Steve Midnight #01 - The Dead Ride Free

Before breaking into movies and television, pulp author John K. Butler (1908-1964) wrote nine novellas in Dime Detective Magazine starring a mystery-solving cab driver named Steven Middleton Knight, AKA: Steve Midnight. The stories have been collected into two attractive volumes by Altus Press, and I read the series debut, “The Dead Ride Free,” from May 1940.

Our narrator Steve Midnight was a wealthy playboy who lost it all during the Great Depression. He’s working as a cabbie for the Red Owl Cab Company in Los Angeles one cold night when a tall guy wearing a turban wants to be taken to Topanga Canyon. Steve immediately recognizes the fare as an old vaudeville magician named Zohar the Great. It’s been 20 years since Steve saw Zohar sawing a woman in half, and now he’s in the back of Steve’s taxi.

Zohar asks Steve to load a large parcel into the cab. After Steve agrees, he learns that the parcel is a locked coffin weighing about 150 pounds. Zohar explains that the casket houses a mummy from 1300 BC - a prop for his act. Upon arrival at Zohar’s shack, the magician offers to show Steve the mummy. However, upon opening the coffin, the men find the body of a freshly-dead woman with a dagger protruding from her chest.

For reasons best explained in the novella’s narrative, Steve is left to solve this mystery without the help of the police or the shady magician. There are some pretty cool curve balls thrown into the mystery’s plot, and Steve is a fine character to serve as our guide over the course of 50-pages.

Overall, “The Dead Ride Free” is a solid 1940s pulp mystery, but nothing earth-shattering, hardboiled or revelatory. I enjoyed the story and will revisit the collection when I’m in the mood for this particular flavor of comfort food.

Get your copy HERE

The Sea-Wolf

Jack London (John Griffith Chaney, 1876-1916) is one of those authors that populates every library or indispensable high school reading lists. As a kid, I remember reading his classic White Fang (1906) and promising myself that I would read more of his work. Over 30 years later, I finally decided to read another of the author's classics, The Sea-Wolf. It has been filmed 13 times and was featured as a series for BBC Radio 4 in 1991.

Humphrey Van Weyden is a newspaper columnist living in San Francisco. One afternoon, Hump is pleasantly boating off the California coast when he's rammed by a large schooner called the Ghost. The vessel is captained by Wolf Larsen, an abrasive individual that is described as highly intellectual and materialistic. Hump has the option of sinking, swimming, or hitching a ride on the Ghost. Unfortunately, he climbs aboard and quickly realizes he's in for a Hellish ride.

Hump declares that he wants a u-turn back to the coast so he can return home. Larsen refuses and orders that the ship continue its journey to Japan. Larsen offers to pay Hump to work aboard the ship and orders him to be a cabin boy. Hump resists but eventually his will is broken and he submits to long days of cooking, cleaning, and contending with a seasoned, very violent crew.

London provides some unique perspective through Hump's eyes. The excessive hard work and perseverance strengthen Hump. He realizes that he has been sleeping through life with his cushy desk job and a complacency to perform the most mundane tasks. As the narrative continues, Hump discovers that beneath Larsen's granite veneer, he is a literary scholar and possesses an atypical knowledge for math calculations and navigation. Because of the commonality, Hump and Larsen spend hours discussing books and art.

Eventually the abused crew turns on Larsen and attempts a mutiny. Larsen's tactical experience allows him to fight back against the crew, eventually torturing specific catalysts. Due to the violence and madness, Hump swears to kill Larsen. Things grind to a screeching halt when a woman, Maud Brewster, is rescued from the seas. Her background as a writer immediately connects with Hump. Together, the duo hopes to escape Larsen and his rebellious crew.

I really enjoyed London's novel and found Larsen (whom is the premise of the book's title) a multifaceted nemesis. The story has a couple of offshoots that I felt really solidified the storytelling: Hump's rivalry with a murderous cook, Larsen's vendetta against his brother, Hump's romanticizing with Maude, the arctic survival finale, etc. London's emphasis on Larsen's approach to life, work, and resilience provides so many great passages and quotes, my favorite being:

“Surely there can be little in this world more awful than the spectacle of a strong man in the moment when he is utterly weak and broken.”

I've read that The Sea-Wolf has similarities to Rudyard Kipling's 1897 novel Captains Courageous. London, who was proven to perform plagiarism, wasn't the only writer to use this plot. I would imagine there are a number of nautical novels with heroes that are trapped at sea with a tyrannical captain. But, I would say that Max Brand's (real name Frederick Schiller Faust) 1941 novel Luck of the Spindrift is nearly a carbon copy of The Sea-Wolf in terms of storyline. In Brand's novel, a San Francisco philosopher finds himself trapped on a ship headed to the South Seas. He has an interest in the only female on board and there's a devious captain to brutalize the crew.

If you enjoy more modern nautical adventures by the likes of Clive Cussler, Hammond Innes, Kenneth Bulmer and Patrick O'Brian, I think you owe it to yourself to read early 20^th century novels like this one. Without these pioneering efforts, nautical fiction wouldn't have such strong and solid sea legs.

Dirk Pitt #03 - Iceberg

Clive Cussler (1931-2020) was a massively-popular novelist who dominated the bestseller lists for the duration of his writing career. His most enduring series character was Dirk Pitt, a troubleshooter for the fictional National Underwater and Marine Agency. My first exposure to the author and the character was his third installment, 1976’s Iceberg.

The book opens with a U.S. Coast Guard mission mapping the locations of icebergs floating in the North Atlantic near Newfoundland. From the air, the Coastie crew spots one impossibly large iceberg - 200 feet high weighing upwards of one-million tons. Closer examination of the iceberg reveals the impossible - an entire ship embedded within the ice but still visible from the sky. The Coast Guard estimates that once the iceberg drifts into the gulf stream, it's sure to melt - likely submerging the ghost ship into the depths of the sea. The iceberg must have dislodged from some northern glacier, but there’s no way to know its origin.

Enter Dirk Pitt. He’s an U.S. Air Force Major on permanent loan to NUMA - the National Underwater and Marine Agency. NUMA dispatches Pitt to a Coast Guard cutter with a mission to get inside the ghost ship and better understand what’s happening. As a character, Pitt is a combination of James Bond and Doc Savage. He’s a funny and likable hero stacked with core competencies. He can fly a helicopter, dive to great depths and bag the babes as needed. His deductive capabilities rival those of the great Sherlock Holmes.

The providence of the ship-in-the-berg is a plot point that I won’t spoil for you here, but it only serves as starting point into a variety of mysteries Pitt is called upon to solve over the 400-pages. He’s a smart cookie and not afraid to kick ass when needed. His relationship with his Admiral boss and the boss’ lovesick personal secretary make for some fine human moments throughout the paperback.

I was expecting Iceberg to be filled with dense plotting and littered with incomprehensible nautical jargon that would cause my eyes to glaze over. I’m pleased to report that Cussler avoids this trap and makes the pages fly by with a basic good guys vs. bad guys plot and a propulsive story. His books are about twice as thick as other men’s adventure paperbacks from the same era, so I was expecting a complex story akin to the work of Tom Clancy. Instead, Iceberg was pulpy as all-heck. The action and villainous motivations were over-the-top like a good Destroyer novel, and the layered twist endings were pedestrian, outrageous and fun. No one should ever accuse Cussler of writing high-brow, smartypants fiction. I hereby stand corrected.

The appeal of Cussler’s novels is now clear. If Iceberg is any indication, the series is a lot more fun than you might expect. The books can apparently be read in any order, and there are plenty of lists online ranking them based on quality. I look forward to diving deeper into this author and his famous series. Recommended. Get it HERE

Brother

Ania Ahlborn is a contemporary horror fiction author born in Poland who emigrated to the United States where she earned an English degree from University of New Mexico. She writes disturbing novels from her Greenville, South Carolina home that have earned acclaim from the Horror Writers Association and a huge social media following of rabid fans. My first introduction to her work was her 2015 novel, Brother.

The year is 1980, and it’s time to meet the Morrows, the serial killer family at the center of the novel. Daddy Wayne is a Vietnam vet who handles the killing of female hitchhikers they bring back to their horror house in the woods. Momma’s own childhood trauma undoubtedly set the table for her own adulthood of bloodthirsty psychopathology. Their oldest kid is named Ray. He’s in his 20s now and prefers to be called Rebel. He gets off on tormenting his sensitive younger brother Michael, now 19. Meanwhile, Michael is protective of his sister Misty Dawn. There’s also another sister named Lauralynn, but we don’t even say her name out loud.

The Morrows are poor. Not like the urban poor we have today with smartphones and HD televisions. They are country poor. Appalachia poor. They make ends meet by shoplifting and collecting whatever trinkets they can find on the women they kidnap, torture and kill. The bodies are buried out back of their ancient, dilapidated West Virginia farmhouse sporting faded clapboards and filthy windows. They pretty much keep to themselves except when Rebel and Michael venture into town to stalk possible victims, steal food or chat up girls at the local record store.

Brother’s third-person narrative follows Michael, who, despite being a complicit member of a psychopathic serial killer family, is actually a very sweet boy. Through flashbacks, the reader receives glimpses of this awful family’s origin story, and it’s every bit the nightmare you’d expect. Older sister Lauralynn was the nice, compassionate girl of the bunch who looked after Michael when he was young. You’ll notice that she’s not present during the contemporary scenes, and the story of her departure from the Morrow house is doled out gradually as one of the novel’s central mysteries.

Brother is basically a bloody and gruesome coming of age suspense story about young Michael growing to understand his own dysfunctional upbringing in this messed-up family. There’s a puppy love story to enjoy and lots of abuse of Michael at the hands of his loathsome older brother. Throughout the novel, Ahlborn’s writing is exceptionally good and the pages fly from one atrocity to another. The book is a real bloodbath and incredibly compelling, but I didn’t find it particularly scary. Instead, the paperback presents a gripping suspense story that chooses to focus on the characters instead of the gore. By now you know if this is your kind of thing. If so, Brother is an easy recommendation. 

Get a copy HERE

Let Me Kill You Tenderly

Robert Sidney Bowen (1900-1977) was a World War One aviator who became a pulp writer from the 1930s into the 1950s. In 1946 and 1947, he wrote a series of short works for Popular Detective starring a private investigator named Chet Lacey that have been compiled into an ebook by The Pulp Fiction Book Store. My introduction to the author and character is “Let Me Kill You Tenderly” from June 1946.

As the novella opens, Private Eye Chet Lacey is gearing up for a well-earned Mexico vacation when an ex-girlfriend comes ringing. These days her name is Vivian Ames, and she’s married to a wealthy bank president named Ken. Well, Ken has been kidnapped and the bad guys are demanding a $50,000 ransom from Viv in exchange for her husband’s safe return. No cops or the banker dies. Viv needs Chet’s help.

Simple setup, but things quickly become complex. There’s good reason to believe Ken faked his own kidnapping. But why would he do that? It’s like stealing $50,000 from himself, right? That’s the mystery that Chet needs to solve. Things get crazy, violent and action-packed pretty quickly as Chet navigates his way through a ransom money drop that becomes a gunfire bloodbath.

The bodies pile up, and Chet eventually solves the case in a tidy and logical conclusion. Overall, “Let Me Kill You Tenderly” was a rather generic hardboiled private detective yarn, but completely enjoyable and well-written. We’re lucky there are outfits like The Pulp Fiction Book Store keeping this old stuff alive. Check them out.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Tip on a Dead Jockey

“Tip on a Dead Jockey” is the 40-page title story of a paperback compilation of Shaw’s short fiction from 1957. The protagonist is Lloyd Barber, an American WW2 pilot who has been bumming around Paris for the past 18 months since his marriage crumbled back home. Barber made some money working as a technical advisor on a Hollywood war movie filmed in Paris, but his savings are now declining.

One day a woman finds Barber and solicits his help. The lady is married to one of Barber’s war buddies - a fellow named Jimmy - who recently packed a bag and disappeared, abandoning his job and bride. Basically, she wants Barber to find her husband. Not being a detective or manhunter, Barber begins to seek out an older fellow named Bert Smith, who he met betting on horses at the track a while ago.   

The story then cuts to an extended flashback taking the reader back to the relationship between Barber and Bert that began at the track betting on the horses. The two guys hit it off and Bert eventually makes the young pilot an offer: Fly a heavy box from Cairo to Cannes and make an easy $25,000. I won’t spoil what’s in the box or how it might tie into Barber’s missing war buddy, but the moral dilemma posed by the mysterious cargo is the centerpiece of the story.

Because “Tip on a Dead Jockey” is literary fiction from the New Yorker and not pulp fiction from Manhunt, the story’s ending isn’t particularly twisty or impactful. It is, however, satisfying and very well written. The original paperback is out-of-print, but the story is included in the 63-story collection of Shaw’s finest work called Short Stories: Five Decades currently available from University of Chicago Press. I read a few more of his stories, and he’s definitely worth checking out if expertly-crafted short fiction is your thing.

The White South

Many titles by Hammond Innes posses a nautical theme. From seafaring adventures like The Wreck of Mary Deare to oceanic oil rig thrillers like North Star, Innes explored the world searching for a great story. His mid-career novel The White South, published in 1949, takes readers to the frigid waters of the Antarctic. As both a survival tale and nautical quest, the book's synopsis promises an ice shaking boat disaster in giant seas. Go ahead and take my money. I'm sold. 

Like many average males, Duncan Craig is no longer complacent with his suburban existence as a London desk clerk. In the Navy, he traveled the world, commanding a ship in WW2 and his heart is aching for a more meaningful and exciting life. After selling his belongings, Craig has a plan to move to South Africa. But, in a London airport, Craig's life changes dramatically.

After asking a favor, Craig is attempting to join a charter plane to Capetown. The flight is owned by the South Antarctic Whaling Company, but specifically Colonel Bland. After making his plea for one of the five seats on board, Bland willingly allows Craig to join them. On board is Bland's daughter-in-law Judie and an assortment of minor characters. Craig overhears that Judie's father works for Bland as a manager of sorts on a whaling ship. But, a conflict has risen due to Bland promoting his own inexperienced son Erick. Judie and Erick are married, but she hates the man and considers him a lying scoundrel who partnered with the Germans during WW2. The fact that Erick may pass her father in seniority makes her furious.

Eventually, Bland learns of Craig's experience with boats and makes him an offer he can't resist. Craig will command one of the whaling ships in the Antarctic sea. In the midst of the job proposal and hiring,  he learns that Judie's father mysteriously committed suicide by jumping overboard. Judie feels that Erick killed him, but that's a mystery that eventually expands. After inquiring into the details, Craig begins investigating the circumstances surrounding the man's death. Thus, Craig and Judie fall in love.

This is a nautical adventure and Innes spends some time acclimating readers on the whaling industry, which I found surprisingly interesting. Craig's inexperience is the catalyst for this educational journey, but eventually tragedy strikes. In the icy seas, Erick rams his ship into Craig's in a high-stakes deadly version of bumper cars. The two ships sink and the passengers are forced onto the ice. A rescue attempt then traps another ship between two icebergs. 

The book's final 100-pages is a brutal cold weather survival tale as Craig orchestrates an escape attempt while contending with warring factions over supplies, injuries, and the few lifeboats remaining. He's an admirable hero that must overcome extreme adversity among men that don't necessarily respect his fishing inexperience. Thus, there's no surprise that Craig is the unlikely hero that rises to the occasion for the greater good. 

There's a lot for readers to busy themselves with including memorization of who's who among the Norwegian names. Placing the characters and their locations on the ice was sometimes difficult. Because of that, the reading requires some focus and concentration to stay on task. It's not a heavy lift, but still requires minor endurance. If you love Hammond Innes, this is another stellar addition to his bibliography. Get it HERE

The Executioner #53 - The Invisible Assassins

Author David Wade used the pseudonym of Alan Bomack as an anagram of the fictional hero Mack Bolan. As Bomack, David Wade authored  four titles in the Executioner series (#53 The Invisible Assassins, #58 Ambush on Blood River, #82 Hammerhead Reef, #87 Hellfire Crusade). He also wrote the second Super Bolan entry, Terminal Velocity and co-authored the debut of the S.O.B.s series, Barrabus Run. After recently watching a few Asian martial-arts movies, I wanted a “Bolan vs Ninjas” sort of novel. I went with Wade/Bomack's Executioner #53 The Invisible Assassins, originally published by Gold Eagle in May, 1983.

The book begins with Bolan assisting a young government agent on a stake out involving a world renowned Japanese scientist named Ken Shinoda. Apparently, U.S. intelligence had received chatter of Shinoda meeting with an unknown party in Los Angeles. Once Shinoda appears, he is quickly assassinated by someone in the shadows. After a brief skirmish, the young agent is murdered and Bolan is injured.

After discussions with April and Hal, Bolan wants to learn if Shinoda was buying or selling intelligence. The clues lead to a series of photographs that Bolan discovers in Shinoda's apartment. These photos are of various Japanese leaders and a rival scientist named Okawa. Who are in the men in the photo? Was Shinoda killed for taking these photos? Under the guise of a U.S. Security consultant, Bolan travels to Japan to coordinate training exercise with a high-level security agent named Nakada.

Good Executioner novels typically involve a little bit of sleuth work and a lot of action. Thankfully, David Wade nails the concept and blends a high dose of action into a smooth murder investigation. Through the prescribed 185-pages, Bolan aligns himself with an American female journalist. His adventures involve a number of physical fights in restaurants and alleyways, an escape from a submerged car, and an escape from an imperial fortress called Shoki Castle. I liked the idea that the enemy was part of some grand conspiracy that dates back to ancient times, eventually connecting to a modern day faction called The Circle of the Red Sun. It's all comic book nonsense, but wildly enjoyable.

The Invisible Assassins contains all of the necessary ingredients to tell a great post-Pendleton stand-alone story. The martial-artists, throwing stars, and imperial guard was a unique blend that helped provide a more unique enemy for Bolan. Highly recommended. Buy a copy of this book HERE

Walk With Evil

In 1957, Crest Books - a sister imprint to Fawcett Gold Medal - published a paperback called Walk With Evil by Daytona’s own Robert Wilder (1901-1974). Just when it seemed that this obscure novel would be destined for the dustbin of history, it has been reprinted by Cutting Edge Books for modern readers to enjoy. 

The story begins in Florida on isolated Redemption Cay, a small spit of land jutting into the tidal mouth of a large river shielded from the Atlantic Ocean by rolling sand dunes. Jeff Martin is a Manhattan newspaper reporter on a five-week vacation fishing in the river from a small rented boat with a temperamental outboard motor.

Not knowing much about boats, Jeff immediately finds himself in a dangerous situation floating too close to the churning waters of the ocean inlet. Fortunately, a pretty young woman in a heavy work boat comes to his aid and tows Jeff to safety. His rescuer’s name is Judy Carter, and she’s the caregiver to a much older, hardcore alcoholic everyone calls the Senator whom Jeff soon meets at the town’s only watering hole. Jeff also re-encounters young Judy later and becomes quite taken with her. They have a flirty chemistry and plan to go on a date sometime soon. 

Jeff’s vacation is interrupted by a call from his editor back home. A notorious gangster from the Al Capone era named Edward Valenti has been released from Alcatraz and flown to Florida. The boss wants Jeff to locate Valenti and figure out what the aged mob boss is doing. Could it have to do with the million bucks in heist proceeds that were never recovered before Valenti’s incarceration?

Jeff quickly unearths a historical connection between Valenti and the Senator that begs further questions. We also get to see Valenti in action aboard a chartered Palm Beach yacht with his colorful entourage. A narrative shift introduces some travelers en route to Palm Beach with their own agendas. Nearly every secondary character in the paperback is harboring a secret, and Jeff pieces the puzzle together over the course of the 180 pages. 

Walk With Evil is a decent bit of Florida noir. Fans of John D. MacDonald and Harry Whittington will feel right at home with this treasure hunt mystery filled with colorful and quirky well-developed characters. The ending solution was a bit implausible and overly tidy, but the ride to get there was mostly satisfying. 

Get the book HERE

Below

According to his bio, Ryan Lockwood holds degrees in technical journalism, environmental science, and has been employed as a biological research assistant and professional editor. In 2013, he authored the first of two books starring a marine biologist named Valerie Martell – Below (2013 Pinnacle) and What Lurks Beneath (2015 Pinnacle). Living a mere 15-minutes from the ocean, I'm always looking to dive into a good aquatic horror novel. 

Below contains everything you want from the typical Pinnacle action novel. Roguish male hero, the seasoned good guy cop, plenty of killing and a few high-energy chase sequences. Oh, and the inevitable booming of explosions. By the book's halfway point, one would never fathom that the hero is a woman. It's Pinnacle after all...with decades of male-led heroism. 

In the book's first half, the capable hero is Will Sturman. He grew up in the rugged Rocky mountains, joined the military and now makes a meager living as a professional diving instructor on the southern California coast. In the book's opening chapters, Sturman is underwater instructing a semi-experienced group of divers when there's nearly a casualty. One of the women becomes tangled in an old boat resting on the seabed. These introductory chapters are a frantic grasp for air as Sturman rescues the woman from the clutches of death. Later, readers learn that Sturman is suffering the loss of his wife by staying drunk and shooting pool at his favorite bar. His ex-military buddy, Joe Montoya, is the town constable. 

But, this is an underwater horror novel and soon the body count starts to rise as divers and fishermen are devoured (more like sucked apart) by enormous Humboldt squid. Sturman is eventually led to an expert on these unique predators, Valerie Martell. Together, Sturman, Montoya and Martell become unlikely opponents to hundreds of people-eating-squid-monsters. Surprisingly, it's not as preposterous as it sounds. Humboldt are terrifying and have been known to attack deep sea divers outside of the pages of a fictional aquatic horror paperback. They are the real deal. 

By the book's furious finale, Martell becomes the hero. In fact, Sturman is sort of cowardly and abandons the whole mission for most of the third act (although he does save the day). I thought the transition into this new Pinnacle hero was well played with Martell becoming this fierce and determined leader facing overwhelming adversity. 

With underwater fights, creepy and ferocious “monsters”, a high body count, sea chases and heroic camaraderie, there's plenty in Below to keep you afloat. Get your copy HERE

Railroad Stories #07: The Return of Casey Jones

As early as the 1800s, stories about the railroad industry have been a popular staple in pop culture. Those in need of an escape from everyday boredom often gravitated to the rails at the turn of the 20th century. The hobo lifestyle of seeing the country by riding the boxcars was a prevalent one, eventually becoming ingrained into the mainstream through songs, films and books. The most prominent magazine of railroad fiction was Railroad Stories. It was the first specialized pulp magazine to offer these types of stories and featured a variety of authors applying their expertise. 

Under license from White River Productions, Florida's Bold Venture Press has been publishing stellar collections of these vintage railroad stories for modern readers. Beginning in 2015, they began publishing trade paperbacks collecting stories culled from Railroad Stories and other magazines. Each of these volumes, mostly feature author E.S. Dellinger, but Vol. 4 is A. Leslie Scott, Vol. 7 is John Johns, Vol. 8 is Norman Brandhorst, and Vol. 10 is Don Waters. My first ride on the rails is Vol. 7: The Return of Casey Jones. It was published in 2019 and features five stories that have never appeared in paperback until now.

The book's lead story is “The Return of Casey Jones”, authored by John Johns and originally published in the April 1933 issue of Railroad Stories. The story begins with a young schoolboy named Jim Martin learning about the tragic death of his idol, the famed engineer Casey Jones. Years later, Jim's father dies and he is left to tend to his ailing mother. Jim is an engineer for the The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (CMStP&P). Like his idol, Jim is known as a fast runner and can make up time between meets. 

A lot of Jim's railroad buddies sign up for early action in World War 1. Jim is anxious to join the fight and use his engineering skills for his country. But, the doctors suggest that if Jim joins the military his mother may suffer another stroke. To protect her, he chooses not to enlist, which infuriates his peers. To complicate things further, Jim experiences a terrible train crash and is thrown from his cab. Suspecting that he jumped from his engine instead of holding tight, the town immediately ridiculed him for being a coward. He's disowned by his girlfriend and his railroad crew. But, after another freak accident, Jim has the ability to prove the town wrong. Thus, "The Return of Casey Jones" is a story of redemption. 

I really enjoyed this 70-page novella and found myself cheering Jim as his mountain of misfortune began a seismic shift. There were some technical aspects that I struggled with, but it didn't detract from the story. Jim's adversity and clash with the military and his town was engaging, and thankfully ended on a good note. In terms of action, the book recounts the story of Casey Jones, adding more action to Johns' narrative.

This story was also released as a film in 1935 by Monogram. This collection features a short article by Bold Venture Press co-owner/editor Rich Harvey about the film as well as information on the its star, Charles Starrett. 

Other John Johns stories in this collection are:

"Roads End" (Railroad Man's Magazine, Oct 1930)
"Smoke Gets in your Eyes" (Railroad Stories Magazine, May 1935)
"Emergency Run" (Railroad Stories Magazine, Decemer 1936)
"Running Signals" (Railroad Stories Magazine, November 1936)

Additional volumes:

Railroad Stories Vol. 01: Avalanche (E.S. Dellinger)
Railroad Stories Vol. 02: The Legend of King Lawson (E.S. Dellinger)
Railroad Stories Vol. 03: Gangsters of the Rails (E.S. Dellinger)
Railroad Stories Vol. 04: Civil War and Tales of Jagger Dunns (A. Leslie Scott)
Railroad Stories Vol. 05: Steam and Steel (E.S. Dellinger)
Railroad Stories Vol. 06: The Saga of Kiamichi Bill (E.S. Dellinger)
Railroad Stories Vol. 08: Colorado Midland (Norman Brandhorst)
Railroad Stories Vol. 09: Ballad of Redhot Frost (E.S. Dellinger)
Railroad Stories Vol. 10: Rolling Wheels and The Georgia Rambler (Don Waters)

Secret of Canfield House

Florence Hurd (1919-2008) was born in Chicago and graduated from the University of Chicago. According to her obituary, she moved to San Diego, California and became a social worker. Later, she married, raised two children, and enjoyed a successful career as a gothic romance writer. My first experience with Hurd's writing is her beloved novel Secret of Canfield House. It was published in 1966 by Fawcett Gold Medal. 

The novel stars a young, vulnerable, and attractive woman named Emeline. After moving from Vermont to New York, Emeline discovers that she was never cut out for the big city. When her father dies, Emeline returns to Vermont to pick up the pieces while discovering new employment. She settles on interviewing for a housekeeper job with a snooty woman named Mrs. Canfield. The gig is that she will temporarily live at the vast Vermont manor aptly titled Canfield House. The pay is good but the job is a rather lonely one. Mrs. Canfield and her son Miles only use the house on occasional weekends. But, they want the silver polished and the pillows fluffed – a housekeeper ritual left to Emeline. 

Settling into her new employment and residence, Emeline attempts to befriend the house's groundskeeper. He lives in the barn, drinks a lot, and is a mute – not the best company for a lonely woman. After failing to make small talk in the quaint New England village, Emeline finally finds companionship with the family's weekend cook. Through this relationship, Emeline discovers that Miles was married once, but his bride ran away with another man. Oddly, their bedroom remains closed off from the rest of the house, a dusty tribute to lost love...or maybe death?

Emeline's new job becomes a terrifying ordeal when she's forced to contend with an arsonist, her poisoned dog and what could be an “unholy” haunted bedroom. Like something out of Amityville Horror, she hears noises in the cellar, footsteps through the empty house, slamming doors and monstrous faces in the window. Does the “secret” of Canfield House concern a demonic doorway to Hell or a home invasion nightmare? 

While Secret of Canfield House possesses all of the genre tropes of a fine New England gothic, Hurd cleverly skirts the edges of a traditional old fashioned suspense tale. The story's sweeping finale comes during an onslaught of howling winds and rain. During a power outage, Emeline explores the house by candlelight determined to solve the mystery. Skeletons in the wall, missing pearls, a hidden diamond bracelet, and a smoking gun smoothly enhances this moody 160-page thriller. I was firmly glued to every page in a white-knuckle race to find the answers. You will be too. Highly recommended!

Toll for the Brave

Before Jack Higgins (real name: Harry Patterson, born 1929) became a massive bestselling author of thick, high-adventure novels, he wrote exciting 180-page paperbacks for guys like us. Case in point: His 29th novel, Toll for the Brave (1971), which remains in print today. 

The protagonist and narrator is Ellis Jackson, a British citizen who enlists in the U.S. Army to fight in the Vietnam War as a paratrooper in 1966. Evidently this was a real thing - highly unusual - but it happened. Despite serving with valor, he is captured by the Viet Cong and thrown into a tortuous prisoner-of-war camp administered by the sadistic Chinese. This segment of the paperback was vivid, violent and compelling as Ellis is brought to the physical and the psychological breaking point.

Inside the camp, an African-American U.S. Army Brigadier General with a fantastic backstory named Max Sinclair is also housed as a prisoner of war. Black Max, as he was called, was a U.S. military legend who fought in World War 2, Korea, and now Vietnam where he was caught by the commies while venturing beyond the confines of his command post. Black Max teaches young Ellis how to handle the confinement and torture with a Zen equanimity that preserves Ellis’ sanity and life. Meanwhile, a sexy Chinese psychologist at the camp named Madame Ny is assigned to be Ellis’ chief interrogator while using sensuality and mental manipulation to break the young Britton down. The POW camp scenes comprising the book’s first act were among the best I’ve read this year.

Eventually, Ellis wins his freedom and begins a new life in a marshy village 50-miles outside of London called Foulness. This setting change comprises a new section of the novel, and Ellis is dealing with what appears to be severe PTSD. It’s so bad that when he goes to walk his dog, he thinks he sees Viet Cong lurking in the swamp trying to kill his pet. It’s during one of these dreamlike episodes that a suspicious murder occurs (the novel’s back-cover spoils it, but I won’t), and it’s then incumbent upon Ellis to prove his own innocence and solve the murder. The innocent man being forced to solve a murder to clear his own name has got to be the plot of darn near half the novels we review here at Paperback Warrior. To his credit, Higgins does a good job with this tired storyline, but it has nowhere near the edge-of-your-seat emotional impact of the POW camp scenes. 

There are plenty of great action sequences that will please readers - including some particularly well-crafted martial arts fights. The climactic ending has a giant twist you won’t see coming, but that comes with a cost. The “solution” to the novel’s central mystery is truly moronic and illogical. It’s safe to say that the paperback’s resolution would only please fans who have received frontal lobotomies. Can you enjoy a good book with a bad ending?  That’s the real question here. Is it the ride or the destination that matters? It’s your call. 

Buy your copy HERE

The Girl from Addis

Ted Allbeury (1917-2005) served as a U.K. Intel officer from 1940 to 1947. During WW2, he infiltrated Nazi Germany via parachute and later was caught - and tortured by commies - smuggling spies between East and West Germany. He began writing espionage fiction with a heavy dose of realism at age 55 and went on to publish 40 novels in the genre. My introduction to his work was his 1984 stand-alone paperback, The Girl from Addis.

The story is narrated by our hero, Johnny Grant, a British MI6 operative during WW 2. Back in 1941, Johnny was stationed in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. The country had just been liberated from Italian rule and the Ethiopians were organizing themselves as a nation under the leadership of their own emperor. The Brits were providing transitional help to the emperor, and Johnny was serving as the chief’s British Military Liaison. Of course, what he was really doing was spying. His main target was a wealthy Armenian named Jonnet who was supplying the Japanese with fuel and arms during the war. Before he could get the job done, Johnny’s cover is blown and he has 48 hours to leave Ethiopia or be killed.

Anyway, that’s the background. Johnny left MI6 in 1947 and embarked on a far more interesting career as a photographer of swimsuit models. Every now and then he uses this as cover to take freelance spy assignments from his old employer. We rejoin him decades later in the 1970s. The emperor of Ethiopia has been overthrown and imprisoned in a military coup, and the new government seems to be getting cozy with the Soviets. The U.K. fears that the Eithiopians aspire to overrun the other nations of East Africa - starting with Somalia -  to form one big Soviet client state. Even worse, Johnny’s old target Jonnet seems to be helping the Soviets achieve this goal from his trusted perch advising the new Ethiopian regime. The Brits want Johnny to return to Ethiopia to finish the job he started 25 years ago - neutralize Jonnet and the Soviet plans before someone gets hurt.

As you may have gathered, this isn’t the “death-ray from the sky” espionage fiction of Nick Carter: Killmaster or a gadget-heavy spy story like a James Bond movie. Instead, Allbeury crafted a more cerebral - and presumably realistic - paperback where old adversaries and allies meet at diplomatic cocktail parties and plot against one another with a greater subtlety than we normally see in pulp fiction. Despite being rather smart, it’s never boring. The brinkmanship was fascinating, thanks to the fact that Allbeury’s writing is staggeringly good. He explains the geopolitics of Ethiopia with a clarity that makes even the dumbest reader (i.e. me) feel like an expert. And, yes, you’ll get your spy action set-pieces at the paperback’s climax.

While back in Ethiopia, Johnny quickly becomes beguiled and infatuated with a mixed-race woman sharing Greek and Somali backgrounds. The problem is that she’s the kept woman of the local KGB colonel, a truly loathsome villain.. The introduction of the titular girl also introduces sex and violence into the thoughtful plotting as well as a pretty sweet love story and insightful observations about western culture.

This was a fantastic novel - weighty and thought-provoking with a lot of substance squeezed into 191 paperback pages. Ted Allbeury was a genius writer who deserves to be rediscovered. Five of his novels have been reprinted by an outfit called Dover Publications but not The Girl From Addis. You’ll need to seek out an old paperback to enjoy it. If you like smart and realistic spy stories, you won’t regret it.

The Mob Says Murder

Albert Conroy was one of the cadre of pseudonyms employed by Philadelphia native Marvin H. Albert (1924-1996) to flood the market with his innovative crime and western novels of the mid-20th century. As far as I can tell, he wrote 14 paperbacks as Albert Conroy/Al Conroy between the years 1952 and 1972, including a stand-alone crime-noir paperback from 1958 titled The Mob Says Murder.

Eddie Driscoll is six years into his state prison life sentence for a fatal bank robbery he didn’t commit. In his day, he did plenty of bank holdup jobs, just not the one that landed him in the pen. Driscoll spends his days pining away for his wife who left him and remarried a year into his sentence. Nevertheless, he remains infatuated and in love with the memory of her soft flesh against him.

One day, Driscoll gets an unexpected visitor in prison. It’s a spicy Mexican dame is pretending to be his cousin delivering a cryptic message that Driscoll interprets as an invitation to bust out of the prison with the help of unknown friends on the outside. This evolves into an early-novel breakout that's about as good as any pulp fiction jailbreak I’ve ever read. Before you know it, Driscoll goes from lonely and horny inmate to a most-wanted fugitive.

The person pulling the strings to orchestrate Driscoll’s shaky freedom is a mobster named Bruno Hauser who runs a nightclub and illegal gambling joint called The Ocean Club. Hauser has a problem - the anti-crime governor has been sending state law enforcement goons to Hauser’s joint to bust up the place and interrupt business. Hauser’s solution? The governor must go. Interestingly, the same governor was once the prosecutor who wrongfully put Driscoll away for life. After his guilty verdict six years ago, Driscoll swore revenge on the prosecutor, and Hauser is hoping to utilize Driscoll as an assassin to remove their shared enemy from office permanently. After all, busting a guy out of prison means he owes you a big favor, right?

Albert has crafted another crime-noir masterpiece here. I thought I knew where the plot was headed based on the cover art spoiler, but it quickly became clear that the artist and copywriter had never read the book themselves. The novel’s characters are vivid and the dilemmas - both practical and moral - are taken seriously by the author. The relationships between the characters are especially well-drawn and add a dose of humanity to this ultra-violent and sexy 141-page lost classic. The plot is perfectly constructed and the dialogue is crisp. There’s really nothing to dislike about this novel.

The Mob Says Murder is another work of pulp literary greatness by Albert. The more I read from him, the more I’ve come to believe that he was a uniquely excellent writer of his era and a step above his peers. For reasons unclear to me, I don't believe this one has ever been reprinted since it hit the spinner racks in 1958. Maybe someone will read this review and do something about that. It’s really something special. Get a copy HERE

Paperback Warrior Primer - Clifton Adams

Clifton Adams was a wine connoisseur that loved jazz music and Oklahoma history. He also wrote a bunch of violent, gritty novels about heroes and outlaws. He won two coveted Spur Awards and was admired by many of his contemporaries. Popular crime-noir author Donald Westlake cited Adams as an influence on his beloved Parker series of heist novels. We've reviewed many of Clifton Adams' novels and we hope today's Paperback Warrior Primer will prompt you to explore his robust bibliography. 

Clifton Adams was born in Comanche, Oklahoma in 1919. He began writing at an early age. However, his writing development paused when he joined Hell on Wheels, officially known as the U.S. Army's Second Armored Division. During WW2 he served as a tank commander in both Africa and Europe. 

After WW2, he utilized the G.I. Bill to attend University of Oklahoma to study professional writing - a degree that focused on making a living as a writer. It was there that he won the “Oklahoma Writer of the Year” award. In his acceptance speech he said, “There’s only one way to approach the kind of writing I do - and that’s as a business. I’m not selling art. I’m selling entertainment.”

And with that idea as his North Star, he succeeded. In his career, he wrote 50 full-length novels and 125 short stories the magazines and digests. His first professional sale was the short story "Champions Wear Purple", published in Adventure in January 1947. His first novel, Desperado, is often cited as his finest work. It was originally released as a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback in 1950. It was a monster hit and spawned a sequel in 1953 called A Noose for the Desperado. Both books remain available as reprints from Stark House Press. 

Besides the two Desperado books, his only other recurring character was Amos Flagg, a western series written under the pseudonym of Clay Randal. The series ran from 1964 to 1969 for seven installments. He also wrote five stand-alone novels under the Clay Randal name between 1953 and 1963. He also wrote six westerns between 1958 and 1963 under the name of Matt Kinkaid. Celebrating his western writing, he won two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America - 1969 for Tragg’s Choice and 1970 for The Last Days of Wolf Garnett.  

While most of his literary work falls into the western genre, he also wrote crime-fiction. Whom Gods Destroy and Death's Sweet Song were both published in 1953 by Fawcett Gold Medal. His 1956 crime-noir, Never Say No to a Killer, was published by Ace under the pseudonym Jonathan Gant. All three of these books have been reprinted by Stark House Press. He also used the Gant name to author The Long Vendetta, published in 1963 by Avalon. Under the name Nick Hudson he authored The Very Wicked, published in 1960 by Berkley. 

Clifton Adams died from a heart attack in 1971 in Comanche, Oklahoma. According to our research, the author's papers are kept at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. For more information, listen to the Paperback Warrior Podcast episode about Clifton Adams HERE.

Come Closer

Sara Gran is a contemporary crime fiction author and creator of the acclaimed Claire DeWitt private eye series. However, at the beginning of her writing career, she wrote a terrifying little horror novel called Come Closer that genre fans haven’t stopped talking about since its 2003 release.

Our narrator is a yuppie architect named Amanda, and weird things are starting to happen. A written proposal she hands to her boss has a cruel, vulgar, and insulting sentence at the top that Amanda didn’t write or doesn’t recall writing. She’s also hearing scratching noises throughout the urban residential loft she shares with her doting husband.

Of course, things escalate. Plates start flying from the cabinets and car keys begin to disappear from their home. All of this is definitely slow-burn creepy, but the true first nail in Amanda’s mental coffin is when her imaginary childhood friend Pansy begins visiting again in her sleep. Anyone who reads horror fiction or watches scary movies knows that imaginary friends are Never A Good Thing.

Astute readers will also recognize at this point that this is not a haunted urban condo story. It’s a haunted (or worse - possessed) Amanda story. And, man-oh-man, does it get scary. With each unnumbered mini-chapter vignette, the tension escalates. This is underscored by the fact that Amanda is telling us the story of her own possession. Like a heroin user sliding into addiction, all she feels at first are the addictive good vibes while the people around her are forced to bear witness to a woman becoming irrevocably unhinged.

It’s been a long time since a work of fiction rattled me as much as Come Closer did. The way the insanity/possession gently escalates over the course of the novel’s 176 pages was masterful and the pages fly by as the author ratchets up the intensity. Some segments were tough to read, but I defy you to look away. I haven’t read Gran’s mystery fiction, but if it’s half as good as her horror, she’s a unique talent to watch. Highest horror recommendation. 

Get a copy HERE

87th Precinct #11 - Give the Boys a Great Big Hand

The 87th Precinct series of police procedural mysteries were the crowning achievement of author Ed McBain (1926-2005, birth name: Salvatore Lombino, adopted name: Evan Hunter). The books star a rotating cast of cop characters dealing with the ins-and-outs of big-city policing and the crimes that keep them busy at the intersection of Dragnet and Hill Street Blues. The 11th paperback in the series is Give the Boys a Great Big Hand from 1960.

It’s a rainy day in the urban environs of Isola, McBain’s thinly-veiled fictional analog to Manhattan. A foot patrol officer spots a distant figure with an overcoat, hat and umbrella boarding a city bus while leaving an airline overnight bag behind at the bus stop. The vigilant beat cop makes his way to the bus stop, opens the bag, and finds a severed human hand inside. This is the Chapter One spark that ignites the action in this lean, 200-page mystery.

The patrolman brings the bag and the detached hand to the detective bureau at the 87th Precinct for further investigation, and we get reacquainted with all our chatty old friends chewing the fat in the squad area. The dialogue among the unflappable cops is often some of the best - and most authentic-sounding - parts of any McBain novel. For the reader, the funny conversations are really an opportunity to witness a master writer at work.

Each of the 87th Precinct series installments stand well on their own and feature different combinations of the detectives who solve the cases. The case of the severed hand is assigned to two of the strongest characters in the series: Steve Carella and Cotton Hawes. Carella is a smart, tough and hard-working steel-jawed hero, and Hawes is a redhead ladies' man. We also get a liberal dose of Meyer Meyer, a cop with the mannerisms of a Jewish borscht-belt comedian. It’s like a perfectly-cast buddy cop movie.

Most murder mysteries find the investigators searching for the identity of the killer, but Give the Boys a Great Big Hand turns the formula on its head because the detectives need to find the identity of the victim first. They begin with reports of missing persons and find themselves in a web of strippers, prostitutes, drummers, cheating husbands, and other colorful citizens. All of this leads to a rather gruesome ending that will test your gag reflex and satisfy your search for a logical solution.

Where does Give the Boys a Great Big Hand fall on the McBain-o-Meter? It’s definitely top-tier, but maybe not the absolute tops. It’s certainly worth reading and remains in print today. You shouldn’t have a problem finding a copy. You can get it HERE.

Chase

Using the pseudonym K.R. Dwyer, future horror-fiction superstar Dean Koontz wrote his first suspense novel, Chase (1971), when he was 25 years old. It’s a stalker-serial killer, cat-and-mouse book with no supernatural elements. In 1995, Koontz overhauled and re-released the book for modern audiences to enjoy under his own name.

Our hero is 25 year-old Ben Chase, a legitimate hero freshly returned from Vietnam where an act of bravery won him the Congressional Medal of Honor and made him a local celebrity in his suburban hometown. However, Ben wants nothing to do with fame or awards. He is suffering from severe PTSD and prefers to spend his time in isolation, locked in his rented room drinking whiskey and watching old movies.

One evening, Ben drives his Mustang alone to ruminate at the local lovers lane where teens are copulating in their cars. Ben spots a creepy stalker lurking in the woods watching the teens get busy. Eventually the stalker rips open the door to a vehicle and attacks a teen couple inside with a knife. Ben snaps into action and grabs the stalker in a choke hold. Unfortunately, the stalker killed one of the teens and traumatized the other, and Ben sustains a knife wound that allows the maniac to escape the scene. No one, including Ben, was able to get a good look at the stalker.

Ben’s most recent act of heroism catapults him to the front pages of the local newspaper again as a local hero when all the young vet wants is to be left alone. This leads to Ben receiving phone calls at home from the stalker who explains his motives and tells Ben he’s a marked man. The authorities are no help, so Ben must decide if he wants to wait for the stalker to attack or go on the offensive to eliminate this shadowy enemy.

Having read many of Koontz’s horror novels when he was at the top of his game in the 1980s, it’s cool to read one of his early works. Chase is a pretty basic suspense novel, but it’s also an important rumination on the psychological costs of war and the way we treated our vets returning from Vietnam. The reader cares about Ben’s physical and mental well-being and quickly becomes invested in his success as he matches wits and might against the stalker through the novel’s nightmarish, violent and climactic conclusion.

Chase is a quick read - practically a novella. Koontz eliminated about 25% of the fat from the original K.R. Dwyer manuscript and overhauled the dialog for the 1995 re-release available today. As such, it’s a completely fat-free reading experience, and a pretty great page-turner. It’s admittedly a pretty formulaic suspense story, but it’s a formula that has always worked for me and an easy recommendation for you. Check it out HERE

You Find Him - I'll Fix Him

James Hadley Chase was a popular pseudonym of U.K. Author Rene Raymond (1906-1985) for over 90 thrillers. You Find Him - I’ll Fix Him was a 1956 novel originally released under his Raymond Marshall pen name and later re-released as a Chase title. The lean noir paperback was also adapted into the French film Les Canailles in 1960.

Our narrator is Ed Dawson, an American newspaper bureau chief working in Rome. He’s appropriately terrified of his boss, Mr. Chalmers, who is back at the home office in New York. One day Mr. Chalmers calls the trembling Dawson to ask a favor. The boss’ college-age daughter Helen will be arriving in Rome tomorrow and needs a ride from the airport to her hotel. At this point I thought, “I bet the daughter is a real dish, and this airport pickup is about to get way more complicated.”

Not so fast! Helen is a bookish, Plain Jane, and the hotel drop off was uneventful. However, weeks later when Ed runs into her at a party, the ugly duckling has become a swan. She’s wearing a slinky backless cocktail dress with hair and makeup eliciting a 1956 va-va-va-voom from our horny hero. They begin dating and planning a one-month secret getaway to a remote Italian villa in Sorrento. As long as the boss back home in New York doesn’t find out that Ed is banging his barely-legal daughter, everything is cool, right?

Upon arriving at the villa, Ed finds Helen floating face-first in the water at the bottom of a cliff and very, very dead. The whole thing looks like foul play causing Ed to face an early-novel predicament: Call the cops or not? A police report might make him a suspect, ruin his reputation and cost him his job. As they say in Italy, “Non buono.” The other option is to hightail it back to Rome and hope that no one ever finds out he was there in the first place. Ed chooses the coward’s route and skedaddles back to his urban bachelor pad.

The author does a fabulous job dissecting the ways we rationalize our bad behavior. The character of Ed is a rationalization gold medalist riding the Bad-Choice Express all the way to Noirville. Of course, Helen’s body is found. Of course, it turns out she was murdered. And of course, Ed’s lies land him deeper and deeper in hot water until he has no choice but to solve the murder himself to save his own hide. As a mystery, the novel works marvelously as clues pile up to a logical conclusion and climactic finish.

As usual, Chase is a good writer who knows how to move a story forward with his economical, no-frills prose. It’s always interesting to read a Brit author writing American dialogue because he can’t help but slip U.K. idioms into the prose that Americans would never use. Some readers find these “mistakes” annoying, but I’m always charmed by them. I’ve read several of his novels, and You Find Him - I’ll Fix Him is by far my favorite of his work. It’s a paperback that would have fit in nicely with Fawcett Gold Medal 1950s releases like Gil Brewer’s The Vengeful Virgin and other works in the femme fatale hit parade.

Bottom line: We have a winner. If you can scare up a copy of this one, buy it and read it.