Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, August 1967

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. I’m pretty sure that the art in the inset is by Robert Stanley. I don’t have any idea who did the rest of the cover. That’s my copy in the scan.

Or is it a pulp? It’s slightly smaller than regular pulp dimensions, and the page edges are trimmed. And it was published long after the pulp era is considered to be over. However, it’s definitely not a digest, and it’s proudly part of an unbroken publication stretching back to 1924 (“43^rd Year of Publication”, it says on the title page), so I’m calling it a pulp.
 
And as I’ve mentioned numerous times in the past, RANCH ROMANCES is the only pulp I remember seeing on the newsstands when I was a kid. Everything else was gone by then. But it’s entirely possible I laid eyes on this very issue on the magazine rack in Stephenville Drugs, where we always stopped on our way through Stephenville, Texas, so I could check out the comic book and paperback spinner racks. But I wouldn’t have even considered buying it because, you know, it had ROMANCES in the title and I was 14 years old. (I bought the first two paperback reprints of THE SPIDER, the ones by R.T.M. Scott that came bound together, at least one Mac hardboiled mystery novel by Thomas B. Dewey, and my first ever copy of PLAYBOY at Stephenville Drugs, along with other things I don’t remember, I’m sure.)

Okay, to get out of the weeds of nostalgia and move on to the August 1967 issue of RANCH ROMANCES . . . this is the first of the later, semi-pulp issues I’ve read. By the time the magazine’s run ended in 1971, it was all-reprint, but there are only a couple of older stories in this issue and the rest are new. It leads off with the short story “Wolf At His Heels” by A.E. Schraff, which is about a young outlaw being pursued by a dogged lawman not out of a sense of justice but on a mission of personal vengeance. It’s a well-written story with a satisfying ending. I’d never heard of A.E. Schraff before, but according to the Fictionmags Index, the A.E. stands for Anne Elaine. She wrote more than a dozen stories for RANCH ROMANCES, ZANE GREY WESTERN MAGAZINE, and FAR WEST during the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, then did a handful of mystery yarns for ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE in the Eighties. That’s all I know about her, but based on this story, she was a pretty good writer.

And sure enough, a little research tells me this from Goodreads: “Anne Elaine Schraff grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She received both her bachelor's and master's degrees from California State University at Northridge and taught high school for ten years.

Anne paid her way through college by writing short stories for magazines. Since college she has written hundreds of stories and over eighty books including historical fiction, biographies, science books, and her favorite, fictional books for young people. She is published as both Anne Schraff and Anne E. Schraff.

Her background, which she describes as "multicultural, lower middle-class neighborhood, including African Americans, Mexican Americans, Arab Americans, and Filipino Americans," is her greatest inspiration when writing.”

Lee Martin has been used as a pseudonym by several different writers, but the Lee Martin who wrote the short story “Live Bait” in this issue was actually Margery Lee Martin, author of several dozen Western and mystery stories in the Sixties. “Live Bait” is sort of the opposite of “Wolf At His Heels” because in this story, a lawman is the target of some outlaw brothers who want to kill him, and they’re willing to use another brother’s widow to trap their quarry. This is another solid yarn with a satisfying, if predictable, ending.

Mona Jennings has only one credit in the Fictionmags Index, her short story “Indian Girl” in this issue. Mostly domestic drama with a little action at the end, this tale is about a young rancher who finds an Indian girl with her leg caught in an animal trap and takes her home to care for her injury. He has a younger brother and sister, all of them made orphans by an Indian attack several years earlier. Emotional turmoil ensues. Another well-written tale, although the ending is a little too unresolved for my taste.

Giff Cheshire was an old pro, of course. His novelette “Dry Summer” in this issue is a reprint from the 2^nd July, 1956 number of RANCH ROMANCES. It’s the story of a young cowboy caught in the middle of a clash between a big rancher and a group of smaller ranchers over water rights. The plot is very traditional, but the story is well-written for the most part. I’ve read enough by Giff Cheshire now to know that I usually find his work a little on the bland side, and that’s true of this yarn.

W.J. Reynolds was another prolific Western pulpster, authoring approximately 120 stories between the mid-Forties and the early Seventies, most of them appearing in various Western pulps, but he also sold Western stories to some of the lower-rung men’s magazines such as ADAM and KNIGHT. I’ve read several stories by him and enjoyed them all. In “Bloody Butte”, his yarn in this issue, an army scout rescues a girl from a gang of marauders and scalphunters, and then they have to escape the gang’s pursuit, eventually forting up at the butte of the title.

In 1967, when this issue reprinted Elmer Kelton’s novella “Die by the Gun” (original appearance in the 2^nd January Number, 1954 issue of RANCH ROMANCES), Kelton was a well-regarded author of traditional Western stories and novels, but he was still several years away from the elevated literary reputation he would begin to enjoy later in his career. One of the lines he often used when speaking to groups was “Louis L’Amour’s heroes are seven feet tall and invincible. Mine are five-foot-seven and nervous.” I don’t know if Dolph Noble, the protagonist of this tale, qualifies as nervous, but he certainly has his share of angst to deal with. He’s the sheriff of a West Texas county and has a wild younger brother who wants to be either a lawman or an owlhoot and isn’t all that particular about which. He’s in love with the wife of an outlaw whose gang has been plaguing the area. The townspeople believe he hasn’t been able to corral the gang because he’s holding back on account of his feelings for the woman. His ambitious but flawed former deputy wants to take his job away in the next election. So Dolph has plenty of trouble on his plate, and Kelton keeps twisting the screws to make it worse for him. Not surprisingly, this is easily the best story in the issue, with solid writing and excellent characterization.

This is the first of the Sixties issues of RANCH ROMANCES that I’ve read, and overall it’s very good. Cheshire’s story is the weakest in the bunch, and it’s not bad, just not as good as the others. I think the tone isn’t as hardboiled as the Fifties issues I’ve read, and the romance elements are played up a little more, but there’s still good action in every story. It came out in the summer between eighth and ninth grade for me. As I mentioned above, I wouldn’t have bought it at the time . . . but if I had, I would have enjoyed it. It’s well worth reading if you have a copy on your shelves.

Under Sexton Blake's Orders - John Hunter

“Under Sexton Blake’s Orders” is a novelette by prolific British author John Hunter that first appeared in the 1942 edition of SEXTON BLAKE ANNUAL. It was reprinted in the anthology SEXTON BLAKE WINS, which is where I read it. After enjoying but being slightly disappointed in the anthology’s previous entry by G.H. Teed, I was looking forward to seeing what Hunter would do with Sexton Blake.

This story features a character created by Hunter and used only in his stories, as far as I know. Two-fisted sea captain James Dack is a bit of a shady character, sometimes on the side of the law, sometimes not. In this yarn, he finds himself mixed up in something that’s too nefarious even for his somewhat flexible morals, involving a high-ranking Nazi prisoner who has been captured and brought to England for interrogation. Unfortunately, he’s escaped and is trying to get out of the country. Luckily, Sexton Blake is also on the case, and he and Captain Dack (who have clashed in the past) have to team up as wary allies to foil the scheme.

For the most part, Hunter keeps things perking along nicely in this tale, and there’s some excellent battle action at sea. The story seemed a bit rushed at times, leading me to think this plot might have worked better as a novella, but “Under Sexton Blake’s Orders” is an entertaining yarn. As far as I recall, it’s the first thing I’ve read by John Hunter. I’m going to have to try one of his full-length Sexton Blake novels or maybe one of his Westerns.

Trickshot - Jamie Mason

Having edited several of Jamie Mason’s novels and read a number of others, I’ve become a fan of his work. I’d like to think I had a little influence on his decision to move into the Western genre. His first Western under his own name, TRICKSHOT, came out recently, and it’s a great yarn. Here’s the blurb I gave the book after reading it in manuscript:

Part Maverick, part The Wild Wild West, part Spaghetti Western, and all fun, Trickshot is a hugely entertaining, action-packed new Western series from one of the best writers in the business, Jamie Mason. If you’re a Western fan, you’ll have a great time reading this novel. I certainly did.

Jack Tricke is a gambler and expert marksman during the era just before the outbreak of the Civil War. In trouble with the law, he takes the only way out of going to jail: he agrees to work as an undercover operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. His first assignment finds him joining a traveling medicine show in Arizona Territory. As you might expect, that provides a colorful bunch of characters to serve as both allies and adversaries for Tricke.

Mason keeps the pace galloping along in very entertaining fashion, and he does a great job with the setting. Jack Tricke is a roguish but likable protagonist, and this novel sets up an ongoing storyline that will carry him to the brink of the Civil War and probably beyond. I really enjoyed TRICKSHOT and look forward to seeing what happens next. This one is available in an e-book edition from Amazon and gets a high recommendation from me.

Movies I've Missed (Until Now): Gunpoint (1966)

Looking around for something to watch on TV the other night, I noticed that Grit was showing an Audie Murphy Western I didn’t remember ever seeing. Audie was one of my dad’s favorite movie cowboys, along with Randolph Scott and Rod Cameron, and I watched many of those movies with him. Watching an Audie Murphy Western these days feels a little like my dad is visiting me for a while.

So, naturally, I watched GUNPOINT, from 1966, one of Audie’s last few movies before his untimely death in 1969. It starts with something else that held considerable nostalgia value for me: a train robbery filmed on the Durango-to-Silverton narrow gauge line in Colorado, which we rode on during a family vacation in the early Sixties. I recognized it right away. Audie, as the local sheriff, suspects the train will be held up by a gang of outlaws led by the vicious Drago (Morgan Woodward, who else?), but his efforts to foil the robbery are thwarted by his treacherous deputy who’s actually in with the gang. The deputy is played by Denver Pyle, a rare occasion of him playing a bad guy, but he handles the role well.

Through a rather convoluted setup, the outlaws wind up kidnapping a saloon songbird as well (Joan Staley), whose fiancée is gambler/gunman Warren Stevens. Before you know it, Audie and Stevens have teamed up with some other townspeople to form a posse and go after the outlaws. It's a long chase with plenty of action as the posse gets whittled down until finally there are only a couple left to settle things with the bad guys.

I have to admit, there’s not much in this movie that I didn’t feel like I had written dozens of times in dozens of my books, which made for a definite sense of déjà vu. But I enjoyed GUNPOINT quite a bit anyway. The cast is comfortingly familiar. In addition to those already mentioned, it includes Roy Barcroft as the town doctor and Edgar Buchanan and Royal Dano as a couple of half-loco mustangers. There’s a spectacular scene with the train early on and then good stunt work all the way through. The photography and scenery are nice. There are a few lapses of logic in the script by Mary and Willard Willingham, but veteran director Earl Bellamy keeps things moving along briskly enough that they’re not too much of a distraction.

GUNPOINT isn’t as good as most of the movies Audie made earlier in his career. It’s just an average Western. But sometimes that’s all you need, and I had a good time watching it. I think my dad would have, too.

Now Available: Kingfisher P.I. #2: Dark Ride - James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn

Hired to find out who’s been threatening a Texas state senator’s granddaughter, the two triplet sleuths Callista and Joseph Kingfisher find themselves in more trouble than they bargained for as Callie goes undercover at a therapeutic riding center and becomes involved in a dangerous conspiracy with roots on the other side of the world.

Between international criminals who want them dead, an enigmatic former Special Forces operator who can’t be trusted, federal agents who would like to make the Kingfishers disappear in some black site prison, and the shadowy menace who started the whole thing, Callie and Joseph will have their work cut out just trying to survive this case!

KINGFISHER P.I.: DARK RIDE is the second in a new series of thrilling mystery novels from New York Times bestselling author James Reasoner and the creator of the popular Fresh Baked Mystery series Livia J. Washburn. Mount up for these exciting and entertaining tales from two of today’s best storytellers!

(The second novel in the Kingfisher P.I. series is now available on Amazon in trade paperback and e-book editions. You can also find e-book editions on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Smashwords. These books are a little different from anything Livia and I have done before, and considering how many books we've written, that's not easy! But I'm having a great time working on them and I hope the readers enjoy them.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1953

I usually think of Walter Popp as a paperback cover artist, but he did some pulp covers, too, including this one for THRILLING WONDER STORIES. Inside are stories by Murray Leinster, Chad Oliver (always nice to see a pulp with a story in it by someone I've actually met), Kris Neville, Wallace West, John Christopher, and a couple of lesser-known authors, R.J. McGregor and J.W. Groves. If you'd like to read this issue, it's available on the Luminist League website here.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western, June 1942

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of REAL WESTERN, but I like it. Very dramatic. There's a nice group of writers inside, too: E.B. Mann, who takes up most of the pages with a novel-length story (I wonder if it was ever reprinted under another title), Wilbur S. Peacock, Anson Hard, Brett Austin (who was really Lee Floren), and house-name Cliff Campbell.

The Irish Beauty Contract - Philip Atlee (James Atlee Phillips)

THE IRISH BEAUTY CONTRACT is the fifth novel in Philip Atlee’s Joe Gall series of espionage adventures, or the sixth if you count PAGODA, an unofficial part of the series that’s the actual debut of the Gall character. I’ve read all the previous novels, and with the exception of PAGODA, the plots don’t make much sense, but the books are all very well-written.

I’m happy to report that THE IRISH BEAUTY CONTRACT actually does make sense for the most part and gives us a coherent narrative that, thankfully, continues to be very well-written. Joe Gall, who lives on an isolated, mountaintop estate in Arkansas when he’s not working on a contract basis for the U.S. government as an intelligence agent, is in New Granada (a fictional but real-sounding country in South America) pretending to be a military attaché at the local U.S. embassy while he secretly keeps track of a suspicious character from the States who may have ties to communist rebels in the country. He’s also carrying on an affair with the beautiful wife of an Irish lord.

Then violent things start to happen. Shootouts, knife fights, double crosses, secret identities, and an encounter with a jungle emperor lead Gall to a lost city high in the Andes where a final mystery awaits. (And, I might add, the solution to that final mystery is pretty hokey, even for 1966 when this book was first published.) The action flows reasonably well and Joe Gall is a sympathetic if not really all that likable narrator/protagonist.

Philip Atlee was really Fort Worth’s own James Atlee Phillips, whose first novel THE INHERITORS was something of a scandal when it was published in the early Forties because of its unflattering portrait of Fort Worth high society at the time. I’ve never read it, and I ought to. He wrote a few other novels under his real name, but he’s remembered primarily for the Joe Gall books, which were pretty successful paperback from Gold Medal in the Sixties and Seventies. They’re still available as e-books, which is how I read THE IRISH BEAUTY CONTRACT even though I own the paperback. I have the whole series in paperback, by the way, although they’re not easy to get to at the moment. So if I read more of them, which I probably will based on my enjoyment of this one, I’ll probably stick with the e-books. Although as all of you almost surely know, it’s hard to beat the smell and feel of an old paperback . . .

Jimgrim and Allah's Peace - Talbot Mundy (William Lancaster Gribbon)

Back in the Sixties when Avon published paperback editions of several of Talbot Mundy’s Jimgrim novels, they made the books seem like a cross between Robert E. Howard (“Talbot Mundy’s exotic world of fantastic adventure” enthused the cover copy) and Doc Savage (“Jimgrim and his amazing crew”). So naturally, I grabbed them off the paperback racks and read them. They weren’t exactly what those covers promised, being leisurely paced stories mostly about political and religious strife in the Middle and Far East. But the characters were interesting, especially James Schuyler Grim, an American working for British Intelligence, and the occasional action scenes were well-done. I enjoyed them enough that I’ve wanted to read the entire Jimgrim series sometime, and at my age, if I’m ever going to, I’d better get started.

So I read the first novel in the series, JIMGRIM AND ALLAH’S PEACE, which is actually a fix-up of two connected novellas, “The Adventure at El-Kerak”, originally published in the November 10, 1921 issue of the pulp ADVENTURE and “Under the Dome of the Rock” from the December 10, 1921 issue of ADVENTURE. The narrator is an unnamed American journalist in Jerusalem, which is under the control of the British at the moment, with the army enforcing an uneasy peace between Jews and Arabs. The ongoing conflict between Zionists and Palestinians is uncannily similar to the unfortunate things going on in the Middle East today. Even a little creepy, to be honest, and commenting on the similarity of current events to stories from a 102-year-old pulp is as far as I intend to delve into politics on this blog.

The narrator’s friendship with Jimgrim draws him into involvement with two separate but related plots by radical groups to destabilize things even more and start a war that will engulf the whole Middle East in blood and flame. So the stakes are really high as Jimgrim and his allies seek to foil these plots before they can come to fruition.

Unfortunately, except for a couple of excellent action scenes at the end of each source novella, foiling the plots consists of sitting around and talking, walking around Jerusalem and talking, and a lot of skulking. These stories are very well-written with superb settings and well-drawn characters, but they take “leisurely paced” to a whole new level. When Mundy wants to bring the blood and thunder, he’s perfectly capable of doing so, but he should have done more of it in JIMGRIM AND ALLAH’S PEACE.

That said, I enjoyed this novel enough to continue reading the series, but I sure hope the other installments have a little bit more action in them.

Happy New Year!

By now I know not to say I hope this year is better than the last, but maybe . . . just maybe . . .