no reasonable explanation are crucial to how everything turns out? In a lot of scenes where Banks is writing about life on the ranch and in the nearby small town, THE FLYING Z reads very much like a mainstream literary novel because of his deft touch with character, setting, and dialogue.

I don’t know, and with some books, such questions are more for marketing purposes than anything else. I can tell you what I think THE FLYING Z is.

It's one of the best books I’ve read this year. You should read it. It's available in paperback and e-book editions.