Boon Island

Kenneth Roberts (1885-1957) was a critically acclaimed writer for the Saturday Evening Post before switching professions to full-time novelist and author. While many of Roberts' books are collections of essays and travelogues, the Maine native authored a number of historical novels set in and around the American Northeast. My first experience with Roberts is the last historical novel he wrote, 1957's Boon Island. It was released in both a hardback edition as well as a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback.

Set in the early 1700s, the book is written in first-person as Oxford student Miles Wentworth explains how he transformed from hardworking academic scholar in London to struggling on the battered rocks of Maine's Boon Island. The first 30-pages has Miles befriending a young actor and fisherman named Neal. Miles' father is a judge and quickly Neal, and his financially burdened father Swede, become family friends to the Wentworths.

One evening Neal is attacked by a sexual predator after a performance. During the assault, Neal stabs and kills the man. In an effort to protect Neal from a murder charge, Miles and Swede hide the man's body. Miles' father proposes that the best course of action would be for Neal, Swede and Miles to join the crew of a British ship called The Nottingham under family friend Captain Dean. The ship is headed to Maine on a long exporting trip and the time away from London will insure that Miles, Neil and Swede aren't caught up in a murder investigation.

During the first few days on board the Nottingham, the heroic Captain Dean must contend with a loud-mouthed bully and his three friends. Over the journey, the tension reaches a boiling point and the inevitable physical confrontation begins. The scuffle leads to the Nottingham being shipwrecked on the icy mound of rocks called Boon Island. This is where the bulk of this survival narrative lies.

Like Robinson Crusoe or Treasure Island, Boon Island is an exciting nautical tale that transitions into a harrowing survival yarn. While the first 30-pages is extremely literary, with many discussions on English playwrights and poetry, the slow-burn was absolutely worth it. While the sea-journey consumes a few chapters, Roberts really finds his feet as the book's emphasis revolves around the shipwreck. The novel evolves into a daily diary as Miles translates the horrors of arctic temperatures, wind-swept seas, battered rocks and the consistent strife between the ship's crew.

The author's intimate, more personalized account provoked me into asking myself asking if I could survive the same horrifying events that these men endure. It would take a lot of strength and willpower. Thankfully, Captain Dean steals the show and is the essential “white-hat hero” who fits perfectly into the men's action-adventure formula. With his rugged fortitude, combined with Miles' loss of innocence, the book is a showcase of different human behaviors and perspectives under the harshest conditions. Beyond the human suffering, the book's most amazing strength is that it is a real-life testimony to the events that actually happened to these men. As a historical tale, Roberts bases his fiction on fact. That makes the last few pages a rewarding ending as we learn about the real-life characters and what became of their life experiences after Boon Island.

If you love survival stories, nautical adventures or even novels dedicated to the human spirit, Boon Island is a sure-fire winner. Despite the terrible tragedy, Roberts conveys so much excitement and anticipation into his calculated narrative. This is just a literary classic and one that makes me want to track down more of the author's work.

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 74

On Episode 74 of the Paperback Warrior Podcast, the guys discuss a genre they know very little about - Science Fiction! Listen and learn as Eric and Tom review several vintage SF paperbacks and give their candid impressions. Join the fun on your favorite podcast app or www.paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE. 

Donate to the show HERE.

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Bones Will Tell

Before transitioning into full-length paperback novels in the 1950s, Bruno Fischer wrote for the pulps. Always a workhorse, the author contributed to a number of dime-magazines and pulps in the 1930s and 1940s. In 2017, Oregon publishing house Armchair Fiction chose to reprint Fischer's novella Bones Will Tell. The story was first published in the February 1945 edition of Mammoth Mystery. As a shorter work, the publisher packaged it as a two-in-one with Day Keene's 1959 full-length paperback Dead in Bed.

Bones Will Tell is a good example of the shudder-pulp writing style of the early 20th Century. Fischer cut his teeth on this sub-genre and masterfully weaves together elements of horror, mystery and intrigue. The story is about two 12-year old kids who dare to climb over the wall bordering what many consider to be the town's “old dark house.” Rumors are abound that the owner herself is a mysterious widow who lost her husband decades ago. Whether he is dead, missing or still alive somewhere in the house enhances the lore of the property. With this seemingly haunted house bordering a dreary swamp, the author's imagination runs wild when the two kids discover a dead body laying in a damp flower bed.

Like any old-fashioned horror tale, the kids report their findings to the police who fail to find any evidence of a corpse. When the kids' testimony becomes questioned, the criticism shifts to the kids' unwarranted trespassing. In order to prove their innocence, the kids jump over the wall again the next night. This second-half of the story escalates the narrative into a more frightful, murder mystery as the body count increases.

In today's more desensitized views of horror, homicide and grizzly details, Bones Will Tell will pale in comparison. In many ways this is like a Scooby-Doo or Hardy Boys installment where the murderer can be anyone under the sheet. The pretense that the old house is haunted is quickly dismissed as the true culprits are revealed. Anyone familiar with the formula won't find many surprises here. It's an early work by Fischer and his writing style reads like a juvenile mystery. It's hard to judge his true talents based on these types of stories, but there's enough meat on the bone to witness his early potential. As a bonus to Keene's Dead in Bed, this is a winning combination warranting the $12.95 sticker price.

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Tokey Wedge #01 - Nympho Lodge

Jack Lynn was a pen name for a writer named Max Van DerVeer who authored 22 books starring a diminutive private eye named Tokey Wedge between the years 1959 and 1965. A new reprint house called Grizzly Pulp is reprinting the Tokey Wedge books as mass-market paperbacks printed on wood pulp paper beginning with the first installment, Nympho Lodge - originally published in 1959 by Novel Books.

The Tokey Wedge paperbacks are light-hearted - yet hardboiled - private detective stories that don’t take themselves too seriously. Tokey himself is 5’6” and 140 pounds. His narration and the plotting reminds me of Richard Prather’s Shell Scott books. In this case, Tokey is hired as a bodyguard for a wealthy woman named Janice going through an ugly divorce and receiving cryptic threatening letters. The splitting couple both live at a resort they co-own called The Wagon Wheel. Tokey moves into the resort, so he can be closer to his client and determine who, if anyone, is trying to kill her.

At the lodge, we quickly meet the Nymphos. To be fair, it not clear that any of them have been clinically diagnosed with nymphomania, but every woman Tokey encounters at the lodge is beautiful, stacked, and hot to trot. By 2020 standards, the novel has some retrograde attitudes toward women as sex objects. However, the book is pure escapist fiction from 1959, so no actual women were objectified in it’s creation. You should know by now if this is your thing or not. The paperback is sexier than most 1959 crime novels but nowhere close to graphic or explicit by today’s standards.

Amid the flirty hijinks and sexual innuendos, there is a decent mystery to be solved at Nympho Lodge, and Tokey proves himself to be a competent, funny, and tough private detective. At times, it felt like a dirty Agatha Christie book with a finite number of people in a lodge getting killed off one by one while our intrepid investigator gets laid and solves the mystery. For comparison purposes, I enjoyed spending 174 big-font pages with Tokey Wedge far more than I’ve ever liked a Shell Scott paperback. Nympho Lodge isn’t a mystery masterpiece, but it’s definitely a lot of sexy fun.

Grizzly Pulp did a marvelous job packaging the physical product of this paperback. The pulp paper is soft and readable. The novel comes with a removable black cover masking the lusty sleaze art, so you can read on a crowded city bus without inviting the side-eye from squares. My only criticism is that there were lots of line-break errors in the text and several other typos. It was nothing that stopped me from enjoying the story, but the Grizzly Pulp proofreader shouldn’t rely on optical character recognition programs to do all the work.

Mostly, I’m thrilled that an enterprising, grassroots publisher has brought Tokey Wedge back to life. This is a fun series that deserves a second chance at building a readership. Recommended.

Buy a copy HERE

Breakdown

Author Ed Naha, born in 1950, wrote for magazines like Rolling Stone, Playboy, Heavy Metal, Fangoria and The Twilight Zone. Along with John Shirley, Naha contributed to the 1980's post-apocalyptic series Traveler as well as penning novelizations for films including Robocop, Dead-Bang and Ghostbusters II. With over twenty-five novels on the menu, I ventured into the horror realm with Naha's 1988 Dell paperback Breakdown.

The book introduces readers to Jeff McQueen, a best-selling horror author who writes a series of heroic werewolf stories. In the opening pages, McQueen experiences a fiery car wreck in California that results in the death of his young son. Later, McQueen's literary agent Oliver reveals to him that his last two mystery novels didn't sell well and the publisher wants him to return to his horror roots. McQueen, mourning with his wife and young daughter, understands that he's in debt to the publisher and needs to rebound from the tragedy quickly. To fast-track the next novel's conception, Oliver books the McQueen family in a century old Gothic mansion called Elmwood Estate in rural Massachusetts.

Once the McQueen family settles into the new locale, Jeff begins to experience childish laughter in the hallways, bizarre hallucinations and a multitude of visions stemming from his son's death. In the estate's sprawling garden lies a number of statues and monuments that his daughter “befriends”, only Jeff fears that these monuments are sinister in nature. In the small town, the McQueens discover that there are no children present. All of these eerie elements combine to make Naha's Breakdown a haunted house thriller with a core mystery – what's the secret behind Elmwood Estate?

At  just over 200-pages, Breakdown is a quick page-turner that falls into the cozy “move into the haunted house in New England” sub-genre. While not particularly violent or gory, the book has a thick and foreboding atmosphere that suggests death is merely a chapter away. As the book progresses, Jeff's descent into madness is parallel to his heavy alcohol abuse. This plays havoc for the skeptics who ponder whether Jeff is really seeing things or is it just the booze?

As a serviceable haunted house entry, Breakdown is sure to please. I found some of the aspects scary, but overall I was more enamored with Jeff's relationship with his young daughter and the fight for his sanity and soul. Overall, this is an easy read with plenty of reward. If you can locate an affordable copy, don't hesitate to loosen the purse strings. It's a smart purchase.

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Decoy #01 - Hunting Lure

Beginning in 1989, veteran mystery and horror writer Robert W. Walker used the pseudonym Stephen Robertson for the four-book Decoy series of action-crime paperbacks released by Pinnacle Books. The novels are police thrillers about an actor turned Chicago undercover cop solving violent sex murders while dealing with his own personal demons. The author has re-released the series under his own name while re-titling the first installment as Hunting Lure.

Ryne Lanark is a Chicago cop with a hidden agenda. Before joining the force, he was an acclaimed actor until his family was slaughtered by street punks during a New Years Eve thrill-kill session. The murderers were never caught, and Ryne made revenge his life’s mission. Rather than going full-on vigilante, Ryne joined the police and worked his way up to Lieutenant where he regularly goes undercover as a “decoy” to catch and abuse violent criminals.

Ryne doesn’t play well with other cops. Attempts to foist a partner upon him generally end in fistfights or worse. After being sent to Precinct 13 - the last-chance stop for screw-up cops - he is assigned his first female partner, a young looker named Shannon. Over time, the relationship takes the exact story arc you’d expect in a 1980s police procedural.

Meanwhile, the White Glove Murderer is menacing Chicago by raping, surgically disfiguring, and murdering victims. The crimes are particularly gruesome and graphic - even by fictional serial killer standards. As you’d expect, Ryne wants a piece of the investigation. Again, the case follows precisely the story arc you’d expect. It’s not bad, but it also lacks the fun, over-the-top pulpiness that Pinnacle Books delivered to readers a decade earlier.

Mostly, I liked Decoy. It was a well-crafted police procedural mystery with two interesting lead characters. Walker was a fine, if workmanlike, writer 30 years ago capable of delivering a paperback consistent with late-1980s cop-action standards. If that sounds like your thing, you’ll dig this book. I’m probably more at home in the world of 1950s and 1960s crime fiction, but I enjoyed this detour to 1989 well enough. Recommended.

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 73

On Episode 73 of the Paperback Warrior Podcast, the guys discuss the life and legacy of Day Keene. Also covered: Arnold Hano, Hammond Innes, Howard Schoenfeld and Max Allan Collins. Listen on your favorite podcast app or paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE

Listen to "Episode 73: Day Keene" on Spreaker.

Many Rivers to Cross

Colorado native Steve Frazee (1908-1992) authored a number of crime-fiction, pulp and western novels before becoming president of the Western Writers of America. I read two of his novels over the last year, Running Target and High Hell. As a fan of early pioneer westerns, I was excited to find Frazee's Many Rivers to Cross. It was originally published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1959 and was later adapted to cinema by MGM.

In the book's opening pages, Frazee states that the book's narrative is taking place in 1890. However, this was either a ploy by Fawcett to make this sound like a traditional western novel or simply an error on the author's part. I believe the year is actually 1790. Many of the book's characters discuss their fight against the British and most of America's midwest and western regions remain unsettled throughout the narrative. Further, the book's cover (always the best resource) clearly shows the main character, Bushrod Gentry, carrying a flintlock musket.

Gentry, a white man who was raised by the Shawnee, is a lone-wolf vagabond who has journeyed all over the east and mid-west sections of untamed America. With his musket, tomahawk and knife, Gentry tries to make peace when he can, but doesn’t hesitate to scrap with ruthless settlers and the savage Mingo tribe. When the book begins, Gentry is in the backwoods of Kentucky fighting three Mingo warriors. After being cut on the arm, Gentry finds himself aided by a young woman named Mary Stuart. And this is when his real trouble starts.

Gentry is taken back to Mary's hillbilly clan, which is really just a group of Irish drinkers that share a log cabin with an old Native American named Oykywha. At first, Gentry is happy to meet the group, share a meal and then bed down alone in the clan's shed. The next morning, Gentry is ready to hit the wooded trail again hoping to make it to “the Shining Mountains” one day. Gentry has no use for a woman and explains this to Mary. However, Mary can't shake her desire for Gentry, and she attempts numerous stalling techniques and eventually attempts to propose to him. Gentry, fearing for his very life, finds himself foolishly hogtied to the clan and dealing with a rambunctious, sexually-charged girl. With that plot, Frazee cleverly converts this pioneer western into a traditional femme fatale story. Think of Orrie Hitt meets Zane Grey.

Many Rivers to Cross had me chuckling throughout the 170-page book. Gentry is a hilarious character and I couldn't help but sympathize with his situation. After being thrust into a shotgun wedding, Gentry's life becomes complicated and highly-stressful. Marriage, obsessive impulse, sexual energy and a frenzied escape are just some of the ingredients that make Frazee's narrative so riveting and enjoyable. This one is a real classic and one of the funniest western novels I've read in a long time. Hunt a copy of this one down. It's worth the time and money.

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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!

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A Touch of Death

Charles Williams (1909-1975) is one of the highest-regarded (and most under-appreciated) writers of American paperback crime fiction. As such, it only made sense in 2011 for Hard Case Crime, the prestige reprint house at the time, to re-release Williams’ 1955 novel, A Touch of Death.

It’s been six-years since Lee Scarborough left the world of football, and now he’s down on his luck trying to sell his car to earn some cash. He meets a hot chick named Diana with a proposition. The girl knows where there’s a stash of $120,000 in stolen money, and she wants Lee’s help to recover it. As Diana explains, a banker named Butler disappeared two months ago leaving a $120,000 cash shortage behind at the bank. Diana’s theory is that Mrs. Butler murdered her embezzling husband, disposed of his body somewhere, and has hidden away the $120,000 for a rainy day.

Diana’s plan is to ensure Mrs. Butler is away from her house for a couple days while Lee tosses the place in search of the stashed cash. Lee negotiates a split for a sizable portion of the loot if he finds the cash. Things go sideways almost immediately and Lee becomes an inadvertent kidnapper of Mrs. Butler while the path to victory becomes more and more complicated.

The shifting alliances throughout the novel are entertaining, and the interplay between Lee and Mrs. Butler has some of the best dialogue of Williams’ career as a writer. However, the plot meandered quite a bit and wasn’t always up to the high standard previously established by Williams. A Touch of Death is in the middle-tier of Williams’ non-maritime books. It’s certainly not the best of his work (that would be River Girl) but it’s definitely worth your time.

Fun Fact:

A Touch of Death was also released as Mix Yourself a Redhead (U.K.) and Le Pigeon (France).

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Brute Madness

Ledru Shoopman Baker Jr. (1919-1967) was born in Kansas and died in Los Angeles at age 48. He was a painter, novelist and WW2 vet who authored two successful Fawcett Gold Medal novels in 1951 and 1952 as well as an espionage novel called Brute Madness released by low-end sleaze publisher Novel Books in 1961. Fortunately, the paperback has been rescued from the dustbin of history by reprint house Cutting Edge Books.

The paperback opens with out narrator, Mark “Mitch” Mitchell, on trial for stealing a classified technical report on atomic guided missile technology from his employer at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Flashbacks from the trial tell the backstory of how the patriotic young scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project suddenly finds himself on trial for treason.

Essentially, it’s blame the dame.

Mitch has an eye for the ladies. Meanwhile, the agency keeps a close eye on him to ensure he doesn’t get loose-lipped about his nuke job while endeavoring to get laid. Mitch does a fine job of compartmentalizing such things until he meets Marie at a dance club. From the moment they meet, there is an erotic compatibility that the author describes in vivid - but never graphic - detail. Suffice it to say that Mitch is completely intoxicated by Marie’s charms.

Three weeks after meeting, Mitch and Marie are engaged to be married. The internal security people at the Atomic Energy Commission are skeptical of Marie from the beginning. Why can’t they find anything about her past? It’s like she appeared out of nowhere. The marriage moves forward over the protestations of the agency cops.

You don’t have to be a genius to draw a straight line between the opening courtroom scene with Mitch on trial for mishandling classified materials and the flashback involving his suspicious wife who materialized into his life from nowhere. Is it possible that Marie duped Mitch and made off with the secret missile plans?

The trajectory of the legal case comprising the first quarter of the book was nonsensical and made me wonder if the author ever met an attorney. However, if you’re able to suspend your disbelief, there’s a great spy thriller inside the pages of this thin paperback with delightful and unexpected twists and turns around every corner. The paperback’s main villain is a corpulent giant called The Dutchman, who is one of the finest villains I have ever encountered in a vintage paperback. Both the dialogue and action scenes are also particularly good throughout the novel.

Brute Madness is a remarkably good time. It probably won’t be your favorite book ever, but it’s way better than it had to be to satisfy both 1961 readers and those rediscovering the paperback 60 years later. Recommended.

Ledru Baker Jr. Bibliography:

And Be My Love (Fawcett Gold Medal 1951)

The Cheaters (Fawcett Gold Medal 1952)

Preying Streets (Ace Books 1955)

“The Queens Bedroom” - Novelette from Tales of the Frightened magazine (August 1957). The publication was edited by Lyle Kenyon Engel and illustrated by Rudy Nappi.

Brute Madness (Novel Books 1961)

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 72

We are kicking off 2021 with an all-new episode of The Paperback Warrior Podcast! Topics include: The Best Books of 2020, Vigilante Santa, D.L. Champion, Wilson Tucker, Harry Whittington and more! Listen on your favorite podcast app or paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE

Listen to "Episode 72: Best of 2020" on Spreaker.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode Special #04

On today’s special edition of the Paperback Warrior Podcast, Tom finds a cache of unusual westerns by “Alex Hawk.” We turn to Paul Bishop of the Six-Gun Justice Podcast to set us straight about these odd books and the enigmatic author. Listen on your favorite podcast app or at www.paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE

Listen to "Episode Special #04" on Spreaker.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode Special #03

Merry Christmas from Paperback Warrior Podcast! On today’s encore episode, we go back to a show where Eric and Tom provide tips and tricks to build and organize a fantastic reader’s library of vintage paperbacks. Plus reviews of books by Jimmy Sangster and Jack Ehrlich. Listen on your favorite podcast app or paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE:

     

Listen to "Episode Special #03" on Spreaker.

The Complete Cases of Inspector Allhoff - Vol. #01

Between 1938 and 1945, pulp author D.L. Champion (1903-1968) wrote 30 stories starring a psychopath crippled detective named Inspector Allhoff. The stories are basically a dark and twisted variation on Nero Wolfe or Sherlock Holmes stories as well as a precursor to paraplegic TV detective Ironsides.

Altus Press/Steeger Books has compiled several of the stories in two separate volumes with vivid cover art from the original Dime Detective Magazine stories. I bought a copy of Volume 1, and it contains 10 Allhoff novellas - each story about 40 pages long with an introduction by pulp historian Ed Hulse.

Here’s the setup for this twisted series:

Three years before the first installment, Inspector Allhoff was a top Manhattan cop - the best mind in the department. During a raid on a mob hideout, Allhoff was shot and crippled because of a screw-up by a rookie patrolman named Battersly. The young officer is forced to live with the fact that he is responsible for Allhoff being rendered a double-amputee.

Stay with me because it gets better:

The NYPD doesn’t want to lose Allhoff’s investigative talents, so they quietly keep him on the payroll and set him up in a decaying apartment near the police station. They assign Allhoff a partner to run down the leads devised by the crippled genius to solve difficult crimes and mysteries. The partner? Former patrolman Battersly, the man responsive for Allhoff’s crippled condition. It would be an understatement to say that the relationship between the two men is strained. The psychologically-damaged Allhoff is sadistic and cruel to the young officer, and Battersly is wracked with guilt for the mistake he made years earlier. Despite this dysfunctional pairing, impossible crimes get solved.

The stories are narrated by an older cop named Simmonds who also assists Allhoff with paperwork and bears witness to the tortuous cruelty directed at Battersly. Imagine if Sherlock Holmes was an embittered legless lunatic who solved crimes while psychologically torturing Watson at every opportunity, and you get the idea behind the Allhoff series.

In the first story “Three Men and A Half” (1938), the setup for the series is laid out nicely by Simmonds for the reader. A visiting homicide detective from Chicago seeks Allhoff’s help with a vexing murder case disguised as a suicide. Allhoff dispatches Simmonds and Battersly to gather evidence from the crime scene and bring it to Allhoff’s apartment. Some impressive deduction combined with a clever bluff smokes out the killer when all the suspects are gathered to hear Allhoff’s accusing monologue. It’s a good Sherlock Holmes-styled mystery but not action-packed at all.

By necessity, Allhoff is essentially an armchair detective, so the rare pulpy violence is left up to Battersly and Simmonds who manage the fieldwork. This works well because D.L. Champion was an excellent writer - way better than must of his pulp cohorts. The mysteries he devised for the Allhoff stories are clever and well thought-out.

“Suicide in Blue” from 1940 was the tenth published Allhoff mystery and the final story in this first collection of cases. There has been a spate of murders lately among people who previously received extortion letters. The police commissioner requests Allhoff’s help in uncovering the truth about these mysterious killings. The solution to this one was pretty darn smart.

If you can stomach an unpleasant wretch of a main character, you’ll probably really enjoy the Allhoff stories. They’re not action stories, but the deduction-based mysteries are smart and well-written. Once again, the reprint publisher did a great job resurrecting a lost character series, and the world is a better place for it. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

So, I'm a Heel

Journalist, soldier, author, and baseball fanatic Arnold Hano wrote a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback titled So I’m a Heel that was published in 1957 under the pseudonym Mike Heller. The short crime novel has been compiled into a three-book volume of Hano’s work called 3 Steps to Hell published by Stark House.

Our narrator is a Southern California tow-truck driver named Ed Hawkins who suffered an injury to during WW2 resulting in an artificial plastic jaw holding his contorted face together. Somehow he landed a nice wife and a beautiful son despite his disfigured face. When Hawkins learns that a local big-shot lawyer with political connections was caught a few towns away molesting a high-schooler whose parents opted not to press charges, his mind turns to blackmail.

While contemplating the shakedown, Hawkins spends time rationalizing the morality of his actions. In doing so, he breaks down the fourth wall and challenges the reader’s own assumptions about right and wrong. It’s an interesting literary gambit employed by Hano, who’s an excellent conversational writer with a distinct literary voice.

As you might expect, Hawkins’ scheme meets some serious bumps in the road. The blackmail story was compelling, and I couldn’t figure out where it was going. Suffice to say, there’s a hot-to-trot dame involved and plenty of rather dark twists along the way. Be forewarned: The final act got rather weird and uncomfortable. I won’t give it away here, but I’m still trying to decide if the conclusion worked for me or not. There was also a local politics subplot that was hard to follow, but didn’t take up much space.

Overall, I enjoyed So, I’m a Heel. Hano is a solid author, and you’ll never be bored with his plotting. Despite some unusual turns, he wrote an effective story with a memorable lead character that’s certainly worth your time. 

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The DaVinci Rose

Jim Henaghan (1919-1984) was a well-known columnist for The Hollywood Reporter with a reputation for bluntness and candor that often rustled the feathers of the showbiz industry’s establishment. He also worked as a rewrite man for Paramount and was an executive for John Wayne’s production company. Under the pseudonym of Archie O’Neill, he authored a five-book adventure series starring Jeff Pride that earned the admiration of Mickey Spillane. The first novel in the series was 1973’s The DaVinci Rose.

Jeff Pride is a former international private investigator turned travel agent (back when that was a thing) who bounces around the world with his sexy Asian-American secretary-sidekick Cherry. Cherry wants to get romantic with Jeff, but he thinks that would be unwise for a number of valid reasons that I’ll let Jeff explain to you when you read the book. Cherry’s flirtation with her boss is a running gag in the novel and presumably the series. In any case, she’s a perfect sidekick character for a novel like this.

As the paperback opens, Jeff is in his Israeli hotel room when he awakens to find the corpse of a guy in a suit lying on the ground next to his bed. An altercation in the room brings Israeli police into the picture. The cops take Jeff’s passport pending further investigation. For his part, Jeff figures that the situation arose from his heroic past rather than his benign current job as a travel consultant.

The killing, violence and skullduggery all concerns a missing art piece - a ceramic rose hand-crafted by Leonardo da Vinci. Dangerous people think that the dead guy in the hotel delivered it to Jeff who actually knows nothing about the damn thing. One thing leads to another and Jeff agrees to get back into the investigation game and find the ceramic rose.

I really enjoyed The DaVinci Rose primarily because Jeff Pride is such a great narrator. The action took the character all over Israel balancing a treasure hunt adventure with a hardboiled mystery. I’m looking forward to reading the next installment. Recommended.

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Invasion from 2500

Norman Edwards was a pseudonym utilized by science-fiction authors Ted White and Terry Carr for their collaboration on a 125-page paperback titled Invasion from 2500 released in August 1964 by Monarch Books. The novel is also available as a $4 ebook under the authors’ own names. 

Invasion from 2500 takes place in contemporary 1964 America. While Korean War veteran Jack Eskridge is driving through the desolate rolling hills of South Dakota, the night sky illuminates with a flash. Jack witnesses the formation of an illuminated arch from which armored men and war machines begin emerging. The author’s description matches the paperback’s cover art by illustrator Ralph Brillhart perfectly. A good cover brings the author’s vision to life, and anything else is just generic packaging - a wrapper thrown on a product with no thought or care. In this case, the artist clearly read the book and understood his role. 

It doesn’t take long - only a couple pages - before this invading force of high-tech soldiers wearing gas masks functionally take over large U.S. cities while most Americans are cowering in their homes. The invaders’ airships spray a gas on populations to overcome resistance while Jack and a hitchhiker attempt to outrun the invaders.

The reality concerning the identity of the invading force is pretty much given away in the paperback’s title - a tactical mistake since their origin was a big second-half revelation. The oppressors from the future have some insidious plans for the good people of 1964 that I won’t give away here. Fortunately, an underground resistance similar to what arose in France during WW2 forms to oppose the invaders. If you’re into cool time-travel paradoxes, there’s more than a few in this short paperback. 

Overall, Invaders from 2500 is a simple, but very exciting, work of vintage fun. It’s a great gateway drug into the world of science fiction for readers approaching the genre from a background of action-adventure pulp fiction. With breakneck action from start to finish merged with cool time travel ideas, this old book is a real winner. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode Special #02

In this encore episode of the Paperback Warrior Podcast, we discuss how to build a vintage paperback collection without breaking the bank. Listen on your favorite podcast app or paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE: 

         

Listen to "Episode Special #02" on Spreaker.

One for the Road

Conventional wisdom says that the best books by former CIA operative and Watergate burglar Howard Hunt were the ones he wrote under the pseudonym Robert Dietrich. One for the Road is a 1954 stand-alone crime-noir novel that has been re-released by Cutting Edge in trade paperback and ebook formats.

One for the Road begins in the Florida gulf coast town of De Soto, populated by mosquitoes, sea turtles, and rich widows. The old dames are the draw for our narrator, a con-artist and Korean War vet named Larry Roberts, who grew up a poor orphan and has decided to spend his adult life remedying that by latching onto a rich sugar mama and then disappearing with her money. He meets a 40 year-old wealthy woman named Sophie with a smoking hot body and a decent face. Even better: her husband has been dead for a year.

So Larry is a bit of a heel and a misogynist. He’s also charming, clever, funny and unrepentant. You hate yourself for liking him as much as you do - especially when he’s conning money out of an otherwise nice and loving lady. Getting rich quick and dishonestly isn’t a noble pursuit, but it definitely makes for compelling reading. As the paperback progresses, a cool gambling subplot becomes a major source of tension and anxiety for both Larry and the reader before settling into a rather typical femme fatale story.

The coolest things about this thin paperback were the innovative story arcs and vivid settings. Larry covers a lot of ground in the novel, which basically weaves three separate plots into an overarching narrative. I read a lot of these books, and I had no idea where this one was heading. The plotting was just masterful.

Of the Howard Hunt books I’ve read, One for the Road is the best of the bunch by a country mile. There’s sex, violence, duplicity and intrigue. I’m thrilled to see this paperback has made a comeback for modern audiences. This is the vintage novel you deserve. Highly recommended. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE