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Listen to "Episode 82: The Repulsive Horror of Russell Gray" on Spreaker.
Monday, March 15, 2021
Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 82
Friday, March 12, 2021
Tiger By the Tail
Bank teller Ken Holland’s wife Ann has been visiting her sick mother for the past five weeks, and Ken is getting restlessly horny. His wandering eye is becoming more and more burdensome, and all he needs is a willing wonton for a few hours to blow off some steam. He gets the name and number of an escort (a “hostess”) named Fay who will let you take her out in the town for a couple bucks with an opportunity for more action if the spirit moves you.
After much hand-wringing, Ken calls Fay and sets up a date. Arriving at her apartment, Ken is pleased to find that Fay is gorgeous and charming with a killer body. They hit a nightclub and have a lovely time together. As they’re heading back to her place together, an astute reader of classic paperback thrillers just knows that something is about to go horribly awry. Sure enough, someone lurking in her apartment stabs Fay to death in her apartment with an icepick and leaves Ken with her dead body and the murder weapon.
The bad thing about being at the wrong place at the wrong time in a vintage crime fiction novel is that you’re almost certainly going to wind up the prime suspect. This forces Ken into a position where he needs to either lay low or solve the killing himself to save his own bacon and ensure that his wife never finds out he was catting around.
Meanwhile, the cops are also working to solve the murder, and this becomes a major focal point of the paperback’s second half. The police procedural sections dive headfirst into changing perspectives of the dysfunctional local department under the control of a sociopathic political boss. The rivalry among the local political factions becomes a bit convoluted as the novel progresses, but the author regularly brings things back on track by returning to Ken’s adultery-murder dilemma.
Tiger By the Tail is an extremely well-crafted crime novel by an author with real chops. It’s currently out of print, but the paperback has been through countless re-releases since 1954. You shouldn’t have trouble finding a copy. It’s certainly worth your time.
Buy a copy of the book HERE
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Brion Brandd #01 - Planet of the Damned
Brion Brandd is the champion of his home planet Anvhar. To be considered his planet's champion, Brandd had to compete in a global competition called The Twenties. It's here that men compete in grueling matches of chess, poetry recitals, fencing, skiing, fighting, shooting and a whole lot of other exercises that test the mind and body. This is where readers first meet Brandd, locked into a final struggle with the last competitor. After winning, Brandd is taken to the local hospital to rest and rehabilitate. It's there that he meets an off-world stranger named Ihjel.
Ihjel explains to Brandd that the two of them share a unique psychic gift. Ihjel has developed this unique mental prowess as a way to gain the feelings or desires of anyone he meets. Brandd can utilize this to an extent, but will need to “Jedi up” to really learn how to harness its true power. This gift that Brandd has is exceptional when combined with his overall athleticism and intelligence. Who better to stop a nuclear holocaust other than a planetary gold medalist that can read minds?
In a one-sided conversation, Ihjel illustrates that the planet of Dis is populated by a race of very primitive people that behave in neanderthal ways. Their planet is a scorching firebed of hot sands with temperatures rarely below 100. It's an undesirable planet that is barely inhabitable beyond the race of people that have adapted to its harsh conditions.
Dis's neighbor is the civilized planet of Nyjord, a typically nice place filled with people who behave properly and know exactly which fork to use at formal dinners. Unfortunately, Dis hates Nyjord. In an early war, a small assortment of deadly weapons were left on Dis and now, after all of these years, the neanderthals have found them. Demanding Nyjord's unconditional surrender, the Dis people are set to annihilate their neighbors. What they don't know is that Nyjord has provided a 3-day deadline for peacekeepers, like Ihjel, to visit the Dis people and convince them that the idea of attacking their neighbor is a poor one. If they refuse to peacefully disarm, Nyjord will unleash a wrath of nuclear devastation and Death Star their whole planet.
Harrison's short narrative features Ihjel and Brandd teaming with a female scientist from Earth as they visit Dis in hopes of a peaceful resolution. But, as you can imagine, things don't go as planned. The Dis people immediately send assassins after the trio, forcing them on the run in search for allies and answers. While Nyjord presses a sense of urgency, Brandd begins to suspect that the Dis people want to live in peace and that their leaders may actually be hostile alien forces in disguise. Through investigations, Brandd searches for the weapons, gets laid and joins a team of Nyjord commandos as they battle enemy forces.
There's no doubt that Harrison is placing this interstellar war between neighboring planets as a representation of Earth's own Middle-East power struggle. In addition, the author utilizes the same formula as James Bond, a series of novels and movies that were already blockbuster hits at the time of the book's publication. The early 1960s hosted a spy-fiction sensation, and I can't help but think this is the science-fiction version of that. It possesses all of the same familiar tropes – international romance, a cache of nuclear weapons, trained killers and guns galore.
Whether you like science-fiction or not, Planet of the Damned moves at a brisk pace with an engaging story and capable hero. While it isn't mandatory reading, it's a solid, fun read that never left me bored. The character of Brion Brandd appears again in one additional novel, 1982's Planet of No Return.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
So Fair, So Evil
From a first-person perspective, a guy named Frank explains that his wife Dolly died in a tragic automobile accident on a lonely stretch of Alabama highway. A year later, Frank has returned to the city of Huntsville with a lot of emotional baggage. He's been in a mental institution since Dolly's accident and still hasn't come to grips with the events that led to her death. It's during a cab ride that Frank requests to stop at the dismal crash site, essentially a pile of gravel marked by a large boulder with the word “Repent” painted in red letters. It's here that readers learn of Dolly's death and that Frank is a loose cannon.
In Huntsville, Frank returns to Dolly's childhood home, a sprawling Southern plantation called Old Hundred. It's here that Dolly was raised with her half-brother Harry. The family is filthy rich and in wisely-spaced backstory flashbacks, readers learn of how Dolly met Frank, the proverbial poor guy from across the tracks. Frank never fit in with Dolly's wealthy pedigree and in “grin and bear” fashion received a chastising of his vocation as a soldier in the Korean War. Dolly and Harry were inseparable as siblings and that affectionate relationship played havoc on Frank's insecurities.
Wicker's novel is a showcase of emotions as Frank spends a Fourth of July weekend with Harry and all of the family's friends and colleagues. There's a number of characters (a pen and an index card is helpful) at the house including Harry's wife Ellen, an equal to Frank in terms of being an outcast. Their emotional chemistry explodes into a sexually riveting scene. Also, a loner named Ann helps to enhance the plot when she befriends Frank and begins to sympathize with his feelings of wretched despair and loneliness. Frank's demeanor is foreboding with increasing feelings of paranoia and suspicion as the pages turn. Ultimately, Frank believes Dolly's auto accident was a set-up by one of Old Hundred's guests. It's on this premise that Wicker builds a tight character study that consumes most of the book's narrative.
As a crime-noir, So Fair, So Evil is a compelling, slowly-evolving story that combines adultery, lust and greed with a deep-seated insecurity. This combination is enthralling with the author's presentation of man's psyche central to the story. How can the average man cope in a marriage saturated with jealousy and suspicion? The book is similar to Gil Brewer's 1952 novel Flight to Darkness. In that story, which is also set in Alabama, a Korean War vet is a recently released mental patient with regrets about a fellow soldier being killed. Unlike Gil Brewer's sexy murder-frenzy, Wicker plays it mostly straight with traditional fornication draped in mystery. For the most part, he succeeds and delivers an interesting story that surprisingly rivals Brewer's work.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Exiled!
The author name on the paperback’s cover is Steven Greene. Research suggests that Lutz either wrote the whole novel himself or collaborated with another author named Steven Greene. Evidence suggests that Greene was a real author who co-wrote the 1982 Signet novel Sleeping Beauties, a Robin Cook-styled medical thriller written as L.L. Greene that seems to be a collaboration between Steven Greene and Larry Levine. Lutz's official website lists the novel as “with and as by Steven Greene.” We may never know the full truth.
The novel's prologue sets the scene: a heightened level of violence in America has plagued the nation. Due to this overwhelming murder statistic, the U.S. government has created a penal colony called Pen Island. If a brochure existed illustrating it's uniqueness, it might read something like this:
Pen Island lies 100-miles off of the beautiful Pacific-Northwest Coast. At three-square miles, this lush island is populated by wildlife, plants and edible crops. The entire retreat is surrounded by shore towers that closely monitor all incoming and outgoing traffic from the island. A highly efficient security system automatically terminates any unauthorized personnel within the island's surrounding waters or in the air. Nestled within Pen Island's beautiful landscape are it's diverse residents – a unique population made up of over 1,000 convicted murderers. If your destination is Pen Island, you'll enjoy complete freedom from any law-enforcement, social barriers or pesky government employees. Pen Island is the ultimate getaway. Relax, work, make love or...murder!
In the book's opening pages, Dan Hopper is working in a small coastal town in Maine. It's here that his days are spent managing his small cabin retreat while fishing for lobster. When Dan rescues an abused stripper named Annie and her son Billie, his freewheeling existence evolves into a tight-knit family dynamic. However, the happiness is short-lived when the Hopper family is attacked by mobsters. In a grizzly chapter, Dan is forced to watch Billie brutally beaten to death. After a horrendous assault on Annie, Dan is injected with a syringe and falls asleep as the cabin is set on fire.
Dan awakens to find himself transported from Maine to the shores of Pen Island. Upon arrival, Dan is welcomed by the islanders and explained the rules. A) There's no discussion of escape at any time. Escape attempts lead to death and the idea of freedom just deflates the island's morale. B) Dan has his own hut but must collectively work with the group to grow crops, distribute water and generally become a “team player'. C) There's 900 men and only 72 women on the island. The women are required to take turns spending a week at the compound where men (and the women) can sexually release their tensions. This deters traditional rape.
After settling in, adapting to the change and overcoming the shock of witnessing his family's assassination, Dan begins formulating a plan to escape the island. His need to break away is driven by his quest for vengeance. Who set him up to be a prisoner? In order to adapt to the island, Dan has to circumvent being killed by one of the homicidal maniacs as well as learning who is really in charge. Like any prison, there's an inmate leader. In this case, it's a high-level mobster named Martindale and his enforcer, a brutal maniac named Chinko. Dan's inevitable showdown with them directly relates to his escape attempts. To reach freedom, he'll not only need to escape the island but also Martindale's clutches.
Exiled! is one of the better books I've read in a long time. This novel is just outstanding in its primitive, neanderthal display of human violence and man's complacency with it. In some ways the book formulates a Christian Christ-like pattern. A “perfect man” (Dan) is sent to a hostile world to save it. The book's overall premise is riveting and unique. Mixed into the narrative is also a brutal sporting event called The Games, a mix of rugby, football and fighting. These games help push the narrative along while still constructing alliances and escape plans. It's an exhilarating plot point that adds combative aspects to the book's presentation. There's also a fleeting romantic feel as Dan comes to the aid of not only Annie, but also a woman named Mirriam on the island. The book's closing chapters were fulfilling, but not terribly surprising. There's another aspect to the narrative that I won't reveal here, but it definitely adds a dynamic feel to the island story. It's these portions of the book that allow readers to leave the island periodically.
Whether Lutz or Greene or both authored Exile!, the end result is just a fantastic action-adventure novel with crime-noir tendencies. Used copies seem abundantly available and I encourage you to track this book down. It's well worth your investment and time. Highest possible recommendation!
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Monday, March 8, 2021
Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 81
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Listen to "Episode 81: Lyle Kenyon Engel" on Spreaker.Friday, March 5, 2021
Johnny Aloha #01 - Dead in Bed
As the name implies, Johnny Aloha is half-Irish, half-Hawaiian. After his stint as a U.S. Marine in the Korean War, Aloha became a successful private-eye in Los Angeles. He is summoned to San Francisco by the police to help identify the bullet-riddled corpse of a notorious pusher and pimp named Harry Lee. After the identification, Aloha spends the night planning his long-awaited vacation to Hawaii. His only obstacle is a beautiful woman named Gwen who is in desperate need of Aloha's services in locating her mother, Hope Star. Aloha declines the work but after recognizing a photo of Star, realizes that he knew her from his childhood in the islands. Canceling his vacation, Aloha accepts the $5K retainer to locate the woman.
Dead in Bed doesn't read like a traditional Keene crime fiction paperback. In many ways, it seems as if Keene made a genuine, wholehearted effort to create a stereotypical private-eye who would be fashionable and profitable. It was a red hot market with successful Pls like Mike Shayne, Mike Hammer, Shell Scott and Johnny Liddell exploding off the shelves. I think Keene purposefully writes Aloha under the same premise – a deeply masculine playboy and private-eye with a homely but flirty secretary and a police ally. The books are presented to readers in first-person narrative with the frequent injection of comedic touches. Despite all of the average genre tropes, Dead in Bed was a thrilling read that I nearly read in one sitting.
Gwen and Aloha have this thick sexual chemistry with one other that literally begs to be uncovered (pun intended). After numerous attempts at lovemaking, the two are always interrupted by an attempted murder, an unwanted guest or a snafu of the right time at the wrong place. Enveloping the sexual tension is the fact that Aloha mostly uses his wits and hands in place of pulling his revolver. There is gunfire, but most of it is aimed at Aloha. While the core mystery was delightful, the characters that Keene weaves into the story's fabric really add a much-needed backdrop for the mystery to evolve.
The Armchair Fiction reprint features both Dead in Bed as well as a novella by Bruno Fischer called Bones Will Tell. At $12.95, this is an easy pill to swallow. I can't wait to read Payola (never reprinted to my knowledge) to learn more about Aloha's next case. The sequel will hopefully determine why this private-eye never had any longevity with the author or publisher. In theory, there's nothing really separating Aloha from any of the other formulaic private-eyes of the era. Why didn't Keene make a more sizable play with what should have been a long-running series mainstay? Perhaps we'll never know.
Buy a copy of the Armchair Fiction reprint HERE
Thursday, March 4, 2021
The Black Bat #01 - Brand of the Black Bat
In this origin tale, the author introduces readers to Tony Quinn, a highly successful District Attorney working in an unnamed metropolis. In the opening pages, Quinn's home is burglarized by a destitute man named Silk. Oddly, once Quinn discovers this intruder in his bedroom, Silk explains that he can hear someone else in the house. After Quinn receives Silk's apology, he places him in a closet and welcomes the next intruder, a hired killer who works for a notorious criminal named Snate. After the man attempts to kill Quinn, Silk reacts and assists Quinn in killing the assassin. Quinn then hires Silk to be his bodyguard.
Later, when Snate is on trial for murder and extortion, his goons kill a witness in the courtroom in a wild melee of violence. During the exchange, Quinn is splashed with a deadly acid leaving him blind and horribly disfigured (think of Batman's Two-Face character). Snate is found innocent, and all of the charges are dropped. This entire debacle leaves Quinn and Silk searching for justice. Thankfully, a mysterious woman arrives at Quinn's house and orders him to a small rural town for a highly secretive eye-surgery.
After completing the surgery, Quinn finds that his eyes have become nearly telescopic. He can see things in the most vivid detail including the ability to see in the dark. Using his known disability, Quinn takes on the secret disguise of a hero named Black Bat (complete with facial mask and cape) while still being the very blind public figure of Quinn. This dual identity keeps him from being identified as this heroic nighttime vigilante.
Norman Daniels has a lot of fun with this wacky pulp tale. Origin stories are always important and I think the author did a fantastic job making Quinn's journey from civilian to crime-crusader into a compelling story. The Black Bat's first case brings him full circle to Snate, an inevitable showdown between hero and villain. Unlike Doc Savage, Quinn doesn't avoid killing. His weapons are two guns that he uses with pinpoint accuracy. Shockingly, Daniels' includes a ton of violence to make The Black Bat a really gritty read. There's torture by blowtorch, stabbings, beatings and gunfire. I was surprised at the level of violence and death, but appreciated the gritty realism to combat the far-fetched fantasy. Eventually Quinn builds a team that is similar to those of The Avenger and Doc Savage. It isn't necessarily about the lone hero, but the collective teamwork used to investigate and eliminate the wrongdoers.
If you love this early pulp-fiction era, The Black Bat should be mandatory. It's a fun, over-the-top hero story filled with violence and intrigue. With the affordable price on these reprints, I definitely recommend Volume 1 which chronologically collects not only this story but also "Murder Calls the Black Bat" and "The Black Bat Strikes Again." There's also an introduction by acclaimed pulp collector Tom Johnson (RIP).
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Murder is my Mistress
The book introduces housewife Julia Clarkson. She's living an unexceptional existence as a suburban wife and mother in the small town of Elm City. Julia is married to a respectable wealth manager named Roy, and the couple has two teenagers. In the opening pages, Julia barely avoids a deadly accident when her tire blows out on the highway. After consulting with her local mechanic, she discovers that someone may have slashed the tire. Fearing that her husband's career and schedule could be impacted by her distress, Julia continues her normal routines. But, after the family's stove explodes and kills their housekeeper, Julia's trepidation is validated. Someone is trying to kill her.
Considering this is 1951, the book emphasizes a heroic feminism. Whittington positions Roy to be non supportive, merely representing the family's breadwinner without possessing the genre tropes of a strong male protagonist. Julia keeps her rather turbulent past from Roy in a way that protects him and his insecurity, a stark contrast from the typical crime-noir. As the book reaches the revelation point, Whittington does pair Julia with a smart detective named Bellows. But again, he's really second string to Julia's leading role.
By 2021, we've watched or read this sort of story before. The woman on the run from some sort of abusive past. The genre's highlight may have been Nancy Price's 1987 novel Sleeping with the Enemy, later adapted into a successful film starring Julia Roberts. Oddly, I found some aspects of this story (revenge on the prosecutor) reversed for John D. MacDonald's 1957 novel The Executioners, later adapted to film twice as Cape Fear.
Regardless of subsequent literary works, Whittington does deliver a fantastic story in Murder is my Mistress. Even the title is a clever nod to a plot point. With a unique hero, a brisk pace and the core mystery, Whittington proved he was a masterful storyteller early in his writing career. There are better Whittington books, but this early novel certainly set the table for what was to come. If you can afford the high-priced used paperback, it's certainly worth your time.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
Walk the Evil Street
Andy Mason is an Army veteran turned hard-nosed reporter. After numerous award-winning articles on crime, drugs and pushers, Mason gains the attention of an older former racketeer named Sam. The famed criminal invites Mason to his mansion with an unusual proposal.
The pitch, and the book's premise, is that Sam is now in his dying days, bound to his bed. He explains to Mason that his son Houleman is gay (frowned upon in 1952) and that his daughter Joyce is now a heroin addict. He's a widow and feels that his life has become a disappointment. Sam asks Mason to take Joyce to his rural Connecticut cabin to crack her habit and make her go clean. In exchange for unhooking her from the horse, Sam will provide Mason his entire diary collection. These books outline his past criminal activities and all of the associates that were involved in his enterprise. Feeling like this could be his career pinnacle, Mason accepts.
Daniels really excels by creating a sexual tension between Mason and Joyce. In addition, the author introduces Sam's daughter-in-law, a sex-starved nympho who was forced to marry the gay guy. However, Walk the Evil Street isn't a Gil Brewer styled sensuous love affair. By taking the job, Mason finds himself in a murder mystery when a body is found that connects Mason, Sam and his son. After fully contemplating the consequences, Mason begins to suspect that there's more to Sam's proposal than he originally thought. With the combination of Joyce's drugs, the nympho's appeal, Sam's dangerous past and a killer on the loose, Norman Daniels has plenty of slack to tie a great story together.
While the plot gets a bit convoluted, I found Walk the Evil Street as a solid crime-noir with a protagonist I really liked. Despite Joyce's drug addiction, I found her to be an exceptional character that the author clearly developed as the narrative tightened. With the plot's many aspects and character motivations, the narrative rarely left me bored or inattentive. I even appreciated the author's brief nods to Sam's pulpy past as a notorious 1930's gangster. It coincided well with Daniels' early pulp-fiction endeavors with the likes of The Black Bat and The Masked Detective.
Walk the Evil Street is another solid effort by Norman Daniels. He was a workhorse but rarely sacrificed quality for quantity. If you are new to the author, there's no reason not to start here. Highly recommended.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Monday, March 1, 2021
Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 80
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Listen to "Episode 80: Stephen King's Later" on Spreaker.Friday, February 26, 2021
Jack Tallon #01 - Police Chief
In 1977, Ball's novel Police Chief was published. It introduced a highly-skilled police Sergeant named Jack Tallon who relocates from Pasadena, California to the small town of Whitewater, Washington. Motivating the move is that Tallon accepts a position as the town's Police Chief. The successful book prompted two sequels – 1981's Trouble for Tallon and 1984's Chief Tallon and the S.O.R. My introduction to the author is the first installment of the Jack Tallon trilogy, Police Chief.
The novel's opening chapter is set in South Pasadena as Tallon responds to a gun-store robbery. In just six-pages, the author introduces Tallon as a highly competent, authoritative figure who orchestrates a number of law-enforcement operatives into strategic formations and duties. When the S.W.A.T. Team arrives, Tallon accepts his role as back-up as the second chapter unfolds with a grizzly highway accident that forces Tallon to rescue students from a heavily-damaged bus. As the first on the scene, and with many of the city's police maintaining assistance with the gun-store holdup, Tallon accepts the uncomfortable position of declaring six of the students as deceased. As the night ends, Tallon's wife Jennifer sees her husband exhausted and covered in blood. This imagery leads Tallon and Jennifer to discuss a potential career change.
Over the next couple of chapters, Tallon is invited to the small Pacific-Southwest town of Whitewater, Washington. Despite being a neighbor to the much larger city of Spokane, Whitewater has very little crime. The former Police Chief has retired and Tallon is offered the role. His duties include managing four patrol cars, one detective, a Sergeant and five uniformed officers. At first, the lack of daily action and danger plagues Tallon and prompts him to rethink his one-year contract. But, in just a few weeks Whitewater is rocked by a serial rapist and a pipeline of heroin.
There's no doubt that author John Ball had a real gift of storytelling. I was really invested in the opening chapter and couldn't wait to learn how Tallon was going to assist in the store hold-up. After that entire scene is left dangling and unfinished, I was furious that Tallon had to leave the gun-action to assist with a highway collision. Most authors can't make that quick of a transition, and even fewer can maintain the reader's interest and attention after the fast scene change. But, I quickly realized that the author was plotting with a purpose. This was a calculated move that shifts all of the attention to the main character. Readers had to experience the turbulent night-life of Tallon, the daring “quick to respond” nature of the police business that puts law-enforcement in various precarious situations – sometimes within the same half-hour time-frame.
After building his character's cop credibility, Tallon trains his staff on modern tactics despite their belief that any of it is needed. When the serial rapist begins attacking the town's most beautiful women, Tallon orchestrates a sting operation that places a beautiful young nurse as bait for the rapist. Further, the staff must contend with high-speed chases and fights as a heroin operation comes to fruition on Whitewater's small-town streets and local college campus. The story is that many of the town's citizens feel that crime has increased only because the new Police Chief is involved. They suspect their new Chief is actually the rapist, placing a point of contention between Tallon and the people he has sworn to protect.
I absolutely loved this book and instantly liked the character of Jack Tallon. Once the book settles into the procedural investigation of rape and drug trafficking, I felt that Ball's storytelling was similar to that of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series. With just a handful of officers, the entire investigation was a more intimate experience told through the activities of these men. While the book isn't terribly violent, the two furious car-chase scenes were some of the best I've read. Also, the rapes themselves aren't in the narrative (thankfully), but the grizzly details are presented through the eye-witness accounts. In that regard, Ball used the expertise of Cheney, Washington's law-enforcement agencies to better understand these investigations. I think that realism propelled the story-line in a positive way.
Police Chief is still in print today and my copy was the affordable 1985 paperback version published by Canada's Paperjacks imprint. I'm already shopping for the two sequels so I can immerse myself back into Whitewater's small-town atmosphere. If you love the police procedural sub-genre of crime-fiction, I highly recommend this author and this lesser-known short series.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Nightmare
Author Edward S. Aarons wrote 20 books between 1936 and 1954, including a number of short-stories for pulp magazines including Popular Detective and Thrilling Detective. I've covered a number of the author's early crime-noir novels and was happy to find a 1971 McFadden-Bartell paperback reprint of his 1948 novel Nightmare. It was originally published under the pseudonym Edward Ronns.
WWII veteran Nolly is living the American dream in New York City. He's been married to his beautiful wife Susan for five years. He has a great job working at Globe Finance where he manages payroll, mortgage loans and the vault. He enjoys working for his boss, Mr. Wright, and each evening he happily walks his dog around the block. It's the quintessential “white picket fence” lifestyle. But, like any great crime-noir, Nolly's life is turned upside down when he is placed in an extreme situation.
After a rare night out with his three co-workers, Nolly returns to his home in an early-morning drunken stupor. After discovering his wife isn't home, Nolly receives a phone call from a mysterious voice telling him to get over to Globe Finance. When he arrives there and unlocks the door, he's hit in the head and blacks out. He wakes up to discover his boss, Mr. Wright, has been murdered and $40,000 is missing from the bank vaults. Complicating matters is that Nolly finds a gun in his pocket that apparently was used as the murder weapon.
We’ve all read this sort of story before. It's the familiar “man wakes up beside a corpse” plot where the innocent party must scour the town for clues in search of the killer. Unlike Aarons' seaside, rural novels like Terror in the Town and The Net, it was interesting to read Nightmare's story unravel in an urban setting. In some ways, Aarons' writes this in a way that would later become the dominant approach by writers like Ed Lacy and Henry Kane. He still manages to insert his seaside, darker aura to the story near the end (the characters end up in marshy New Jersey), but this one has a unique voice that isn't the standard Edward S. Aarons crime-noir.
As I read more and more of Aarons' crime literature, I move him just a few more rungs up the ladder. I don't think he's a Harry Whittington or John D. MacDonald caliber storyteller, but he does sit somewhere firmly in the middle of the pack. He's never boring, never dull, but he's never created anything particularly innovative or remarkable. Nightmare proves that Aarons was just another good, dependable mid-20th Century writer. Sometimes, that's all we are really dreaming for anyway.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
The Dean #01 - Stranger's Kill
The Dean stories are narrated by his sidekick, Ben Matthews in the same manner that Watson narrates the Sherlock Holmes stories or Archie Goodwin tells the Nero Wolfe tales. For his part, everyone’s first impression of The Dean is that he’s a screwball and a crank living with Ben in a slum while pretending to be a fortune teller who can divine your future from the bottoms of your feet. He’s also an amateur detective maintaining a good working relationship with the police chief.
As we join The Dean and Ben in “Stranger’s Kill,” an arsonist has been plaguing the city for six months targeting grocers, delis, and other retail stores. The Dean offers his services to the fire insurance company to catch the arsonist within six days for a $20,000 fee. The body of the insurance company’s CEO was found strangled in one of the fires, so this is more than a normal firebug.
The Dean’s detecting methods are mostly the same kind of deduction utilized by Sherlock Holmes, but he’s willing to run down leads in the street with Ben and get his hands dirty. He’s also a funny guy with A+ wisecracks along the way. By 1940, Constiner was a solid writer and his prose is smooth, never choppy, with logical, well-paced plotting. Unlike Carroll John Daly’s Race Williams stories of violence and vengeance, The Dean is a more gentlemanly mystery solver who puts together intricate puzzles over the course of 60 pages per story.
Like many pre-1950s mysteries, “Stranger’s Kill” has far too many characters and far too little action. It’s a well-crafted mystery, but it was a bit dull and ultimately failed to grab me. I’ll probably read another novella sometime in the future because I enjoyed both the character and Constiner’s writing style, but the story mostly left me cold.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
The Lover
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
Monday, February 22, 2021
Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 79
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Listen to "Episode 79: Edward S. Aarons" on Spreaker.Friday, February 19, 2021
Killer Tank (aka Strike Force)
The book is set in Germany during WWII. The U.S. military formulates an idea that they can create a huge, powerhouse diversion on the German border. Using a number of planes, tanks and troops, they will fake an impending invasion and engage the enemy just long enough for a team of 30 tanks to slip in over the border and become a mobile task force. This task force, led by Colonel Hagen and Sergeant Dixon, will orchestrate hit-and-run attacks on German forces, towns, bases and airstrips. By disguising the tanks as German, and using old, overgrown roads, the force plans on creating as much undetected destruction as possible. The problem with that strategy? Hagen and Dixon despise each other.
The adventures of a WWII tank battalion operating in Germany can be an entertaining read with enough attention to the action. What makes Killer Tank different is that Daniels creates this really interesting back story between Hagen and Dixon. Through the first 100-pages the readers can easily determine that the two have history with each other. But, when Hagen begins to romance a beautiful French woman, Dixon becomes Hell-bent on destroying any hopes for Hagen's happiness. What is the history between these two American commanders? How could anything warrant this much hatred and animosity? I won't ruin the story for you, but the tension and suspense eventually percolates to a hot, boiling inferno. Just when I thought I had it figured out, the last few pages came out of left field with a right hook. I was dumbfounded.
With the focus on character development and a thick tension between Dixon and Hagen, Killer Tank serves as a hybrid of WWII and crime-noir storytelling. While I wasn't necessarily bored with the plotting and pace, I will say that Daniels never fully commits to either genre. When I wanted a more serious action novel the story slowed to a conversational tone. When I needed the characters to come to blows, the military action consumed the story. I couldn't quite walk the high beam that Norman Daniels built for me. The balancing act didn't work as well as I had hoped for. But, nevertheless Killer Tank is an entertaining read that probably could have been improved with a few precise touch-ups to the storytelling. You won't hate it, but I'm not sure how necessary this paperback really is. There are far better crime-noir and WW2 books out there.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Later
Our narrator is a 22 year-old young man named Jamie Conklin telling the reader the story of things that happened when he was a kid. Jamie is the only son of a single, literary agent mother in Manhattan. Jamie also sees dead people - pretty much just like the kid in The Sixth Sense. He warns the reader in his intro, “I think this is a horror story.” It’s the truth, but the story takes awhile to heat up before things get truly scary.
Jamie explains that dead people always tell the truth when they talk to him. Sometimes they say something funny and blunt like telling the boy that his school art project sucks. Other times it’s a useful tip like where the old lady hid her jewels before she passed away. His access to the dead is limited to the few days after passing before the deceased fade away into the great beyond. Jamie is candid with his mom about his ability, and she warns him to never tell anybody that he sees dead people.
Later jumps around quite a bit while focusing on Jamie’s upbringing and a variety of incidences where his ability to see and illicit information from dead people proves useful. Mom’s best friend is an NYPD detective named Liz. She’s the stacked brunette on the book’s cover. Over time, Liz comes to believe and accept Jamie’s sixth-sense and figures out some uses for it in the realm of her police work. As such, Jamie gets pressed into service by Liz using his unusual ability.
King writes Later in a breezy first-person style with super-short chapters that are easy to follow despite the often non-linear timeline. It takes forever for an actual plot to develop, but you don’t really mind because Jamie is a likable kid who makes the reader invested in his well-being. As advertised, the paperback eventually becomes a horror story with some honest-to-goodness creepy and unsettling set-pieces reminding the reader that Stephen King still has chops.
Beyond that, there’s not much to tell that won’t spoil the fun for you. Later is a quick and fulfilling read - arguably the strongest and most on-brand of his Hard Case Crime offerings. King excels at this kind of of coming-of-age horror story with vivid characters and chilling situations with a good hero confronting supernatural evil. King has a large back catalogue of epic works, so Later is unlikely to be your favorite among them. However, I can’t imagine any of his fans walking away dissatisfied from this superb little novel.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
The Plastic Nightmare
Our narrator Dan Marriott awakens in an Santa Barbara hospital room with his head wrapped in gauze and all memories completely erased. Months of hospitalization and plastic surgeries restore his face to something resembling his original self before the car accident decimated his body and sense of personal history. None of what people tell him about himself sounds the least bit familiar. His name, his wife Judith, and even his own reflection all seem foreign to him.
With no remembered experiences to give him insight into his own character, Dan is a blank slate free to follow his instincts, and his gut is telling him that something is seriously wrong here. With the bandages off, Dan and Judith leave the clinic and go to a beachfront cottage together to transition amnesiac Dan back into society before returning home to San Francisco. Meanwhile, Dan is having visions - words and images flashing through his consciousness - tied to who he used to be.
As Dan’s face and body heal at home with Judith, it becomes clear that she is hiding something about him and the accident that took his memory. He begins to piece together that before his accident, his marriage wasn’t all that hot. As the evidence mounts, Dan begins to suspect that his car crash may not have been an accident at all. But why would Judith attempt to murder Dan, when a simple divorce would have sufficed?
As an avid reader of vintage paperbacks, I saw where this one was headed from a mile away, but that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the book. A mystery concerning a narrator’s past makes for fascinating reading. At times, the plot reminded me of the brilliant Christopher Nolan movie Memento. Neely sprinkles in some rich and colorful characters, including a private detective hired to get to the bottom of things.
I loved this book. It was so clever and well thought-out that it makes me want to explore more of Neely’s fiction. Fans of awesome suspense novels owe a debt of gratitude to Stark House for resurrecting The Plastic Nightmare. This is don’t-miss, essential reading. Highest recommendation.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Paperback Warrior Unmasking - The Repulsive Horror of Russell Gray
The first volume is titled Hostesses in Hell and the second is My Touch Brings Death. The stories in both collections were chosen by genre expert John Pelan who also provides introductions to both volumes bringing valuable context to the stories and the author.
First thing’s first: Who was Russell Gray?
Russell Gray and Harrison Storm were pseudonyms utilized by Bruno Fischer for his specific brand of graphic horror stories. Fischer went on to become a successful author of paperback original crime and suspense novels in the 1950s, but those skills were honed as a pulp magazine author who cranked out a million words per year at his peak production.
In a modern world filled with graphic “extreme” horror, I was interested in putting the Russell Gray stories to the test. Do they hold up after 80 years? Can they be shocking to a jaded modern reviewer who has seen it all? I sampled a set of stories from the Hostesses in Hell volume to see what all the fuss is about.
“Hostesses in Hell”
The opening story originally appeared in Terror Tales March-April 1939 issue. The narrator is an inexperienced recreational sailor named Jay who takes seven women on his boat for a ride up and down the ocean shoreline. A spontaneous storm disorients Captain Jay and by the time visibility is restored, the small boat and its passengers are far from the mainland with the only safety being a nearby island. Jay’s boat is paralyzed, so they head for the island in search of help and shelter.
On the island, the group is greeted by a man claiming to be a medical doctor who looks more like a wild-eyed muscleman. He claims to run a hotel of sorts on the island where Jay and the ladies can stay until they can arrange for transport back to the mainland. Upon arrival at the large colonial house, the doctor confesses that the building is actually a sanitarium for the incurably insane.
This being a short-story, things go from creepy to violent and scary rather quickly. The women are naked, lunatics have escaped, and freakishly-deformed creatures begin menacing the island’s guests. It’s legitimately scary stuff and, as promised, extremely violent and disturbing. Overall, an outstanding pulp horror story.
“The Gargoyles of Madness”
This story originally ran in the August 1939 issue of Uncanny Tales. It opens with a police patrolman shooting a purse snatcher dead in the street. Newspaper reporter Glen Kane is covering the shooting when things get weird. The mugger was a prominent local banker who apparently lost his mind and attempted to rob the lady on the street while his face was contorted like a gargoyle. Even weirder: The intended victim had a gargoyle figurine in her purse. Readers of horror fiction can connect the dots faster than the cops or Newsman Gil.
Violent crimes by upscale citizens spread through the city. All the crimes involve tiny gargoyle statues and perps driven to madness. It’s almost as if getting your hands on a gargoyle figure makes you take on the features of the creature and go nuts in the process. When Gil tries to report on this odd phenomena, his editor spikes the story.
Things escalate as Gil investigates. The story’s climax is an orgy of naked breasts, whips. saliva and blood. The punchline recalls stories from The Spider or The Shadow in which an evil villain devises a scheme to inflict madness upon a populace unless he can be stopped by the pulp hero. Bottom line: an unnerving pulp story with some good gore, but not particularly terrifying.
“School Mistress of the Mad”
This one first saw print in the January-February 1939 issue of Terror Tales. “Doom” is the name of a town nestled in the mountains populated by an inferior race of idiots looked down upon by the good people of nearby Amton. Chet is on sabbatical from his city job chilling out in sleepy Amton when he meets a beautiful woman named Linda driving through town headed into Doom. Stopping to ask directions, she discloses that she’s been hired as the new schoolteacher for the Town of Doom. As she drives deeper into the mountains, Chet can’t get her off his mind.
Chet learns that Doom was settled during the American Revolutionary War by a family named Gring who have reproduced and lived there ever since with no contact from the outside world. Generations of inbreeding have made the Gring clan into beast-like idiots.
The idea of the Grings hiring a beautiful schoolteacher in an illiterate town without a school defies logic. Meanwhile, several young women from the town of Amton have become missing lately. Could the Grings be taking some illegal measures to increase Doom’s genetic diversity? Chet sets off to Doom to investigate and maybe save Linda from the hillbillies fifteen miles away.
The author does a great job of building the dread and suspense for the reader who’s left wondering how bad it could be in Doom. I’m happy to report that the Grings clan is worse than you could imagine. This story is chilling and frightening if you enjoy satanic hillbilly stories in the vein of Deliverance or The Hills Have Eyes. It’s hard to believe that the story 82 years-old and still packs such a visceral punch.
Overall Assessment:
For fans of suspenseful horror not afraid of some bloody exploitive violence, Russell Gray is the real deal. Hostesses in Hell may be the most consistently solid single-author horror anthologies I’ve read since Stephen King’s Night Shift. It’s so good that I’ve ordered Volume 2 (My Touch Brings Death) and can’t wait for the paperback to arrive. I’m a huge fan of Bruno Fischer’s crime-fiction novels, but his extreme pulp horror may be the best stuff he ever wrote. Highest recommendation.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
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