Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Strange Stories, December 1940

The Weird Menace boom was over by the end of 1940, but STRANGE STORIES, a semi-Weird Menace pulp from the Thrilling Group was still hanging on. This is a good cover, a little reminiscent of the Spicy pulps. Good-looking girls sure had trouble keeping their clothes intact in those days. There are some good writers in this issue: Seabury Quinn, Norman A. Daniels, Don Alviso, Alexander Samalman. As well as some I've never heard of: Dorothy Quick, Joseph H. Hernandez, George J. Rawlins, and Dr. Arch Carr. Unusual to see a doctor using his title in a pulp magazine, but there you go. I wonder if he was a medical doctor. David H. Keller was always billed as David H. Keller, M.D.

UPDATE: The cover artist was the great Earle Bergey, who did six covers for STRANGE STORIES during its 13-issue run.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Giant Western, April 1952

This cover is more proof, as if we needed it, that no card game ever ended peacefully in the Old West. Sam Cherry did most of the covers for GIANT WESTERN and this one is probably his work, too, but I don't know that for sure. There are some good authors inside this issue: Wayne D. Overholser, Philip Ketchum, and William Hopson all have stories, along with Russ Winterbotham and William Ratigan, who wrote a series for ADVENTURE about a character named Captain McCargo. I've never read any of those, but they sound good. 

Forgotten Books: So Fair, So Evil - Paul Connolly (Tom Wicker)

Noted journalist Tom Wicker wrote three noirish crime novels for Gold Medal in the Fifties: GET OUT OF TOWN in 1951, TEARS ARE FOR ANGELS in 1952, and SO FAIR, SO EVIL in 1955. I read TEARS ARE FOR ANGELS last year and liked it quite a bit. I just read Wicker's final novel under the Connolly name, SO FAIR, SO EVIL, and enjoyed it a great deal, as well.

This one starts with protagonist/narrator Frank Sinclair returning to the city in Alabama where his wife Dolly committed suicide a year earlier by driving her car into a boulder, while Sinclair was in a mental hospital because of trauma suffered during his service in the Korean War. Sinclair is recovered from his mental breakdown, but he still has one real obsession: his belief that his wife didn't commit suicide but rather was murdered. And he's come back to the town where they lived to find the killer.

It's a good set-up for an investigation, but Sinclair doesn't really have time to do too much poking around, because all the action in SO FAIR, SO EVIL takes place in about 24 hours. Even so, Wicker packs quite a bit into this story. Most of it, admittedly, is more domestic drama than crime story. Dolly was part of the richest family in town. Her half-brother doted on her, and he, his rather icy wife, and their snooty circle of friends never really accepted Frank Sinclair as Dolly's husband since he was not only from out of town but was also a working man, an electrical engineer. Wicker fills in a lot of this background with flashbacks, but there's some action, too. Somebody tries to kill Frank, which convinces him more than ever that Dolly was murdered instead of killing herself. Can he figure out who among the group of rich, powerful people is responsible before he winds up dead, too?

Honestly, I figured out the big twist in this book very, very early on, but Wicker manages to slip in one little twist at the end I didn't see coming that's a nice sting in the tail. What makes SO FAIR, SO EVIL well worth reading and what kept me flipping the pages (I read it in two sittings, which is unusual for me) is the smooth, lyrical prose and the excellent characterization. Frank Sinclair isn't really that likable, but the reader roots for him anyway, and even the mostly despicable characters have their moments of sympathy and understanding, as well. Plus the actual resolution of the plot surprised me.

This is an excellent novel, probably not quite as good as TEARS ARE FOR ANGELS but in the same neighborhood. That just leaves GET OUT OF TOWN as the only Gold Medal by Wicker that I haven't read, and I may not since the only copies available on-line are a little too rich for my blood. But if I ever come across an affordable copy, I won't hesitate to grab it.

Overlooked Movies: Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)

This is another movie that played frequently on TV when I was growing up, but I never watched it until recently. I'm not a fan of the Hornblower novels by C.S. Forester. I read one of them when I was in high school, many years ago, and remember enjoying it, but I never read the rest of the series. I like a good historical naval adventure yarn now and then, though, so this seemed like a good bet. And it was. I enjoyed CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER a great deal.

This is a movie that's just packed full of plot, and that's not surprising since it's based on not just one novel but rather three, BEAT TO QUARTERS, SHIP OF THE LINE, and FLYING COLOURS, the first three Hornblower novels published. Because of that, the story just races along, with Hornblower and the crews of the ships he commands getting mixed up in one perilous adventure after another. Raoul Walsh was just about the perfect director for a big-scale, fast-moving epic like this that's mostly action but does have a few quieter, more poignant moments mixed in.

Gregory Peck is great as Hornblower, and Virginia Mayo is very good as the English lady who Hornblower has to rescue before falling in love with her. Neither of them seem to make much attempt at a British accent, which is probably a good thing. I had no trouble accepting them as English despite that. Supporting actor James Robertson Justice almost steals the show as a big galoot of a British sailor.

The battle scenes actually do steal the show. They're some of the best, most realistic-looking naval battles I've seen in a movie. I'm not sure how Walsh and his crew accomplished this, but they did a fine job. And there are sword fights, always a plus in any movie.

CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER is old-fashioned Hollywood filmmaking and a thoroughly enjoyable movie. I had a wonderful time watching it.

Benedict and Brazos #1: Aces Wild - E. Jefferson Clay (Paul Wheelahan)

Paul Wheelahan has to be one of the most prolific writers of all time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote well over a thousand novels, most of them Westerns for the Australian publishers Cleveland and Horwitz, under a number of different pseudonyms, the most common being Emerson Dodge. A few of his books under the name E. Jefferson Clay were published (pirated, most likely) in the U.S. by Leisure, all of them in his series featuring handsome, womanizing gambler Duke Benedict and burly saddle tramp Hank Brazos, one a former Yankee (Benedict), the other a former Confederate (Brazos), who fought against each other during the Civil War but then teamed up, albeit reluctantly, for a long series of adventures in the post-war Old West.

The Benedict and Brazos series is being reprinted from the start by Piccadilly Publishing as e-book editions and Bold Venture Press as handsome trade paperbacks. I recently read the first novel, ACES WILD, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It begins in a Kansas cattle town where the two protagonists run into each other months after the war is over, then flashes back to their first meeting during a battle in Georgia, where they fight against each other, then team up to ward off an attack by renegades not loyal to either side. There’s a wagonload of Confederate gold mixed up in the affair, and it’s still unaccounted for when Benedict and Brazos meet after the war.

Along with the missing gold, Wheelahan throws several other things into the plot: a gang of outlaws, a bounty hunter and his beautiful, flirtatious wife, a newly opened bordello, and the leader of the renegades Benedict and Brazos tangled with during the war. The story races along in fine fashion, with plenty of action and interesting twists as Benedict and Brazos not only work together when they have to but also plot against each other when it suits them.

ACES WILD is a really entertaining traditional Western with a pair of likable protagonists, and I’m glad that the books are readily available again. I’ll be reading more of them, you can count on that. Recommended.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Spicy Mystery Stories, January 1936

This cover by H.L. Parkhurst is pretty lurid and bizarre even by Spicy pulp standards . . . but it sure catches the eye, doesn't it? Inside are stories by the usual top-notch suspects: two by Robert Leslie Bellem (as himself and as by Jerome Severs Perry), two by Edwin Truett Long (as Cary Moran and Mort Lansing), two by E. Hoffmann Price (as himself and as by Hamlin Daly), Hugh B. Cave (as Justin Case), Colby Quinn, and Charles A. Baker Jr., who may or may not have been real. It's pretty easy to see why most of the Spicy pulps were sold under the counter back in 1936, no matter how tame they may seem today.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Wild West Weekly, January 20, 1940

An unusual cover with that red tone, but I think it's quite effective. The artist is Richard Case. As usual with WILD WEST WEEKLY, there are some good authors on hand in this issue, including one of the magazine's all-time stalwarts, Paul S. Powers, with a Sonny Tabor novelette under his Ward S. Stevens pseudonym. Also in this issue are C. William Harrison with two stories, one under his name and one under the house-name Nelse Anderson, William F. Bragg, John A. Saxon, and Charles N. Heckelmann.

Forgotten Books: Code of Vengeance - Ennis Willie

Every time I read a book by Ennis Willie (which isn’t as often as I’d like; the man’s books are hard to come by!), I’m struck by what a wonderful storyteller he was. This is certainly true of CODE OF VENGEANCE, published in 1965 by Merit Books, which features Willie’s series character Sand, who left the mob and has survived all the attempts since then to take him out.

This book opens with Sand walking along a foggy, misty nighttime street in an unnamed city. It’s very reminiscent of the opening of Mickey Spillane’s best Mike Hammer novel, ONE LONELY NIGHT. Then there’s a scream, Sand sees a girl running from a couple of thugs, he intervenes, the girl winds up dead anyway, and—get this—she turns out to be someone Sand knows, a rich society dame who wanted to be his girlfriend a couple of years earlier, although he turned down her pitch. Even though they weren’t romantically involved, Sand sets out to find whoever wanted her dead enough to send a couple of killers after her, which is also reminiscent of Mike Hammer.

Sand’s investigation sees him acting like a private detective, gradually uncovering the connections between the dead girl, her somewhat dysfunctional family (including a couple of beautiful blond sisters), assorted hoodlums, a redheaded stripper, a gay bar (an element of the plot that’s handled pretty sympathetically for 1965), and a fancy sanitarium. Along the way, somebody keeps knocking off people involved with the case and Sand has to survive several attempts on his own life.

It’s a pretty standard plot and fairly easy to figure out (although there’s one late twist I didn’t see coming), but Willie’s magic is in his writing, his full-scale acceptance of these tropes and willingness to run with them at an all-out sprint that kept me flipping the paces breathlessly to see what was going to happen. Throw in the occasional line that verges on pure poetry, and it’s a very winning, compelling combination. It’s early yet, but CODE OF VENGEANCE is the best book I’ve read so far this year.

Coming Soon: The Manhunt Companion - Peter Enfantino and Jeff Vorzimmer

Following the success of their great anthologies THE BEST OF MANHUNT and THE BEST OF MANHUNT, VOLUME 2, Stark House soon will be publishing THE MANHUNT COMPANION by Peter Enfantino and Jeff Vorzimmer. This book contains a history of the magazine, indexes of authors and stories that MANHUNT published, plus reviews of every story from every issue. I'm not sure anything like this has ever been attempted before, let alone pulled off in such great style. I may not agree with every review, but they're all entertaining and informative and present a compelling picture of what's regarded (rightly so) as the top crime fiction digest of the Fifties. But MANHUNT lasted well into the Sixties, and Enfantino and Vorzimmer don't shy away from its slow decline, either, although there were still some very good stories to be found in those later years. Overall, if you're interested in crime fiction and/or digest magazines, there's plenty here that you'll find enjoyable and enthralling. I give THE MANHUNT COMPANION a very high recommendation. (And while you're at it, if you haven't read the two BEST OF MANHUNT volumes, I can't recommend them highly enough, either. They're great books.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Crack Detective Stories, May 1946

I think it's the expression on the blonde's face and the look in her eyes that really make this cover work. James Blish (writing as Marcus Lyons) and Tom Thursday are the only authors in this issue of CRACK DETECTIVE STORIES whose names ring a bell, although of course Cliff Campbell is a house-name and could be anybody. But other than that we have Frances Beck and Ken Lewis, neither remembered much today. I like the skeleton hands, and in that situation, I think I'd feel just about as dubious as the blonde looks.