Casca #04 - Panzer Soldier

Scripture tells us that while Jesus hung on the cross, slowly dying, one of the Roman soldiers pierced his side with a lance. That soldier is the subject of Barry Sadler’s remarkable action/adventure series. The gospel, according to Sadler, relates that the soldier was surly and indifferent, unmoved by the suffering of Jesus (or anyone else for that matter), whereupon Jesus looked into his eyes and said, “As you are, so shall you remain, until I come again.”

And since that moment, Casca Rufio Longinus has remained just as he was, never aging, never dying. He wanders restlessly from place to place, even spanning the world. While from time to time he finds himself enslaved, imprisoned or otherwise distracted from his calling, he’s a born soldier and his destiny is to fight in one war after another, endlessly, until the Second Coming. Along the way, his various injuries heal themselves miraculously but he’s susceptible to a great deal of physical and emotional suffering.

For the most part he keeps his condition a secret. But in the debut novel, “The Eternal Warrior”, an American army doctor in Vietnam discovers an ancient bronze arrowhead embedded in the body of an unconscious soldier (guess who!), and soon we learn of Casca’s early life and adventures. It’s a phenomenal book.

The second novel, “God of Death”, takes him from the Barbarian lands beyond the Empire to the realm of the Vikings, then across the sea to the Americas. Most of the book deals with the land of the Olmecs, where human sacrifice is practiced and an epic clash of civilizations is underway. Maybe I’m just Euro-centric, but for me ancient Mexico was one of the less-compelling settings in the Casca saga.

The third book, “The War Lord”, is somewhat better. Casca manages to sail back to European waters, where he becomes something of a pirate for a time before wandering east--- as in Far East, all the way to China. On the long journey, he first encounters a mysterious Brotherhood which knows all about him, despises him, and tries to hold him captive. Arriving in China, he becomes a prized warrior in the service of the Emperor.

In the fourth book, “Panzer Soldier”, the saga leaps forward about 1500 years, where we find Casca going by the name Carl Langer, leading a four-man German tank crew on the Russian front in WWII. For the first time in the series, a novel confines itself to one conflict, and Casca only goes where the war takes him. 

Collectors know that this is one of the more expensive, harder-to-find books in the series. Maybe that’s because of the subject matter, but I’d like to think it’s because the novel is so outstanding. As literature, “The Eternal Warrior” is a bit stronger overall, but “Panzer Soldier” is unmatched in its visceral power. It’s easily the grimmest, grittiest book in the series thus far. The battle action is breathtaking, but the novel’s real strength is in the context of those scenes. Every aspect of a panzer soldier’s life is examined, from the hunger, exhaustion and lice to the gnawing gradual realization that defeat is inevitable, Germany is doomed, and that one’s own death in battle is nearly as certain (certain for everyone but Casca, that is). 

There are a few lighter interludes scattered about, but for the most part the book is almost as much a grueling horror story as a war novel. Sometimes we can only wonder where the line between fiction and non-fiction really lies, as the book is full of disturbing vignettes with the ring of truth to them--- from the German civilian who is not only raped and murdered but nailed to the door of her barn, to the soldiers who survive an overwhelming enemy bombardment but are driven out of their minds by the experience, bleeding from their ears and noses. The atmosphere of hopelessness and dread only intensifies as Casca and his crew are pushed ever westward, as the Germans are forced to retreat all the way to Berlin.

And that’s when things begin to unravel a little. Sadler knows we’re hoping that Casca will meet certain notable figures from history, and that’s accomplished by bending the narrative to accommodate a metaphysical angle. The Brotherhood makes an unlikely appearance and the story wobbles for awhile until Casca resumes fighting the Russians. I can’t describe this last quarter of the book without giving away too much. It’s good, but it’s a little less successful than what came before. 

Don’t let that deter you from seeking out this book, though. Overall, “Panzer Soldier” is a riveting, powerful novel, and a key entry in an essential series.  

Tractor Girl

In the 1950s and beyond, Fawcett Gold Medal produced some of the most tightly-wound 180-page crime novels by authors including Harry Whittington, Gil Brewer, Dan Marlowe, and Day Keene. The books often starred ambitious criminals, sexy femme fatales, double-crosses, and twist endings.

In 2011, James Reasoner published his own homage to the Gold Medal crime novels of the 1950s, “Tractor Girl”.

A small-time hood is left for dead by the local gangsters on the side of a Texas road. He is rescued and brought home by a sexy farmer's daughter who begins nursing him back to health. As we learn more about the girl and her family's secrets, the tension mounts. Criminal opportunities arise, double-crosses happen, and 1950s-style eroticism abounds. The first-person narrative is hard-boiled. The characters are vivid, and the plot is tightly-wound.

This is a terrific short novel that would have been a natural fit in the Gold Medal collection. The upside is that we can enjoy it today for a couple bucks on Kindle or ordering a hard-copy online. Strongest recommendation, here. I can't get enough of this crime sub-genre, and I'm glad guys like Reasoner are keeping it alive. 

Marilyn K.

Stark House has reprinted two Lionel White crime novels in one volume. This is a review of “Marilyn K.”, the first novel in the collection. “Marilyn K.” is a tight little 1960 crime thriller the man who penned the novel “Clean Break”, later adapted into Stanley Kubrick's film “The Killing” (which, in turn, later inspired Quentin Tarantino's “Reservoir Dogs”). “Marilyn K.” is told in a first-person, conversational style and is an easy read. Our hero is Sam Russell, an ex-Marine who stops his car to pick up a beautiful woman on the side of the road (Marilyn K.) along with a suitcase full of cash. Because this is a Lionel White book, you can be safe to assume that complications arise inhibiting Russell's eventual possession of both the girl and the cash. Plenty of man-on-the-run action, hot sex and bloody violence unfolds. A fairly-easy-to-spot twist ending resolves the story before anything becomes tedious. In short, a great read from an unappreciated master of the genre. To purchase this novel, including White's "The House Next Door", click here.

The Rat Bastards 01 - Hit the Beach!

'The Rat Bastards' was a 16-book run of World War Two action-adventure novels. It was written by Len Levinson under house name John Mackie (one of his 22 pseudonyms) and follows his first, similar series, 'The Sergeant'. Where 'The Sergeant' was set in Europe, this series is set in the South Pacific. 

The first book in the 'Rat Bastards' series, “Hit the Beach!”, released by Jove in 1983, introduces its characters as they arrive at Guadalcanal for what will be an incredible ordeal of desperate hand-to-hand combat. The events in the book span only a couple of days, but the intensity of the fighting is conveyed extremely well by the author, who also has a gift for rendering realistic dialogue. Our Rat Bastards platoon kills a staggering number of Japanese soldiers, far more than a critical reader can really accept, but that goes with the territory.

And what bloody territory it is! 

The magnitude of gory violence here makes Edge look like Gene Autry, but it’s blended with some well-crafted suspense and atmosphere too. Len Levinson is clearly right up there with Don Pendleton for creating powerful, visceral pulp. Outstanding. 

The entire series is available as ebooks through Amazon (along with 'The Sergeant' series). The author does recommend reading them in order to preserve the story.

Where Did Charity Go?

Some thugs visit Hollywood fix-it man Rick Holman and warn him to to decline his next engagement. Of course he doesn't, and Rick finds himself in the middle of a kidnapping plot involving a famous actor's daughter with the backdrop of a backstabbing family feud. Was it a real kidnapping? A publicity stunt? It's Rick's job to figure it all out in this short, sexy 126-page novel from 1970. The writing is good, the dialogue is crisp, the women are beautiful and the sex scenes are sexy (but not graphic). But the solution to the novel's ultimate question was a bit of a convoluted mess for serious mystery purists. Then again, mystery purists don't turn to Carter Brown as a top-shelf talent. For readers seeking a fast-moving, sexy Hollywood story that you can knock out in a few hours, this was a fun read. Recommended.

Last Ranger #09 - The Damned Disciples

Jan Stacy's (house name Craig Sargent) 'The Last Ranger' series was nearly finished by September of 1988. The ten-book series reached it's conclusion with the swansong “Is This the End?” in January, 1989. Stacy would later pass away the same year from the AIDS virus, thus being able to conclude this series with definitive closure (everyone dead?) before his death. It's hard to fathom how far 'The Last Ranger' would have ran in good health considering lack of creativity and the genre's gradual demise in the 90s. We'll never know, but based on this turd-cake...the end was certainly near.

“The Damned Disciples” is a rudimentary example of how limited this “post-nuke” sub-genre can be. We can debate for days on the merits of 'Survivalist', 'Doomsday Warrior' and 'Endworld', but at some point even the most faithful would agree it was a bit of drivel in the droves. This ninth installment of 'The Last Ranger' is like an unfunny “Seinfield” episode – its literally about nothing, yet can't scrape together anything resembling entertainment. It's a slow burn with a lifeless character placed in illogical situations. Yet, I should sympathize with the series' mythology – it's the end of the world and anything goes...including a plot.

The book's opening suggests there's robed monks conducting moonlit, midnight pagan rituals in Colorado. A young woman is pushed into an occupied casket and the lid slams. Fast forward to our ranger Martin Stone tucked away in his mountain fortress performing leg surgery on himself. He receives a transmission that someone has April (someone always has April) and they are practicing devious desires. Stone, with no direction and a broken leg, drives his hog to  some vile village named La Junta. 

Stone finds that La Junta residents have been forced into something called Cult of the Perfect Aura by the great leader Guru Yasgar and the Transformer. It turns out Guru is providing all of his minions a special elixir called Golden Nectar. It's like 'Doc Savage' meets The Branch Davidians meets those Scientology quacks. There's some elephants thrown in, a labor camp and absolutely zero interest for anyone involved – it's what I refer to as the Men's Warehouse for Pathetic Plots. Somewhere, in the dull simplicity, Stone becomes drugged and forced to stir the Golden Nectar for weeks. April is here as the drugged, whipping wench/foreman, along with man's best enemy, a drugged, Stone-hating Excalibur (the series mascot and second protagonist behind Stone). There's a surprise cameo of a prior villain...but you have to torture yourself to find who. 

I'd speculate that this book is a subtext of the author's own struggles near the end. It would be fair to think of the Golden Nectar, Stone's drug dependence and constant stirring as perhaps symbolic of Stacy's prescription torment, the endless cycle of day in and day out drug dependence. Considering timing of the release, his death from AIDS and the series' last book asking “Is This the End?”, it wouldn't be a far-reaching theory. Regardless of what inspired the material, it's simply a dull read that offers very little character development (I suppose what's the point), new ideas or any momentous change in series or character. Pass...for God's sake pass.

.357 Vigilante #01 - .357 Vigilante

There’s a lot to like in the eponymous-titled debut of the '.357 Vigilante' series (Lee Goldberg as Ian Ludlow), and the story drew me in pretty quickly. A cop in Los Angeles is cornered by a street gang which burns him to death. The guilty parties beat the rap and walk out of the courtroom smirking, and the cop’s grieving son goes into vigilante mode to bring them down, one by one.

All of this material is very good. The author moves the story along and makes it seem fresher than it really is. Published in 1985, it was written two or three years earlier, and I enjoyed the scattered pop-culture references which brought the story’s setting to life (how often do you see a novel that mentions X and Oingo Boingo?). The hero’s confrontations with the surly gang members are taut and exciting, and each take-down is bloodier and more difficult than the last. Meanwhile, the police are rapidly figuring out the mysterious vigilante’s identity and they’re closing in. To them, he’s just another murderer.

And then, in the final quarter of the novel, it all goes south. Our hero, Brett Macklin, has been presented as an ordinary guy, pushed by grief and anger into taking the law into his own hands. The story really worked for me on that level, but just as Macklin completes his task, we learn that a ridiculously unlikely conspiracy has been going on. An evil televangelist and a crooked politician have been using street gangs to kill people and Macklin has gotten too close to the truth. He needs to be eliminated, which leads to an epic showdown including explosions, torture, narrow escapes, Macklin hanging from the underside of an elevator car and a helicopter, a high-speed chase through Hollywood and a death by wood-chipper. 

In other words, suddenly we’re in a silly ‘80s Mack Bolan adventure and our Everyman hero is no longer an ordinary guy with normal limitations and vulnerabilities. That’s where the novel lost me. 

Yes, the book had some flaws even before this point. It was a little long and wordy for such a simple plot and the author (still a college student at the time) was often trying too hard to turn a colorful phrase. But until that left turn, the story was compelling and believable. 

You hate to see your team blow a lead and lose the game in the final quarter, and that’s how I felt about “.357 Vigilante”.

Angel's Flight

Before his 2010 death, Lou Cameron was the author of over 300 genre novels. He was a post-war pulpster who specialized in tawdry action stories with tightly-wound plots. Think 'Longarm'. Think 'Renegade'. Lou Cameron knew his way around a standard story arc. This fact is what makes Cameron’s 1960 debut novel, “Angel’s Flight”, such a delightful curiosity. Although it was released as a Gold Medal crime novel - and was recently re-released by Black Gat Books - the story captures the tone and scope of literary fiction. Yes, it seems Lou Cameron started out aspiring to be serious author writing a serious book. And it worked.

Although “Angel’s Flight” is a lean 233 pages, the story spans about 17 years time between 1939 and 1956 - from the jazzy Great Depression to the dawn of rock-n-roll. Our guide through this era is our narrator, an honest and earnest journeyman jazzman named Ben Parker. Ben’s narration is written in a be-bop jazz lingo that was later adopted by James Ellroy in “American Tabloid” and “The Cold Six Thousand”. The prose sings throughout the readable novel.

Parker’s foil is the vapid and conniving fellow jazzman, Johnny Angel, whose ambition for success well outpaces his musical talent. Like many of the colorful characters in Parker’s life, Angel comes and goes. He starts out as an irritant and evolves into an existential threat.

Angel’s Flight is a real masterpiece of storytelling that holds your attention even though there isn’t much of a standard story arc. It feels like the literary equivalent of a Martin Scorsese movie - like “Goodfellas” or “Wolf of Wall Street” - that tracks a single character through the ups and downs of a remarkable life. This storytelling approach is surprising coming from Lou Cameron, whose body of work relied on an economical approach to plotting. Cameron’s knack for creating colorful characters is on high-display, and readers will come to adore Ben Parker and the women and friends who float in and out of his life.

Although the novel has murders, mafia, payola and betrayals, it’s doesn’t feel like a normal Gold Medal crime novel. It feels more weighty and significant - like a story of the jazz age that needed to be preserved because it captured an important era in America’s cultural history. To that end, Black Gat Books has done America a real favor by preserving this piece of important art.

Highly recommended.

Merrick

Fans of the Parker heist novels of Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) will enjoy this old-west short story by Utah author Ben Boulden. The character of Merrick is analogous to Stark's Parker - a man on a thievery crew planning and executing an elaborate heist. In this case, a mobile payroll theft. Of course, things go sideways and gun-play action ensues. The old-west universe the author creates is as fascinating as the propulsive plot. Crime is regulated, overseen, and controlled by a religious sect who exercises a modicum of control over the turf. It's an old-west we haven't seen before in fiction and it re-writes the rules in the same way the John Wick movies did with contemporary organized crime. This reasonably short story hopefully will be followed by novel-length heist tales starring Merrick. The Parker novels were great, and this old-west pastiche is a welcome addition to the anti-hero sub-genre.

Roadblaster #03 - Blood Ride

I am requesting that this book be enshrined into the Library of Congress. Paul Hofrichter, aka He Who Creates the Horror, should be commended for not only this novel, but the trilogy of trophies known as the ‘Roadblaster’ series. It’s truly extraordinary, a spectacle of grand design. Those of you familiar with my reviews of this novel’s predecessors, “Hell Ride” and “Death Ride”, understand just how low I place this author on the rungs descending into that scorching, skin-searing abyss known as Hell. “Blood Ride” far surpasses the legendary status of the prior books and lowers to the ranks of what can only be deemed as the new "worst piece of fiction ever created". It’s an utter abomination worthy of high praise and endless critique at world-renowned libraries like the Reading Room of the British Museum and The Vatican. I’d like great Monasteries like Saint Gall and Benedictine to marvel over its printed pages for centuries to come.

Paul Hofrichter, the horror…the absolute horror.

Stack, our “Roadblaster”, begins this final chapter of spiraling doom with a visit with a biker gang aptly titled The Harley Davidson Club. They request that he accompany them across the Golden Gate Bridge to locate two sisters of a deceased gang member. It’s only four days after the nuclear bombs annihilated America and Stack is concerned about his parents, kids and loving wife back in New York. Rather than mourn the potential melting of his entire family, he graciously accepts the offer. At one point, the narrator explains that Stack wants the military to fly him – a New York city cab driver by trade – to New York so he can check on his loved ones. He clarifies to a biker that he can’t drive his van across the US for fear of depleting his fuel or experiencing engine failure. He dismisses the fact that cars are strewn everywhere, and that fuel should be in abundance considering the nukes just fell and people are still driving. But, instead of vanning cross-country, he’s walking across the cables to a stranger’s house to locate two sisters that are probably dead. The walk…takes 60 pages.

Mercifully, Stack reaches the other side, and, instead of searching the ruins of the house, he sits down for lunch. Later, an elderly man swings by hoping that Stack will offer his tuna. Stack doesn’t and the whole chapter is just awkwardly dedicated to…lunch. Food is brought up again in the next chapter as Stack and the group disregard the importance of searching for bodies and decide a night at the beach frolicking and eating crabs is an important use of precious time. In 12-pages of utter nonsense, Hofrichter explains that it’s a cruelty to cook crabs while they are alive. He goes on for pages and pages of how barbaric it is to eat crabs and lobsters boiled or broiled. At one point, the group can’t properly boil the crabs, so they fetch a pot of dirty, radioactive seawater to use. After crabs, an aimless Stack gets invited by a female colleague to engage in anal sex (because she doesn’t want to become pregnant). Stack, consistently demanding more than anyone in this post-apocalypse nightmare, says it physically hurts too much. The female, in her infinite wisdom, requests he run to the water and fetch another cup of dirty, radioactive seawater and pour that on his penis and reenter. I barely have words.

Somewhere, around page 160ish, Stack is thinking about the abandoned B-52 in the mountains. If you will recall, the first book discussed the bomber and a motorcycle gang in demand for a B-52. The stereotypical gang, The Bloodsuckers, are still running around wanting this plane so they can rule California, eat pizza and commit intercourse with the state’s residents. They are big on intercourse. So, they remain in the book and the author spends time introducing us to them in long backstories with absolutely no point or story development. One character he describes as angry because of his “prison experience”. Apparently, this guy could only masturbate on his cot with his knees bent. He wanted to do it lying completely flat but couldn’t due to the gay prisoners seeing him. This experience has made him angry with the world and only a B-52 bomber can expel that pent-up sexual frustration. There are pages of this, so much that with only 20-pages remaining the plot finally rears its ugly head.

Stack wants to use a Soda Truck (let’s call it “Shasta”) to transport the missiles and bombs from the plane’s wings and undercarriage. He has no tools for this and the weapons weigh over 500-pounds. Once he places them on Shasta, he will then drive them to a river, load them on canoes and float them into an underwater cave. The reason? He feels if they are left in the sun for an extended period they will heat, creating an explosion. Thus, placing them on water in an underground cave resolves this potential environmental disaster. The Bloodsuckers appear. Stack and his group shoot at them. The Bloodsuckers go back home. Telos. The End.

At the 160th page of this 190-page book…we still don’t have purpose, planning or anything remotely resembling a damn plot or what is promised to us on the cover. At the end, we still don’t. We deserved that cloak and smoking CAR-15 and we damn sure deserved that painted motorcycle-outlaw cave shit at the bottom. Hofrichter, you thief extraordinaire, you baited and hooked us again only to troll us at the deepest depths like some slimy, trash eating carp. I’m gutted, defeated and scorned…but in your unskillful brilliance you have miraculously provoked me to tell others about this literary monstrosity. Somehow, your ‘Roadblaster’ atrocities will live eternally, carrying on long after I’ve departed this world. For that, I applaud your half-assed effort and bow to your coveted immortality.

White Squaw #02 - Boomtown Bust

Of all the series released during the golden age of action/adventure paperbacks, 'White Squaw' is one of the most sordid. It's written by Mark K. Roberts as house name E.J. Hunter. The premise is that a young woman roams the Old West on a mission of vengeance against the outlaw gang that had traded her to the Sioux as a teen. There she was treated as a slave before being assigned to a disgusting and sexually demanding old man as his bride. 

That’s just for starters. Plenty of unsavory things happen in the debut novel, “Sioux Wildfire”, but the follow-up is simply jaw-dropping. In “Boomtown Bust”, that outlaw gang takes over a Colorado town, subduing the locals with a great deal of brutality. Our heroine, Rebecca, rides in and kills several of the owlhoots before she’s captured and forced into prostitution and opium addiction in the local brothel. She’s also raped by the sadistic whip-wielding lesbian madam, who forces herself upon a 12-year-old girl as well.

Ultimately, of course, Rebecca escapes and brings about some six-gun justice with the help of the outraged citizenry. Not all of the guilty will pay for what they’ve done, but with a couple dozen novels in this series, there will be plenty of time for that later. The most interesting of the outlaws (a 300-pound degenerate toilet seat-sniffing child molester carried over from the first book) does get his due, in an excellent confrontation scene. 

There’s nothing wrong with pulp fiction being lurid, but there’s a difference between stuff that’s loopy and exciting, versus stuff that’s just cruel and depressing. We mostly get the latter in “Boomtown Bust”, including a description of a child being raped and murdered which runs for a full page, dropped inexplicably into the middle of the novel’s action climax. 

Frequent sex scenes (of the consenting adults variety) are a counterpoint to all this. The younger the reader, the more titillating these will be, I guess. But they’re not very steamy, and they’re loaded with purple prose euphemisms that are more amusing than arousing: a “long, thick pole of flesh,” Rebecca’s “warm cave of pungent nectar,” a “surging love dagger,” her “burning cavern,” etc.

No, it isn’t exactly Zane Grey. You know from glancing at any of the covers that the 'White Squaw' books are lightweight and trashy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just prefer my lurid trash to be fun, with dramatic tension, suspense and memorable characters. I didn’t really get that from “Boomtown Bust”, but I did keep turning those pages.

Kiss and Kill

Richard Deming was a 20th century pulp author with a specialty in crime fiction. Later in life, he wrote branded paperback tie-ins for 'Mod Squad', 'Dragnet' and 'Starsky and Hutch'. His 1960 short crime novel “Kiss and Kill” was a mid-career effort originally published in the US by Zenith Books and since reprinted by Armchair Fiction.

The book is a darn masterpiece.

Small-time con-man Sam Carter meets a fellow bunco artist named Mavis. They decide to marry, team up and seek out bigger cons. The angle they develop involves posing as brother and sister, targeting wealthy spinsters for Sam to marry and then making off with his new wife’s cash.

Without spoiling anything, the first person narration (Sam tells the story) recalls a Jim Thompson styled sociopathic anti-hero. Mavis is a sexy and devoted partner toggling between her role as a lusty wife and a chaste sister. The plotting is crisp and efficient and reminded me of Harry Whittington at his best. Finally, the twist ending will leave you howling and dying to read more of Deming’s work.

Fans of hard-boiled con-game crime fiction should drop everything and get a copy of this one. It’s hard to understate the perfection of this quick read. Highly recommended. Essential reading.

Hit and Run

The December 1954 issue of “Manhunt” featured a “Complete New Novel” by hardboiled crime writer Richard Deming called “Hit and Run.” The original novella was later expanded by Deming into a lean Pocketbooks paperback release in 1960. “Hit and Run” is an amazingly good story about a hard-luck private eye named Barney who happens to witness a hit-and-run accident involving a beautiful woman driver. He concocts a scheme to blackmail her into engaging him to cover up the accident and keep her out of trouble. From there, Deming takes the reader on a twisty ride not unlike the violent Fawcett Gold Medal short novels of that era. It’s hard to summarize the plot any further without spoiling several jaw-dropping plot twists, but suffice to say that this short novel was a total delight and is worth hunting down.

Night Has A Thousand Eyes

"Night Has a Thousand Eyes" is a highly-regarded 1945 noir suspense classic written by Cornell Woolrich (“Rear Window”) under the pen name of George Hopley. It was later reprinted under Woolrich’s more successful pseudonym, William Irish, and in the modern era, under Woolrich’s own name. After it’s release, the novel was adapted for the screen in 1948 starring Edward G. Robinson, and the movie’s theme song became a hit and lives on as a jazz standard.

The story opens with good-hearted loner police detective, Tom Shawn, saving a distressed 20 year-old woman, Jean Reid, from jumping off a bridge in the middle of the night. He corrals her to a safe place to hear her story.

In Chapter Two, the story toggles into the first-person narration as Jean tells her tale to Detective Shawn. The story of her spooky journey to the bridge’s railing takes up about the first half of the novel, and we learn that Jean is the wealthy daughter of a successful silk importer living on the U.S. east coast (city unmentioned) in a large estate filled with servants.

While Jean’s beloved father was away on a west-coast business trip, a servant confides that the servant’s psychic friend had a vision that Daddy’s return flight would crash. Knowing that clairvoyants are hogwash, Jean initially dismisses the prediction as nonsense and banishes the servant from the estate. As the return flight time grows closer, Jean grows panicky and desperately tries to telegram her father to have him skip the flight. Before Daddy could get the message, the plane crashes in the Rocky Mountains with no survivors.

Any more details would be spoiling some pretty cool plot points. Suffice it to say that Jean and a companion spend much of the novel’s first half tracking down the psychic to determine how this reclusive oracle could have known about the crash in advance. Supernatural powers? Fraud? Foul Play? The psychic’s subsequently accurate predictions further support Jean’s belief in the claimed supernatural powers.

The novel’s second half cuts back to the third-person narration where the reader re-joins Jean, fresh from a thwarted suicide attempt, and Detective Shawn, ready to investigate the authenticity of Jean’s fantastic story of a seemingly-accurate clairvoyant along with a team of police colleagues. The police procedural half of the book was the stronger of the two halves and helps justify the book’s claim to classic status.

Woolrich was a talented writer and the pages are filled with rich prose designed to evoke a dark mood. It’s clear that he regarded this novel to be an important work of literary fiction rather than a genre paycheck. At times, this made for a wordy, slow-moving slog as the simplest action (walking from a car to the psychic’s front door, for example) takes pages to complete when it could have been an economical simple sentence. The things that happen in this novel are occasionally interesting, but it takes pages and pages of hand-wringing and emotional torment for the actions to actually occur. This 368 page novel only had enough actual plot to fill a lean 150-page novella.

The other problem with the book (primarily the first half) is our heroine protagonist. Jean is a clingy, spoiled rich girl caught in a perpetual emotional wreck. Her story and overwrought tone have all the hallmarks of a melodramatic gothic novel. In fact, one of the many reprintings of the book was marketed as “A Paperback Library Gothic” compete with a genre cover depicting Jean fleeing from a imposing mansion in the dark.

The second half investigative procedural has solid moments, and the reader becomes invested in the quest to determine the truth of the mysterious psychic and the predictions that shook the foundation of Jean’s family. However Woolrich’s tiresome wordiness remains, and  the third-person narration does little to dull the sting of Jean’s dramatic histrionics and personality shortfalls. 

It’s hard to understand why this novel is so highly regarded among noir fiction fans. While writing a novel that’s half Daphne Du Maurier and half Ed McBain is no small feat, the tense conclusion to the book’s central mysteries is moronic and unsatisfying. Fans of crime fiction, horror fiction, and literary fiction deserve much better from their sacred canon. Life is too short. Take a hard pass on this so-called classic.

Hawker #05 - Houston Attack

I’ve really grown fond of this ‘Hawker’ series by Randy Wayne White (writing as Carl Ramm). While the series began on flat-feet, each installment thereafter has further developed the Hawker character. White has incorporated friends and business associates into the overall collective, defining roles but providing the series room to breathe and grow. Book five, “Houston Attack”, continues that formula and it culminates into one of the best episodes of the 11-book run.

This novel begins mid-story with Hawker approaching the Texas border from Mexico. He’s disguised as a Mexican worker utilizing paid bad guys to smuggle him into the US. There’s an exchange with a young woman, Cristoba de Abella, before Hawker learns the whole operation is human trafficking. Gunfire ensues, and the opening chapter closes out with the reader confused on exactly what is transpiring. Luckily, Chapter Two retroactively brings us back to the event’s origin. A brief recap is made of the prior four books (I like this) and we learn that Hawker has taken 3-4 months off to rest and tend to prior wounds. His ex-wife Andrea comes to visit bearing bad news – her brother has been killed on the Texas-Mexico border.

The plot involves Hawker consulting with the Texas district attorney regarding the man’s murder. He was working undercover and had a rap sheet on the human trafficking players. The D.A. asks for Hawker to finish the job by going undercover (brilliantly as a one-armed migrant worker) and exposing the ring. It’s all centralized at a large Texas ranch, which Hawker infiltrates from within. Soon, he is teaming with a Texas Ranger to not only assist the feds, but to destroy the entire operation at it’s roots. White has Hawker utilizing the same weapons – survival knife, CAR-15, plastic explosive – in each book, and while it’s repetitive, I like the consistency. Hawker successfully uses them for each novel in new and clever ways.

Overall, this one has a little bit of everything - humor, action, intrigue and a little romance. It’s a fantastic stand-alone story but propels the series forward with even more alliances as well as questions. Perhaps Hawker pairs with the Texas Rangers again in future installments? Will he re-marry his ex-wife Andrea? Will Hawker’s employer Hayes return in the next book? White’s little nuances make the reader ask probing questions. It also forces us back again and again. I’m ready to see where “Vegas Vengeance” takes us next.

Lady Gunsmith #01 - The Legend of Roxy Doyle

Legendary western author Robert Randisi (writing as J.R. Roberts) introduces a new series character in “Lady Gunsmith: The Legend of Roxy Doyle”. This fun, sexy novel ties in nicely to Randisi's other successful adult western series, ‘The Gunsmith’. However, you don't need to have read any of ‘The Gunsmith’ books (there are well over 400) to enjoy Lady Gunsmith's origin story. The book was released in March of 2017 by publisher Speaking Volumes.

The novel introduces us to Roxy Doyle as a child on a wagon train journey westward in 1866. Violent events transpire that culminate in a separation of Roxy from her father. Roxy's growing into adulthood and the quest to find her dad serve as the driving action propelling this story forward. Along her journey from town to town, Roxy meets wary sheriffs, bounty hunters, rapists, famous outlaws, criminals, sex partners (plenty of those, by the way), and Clint Adams, the hero of ‘The Gunsmith’ series. Roxy is a likable character who takes charge of her own sexuality and independence. She's constantly overcoming the burden of her own beautiful looks and sex appeal. There's plenty of violent gun-play and intrigue to keep the reader entertained.

Randisi wrote a short-lived series in 2012 called ‘Angel Eyes’ with a sexy female character mining much of the same territory. That series ended too soon, so we can be thankful that many of the same concepts are being explored here. There's nothing really negative to say…it's an easy read with short chapters and lots of dialogue. You'll never feel lost or confused. By now, the author has got this genre well figured out. My only caveat is that this is an adult western, so there are many scenes of graphic sex interspersed with the explosive action, mystery and gun-play. If sex scenes bug you, this book is not for you. For the rest of us, we can all celebrate the launch of this great new series. With many of the adult western series titles (‘Longarm’, ‘Trailsman’, ‘Slocum’) now cancelled, Roxy Doyle is a great new addition to the genre.

Lucky at Cards (aka The Sex Shuffle)

During the heyday of paperback originals of the 1950s and 1960s, a prolific author could compound his income by selling books to multiple publishers under a variety of pseudonyms. It’s become the hobby of many modern fans to serve as detectives and pulp anthropologists to uncover the real authors of the genre novels of the era. Sometimes, a reprint publisher does the work for you. Hard Case Crime acquired the rights to reprint Lawrence Block’s sexy 1964 con-man caper novel, “The Sex Shuffle”, written under Block’s Sheldon Lord moniker. Hard Case Crime gave the book a new title, “Lucky at Cards”, and commissioned some new cover art for the re-release under the author’s own name. 

Our narrator and anti-hero Bill Maynard is a former magician and professional poker cheat known to his fellow con artists as Wizard.  When we meet Maynard, he is recovering from a beating in Chicago when he receives an invitation to a friendly game from his dentist. After practicing his fake shuffles and tricky deals in the mirror for awhile, he’s ready to thicken his wallet with his card manipulation skills. 

The reader is given a fascinating tour through the tricks and nomenclature of a professional card mechanic. At the game, Maynard brings in some good money dealing from the bottom of the deck (“a subway deal”) and bypassing the top card (“dealing seconds”) while the middle-class pigeons are none-the-wiser. The short con gets complicated when the  host’s trophy wife catches him and let’s Maynard know in con-man parlance that he’s been made without alerting the game’s other players. In a private conversation later, we learn that sexy femme fatale Joyce has a colorful past, and she’s grown sick of playing the role of a dutiful bride to her boring lawyer husband. 

After some fairly hot (by 1964 standards) forbidden coupling, Maynard and Joyce hatch a plot to make an end-run around the husband’s less-than-generous will to get his money and run away together. Complications - including a love triangle - arise along the way peppered by more lusty sex scenes. The con runs into problems and the reader is treated to plenty of twists and turns along the way. It’s a helluva good ride. Without spoiling anything, the final climactic scene of the novel was a contrived and corny let-down followed by a more satisfying and redeeming epilogue. 

Even early in his career, Lawrence Block had a knack for first-person narrative readability. The dialogue is snappy, and the conversational style makes this an easy and fun story. The action is all cerebral - more like The Sting or The Cincinnati Kid - than the violent crime novels of the era. The sex scenes are erotic without being graphic - a delicate needle to thread. 

There are probably better paperbacks to serve as an introduction to Block’s vast body of work, but The Sex Shuffle/Lucky at Cards is a worthwhile read for hardcore Lawrence Block fans. It’s a quick and easy read with lots of cool moments and vivid characters. 

The Rat Bastards #02 - Death Squad

Len Levinson's (as John Mackie) 'The Rat Bastards' series began with “Hit the Beach!”(1983), an outstanding wartime action/adventure novel, careening from the harrowing to the exhilarating and back again like a roller coaster. It wasn’t very likely that the follow-up novel could be just as good, and it isn’t. 

It's better! 

Although “Hit the Beach!” was tense and exciting, it was also episodic, lacking a real plot. It's simply about a combat platoon on Guadalcanal fighting back waves of Japanese soldiers. But the sequel, “Death Squad” (1983), is a story with a clear beginning, middle and end, and that structure gives it more power. It’s pulp fiction, but it’s extremely well-written, and the characterizations, dialogue and pacing are all superb. 

In this novel, the platoon has survived the meat-grinder of “Hit the Beach!” and heads out on a highly dangerous reconnaissance mission over to the far side of the island, where they’ll be isolated deep behind enemy lines. Their task is to find out where Japanese supplies and reinforcements have been landing. 

The mission gets off to a good start but the guys are in for a very rough time and before it’s over there will be snakes, snipers, capture, crocodiles, torture, torpedoes and always (always!) relentless action, bloodshed and suspense. Every time you think you know what’s about to happen, you’re hit with a surprise and just when the adventure seems to be over, there’s a spectacular extended climax that tops everything. 

Good luck finding a pulp action/adventure novel better than “Death Squad”. War is truly hell for the Rat Bastards, but it’s a 200-page thrill ride for the reader.

The Enforcer #02 - Calling Doctor Kill!

There's no secret that I loathed the very existence of Andrew (Andrea) Sugar's 'The Enforcer' debut. It's preposterous plotting and dull narrative left a lot to be desired. The pretentious “enforcer” bit never came to fruition, nor did the Mafia or kill contracts per the appetizing front cover. In my review of that series debut, I requested “less spiders in a bag, less laser beams and much better writing” as my definitive closing statement for the jury. Thankfully, my willpower to read the second series entry, “Calling Doctor Kill!”, didn't evaporate as this novel is a pleasant surprise and a fair representation of what I had expected from the series name.

In this novel, protagonist Alex Jason is requested by the institute to infiltrate a complex hospital operated by the mysterious Syndicate. Jason is provided a new body (his brain can transfer bodies every 90 days) and an identity as a new doctor hired by the hospital. The mission is to free Dr. Rosegold, the brilliant mind behind the whole “transferring to a new body” routine. Rosegold is a brilliant entrepreneur with a tremendous skill-set, thus an easy target for the Syndicate. They have him captured in a coma-like state inside the heavily fortified hospital. It's an attempt to pry information on the body transfer process for an overall goal of creating seemingly immortal mobsters. Aim high, shoot high.

In the first novel, Sugar placed Jason in over his head as a combat-heavy jungle soldier without an ounce of military experience. That plodding, lifeless debacle of having him blow up an oil reserve in a banana country was absurd beyond words. In this book, Jason infiltrating a hospital using his brain instead of brawn makes logical sense. Instead of explosives and laser beams, this book is grounded with a solid dose of espionage, a thrilling pace and an effective setting that creates a sense of isolation and forthcoming doom. It's a chilling atmosphere, making Jason's undercover mission compelling, riveting and all-together just a damn fine read. Sugar never misses a beat. “Calling Doctor Kill!” finally showcases this writer's talent as well as a tremendous amount of potential for the series. 

Secret Agent X #1 - The Torture Test

If you ever find yourself burning out on the sullen anti-heroes of 1970's-80's paperbacks, and getting tired of the coldness, the sex and the cynicism in them, the vintage pulps are the perfect alternative. But while fabulous characters are all over the place in the pulps, finding great stories isn’t necessarily easy. 'Doc Savage', 'G-8' and 'The Spider' are classic heroes, but these stories were written for a young crowd - basically 12 to 16-years old. You get lots of action, weird villains and a brisk pace, but sometimes things collapse into such silliness that you become detached from the story rather than being carried along by it. At the other end of the spectrum are heroes like 'The Shadow' and 'The Phantom Detective'. Here the stories are a bit more adult and less fanciful, but sometimes the prose is dry, plodding and short on thrills. I love all of those characters. But I’ve found that the stories I tend to enjoy the most come from the middle of the spectrum, where you’ll find lesser-known heroes like 'Jim Hatfield', 'Operator 5' and 'Secret Agent X'.

Agent X makes his debut in “The Torture Trust” (1934), an imaginative and energetic novel full of action and atmosphere, menace and mayhem. It’s got naturalistic dialogue and there are no goofy sidekicks following the hero around. Paul Chadwick (as Brant House) handles this enigmatic character with skill, sharing Agent X’s thoughts and feelings just enough to make him human, without ever losing the aura of mystery that makes him fascinating. We’re told almost nothing about who he is (not even his name), where he came from or how he got into his dangerous profession.

In this adventure, Agent X battles an unknown trio of hooded extortionists who are terrorizing the city, torturing their victims with acid when they don’t pay up. At first, he has almost no clues to work with, but he methodically zeroes in on the villains’ identities and location, step-by-step, right through to an effective climactic confrontation. Chadwick must have realized he had something special here, because he would later recycle the story for another 'Secret Agent X' novel, “The Hooded Heroes”, in which the only real improvement was to make the villains even meaner, pouring molten lead down their victims’ throats! 

Like many of the great pulp heroes, Agent X frequently goes undercover, wearing disguises and elaborate make-ups as he conducts his operations. He really takes that work seriously in “The Torture Trust”, studying film footage and voice recordings of his subjects before meticulously applying many thin layers of makeup to complete his impersonation. This is quite a contrast to 'The Shadow', 'G-8', 'The Phantom Detective' (and Agent X himself in his later novels), whose make-ups are slapped together in a few moments, often in the dark or in moving vehicles. That attention to detail pays off, both for Agent X and the author and it helps set this thriller apart. Like all the best hero pulp stories, it’s grounded in the real world… but anything can happen on the next page.