Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Next of Kin

(This post originally appeared in somewhat different form on October 21, 2009.)

Neither Livia nor I could remember whether we’d ever seen this movie before, and as it turns out, we hadn’t. And that’s fine, because it left us with a good movie to watch for the first time.

NEXT OF KIN finds Swayze playing Truman Gates, a Chicago cop who hails from the mountains of Kentucky, where he still has a lot of relatives who work in the coal mines there. His younger brother, though, has followed him to Chicago and works for a vending machine company, and not surprisingly, said brother gets killed in a mob takeover of the company. Swayze’s character wants to find the killer and bring him in legally, but his other brother back in the mountains (Liam Neeson) wants to come to Chicago and avenge the death personally, as mountain tradition demands. Naturally this brings him into conflict with Swayze’s character.

This whole “hillbillies vs. the mob” scenario is pretty predictable but still very entertaining. Swayze is impossibly young and athletic and charismatic, although not as impossibly young as Ben Stiller, who is oddly cast but fairly effective as a mob leader’s son who wants to get into the family business. Adam Baldwin makes for a smarmy and menacing bad guy, and although Neeson’s backwoods accent slips over into the bizarre at times, he’s good as the vengeance-driven brother. There’s an occasional lapse of logic in the script, but it all ends up in a fine showdown that plays as if the screenwriter read one of Louis L’Amour’s Sackett books and thought, “Hey, you could do a modern version of this!”

I’m not sure how we missed this when it came out twenty-six years ago. Most of you probably saw it then. But if you haven’t, it’s well worth investing a couple of hours of your time.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Planet Stories, January 1952

Gotta love those Allen Anderson PLANET STORIES covers, along with titles like "Sargasso of Lost Spaceships", the Poul Anderson (no relation) yarn in this issue. There are also stories by John Jakes (long before he was a bestselling writer of historical sagas), Margaret St. Clair, Bryce Walton, and others. Personally, I really enjoy this sort of adventure science fiction, but I've never been noted for my highbrow tastes.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Dime Western, October 1942

That's a striking cover from one of the leading Western pulps. DIME WESTERN always had a great line-up of authors, and this issue is no exception: Walt Coburn, Harry F. Olmsted, Bart Cassidy (who was probably also Harry F. Olmsted), Tom Roan, William R. Cox, and Fred Gipson, who was a prolific contributor to the Western pulps long before he wrote about a dog named Old Yeller. You can't go wrong with DIME WESTERN.

Forgotten Books: Turn on the Heat - A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)

I've been a fan of Erle Stanley Gardner's Donald Lam and Bertha Cool books ever since I picked up a copy of SHILLS CAN'T CASH CHIPS at the bookmobile more than fifty years ago. I've read many (but not all) of the novels since then and still pick one up from time to time. I love the twisty, fast-paced plots, the rat-a-tat-tat dialogue, and most of all the characters of Donald and Bertha. As much as I enjoy Gardner's Perry Mason novels, I think the A.A. Fair books are even better.

TURN ON THE HEAT is the second book in the series. I don't think I'd read it before, and if I did, it was many years ago and I didn't remember a thing about it. This one begins with Donald and Bertha being hired to find a woman who disappeared more than twenty years earlier, after an ugly divorce case involving her eye doctor husband and his receptionist. But of course not everything is what it appears to be at first, and soon our two protagonists find themselves neck-deep in a stew of political corruption, crooked cops, shady ladies, blackmail, phony identities, and ultimately murder. Donald has to be his usual tricky self in order to discover the truth and extricate himself and Bertha from the trouble they're in.

Although physically they couldn't be much different, Donald Lam always reminds me of Mike Shayne, because he's two steps ahead of everybody else in the book and three steps ahead of the reader. I love the little bits of business he pulls that don't pay off until much later in the book, when you realize that Donald was on the trail of the killer all along. When everything is explained, it all makes perfect sense (usually; Gardner was known to lose track of his plots every now and then), and I'm often left figuratively smacking myself on the forehead and saying, "D'oh!" because I didn't spot the clues.

TURN ON THE HEAT is a thoroughly entertaining book and a fine example from one of my favorite series. If you haven't tried any of these (and I know most of you probably have), I highly recommend it. Below are covers from some of the many reprint editions.

Elimination - Ed Gorman

Ed Gorman is one of the few writers for whom I'll waive my "no politics" rule. Well, actually it's not a hard and fast rule, but I do tend to avoid books in which partisan politics plays too big a part. However, there's no way I'm going to miss one of Gorman's Dev Conrad novels, and they all center around election campaigns since that's Dev's business.

In the newest book in this series, ELIMINATION, Dev is managing the re-election campaign of an Illinois congresswoman who's running neck and neck with her opponent in the polls. After a debate between the candidates, somebody takes a couple of shots at the congresswoman and gets away. Was it a legitimate but bungled assassination attempt? A stunt staged by one side or the other in an attempt to gain an advantage in the campaign? Dev, a former army investigator, launches his own investigation to find out and soon runs afoul of the local police. Naturally, murder eventually crops up and Dev finds himself in danger more than once, as there's more at stake than just a political campaign.

Gorman's prose is as smooth as ever, his characters are compelling, the plot is suitably twisty right to the end, and Dev Conrad is a very likable hero. This is one of my favorite series, and ELIMINATION is a top-notch entry in it.

101 Essential Texas Books - Glenn Dromgoole and Carlton Stowers

101 ESSENTIAL TEXAS BOOKS is itself an essential book about Texas. Written by Glenn Dromgoole, whose newspaper columns I used to read when he worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and my buddy Carlton Stowers, this volume discusses not just the 101 books of the title but many others as well that cover Texas from one end to the other—and that's quite a stretch. Fiction, literature, biographies, politics, oil and cattle, law and order, sports, food and drink, books for young readers, they're all here, with the added bonus that Dromgoole and Stowers set out to write only about books that are currently in print, so if anything here really catches your interest, you can easily pick up a copy and read it.

On a personal level, the authors covered include a number of friends past and present such as Elmer Kelton, Bill Crider, Joe Lansdale, Neal Barrett Jr., James Donovan, Sandra Brown, and Jeff Guinn. The foreword is by James Ward Lee.

The brief discussions of the books cited (a page or two each) really whetted my appetite to read some of the ones I'd never heard of, as well as books that I've known about for years but never gotten around to reading. I'd really like to start reading more non-fiction, and there's plenty in here to delve into. My only quibble, and it's a slight one, is that the authors didn't include any of their own excellent books, but I suppose I can understand that. If you have any interest at all in Texas literature, 101 ESSENTIAL TEXAS BOOKS is a great introduction to the subject, while at the same time being a very entertaining volume in its own right. Highly recommended.

Tuesday's Overlooked TV: Turn: Washington's Spies

Since we don't have cable TV and I don't really keep up with what's on most of the time, I hadn't heard of this series until Livia bought the first season on DVD, thinking it sounded like something we'd enjoy. Well, I mostly did, with a few reservations.

TURN: WASHINGTON'S SPIES is very much what it sounds like, a historical drama series about the formation of the Culper Ring, the espionage network set up by George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Since I covered some of the same ground in my BCI series PATRIOTS, there was an unavoidable feeling of "Been there, wrote that" while watching this series. That's not the fault of the series, of course, but I also felt like the early episodes were very slow to develop and not all that compelling. It doesn't help matters that the protagonist, farmer and ostensible Tory loyalist Abraham Woodhull (played by Jamie Bell) is a pretty bland and unlikable character.

Things pick up as the series moves along, though, mainly because the villains become more interesting than the heroes. Angus Macfadyen plays Robert Rogers (yeah, the guy from Kenneth Roberts' novel NORTHWEST PASSAGE, played by Spencer Tracy in the movie of the same name), the leader of the Queen's Rangers, as a vengeful, hard-drinking version of Natty Bumppo, complete with Indian sidekick. And Samuel Roukin gives a sneering, hammy, over-the-top performance as the Redcoat captain who's Woodhull's nemesis. Daniel Henshall is pretty good as one of the spies, too.

TURN manages to generate a considerable amount of suspense in some of the later episodes, and I wound up enjoying it overall. The history seems reasonably accurate, the production values are excellent, and it's good enough that I'll probably watch the second season when it comes out on DVD, although I won't be waiting impatiently for it.

Now Available: How the West Was Written, Volume 3: Glossary - Ron Scheer

From the introduction by Richard Wheeler:

Nothing escaped Ron Scheer’s sharp eye. In the course of preparing his magisterial work on early western fiction, he came across countless phrases, words, and usages that were unfamiliar to modern readers. The novels he was examining ranged from the late 19th century well into the 20th, and contained vernacular that had vanished. 

He set to work recording these phrases, including their context, and their numbers multiplied over the years. Many of these phrases were at least a century old, and were connected to the social circumstances and technology of the times. As the world changed, so did language. Allusions to horses and buggies, steam engines, open-range ranching, and all the social proprieties of that period departed stage right, while new words, new vernacular crowded into our consciousness stage left. 

He no doubt realized that for modern readers to grasp what those long-gone authors were saying, and the social events they were describing, some sort of glossary would be necessary. Otherwise, the pages of these novels would be crowded with gibberish. 

The ability to translate these mysterious allusions and phrases into something modern readers can comprehend is a portal into other times. ... It illuminates a lost world, but it also illuminates Mr. Scheer’s genius.

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“I learn something new every time I open this book, and I’ve been writing Westerns and studying the Old West for more than thirty years. This volume of Ron Scheer’s magnificent trilogy is destined to be an indispensable reference work, just like the first two books.” 
--James Reasoner 
Author of Outlaw Ranger 

“Ron Scheer’s study of the novels and the language and everyday talk of the Old West continues to delight and amaze me. What is most astounding is how few of the terms remain in use today. They’re embedded in a life long-gone and you have little hope of intuiting them. But Ron Scheer took on the task and consequently this language, this jargon is not lost. A few of my personal favorite terms are Back of the Beyond, Hell’s Half-Acre and Prunes and Prisms. You’ll have to consult this marvelous book to find out just what these terms mean! Also included in the glossary are the names of songs, books, hymns, and people who made up the Old West. A monumental task executed with grace and skill. Highly recommended.” 
--Patricia Abbott 
Derringer Award winner and author of Concrete Angel 

“Expertly realized, finely crafted, Ron Scheer’s third volume of How the West Was Written continues to delight, surprise and challenge me both as a casual reader and writer of Western fiction. It’s not just firmly established in my top five go-to research books, it’s one of my favorite books, period.” 
--Richard Prosch 
Author of the “Holt County” Western series 

“How the West Was Written is an essential volume for anyone interested in the history of the American west, particularly writers, historians, and those interested in language. Richard Wheeler provides an excellent introduction.” 
--Bill Crider 
Macavity Award winner and author of Too Late to Die

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.