Singer Batts #01 - Hue and Cry (aka Room for Murder/The Murder of Marion Mason)

Thomas B. Dewey originally worked in Hollywood at a correspondence school called Storycraft. In 1942, he moved to Washington, D.C. to be an editorial assistant for the U.S. State Department during WW2. As a side hustle, Dewey began writing paperback original novels. Along with stand-alone titles, Dewey created three series titles – Mac, Pete Schoefield, and Singer Batts. In fact, his very first novel introduced the character of Singer Batts, a hotel owner in a small Ohio town that solves mysteries. It was called Hue and Cry in the U.S. and The Murder of Marion Mason in the U.K. Later, it was reprinted under the title Room for Murder. The book now exists in a bundle through Wildside Press with the other three series installments. 

Dewey uses Rex Stout's strategy, and authors before him, to create a narrator that tells the tale of the formidable hero. Like Archie Goodwin's narration in Stout's Nero Wolfe detective series, Dewey uses a  character named Joe Spinder to narrate the story starring Singer Batts. The setup is quite simple: 

Batts is a thirty-something scholarly fellow that has recently inherited the Hotel Preston from his late father Emory. The hotel is in the sleepy mid-western town of Preston, Ohio. The town's goofy marshal is Pete Haley, a friend of the hotel's staff. Batts resides at the hotel and leaves all of the heavy lifting to the hotel's manager and story narrator, Joe Spinder. The staff includes capable night clerk Jack Pritchard, sleepy day clerk Old Harry Baird, and janitorial laborer Nancy Wheeler. 

Before all of the murdering, sleuthing, and solving, Spinder describes Batts in the opening pages: “Never wait for Singer Batts to ask a personal question. He doesn't operate that way. You live your life, he'll live his. It's only when there's something he thinks he's got a right to know that he'll ask questions. Then he'll ask plenty. Questions to drive you crazy.”

The book begins with two drunk young men being wrangled into the hotel by Pete. These are good 'ole boys that tipped a few too many bottles and Pete doesn't want to lock them up and ruin their family's good graces. Instead, he wakes up Joe and Batts and works out an arrangement for the boys to sleep it off in the hotel. The night gives way to the day and Joe leaves for errands in town. When he returns, there is a mob of people outside of the hotel and a corpse inside. A young woman named Marion Mason has been stabbed to death in her room.

Batts has the armchair detective tendencies, but isn't intimidated enough to just stay seated. When three lawmen from the state arrive, including the District Attorney, Joe goes into overdrive explaining the prior night's activities, the short list of guests, and that Marion Mason is new in town and a school teacher. But, Dewey paints the lawmen and the D.A. as the bad guys. They point fingers at Joe and things escalate into a physical brawl. The author doesn't beat around the bush and places a deadline on the novel: 24-hours to find the real killer or Joe is taking the fall. 

Joe mentions other cases that Batts has solved, including one or two that foiled the same D.A. But, Batts doesn't want to solve crimes. He's content living in his small bedroom and just gazing through the window. Joe eventually talks him into action and the two start the investigation by interviewing various town citizens, including two specific men that Marion slept around with. 

The case takes the mandatory twists and turns by leading readers out of Preston and into some seedy places out of town. The action and violence was a step up from what I expected and I really enjoyed Joe's wisecracking demeanor as the storyteller (he's really the show's star). He reminds me of Al Wheeler in the Carter Brown mysteries. Also, the language was surprisingly profane considering this is a 1944 novel. 

Managing my expectations, I went into Dewey's first novel thinking it may be a quirky small town hotel mystery. It is, but it's written very well as Dewey proved he could write crime-fiction with the best of them. I really enjoyed this first Singer Batts novel and I'll check in at the front desk for three more nights: As Good as Dead (1946), Mourning After (1950), and Handle with Fear (1951). 

Get the ebook HERE.

House of Dark Illusions

There are over 30 gothic novels authored by Caroline Farr between the mid-1960s and 1970s. Most of these books were originally published in Australia by Horwitz Publications and then reprinted in the US by Signet with vivid, traditional painted covers of beautiful women fleeing from gloomy mansions and castles. Depending on who you ask, the Caroline Farr name is a pseudonym for a revolving door of authors. The most consistent author associated with the Farr name is Richard Wilkes-Hunter, a New South Wales native that also authored books under pseudonyms like Alex Crane and Tod Conrad. 

Another name associated with the Caroline Farr novels is that of Allan Geoffrey Yates, the popular author that became a household name by writing crime-fiction as Carter Brown. My sources close to the Yates estate confirm that he did author some Farr novels, but the titles are unknown. There is also another Australian author closely associated with the Farr name, Lee Pattinson. According to papers held by the National Library of Australia, Pattinson was employed as a writer with Horwitz and authored romance novels under names like Teri Lester, Noni Arden, Kerry Mitchell, and Caroline Farr. 

The conclusion is that Caroline Farr was a house name used by at least three different authors that were published by Horwitz. Most recently, I gained a couple of these Signet reprints of Farr novels and I decided to try one out – House of Dark Illusions. It was originally published in 1973 and begins with a familiar gothic genre trope, a young woman learning of her inheritance. 

In the opening pages of House of Dark Illusions, young Megan has just experienced the loss of her father. She's a student at Boston College and lives in an apartment on Boston's North Shore. With her father's death, Megan fears she won't have enough financial support to remain in college. Thankfully, Megan receives a letter from her Aunt Lissi with a tantalizing offer. Lissi invites Megan to the family's coastal mansion in Nova Scotia, Canada. 

In the backstory, readers learn that Megan's mother is a descendant from a wealthy Canadian family. Unfortunately, she died when Megan was very young. The family never liked Megan's father so he left the family behind and raised Megan as a struggling single father in Boston. Megan debates returning to her childhood home, but feels that enough time has passed and it's important that she visit the only remaining family left, Aunt Lissie.

When Megan arrives at the spacious shoreline estate, she learns that her mother possessed telekinetic powers – the ability to move inanimate objects with her mind. Lissie feels that Megan has the same talents as well, but needs help discovering them. Lissie insists on having a séance so that Megan can harness her own hidden energy and possibly connect psychically with her dead mother. Additionally, the séance will include two distant cousins, a medium, and two doctors. But, when the séance begins, Megan begins seeing visions of an Indian prince being murdered in a palace. How does any of this connect to the story? 

At 140 pages of large font, House of Dark Illusions reads more like a short story. There isn't really enough time to delve too far into these characters to properly introduce them. I felt the narrative was missing huge chunks of importance or simply shortened to meet a publishing deadline. The entire story does play out, including answers to Megan's questions about her family and inheritance, but it feels like a rushed job. The book's finale left something to be desired, but possessed a fitting conclusion to the average plot. Whoever crafted the book used foggy roads, the misty coastline, and the cavernous house as atmospheric plot enhancers, but even the spook factor wasn't enough to save the book. I'd recommend passing on this unless you really love the artwork of these old books and must possess everything. Otherwise, just move on to much better books.

Mack Regan #04 - Murder Makes the Corpse

The history of this paperback and publisher are nearly as interesting than the book itself. Bear with me - we’ll get to the review shortly.

The short novel was printed by a British publication called Tit-Bits (quit your snickering), a publication that ran from 1881 to 1984. The magazine’s specialty was human-interest stories, and some issues featured short stories or even short novels in their entirety. H. Rider Haggart and Isaac Asimov were both published in Tit-Bits.

Tit-Bits published five short novels by journeyman U.K. Author Harry Hossant using the pseudonym Sean Gregory. The novels were:

Murder Comes Easily (1953)
Murder Bangs a Big Drum (1954)
Murder Is Too Permanent (1954)
Murder Makes the Corpse (1954)
Murder Makes Mockery (1955)

Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to definitively confirm whether Murder Comes Easily and Murder Makes Mockery were actually part of the same series starring his recurring character. But, based on the titles and the clustered publication years, it seems likely.

The known paperbacks feature a crime-solving Hollywood agent named Mack Regan, and they’re hard as hell to find today. The good news is that one of the 1954 confirmed books in the series, Murder Makes the Corpse, has been reprinted as the B-Side of a trade paperback double from Armchair Fiction along with Mike Brett’s Scream Street.

How’s the book?

Our narrator is Mack Regan, a Hollywood Press Agent (today, we’d call him a publicist) who receives a call from a TV singer named Kay Ransome seeking to engage Mack’s services. Before the new client meeting takes place, Mack learns that Kay was shot to death in her apartment - a bad deal for Mack since he never got paid by this would-be new client.

Soon thereafter, Mack is visited in his office by Kay’s kid sister Lynn, who is understandably upset about her sister’s murder. According to Lynn, Kay was  in some kind of trouble and frightened for her life. Now Lynn wants to engage Mack to investigate Kay’s murder for the lofty sum of $300. None of this makes much sense - to Mack or the reader - because Mack is a Hollywood press agent not a private detective. As such, he urges the grieving girl to save her money and let the police handle the murder investigation.

Lynn later informs Mack that her dead sister was apparently mixed up - sexually, that is - with a San Francisco racketeer under investigation for tax evasion. It appears likely that Kay has stashed away some of the mobster’s hidden money in her own safe deposit box. Against his initial judgement, Mack agrees to help Lynn solve Kay’s murder despite the high likelihood of Mack getting sideways with a well-resourced underworld figure.

Meanwhile, we also learn that the police are investigating a series of grave robberies over the past year. Dig this: Someone has been stealing entire dead bodies from caskets buried in the ground. Not cool. This all coincides with Mack taking on a funeral home and cemetery as a new client in search of publicity in exchange for a lofty retainer of $100 per week.

Eventually, the three plot threads - Kay’s murder, the cemetary publicity gig, and the grave robberies - are shuffled together to form one full deck of a plot. Mack is a great main character - funny, competent, and charismatic. He’s got a steady girlfriend, so he spends zero pages trying to get laid - unusual for a 1950s crime paperback. Also unusual: the hardest beverage Mack drinks is orange juice.

The most amazing thing about Murder Makes the Corpse is the author’s economical writing style. A lot happens over the course of the 63-page novel, and not a word is wasted along the way. It was a popular gambit in the 1950s for foreigners to write mysteries set in the glamorous USA (Carter Brown and Larry Kent among them), and this one carries it off with only a few accidental U.K. references.  

This is a charming mystery with some original elements and a main character you want to accompany on more adventures. Unfortunately, that will be an expensive project given the scarcity of surviving Tit-Bits novels. We should all be thankful that Armchair Fiction has reprinted Murder Makes the Corpse as it was a lot of fun to read. Recommended.

Paperback Warrior - Episode 83

On Episode 83 of the Paperback Warrior Podcast, we discuss the evolution of sexual content in genre paperbacks. Also discussed: Carter Brown, Adult Westerns, Ardath Mayhar, John Kildeer, Frank Cannon, Sam Spade, Wade Miller, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Jonathan Craig and much more! Listen on your favorite podcast app, at paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE 

Donate to the show HERE

 

Listen to "Episode 83: Paperback Sex" on Spreaker.

The Lover

Using the pseudonym Carter Brown, Alan Geoffrey Yates (1923-1985) authored 215 novels and 75 novellas and counted U.S. President John F. Kennedy among his fans. His most enduring character was California-based police detective Al Wheeler, and Stark House Press has just released another three-pack of Wheeler mysteries anchored by The Lover from 1958.

In this case, Detective Wheeler is dispatched by the Sheriff to investigate a loony cult in the mountains run by a dude calling himself The Prophet. His followers allegedly engage in sun worship, group sex, drugs and fertility ceremonies. The Sheriff is concerned that this screwball religion may break bad in some unforeseen manner and orders Wheeler to investigate and provide his assessment.

Wheeler heads to the mountain to watch The Prophet in action. The cult leader is tanned and muscular wearing only a loin cloth and appears to worship the sun without metaphor or irony. The Prophet’s spiel is pretty pro-forma until he starts preaching that the Sun God demands a sacrifice.

This wouldn’t be much of a murder mystery if no one got killed. As such, after meeting a cadre of the Prophet’s devotees, we finally get a murder for Wheeler to solve. The author introduces a lot of characters (probably too many) who are all regarded as suspects. For his part, Wheeler is more full of wisecracks than I recall from other installments I’ve read. I’m betting that the upswing in Shell Scott’s popularity around 1958 influenced Yates to ratchet up an the pithy quips for Detective Wheeler to deliver.

Beyond that, this is a pretty standard whodunnit mystery with colorful characters and a logical, satisfying conclusion. Carter Brown mysteries have always served as pulp mystery comfort food - a palette cleanser between more substantial novels. You always know what you’re getting, and the thin paperbacks always deliver the goods. The Lover was no exception - you know exactly what you’re getting, and it’s always a good time. Recommended.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

South Pacific Fury

Australian born novelist James Edmond Macdonnell (1917-2002) utilized pseudonyms including Kerry Mitchell, Michael Owen and variations of his own name to construct a robust catalog of literary work. Fans of spy-fiction may recognize the name James Dark, a pseudonym that Macdonnell used to write the 14-book Mark Hood series from 1965-1970. My first experience with Macdonnell is South Pacific Fury, one of nearly 150 naval mens-action adventure novels authored by Macdonnell for Australian publisher Horwitz (the same international publisher that printed Carter Brown). South Pacific Fury was originally published by Horwitz in 1968 and subsequently published in the US by Signet with cover art featuring model Steve Holland (Doc Savage).

Like the name suggests, the novel's premise is about a U.S. PT44 torpedo boat in action in World War 2's Pacific Theater. The main character is Captain Walt Kenyon, an admirable hero who commands his small crew to perform at their peak despite the overwhelming odds. In the book's exciting opening pages, Kenyon's crew shoot down a Japanese “Zeke”, a common Japanese fighter craft formally called the A6M Zero. After discussing the plane's placement and mission, the crew then intercepts a Japanese Destroyer in a harrowing firefight.

While these early hit-and-run exercises are a pleasurable reading experience, South Pacific Fury thankfully settles into a central plot. A Coastwatcher named Cook has become trapped on Golo Island, now completely occupied by enemy forces. After months of relaying strategic codes and instructions, the Navy doesn't want to abandon him. Orders are given to Kenyon's crew to circumvent a large Japanese fleet in an effort to successfully rescue Cook from behind enemy lines.

In some ways this reminded me of the excellent novel Skylark Mission, written by Marvin Albert under the British-sounding pseudonym Ian MacAlister. Like that adventure, the exploits of Cook surviving on the island and avoiding detection are carefully inserted into alternating chapters that really helped me escape the small confines of Kenyon's boat. This novel of “land and sea” ratcheted up the suspense and action through the use of both perspectives.

South Pacific Fury is an outstanding work of war-fiction and, to the detriment of my wallet, has led me down the rabbit hole of Macdonnell's body of work. Highly recommended!

Buy a copy of this book HERE

John Easy #01 - If Dying Was All

Pop-culture historian and multi-genre author Ron Goulart wrote four novels and three short stories starring a swinging Hollywood private eye named John Easy in the 1970s. Thanks to Mysterious Press, the novels remain in print today, so I’m starting the series with the first installment, If Dying Was All, from 1971.

An Oscar-winning screenwriter named Mr. McCleary hires Easy to solve a family mystery. The client’s daughter Jackie committed suicide by jumping into the Pacific Ocean five years ago, yet Mr. McCleary just received a letter from the girl. Fortunately for the plot, Jackie’s body was never recovered. In the letter, Jackie says she’s in trouble, but she can’t come into the open just yet. Jackie drops a lot of inside info, and the handwriting looks right. Convinced that his twentysomething daughter is alive and in trouble, the old man hires Easy to find Jackie.

Easy isn’t convinced Jackie is alive, but he follows logical leads - gossipy news clippings, the post-office, her friend-group, etc. This brings him in the orbit of many quirky California types, but Easy is himself is rather generic. In fact, he makes fictional detectives like Mike Shayne and Johnny Liddell seem downright charismatic in comparison. Instead of imbuing Easy with personality, Goulart chooses to make him a competent professional among scads of California stereotypes (“The classical string quartet at the cafe is nude!”).

Man, this was a by-the-numbers tedious and boring book. It’s possible that Goulart was trying to lampoon the private eye genre, but he forgot to actually make it funny. Characters do wacky California things like grab Easy’s crotch while he’s interviewing them, but these attempts at promiscuous edginess fell flat to me. The entire novel is just a series of interviews Easy conducts with witnesses and possible suspects who may have knowledge of Jackie’s death or disappearance. By the time we arrive at a solution to the central mystery, I was way past caring.

If any of this sounds like your thing, please just read any of the Carter Brown mysteries. He did the same thing so much better. If Dying Was All isn’t even bad enough to be noteworthy. The novel is blessedly short, so you won’t need to suffer through much tedium to reach the ending. Better idea: just skip it altogether.

Buy a copy of this book (if you must) HERE

The Venetian Blonde

Brooklyn native A.S. Fleischman (Avron Zalmon Fleischman, 1920-2010), authored his first book in 1939 at the age of 19. In 1941, Fleischman joined the U.S. Navy Reserve and served near the Phillippines and China during WW2. After graduating from San Diego State, the author began writing children's books as Sid Fleischman. During his literary career, Fleischman wrote over 40 children's books, a feat that earned him critical praise with industry peers. However, what brings the author to Paperback Warrior is his short career as a crime-fiction and adventure writer.

Between 1948-1963, Fleischman wrote 10 genre fiction books that saw publication with the likes of Fawcett Gold Medal, Phoenix Press and Ace. His 1955 novel Blood Alley was adapted for cinema starring John Wayne and Lauren Bacall. My first experience with Fleischman is his last full novel, The Venetian Blonde, published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1963.

The book stars Skelly, a former card-sharp who made a fortune dealing loaded hands to a Boston money man named Braque. After years of swift hands, Skelly's fingers fail Braque to the tune of $125,000. Unable to repay the error, Skelly begins to dodge Braque and his hired guns, a runaway trail that leads him to Venice Beach, California in hopes of a new start. But after trying a small hand of backroom poker, Skelly realizes his hands just aren't fast enough any longer. He needs a brand new con. Enter Evangeline.

Skelly, using the name Appleby, attempts to reconnect with an old friend. His wife, Evangeline, advises that her husband is out of the country on business. After learning of Skelly's financial woes, Evangeline throws him the perfect pitch. You see, she's a fake witch. A spiritualist. A medium. She dupes people out of money by faking the old smoke and mirrors séance trick. She's a cunning, greedy woman who runs the con game at the professional sounding Institute of Spirit Research. Here's the swindle: Evangeline has located an old millionaire who recently lost her nephew in a drowning accident. Evangeline proposes to Skelly that they collaborate on an unusual scheme. They can bring the millionaire's nephew back to life for a cool million. Skelly laughs at the proposal...until Evangeline shows him a mysterious young man she has locked away upstairs. Could this really be the drowned nephew?!?

My first experience with A.S. Fleischman was an absolute blast. Think of the heist formula perfected by the likes of Dan J. Marlowe or Lionel White and saturate it in Carter Brown's comedic seasoning. It's clear that the author emulates some of the writing style he used with his children's books, but adding all of the coarse characteristics one would find in a crime-noir novel of the 1960s – sex, murder and fraud. I also really enjoyed the nod to the western's hero's flaws. Skelly is essentially the fast gun who isn't quick enough anymore to compete with the buck-wild up and comers.

Skelly and Evangeline are both looking for that one big payoff so they can escape the con game business. They both want to walk the righteous path, but to do so they must put one fraud in front of the other. It's a deceitful path allowing the characters to really shine in their element. Fleischman also includes a homely but attractive beachnik. Think of the Times Square beatniks and their soundtrack of Jack Kerouac over groovy jazz. Replace it with a beach of your choice to the tunes of Jan & Dean. That's really the setting of The Venetian Blonde, a unique location and historical time period that just adds more originality and imagination to Fleischman's impressive adult-fiction send-off. In his last noir act, Fleischman delivered a memorable and masterful performance.

In 2016, Stark House Press reprinted this novel as a double with the author's 1952 crime-noir Look Behind You, Lady. You can buy a copy of that book HERE.

Milo March #02 - No Grave for March

Milo March was a fictional spy turned insurance investigator created by Kendell Foster Crossen using the pseudonym M.E. Chaber. The series ran for 22 novels and a handful of short stories from 1952 to 1973, and is currently being reprinted by Steeger Books with fetching cover art. Based on a tip from Crossen’s daughter, author and literary estate curator Kendra Crossen Burroughs, I decided begin my march into the series with the second installment, No Grave for March from 1953.

March is an investigator for Denver-based Intercontinental Insurance, but he used to be a OSS operative during World War 2. Some of his books are straight-up property crime investigations and in other books, the U.S. government presses March back into service for an espionage assignment. This series setup provided the author great flexibility to plug his hero into any kind of pulpy genre book he felt like writing. No Grave for March is an international spy adventure paperback.

As the novel opens, March has been away from the spy business for seven years. He is summoned to a clandestine meeting in Washington, D.C. with an old colleague from his war days. It seems a diplomat with a head full of secrets has defected to the Soviet client state of East Germany. Because March speaks German, he is the choice to slip behind the iron curtain, kidnap the diplomat, and bring him back to the West. One of the secrets at stake is a mind-control device that can reprogram the public to either love Stalin or apple pie depending on who’s pulling the trigger.

I had always written off the Milo March books as being lightweight, inconsequential paperbacks along the same lines of Richard Prather’s Shell Scott or the many heroes of Carter Brown. Instead, the author put some actual thought into his work with summaries of communist theory embedded into the plot-line and interesting historical tidbits. This isn’t a work of genius, but it’s also not completely disposable fiction.

It’s also not a fast-moving shoot-em-up paperback. March spends a good bit of the novel just trying to convince the commies that he’s one of them and not an American spy. I found this fascinating, but it’s certainly not a breakneck Killmaster thrill ride. Crossen also has an annoying habit of writing lots of dialogue in German and Russian with no translation. You get the gist, but why bother showing off like that? There’s also a lot of specifics about East German tactics, ambitions, and party machinations that you will find either interesting or not.

Things become very exciting in the novel’s final act with a pulpy action sequence among the best I’ve read. I wish the rest of the paperback had set pieces as thrilling as the conclusion. Despite some missteps along the way, I genuinely enjoyed No Grave for March, and I look forward to exploring more of the series in the future.

Addendum:

No Grave for March has been reprinted several times. In the Paperback Library 1970 edition pictured above, the publisher numbered the installment #13. Don’t be fooled: it was truly book #2 in the series. An earlier printing of the novel was titled All the Way Down. Unless you’re a hardcore collector, don’t buy the same book trice.

Also, the Steeger House reprint contains an interview with Kendell Foster Crossen from 1975 that was informative for both his fans and pulp fiction historians. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Lou Largo #01 - All I Can Get

Before his untimely death at the age of 38 in 1960, William Ard was on a roll writing popular mystery fiction under his own name as well as the Buchanan westerns under the pseudonym Jonas Ward. Ard’s demise interrupted his Lou Largo series of hardboiled private eye novels, but the character lived on through later installments written by ghost writers Lawrence Block and John Jakes before they became famous. Ard’s first two Lou Largo novels are expensive collector’s items, but they have been reprinted in a single volume by Ramble House Books providing an affordable opportunity to enjoy the 1959 opening installment, All I Can Get.

Largo is a charming and wisecracking Manhattan private investigator with a difficult client: a wealthy media mogul named Milton Weston. Largo is hired to perform a background check on Mr. Weston’s new infatuation - a gold-digging chippy that he intends to make his eighth wife. The tycoon is thoroughly uninterested in hearing the truth about the party girl and refuses to pay Largo’s fee at a time when Largo’s reserve funds are running thin.

Ard begins the Lou Largo debut in a fun, lighthearted style that recalls the Carter Brown mysteries featuring over-the-top, wealthy eccentrics who Largo is forced to endure for business and economic reasons. And then things take a very clever turn. Nothing is as it seems in the opening act of this deceptively simple novel. Through a non-linear storyline with early-novel flashbacks and flash-forwards reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the reader is treated to the story behind the story, and we learn that Largo has a little deception in his heart as well regarding the girl. This early-plot twist catapults All I Can Get from a simple, lighthearted crime novel into something bordering on brilliant. And sexy. 

While never veering into pornography or graphic descriptions of lovemaking, All I Can Get was surprising explicit for a 1959 novel. I couldn’t imagine sex scenes like this in 1952 as the world apparently just wasn’t ready at that point. Seven years later, here we are. The sex scenes work because they have real context and help to explain the decisions the characters make throughout this well-crafted paperback.

As the story progresses, it becomes clear that the doomed romance between the millionaire and the sexpot is actually the subplot, not the main dish. The real story involves the Cuban syndicate based out of Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood and a newspaper rivalry in a nearby beach town. Lou Largo isn’t even present for a large part of the book’s second act. But sure enough, Ard weaves these threads into the early-novel story of Largo, Mr. Weston and his new fiancé. All of this leads to a genuinely exciting and violent conclusion.

This is a tough book to review because I don’t want to spoil anything for you. If you enjoy crime fiction and can appreciate truly exceptional writing in the genre, you’re bound to be pleased with All I Can Get. It’s as if Ard took a close look at the dumb-but-fun private-eye sub-genre (think Richard Prather’s Shell Scott books) and asked himself “How can I turn this formula on its ear, and make it something that transcends the genre?”

Ard writes in a style popularized by Ed McBain in his 87th Precinct series. Basically, it’s a third-person narration with doses of personality and commentary sprinkled into the action with the omniscient point of view. It makes for a fun read, and Ard’s humorous narrative quips are a delight. It gives the reader the sense that you’re in good hands with Ard as your tour guide on this twisty paperback ride.

The downside is that Ard is considered to be a “collectible” author by the types of people who buy vintage paperbacks, encase them in plastic, and never read a word. Thank heavens Ramble House has compiled the first two books in the series into a single trade paperback volume titled Calling Lou Largo, which you can purchase HERE. However you get your hands on a reading copy of All I Can Get, please do so. It’s something special.

Addendum

Lou Largo Series Order and True Authors:

1. All I Can Get (1959) by William Ard
2. Like Ice She Was (1960) by William Ard
3. Babe in the Woods (1960) by Lawrence Block
4. Make Mine Mavis (1961) by John Jakes
5. And So to Bed (1962) by John Jakes
6. Give Me This Woman (1962) by John Jakes

7 Deadly Sinners

Between 1959 and 1961, Charles E. Fritch (1927-2012) wrote a quasi-series of five private eye paperbacks in which the main character’s name changed regularly as well as the pseudonyms used by Fritch when publishing the novels. In various installments, the protagonist’s name was Mark Wonder, Christopher Sly, or Nicholas Gamble while the author names were Charles Fritch, Christopher Sly, Eric Thomas, and Christopher Brockden. It’s a mess to understand and unsurprising that the books never took off commercially. The series order, heroes, pseudonyms and publishers are all hashed out below in the addendum to this review.

The fourth book in the series (although they can be read in any order) is 7 Deadly Sinners by Christopher Sly, starring private detective Christopher Sly from 1961. The novel is currently available as a trade paperback reprint from Wildside Press restoring Charles Fritch’s own name as the author. Fritch went on to have a successful career as the editor of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.

Christopher Sly (the character, not the pseudonym) is a wisecracking Hollywood private eye with an assignment any red-blooded man would relish: he needs to guard seven starlets for a local movie studio to ensure they stay out of trouble before a publicity tour. The catch is that one of the seven beauties was a girlfriend of a deported mafioso. The syndicate wants to find her to ensure she remains silent forever about what she knows. The problem is that nobody knows which of the seven ladies is the girlfriend.

While Sly’s overt assignment is to keep all seven women alive, his secret mission is to identify the mobster’s ex-girlfriend. His only clue to get this done is the knowledge that she has a diamond-shaped birthmark down near her lady-parts. Yes, you read that right. Sly’s needs to discreetly examine each of the seven to determine which woman is the mob’s target and take extra care to keep her alive thereafter. His preferred method is seduction, but other opportunities arise as well. Okay, I’ll grant you that this is a stupid and contrived premise, but it’s basically a lighthearted sex-romp mystery in the same manner as a thin Carter Brown or Shell Scott novel.

This is a very horny paperback with a fair amount of sexually explicit content. We get lots of moaning animal sounds, heaving breasts, and expectant thighs, but the descriptors seldom take it to the next level. The sex scenes - and there are quite a few - are more graphic than a Shell Scott book but less explicit than a Longarm western. The original publisher, Athena Publications, was a sleaze fiction paperback house that pushed the limits far more than the Ace Double housing Fritch’s 1959 private eye novel, Negative of a Nude.

The twisty solution to the paperback’s central mystery is so painfully obvious that any reader will see it coming from a mile away. The ending was also abrupt as if Fritch hit his contractual word count and just stopped writing. Despite its simplicity, 7 Deadly Sinners was a mostly fun, low-impact read. Only you can decide if the $8.49 price tag for the paperback reprint is worth the cost of this mindless diversion. Paying much more for a bawdy murder mystery really would be a crime.

Addendum: Charles Fritch’s P.I. Series Chronology

- Negative of a Nude by Charles Fritch (1959), Ace Double starring P.I. Mark Wonder
- Strip For Murder by Eric Thomas (1960), Kozy Books starring P.I. Christopher Sly
- Psycho Sinner by Eric Thomas (1961), Athena Books starring P.I. Mark Wonder
- 7 Deadly Sinners by Christopher Sly (1961), Athena Books starring P.I. Christopher Sly
- Fury in Black Lace by Charles Brockden (1962), Carousel Books starring P.I. Nicholas Gamble

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Larry Kent #642: Curves Can Kill

Between 1954 and 1974, there were hundreds of novellas and paperback original novels produced in Australia starring hardboiled New York Private Eye Larry Kent. The series was published by the same company that brought the world the Carter Brown mysteries and packaged with salacious cover illustrations similar to the Hank Janson books. The primary authors were Don Haring and Des Dunn, but all the books were released under the house name Larry Kent. Piccadilly Publishing has been reprinting Larry Kent’s adventures as affordable eBooks while maintaining the original cheesecake cover illustrations. I’m starting the series with #642: Curves Can Kill, a 1965 installment written by Don Haring.

The character of Larry Kent started as a newspaper reporter in 1950 on a popular Australian radio drama called, I Hate Crime. The popularity of the radio show launched the novellas and eventually the novels. Kent’s character became a private investigator in the mold of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. As time went on, the writers borrowed a page from Stephen Marlowe’s Chester Drum and Michael Avallone’s Ed Noon when the hero began accepting espionage assignments from the CIA in selected novels. A variation on this “private eye as spy” gambit is the storyline at work in Curves Can Kill.

The action opens with Kent tied to a chair being worked over by a Romanian goon wanting to know what Kent knows about “Z Detail.” Unfortunately for the wisecracking Kent, he doesn’t know much, so he must continue to suffer the abuse - from both fists and a switchblade - with no reprieve. It’s a brutal and violent opening scene that will play well for readers who like their pulp fiction more extreme than Carter Brown could ever offer.

Fortunately, we don’t need to sit through 120 pages of Kent being carved up with a switchblade. He is rescued and finds himself in the hands of Z Detail, an America-friendly private intelligence outfit with close ties to the CIA. The Z-boys want to hire Kent as a contract operative for the vast sum of $300 per week.

His first mission as a contract operative for Z Detail involves befriending a woman in New York. Kent’s version of befriending looks a lot more like a Carter Brown novel, and the swinging sixties attitude toward women is on full display. None of this would fly today, but that’s part of the fun of vintage fiction. Anyway, the woman has access to a secret that Kent needs to learn, and giving any more info away would spoil the fun for you. Suffice to say that all this eventually ties back to the Romanian goons who tried to filet Kent in the opening chapter.

This is one of those great books that kept surprising me with the quality of the prose and story. I had been misled to believe that the Larry Kent series was disposable fiction with a production schedule too aggressive to be among the outstanding works of pulp fiction. Instead, as I read Curves Can Kill, I found myself repeatedly muttering, “Wow, this is really good.” Fans of violent spy-mysteries with major twists and turns will love this book as much as I did.

There are some slow sections but no boring ones in this Larry Kent mystery-adventure. It all leads up to a shockingly violent bloodbath of a climax - one of the finest I’ve read in ages. Overall, I was very impressed by this paperback, and I’m excited to read some more. With over 800 installments, we are unlikely to run out of Larry Kent content in this lifetime. It’s great to discover a new series with an endless amount of content to enjoy. Highly recommended.

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Shell Scott #02 - Bodies in Bedlam

With four decades of overwhelming commercial success, Richard Prather's Shell Scott series is unquestionably one of the best private-eye series brands ever. While wacky and outlandish, the screwball style of the Shell Scott character was adored by crime-fiction and mystery readers. Bodies in Bedlam (1951) is an early Fawcett Gold Medal installment in what is arguably the most creative era of the series. It was the first of three Shell Scott novels written in 1951 – the others being Everybody Had a Gun and Find This Woman.

Shell Scott is basically the West Coast version of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, albeit not as serious. Operating out of Hollywood, many of Scott's cases revolve around the film industry. Bodies in Bedlam follows that familiar setting by placing Scott at a posh industry party in the Hollywood Hills where the paperback detective winds up in a scuffle with an aspiring actor...who is later found murdered. All fingers point to Scott as the killer, thus the narrative develops with Scott as his own client endeavoring to learn the identity of the real killer.

Like most of these titles, Scott's tongue in cheek approach to investigation is paired with his substantial sex appeal. Women dig the white hair. Four beautiful actresses throw themselves at Scott, begging to be fulfilled while being absolved of any wrongdoing. Scott begins to connect the dots that suggests the aspiring actor may have been selling nude photos of Hollywood's most-endowed performers. Is there a connection? Could one of these “bodies in bed...lam” really be capable of a heinous act?

This was my first experience with both Richard Prather and the Shell Scott character. I wasn't holding out for a huge payoff or an overly satisfying read. Shell Scott is a funny guy, shoots straight and has a flair for action. But, if I'm reading a cock-eyed detective story...I'd prefer Carter Brown. I own about fifteen Shell Scott novels, and I'm going to read more...but I'm in no hurry. Bodies in Bedlam was an elementary, sexy whodunit. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fun Fact: Soliciting nude photos of actresses in the crime-noir genre seems to be a recurring theme. William Ard's You'll Get Yours was published a year after Bodies in Bedlam and focuses on an aspiring actress and leaked nudie pics. The same for Louis Malley's Stool Pigeon from 1953. This was evidently before leaked photos and promiscuous videos were a catapult to stardom.

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The Lady is Transparent

Carter Brown, real name Alan Yates, was an English-born Australian writer who authored over 300 short mysteries. His stirring, sultry formula starred three interchangeable investigators in Al Wheeler, Danny Boyd and Rick Holman. Occasionally his work would dabble in supernatural themes that were easily debunked and solved in the book's finale. “The Lady is Transparent”, published in 1962 by Signet, adheres to that consistently fun formula.

Lieutenant Al Wheeler becomes a ghostbusting investigator after receiving a call from the county sheriff. There's been a murder on an eerie locale called Old Canyon Road at the top of Bald Mountain. With a fiery crescendo of thunder and lightning, Wheeler arrives at the sweeping Gothic mansion in the forest. His welcoming host is Justine Harvey, a beautiful vixen adorned in a skimpy white gown. Wheeler's lust for the woman nearly supersedes his assignment.

Through a spacious network of halls and rooms, Justine leads Wheeler to an immensely large door that's locked from the inside. Justine explains that her family heard a scream from inside, and they feel that “The Gray Lady” killed Henry Slocombe behind the door. Wheeler, ignoring the folklore, shoots the lock out and indeed finds Slocombe dead in bed with wounds that appear to have been created by a wild animal.

Confined in the locked room mystery genre tropes, Wheeler interviews all of the home's residents. He learns that wealthy Ellis Harvey owns the home. Ellis has allowed his brother Ben to reside there along with Justine, her equally attractive sister Martha, and a planned groomsman for Martha in George Farrow. Wheeler concentrates his efforts on learning more about Martha's dead lover Slocombe and Ellis' arrangement for Martha to marry George.

The supernatural aspect of Carter Brown's novel is The Gray Lady, the ghost of a dead woman who haunts the room where Slocombe was murdered. Further, Slocombe was entranced by the folklore and kept a tape recorder running in the room. The audio results are surprisingly convincing – there was definitely a mysterious woman in the room. The questions abound – who is she, how did she get in and is she truly the dead woman's ghost?

At 120-pages, “The Lady is Transparent” delivers the patented Carter Brown experience. With Wheeler's obligatory scotch and skirt-chasing, he stumbles his way through a locked room/haunted house mystery permeated with scorned love, jealousy and greed. It's an atmospheric, entertaining quick read that delivered what the author intended – a sexy, whodunit romp.

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 10

It's our 10th episode! On this show we'll discuss author Carter Brown's career and his novel "The Loving and the Dead". Eric reviews a 70's team-commando novel called "Killer Patrol" and Tom talks about his "wipe out" shopping spree in Chicago. Stream it below, listen on any popular streaming service or download directly LINK Listen to "Episode 10: Carter Brown" on Spreaker.

Bodyguard #06 - The Model Body

Richard Reinsmith (sometimes spelled Richard Rein Smith) authored several science fiction and romance novels under pseudonyms including Damon Castle, Ann Taylor, and Dan Elliott. He also wrote a tie-in novel in 1985 titled “Tarzan and the Tower of Diamonds.” His foray into the 1980s men’s adventure gold rush consisted of eight books in ‘The Bodyguard’ series published by low-end paperback houses, Tower and Leisure Books. Because series order really doesn’t matter here, my entry point is the sixth installment, “The Model Body” from 1984.

The bodyguard narrator, Ray Martin, is hired to protect a nymphomaniac model and porn magazine publisher that someone is trying to kill. Heather is a redhead version of Marilyn Monroe who has recently survived two attempts on her life, and Ray needs to make sure the third attempt doesn’t hit the target. The secret to Ray’s success is a type of ESP that helps him detect when an attempt on his client’s life is about to happen. The author doesn’t overdo the psychic stuff. The early-warning system seems to work like Spidey-Sense and is intended to illustrate that Ray is a next-level kinda bodyguard.

As attempts on Heather’s life continue, it becomes clear that Ray’s smartest course of action is to identify and neutralize the person behind the killers rather than acting as a hockey goalie for bullets headed toward his client. The investigative aspect of “The Model Body” places the novel squarely into the realm of private detective fiction and reminded me of a Carter Brown mystery where a professional investigator is thrust into a world of sexual eccentrics to solve a mystery. In this case, Ray is plunged into a subculture of pornography, S&M dungeons, and snuff films to discover who wants his client dead.

And mostly it worked. The first-person narration is decent and conversational. Ray is a brave and competent hero. To be sure, there are some really dumb elements to the book. For example, Ray goes to great pains to explain that carrying one Beretta in each hand is somehow a good idea. This, of course, is moronic. There’s a reason you don’t see real cops and soldiers blasting away with two pistols at the same time. Ray also gets laid a lot in fairly graphic detail and not always in service of the plot. At times, this felt like fan-service filler meant to pad the page count.

Here’s the bottom line: Don't special order this paperback from afar. Don’t buy a copy encased in plastic from a fine books dealer. Don’t choose this paperback for your monthly book club selection with your fancy friends. However, if you find a copy at a yard sale for a buck or less and you want a big-font, non-challenging read, you’ll probably enjoy “The Model Body” just fine.

Addendum

The Bodyguard series consist of:

1. Bury the Past (1979)
2. The Blonde Target (1980)
3. An Extra Body (1980)
4. Somebody to Kill (1983)
5. A Body in Paradise (1984)
6. The Model Body (1984)
7. Nobody’s Perfect (1984)
8. A Body for Christmas (1984)

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Wake Up Dead

“Wake Up Dead” is a 1974 private-eye novel by a shadowy and unfamiliar author named William Wall. A thorough search online failed to reveal any other known works. Locating the author's identity is a conundrum considering the book's publisher is equally as opaque. The paperback was issued by Papillon Books, copyright Aware Press, Inc., a 70s publishing house that dabbled in a handful of genre related titles like “Mr. Tomorrow,” a post-apocalyptic work by soft-core erotica author Con Sellers. Further, the publisher recycled the “Wake Up Dead” cover from a 1970 Belmont paperback entitled “Logan” by Alan Joseph. It's a bold move considering the paperback cover art fails to match any of the novel's actual content.

The book's protagonist is private investigator Tony Boyle, an apathetic sleuth with a declining business. Accustomed to his wealthy, affluent lifestyle, Boyle is yearning for business to pick up when in walks Marsha Vickers, a stunningly beautiful woman seeking to retain Boyle's services. Her wealthy Uncle Johnny, beneficiary of a lucrative trust fund, has been missing for several days. Concerned for his safety, she engages Boyle to find Uncle Johnny.

After a day of inquiries, Boyle learns that Marsha has received a ransom call from Uncle Johnny's kidnapper. The price is $25K for his safe return. Marsha must consult the trustee to obtain the ransom money. During this exchange we learn that Uncle Johnny only receives $1,500 per month, a rather paltry stipend considering the vast fortune in the trust. Once the money is placed at the drop site, Uncle Johnny is released. As Boyle starts to question the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping, there’s evidence to suggest maybe the whole thing was a scam.

There's an enormous plot twist regarding Uncle Johnny, the $25K and the kidnapper, but It would be cruel to spoil your surprise here. Suffice to say that Boyle's assignment isn't finished once Uncle Johnny is returned. Instead, the book's second half is centered around Boyle's investigation of Uncle Johnny's day-to-day life to provide greater clarity and answers.

Like all good crime stories, there are gambling debts, an enforcer and pages upon pages of clues for the determined reader to work through before the solution is revealed. The punch-line wasn't overly original, but it was probably entertaining enough to satisfy fans of Carter Brown's whodunits. If that’s the caliber of mystery you enjoy, you may like “Wake Up Dead.” If you demand more from your crime fiction, you can safely skip this largely derivative effort.

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Chopper Cop #01 - Chopper Cop

'Chopper Cop' debuted in 1972 as a Popular Library paperback. Author Paul Ross is actually Dan Streib, the man behind 70s action oriented series' like 'Killsquad', 'Hawk', 'Steve Crown' and 'Death Squad'. The series would last three installments with Streib writing the first two. While the cover, font and badge logo would indicate a high-paced action formula fitting of Streib's writing style, the end result is an entirely different type of story. Personally, I think this was probably a grand misplacement of what literary power-broker Lyle Kenyon Engel envisioned when hiring Streib. Engel would later denounce the author, furthering the theory that the supply didn't meet the demand.

Think of series debut, “Valley of Death”, as an eerie, Gothic investigative novel. Odd I know, but Streib's use of heavy sea fog, moonlit graveyards, old mansions and an abandoned mining town are the perfect backdrops for this dense thriller. They are almost characters themselves, springing up from time to time to introduce darkness and death.

No, this isn't the long-haired, biker riding “Easy Rider” that's depicted on the book cover, but our hero Terry Bunker does dress the part. He works for the California Governor, sort of a special operative piece that is utilized by leadership as an official State Department of Criminal Investigation...investigator? He receives requests from the Governor to solve crimes. He's extremely successful, allowing him to refer to leadership as “hey guv” despite hatred from his departmental peers.

The debut mystery is a rather grim one; young wealthy women are committing suicide in San Francisco and Sacramento. Yet, they are reaching out to their loved ones posthumously through bizarre phone calls or supernatural apparitions lurking just outside the window. The crime? Whoever is behind the ghostly apparitions are ransoming the return of these resurrected dead girls for millions of dollars. The culprit might be a strange seaside cult that's sacrificing drugged women for cash. But that doesn't explain the seemingly life after death undertaking of these heists.

Bunker isn't as funny as say...Kolchak, Fox Mulder or Carter Brown's bumbling detective Al Wheeler. But he's no Shaggy either. This character is vulnerable, even scared at times as he navigates ghosts and graves to find the criminal leader. But he can get the job done. It's a slap in the face to readers looking for a hard-edged, bone-breaking chopper cop. But once you can forgive the creator, this is a really fun mystery that had some longevity. I could see this sort of thing working on multiple levels, whether supernatural or just a “crime of the week” featuring some abstract scenario. Unfortunately, the struggle between publisher and author led to this being canned shortly thereafter. I'm on the hunt for book two.

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No Law Against Angels (aka The Body)

Beginning in 2017, Stark House Press began releasing the Al Wheeler series by author Alan Yates, better known as paperback extraordinaire Carter Brown. These 1950s mysteries are easy reads about a West Coast lieutenant who assists the commissioner on difficult whodunits. Stark House released the first volume in 2017, containing Wheeler entries 1-3. That followed in 2018 with the 4-6 installments. In March of 2019, books 7-9 were released. When choosing an affordable Stark House collection ($20 paper, $6 digital), pay no mind to series order because there isn't one. Al Wheeler is a cop. There's beautiful women. A crime needs to be solved. These aren't labor intensive. 

Wheeler is summoned by the commissioner to assist an arrogant homicide detective named Hammond. Wheeler, always holding Scotch, is to locate the murderer of two women found dead in San Francisco alleyways. The only clue is that each have a snake tattoo and they are from out of town. Never a strongman, our bumbling sleuth somehow backs himself into a call girl racket that involves mortuaries, hair salons and a hilltop mansion that might hold the answers.

The scenic coastline provides a beautiful backdrop for Wheeler's actions. The investigation eventually leads to fisticuffs, but not before both Wheeler and Hammond verbally spar on who's right and wrong. Of course Wheeler is attempting to get laid, but never settles to just pay for it (a prostitute practically wants to pay him!). It's when he meets the stunning goddess Jo Dexter that his sex-drive hits overdrive. But this is the tame paperback kingdom of the 1950s, so that sort of thing is more suggested than described. 

Carter Brown is firmly master of his domain and proves it with “No Law Against Hair-Dye”....I mean “Angels”. This was a gripping, short read that I read in nearly one sitting. Al Wheeler is hilarious with his endless sarcasm, never completely in control but somehow being three steps in front of the bad guys and the reader. This is absolutely entertaining and a must read.

Note - This U.K. book was released in the US in 1958 as "The Body".

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Paperback Warrior: The State of the Blog

Paperback Warrior: The State of the Blog

2018 was a huge year for Paperback Warrior’s growth. We published 288 original entries - mostly reviews - and we ended the year with an aggressive production schedule of new content released every morning, Monday through Friday.

Here’s how our content broke down by genre:

Hardboiled Crime/Noir - 43%
Western - 17%
Vigilante - 15%
Adventure - 5%
Post-Apocalypse - 5%
Spy/Espionage - 4%
WW2 – 3%
Feature Articles - 3%
Action Teams - 2%
Pulp - 2%
Plantation - 1%

Our social media footprint has grown as well with followers on the following platforms:

Facebook - 685
Twitter - 892
Instagram - 1936

We also conducted extensive traffic analysis to learn what you like to read. You voted with your feet (well, your fingers) and visited the following ten articles more than any others in 2018:

1. Searching for the D.C. Man: A Paperback Warrior Unmasking

2. The Greatest Men's Adventure Series Ever: A Paperback Warrior Poll

3. The Adult Western Superfriends

4. Cuba: Sugar, Sex, and Slaughter

5. Inside McLeane's Rangers: A Paperbackback Warrior Unmasking

6. Earl Drake #01 - The Name of the Game is Death (Dan J. Marlowe)

7. The Loving and the Dead (Alan Yates as Carter Brown)

8. A Hell of a Woman (Jim Thompson)

9. Hardman #01 - Atlanta Deathwatch (Ralph Dennis)

10. White Squaw #02 - Boomtown Bust (Mark K. Roberts as E.J. Hunter)

Mostly we want to thank you for reading and interacting with us. We hope that you discovered some good reading and were warned away from some real stinkers. Stay tuned for some great things in 2019!