Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective and Murder Mysteries, March 1939

This is the first issue of a pretty obscure pulp that lasted only a handful of issues. That's a decent cover, and there are some good writers inside: Wayne D. Overholser (best known for his Westerns, of course), Stewart Sterling, Cyril Plunkett, John Wilstach, and Louis Trimble. Then there are authors I've never heard of: Wilcey Earle, Grantly Wallington (who sounds more like a foppish British playboy and whose story in this issue is the luridly titled "The Devil Peddles Reefers!"), and Kenny Kenmare (a house-name). I don't know if DETECTIVE AND MURDER MYSTERIES was any good, but it seems oddball enough to be worth picking up a copy if you ever come across one, which I never have.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Famous Western, October 1949

That's a bright, eye-catching cover on this issue of FAMOUS WESTERN. Inside there's an interesting mix of authors, too, and a story title I really like, "The Buzzard Cheaters", by Allan K. Echols. Other authors with stories in this issue include A.A. Baker and Rex Whitechurch, house-names Mat Rand and Cliff Campbell, John Van Praag (who was really Scott Meredith, later famous as a literary agent), and John Lackland (who was really editor Robert W. Lowndes). Not exactly the first string when it comes to Western pulpsters, but I'll bet there are some entertaining stories in there.

Forgotten Books: The Gladiator #1: Hill of the Dead - Andrew Quiller (Laurence James)

HILL OF THE DEAD is the first novel in a series I’ve recently completed collecting. The Gladiator is the overall title of these books, which were originally published in England as a series called The Eagles. The first four novels were reprinted in the United States by Pinnacle. The fifth and final book appeared only in England. The scan of this one is from the copy I read. The cover art is by Marcus Boas, an artist whose work I’m normally not fond of. This one is not too bad, very Steve Reeves-like, but not at all the way I pictured the character as I read the book.

As HILL OF THE DEAD begins, the title character is already an experienced, much-feared gladiator who has won many battles in the arena. Marcus Julius Brittanicus, known as Vulpus (the Fox) because he’s an intelligent fighter and often wins by out-thinking his opponents, finds himself facing a worthy opponent in a Jew named Samuel ben Ezra. The problem is, Marcus and Samuel are old friends who haven’t seen each other in years, and now one of them is going to have to kill the other.

At that point, the novel becomes a series of flashbacks filling in the background on Marcus’s life and his friendship with Samuel. Marcus used to be a centurion and actually chose to become a gladiator, but before that, Samuel saved his life during an encounter with some would-be thives. Later, Marcus is there when the Roman army lays siege to the Jewish stronghold of Masada, where Samuel is one of the defenders. You’d think the friendship between them might end there, but from the first chapter, we know that’s not the case. There’s more of the story to come.

With this flashback structure, the plot of HILL OF THE DEAD meanders around a little, at times seeming like nothing more than a framework on which to hang scenes of violence and sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, since author Laurence James, writing under the house-name Andrew Quiller, has a lot of sheer storytelling power in his prose and the book moves swiftly, even though it’s episodic.

Laurence James wrote a lot for the British paperback market, mostly Westerns but also some historicals like the Eagles/Gladiator series, for which he also wrote #4 in addition to this debut novel. (#2 and #5 are by Kenneth Bulmer, #3 by Angus Wells. I’ll be getting to them.) His work is so brutal at times that I have trouble reading it (he wrote one Western series where I’ve never been able to get past the first chapter in the first book), but it can also be very effective. I found that to be the case in HILL OF THE DEAD. He does a good job of using the historical setting, as well, and Marcus Julius Brittanicus is an interesting character. I’m looking forward to reading the other books in this series.

Mental State - M. Todd Henderson

When conservative law professor Alex Johnson is found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at his house in Chicago, everyone thinks it is suicide. Everyone except his brother, Royce, an FBI agent.

Without jurisdiction or leads, Agent Johnson leaves his cases and family to find out who killed his brother. There are many suspects: the ex-wife, an ambitious doctor with expensive tastes and reasons to hate her ex; academic rivals on a faculty divided along political lines; an African-American student who failed the professor’s course.

As Agent Johnson peels back layers of mystery in his rogue investigation, the brother he never really knew emerges. Clues lead from the ivy-covered elite university and the halls of power in Washington to the gritty streets of Chicago and Lahore, Pakistan. Ultimately, Agent Johnson must face the question of how far he is willing to go to catch his brother’s killer.

Mental State is about two brothers learning about each other in death, and about the things people will do when convinced they are in the right.

This debut thriller has generated some controversy, supposedly because of the conservative stance it takes, but I'm here to tell you, while the plot certainly centers around politics and the clash between left and right, MENTAL STATE is basically a hard-nosed, straight-ahead procedural with a dogged protagonist and the occasional burst of well-done action. It's not a polemic of any sort. I'm not sure the words "Republican" and "Democrat" even appear in the text.

Instead author M. Todd Henderson, himself a law professor, concentrates more on the relationship between the two brothers (even though one of them is dead for the entire course of the book, appearing only in flashbacks) and sprinkles in a lot of interesting historical nuggets, as well as detailing the twists and turns of how power works in Washington. I've read a number of political thrillers by Vince Flynn and Brad Thor (who are perceived to be on the right) and Brad Meltzer (who's perceived to be on the left), and MENTAL STATE strikes me as exactly the same sort of mainstream thriller. It's also fast-paced, well-written, and I enjoyed it enough that I look forward to seeing what Henderson comes up with next.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Action Stories, December 1930

There's an eye-catching cover for you. I don't know who the artist is. But the authors in this issue of DETECTIVE ACTION STORIES include Erle Stanley Gardner, F.V.W. Mason, J. Lane Linklater, Howard Morgan, and Earl and Marion Scott. Those last three, I don't know anything about, but any issue with Gardner and Mason is probably well worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Dime Western, October 1933

Now that's a sock on the jaw! In addition to a dynamic cover, this issue of DIME WESTERN also features some great Western pulp authors: Harry F. Olmsted (with a novella and a poem, and he's also possibly the author of the Tensleep Maxon story under the pseudonym Bart Cassidy), Walt Coburn, Ray Nafziger (twice, once as himself and once under the name Grant Taylor), J.E. Grinstead, and Dabney Otis Collins. Definitely an issue worth reading!

Forgotten Books: The Office - Fredric Brown

Fredric Brown is best known for his science fiction and mysteries, of course, but he also wrote one mainstream novel, and it’s now available in a 60^th anniversary edition that came out late last year. THE OFFICE, published originally by Dutton in 1958, has some autobiographical overtones—the office boy narrator is named Fred Brown—but as Jack Seabrook points in his afterword to this edition, the novel is almost completely fictional. It’s the story of the eight people who work in the office of an industrial jobber in Cincinnati, a company that sells supplies to machine tool manufacturers. That’s it as far as the plot goes, just the stories of these everyday people and what happens to them over the course of two years in the 1920s.

THE OFFICE is a very old-fashioned novel and reads at times like it was written in the Twenties instead of taking place then. The narrator is very omniscient, taking part in some scenes but knowing everything there is to know about others that take place when he’s nowhere around. The pace is very slow, the plotting mundane (except where it takes a couple of lurid turns late in the book), and Brown doesn’t just break the rule about showing and not telling, he demolishes it. This book is all about telling and revels in it.

The thing is . . . man, he had me turning the pages. After the leisurely build-up, I raced through the second half of this book, compelled to find out what was going to happen. I credit Brown’s skill in creating these characters for that. Yes, there’s not much that’s out of the ordinary about them, but he does a masterful job of showing that every ordinary life is filled with its own drama and suspense. And in showing that, he creates some very poignant scenes.

You know me, I love action. What little there is in THE OFFICE takes place off-screen. Doesn’t matter. I thoroughly enjoyed this book anyway. It was a labor of love for Brown, who worked on it for years in between writing other things. It was also, not surprisingly, his least successful book as far as sales. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s the best book I’ve read in a while, and I give a very high recommendation.

Overlooked Movies: State and Main (2000)

I don’t recall ever hearing about this movie when it came out back in 2000, but a friend recommended it recently on Facebook and it’s written and directed by David Mamet, and I generally enjoy Mamet’s work, so I figured we might as well go ahead and watch it.

STATE AND MAIN is a movie about movies, the sort that Hollywood likes to make from time to time. A group of filmmakers descends on a small town in Vermont, and hijinks ensue. The locals are, for the most part, colorful and eccentric. The movie people are sleazy and self-centered. Alec Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker are the morally challenged stars, David Paymer the producer, William H. Macy the director, Philip Seymour Hoffman the scriptwriter. Among the locals, Charles Durning is the mayor, Ricky Jay owns the diner, Julia Stiles is his daughter, Rebecca Pidgeon runs a bookstore and the local little theater group. It’s a good cast. Macy is one of my favorite character actors, and he’s very good as the director who’s either a decent human being at heart or completely amoral, I never could decide which.

The problem with STATE AND MAIN is that it ambles along, never develops much of a sense of urgency, and just is never as funny as I felt it ought to be. I kept thinking the basic plot would have worked great for a movie in the Forties directed by Preston Sturges or Frank Capra, with Barbara Stanwyck as the bookstore owner, Jean Arthur as the actress (or, let’s face it, the other way around would have worked just fine, too), Jimmy Stewart as the befuddled scriptwriter, and Cary Grant as the director. But that movie never got made, and STATE AND MAIN did, so I can give this one a mild recommendation. It’s never terrible, it’s amusing at times (the biggest laughs for us were in the closing credits, which tells you something), and I’m glad we watched it. And I stayed awake all the way through it, for whatever that’s worth.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Blue Book, March 1939

This issue of BLUE BOOK is from my favorite era for that magazine, the Thirties, especially the second half of the Thirties. The usual great cover by Herbert Morton Stoops, and a line-up of authors that's hard to beat: H. Bedford-Jones (twice, once with his imaginary collaborator, Captain L.B. Williams), Max Brand, Will Jenkins (better known by his pseudonym Murray Leinster), Robert Mill, Fulton Grant, William Byron Mowery, and Captain Dingle, all BLUE BOOK stalwarts during this period. It's the closest thing to a cross between a pulp and a slick.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Ranch Stories, April 1945

That's a pretty racy cover for a Western pulp that's not SPICY WESTERN or LARIAT STORY. THRILLING RANCH STORIES was the Thrilling Group's counterpart to RANCH ROMANCES, of course (before RANCH ROMANCES became part of the Thrilling Group itself), with the same blend of "woman interest" and Western action. The authors in this issue are ones you'd expect to find in just about any Western pulp: Gunnison Steele, Stephen Payne, Chuck Martin, Joe Archibald . . . But what about Monica Morton, author of the featured story? Well, "Monica" was really Johnston McCulley, another example of a savvy pro hitting a market. McCulley published more than a dozen stories under that name in various Western romance and love pulps.