Dig Me No Grave

The February 1937 issue of Weird Tales featured Robert E. Howard's horror story “Dig Me No Grave”. The iconic Texas author was paid $100 for the story shortly before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1936. The story was later published in The Dark Man and Others by Arkham House in 1963, Fawcett's Eight Strange Tales in 1972, and Zebra's Pigeons from Hell in 1976. My version is from the Baen 1996 paperback Beyond the Borders.

The story begins when John Kirowan is awakened from his sleep at midnight by his good friend John Conrad. Conrad is in a panic state as he explains that a man named John Grimlan has just died (what is it with all the “Johns”?). A conversation ensues between Kirowan and Conrad over Grimlan's bizarre life living in a world of mysticism and the occult.

Grimlan had lived abroad for many years and rumors circulated that his physical appearance seemingly never aged. Conrad explains that a Count had once stated that Grimlan is a very old man, yet his appearance is youthful. Years ago, Grimlan had asked Conrad to look after his body upon his death. He provided a sealed envelope containing specific instructions. Now, Conrad wants Kirowan's assistance in returning to Grimlan's house and following the instructions laid out. It's here that Grimlan's corpse lies undisturbed just hours since his death.

“Dig Me No Grave” possesses a vivid atmosphere and mood that is draped in this wickedly dark tapestry. Howard, this late in his writing career, had perfected the horror story and he puts his talent to work describing Grimlan's dark house on the hill, the bleak midnight hour, and offers a delightful buffet of descriptions about the evil forces at work within Grimlan's life. The central portion of the story's narrative is the bizarre instructions left behind by Grimlan, orders that the contents of his estate be left to...the Devil! Interesting enough, Howard includes Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu references as well as his own Shuma-Gorath entity (first mentioned in Howard's “The Curse of the Golden Skull”) and Kathulos of Atlantis (found in the author's 1929 novella Skull-Face).

These two characters, Kirowan and Conrad, have been featured in other Howard stories, shorts like “The Children of the Night”, “The Haunter of the Ring”, and “The Thing on the Roof”. All of these have Cthulhu references.

“Dig Me No Grave” was adapted into comic form by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in Marvel's Journey Into Mystery in 1972.

Paperback Warrior Primer - Bill Gulick

Grover C. Gulick (1916-2013), known as Bill Gulick, wrote a ton of western stories in the pulp magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. His career is laced with both fiction and non-fiction, marked by winning two coveted Spur Awards, earning him a two-year presidency of Western Writers of America, and receiving accolades from the Cowboy Hall of Fame. I covered Gulick's life and career in a podcast HERE, but wanted to provide a visual text outlining his life and literary work.

Gulick was born in 1916 in Kansas City, Missouri. As a child, Gulick was an avid reader with weekly trips to the library. By the age of five he was reading Zane Grey and pulp western magazines. In high school he wrote a story modernizing Julius Caesar with a gritty underworld of Chicago gangsters. He graduated high school in 1934, a time when America had been thrust into the Great Depression. Gulick delivered newspapers, did collections on delinquent utility bills, and worked at a drug store to help the family make ends meet. 

Gulick enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, played baseball, and as a sophomore he entered a writing competition and saw his poem win top prize. During college, Gulick worked as a power line installer and also took a job selling appliances for Montgomery Ward. Both of these jobs expanded Gulick's world and allowed him to see a good portion of the Midwest. Hoping to achieve a career in writing, Gulick entered a Professional Writing School in 1940 and he sold his first story for $10 to a law officer magazine titled The Peace Officer. He then reached out to Popular Publications in New York about a western story he wrote. They published the short, “The Kid That Rode with Death”, in New Western Magazine and paid him $30. At this point Gulick considered himself to be a full-fledged professional writer. 

Gulick moved to Brownwood, Texas to be a caretaker for a couple's cabin on Lake Brownwood. It was here that he had the opportunity for solitude, a time he used to polish up on his writing and to get completely devoted to his style. He wanted to write for the slick magazines. He later spent a lot of time with pulp writer Foster Harris. It was Harris that encouraged Gulick to use his experiences installing power lines to write stories about hardened blue-collar working men. Harris explained that he used his own work experience in the oil fields to pen stories in Argosy, Blue Book, and Adventure. Gulick took the advice to heart and wrote a story titled “You Gotta Be Hard” about a lineman who saves a fellow worker from being electrocuted. He sold it to Adventure for $75 and it was published in their August 1942 issue. These stories are what Gulick refers to as his "high-line stories" about the dangerous industry and hardened men that worked on the power lines. That same year he had his story “The Saga of Mike Shannon” published in Liberty Magazine. The publisher paid him $350 for the story, which was his biggest payout to date. 

Gulick was classified as 4-F during World War 2 due to his bout with Polio years before the war started. In 1943, Gulick moved to New York City so he could be closer to the editors and publishers he was dealing with. By this point Gulick had sold stories to Big-Book Western, .44 Western, Ace-High Western, Texas Rangers, 10 Story Western, Liberty, and Adventure.  

Gulick became acquainted with Rogers Terrill who was working as an editor for Henry and Harry Steeger, the owners of Popular Publications. At the height of the pulp boom the Steegers had 33 magazines circulating. Each magazine sold on average 200,000 newsstand copies for a dime each, so the difference between showing a profit and incurring a loss was small. According to Gulick's autobiography, the Steegers were earning about $300 net profit per month on each magazine. Their top western writer was Walt Coburn. He had a story in just about every western magazine - either a 25,000 word novel, a 12,000 word novelette, or a 5,000 word short story. 

Rogers Terrill once sent Gulick a letter stating that his stories were good and that they would continue fetching on average of $280. He explained they were competent but not terribly original. He encouraged Gulick to stop writing run of the mill pot-boilers and to use his talent to write better work. Gulick went back to thinking of himself as more of a slick writer and found more stories being published in Liberty and Saturday Evening Post through the 1940s and 1950s. He was also published in Esquire, Blue Book, Collier's, and Nation's Business. By 1944, Gulick found that he had enough of New York and had met and introduced himself to enough publishers and editors. He first moved to Oklahoma before relocating to Tacoma, Washington. From there he continued to sell to Liberty magazine making $750 per story. The rejects from Liberty funneled down to the pulp magazines at less money. 

In 1946, Gulick discovered something really interesting about a Lone Ranger comic strip that was running in Seattle's Post-Intelligencer paper. The Lone Ranger story was plagiarized from a Gulick short published in 10 Story Western Magazine. He cut out the strips each day until he had the whole story and then mailed it to Popular Publications who agreed that it was plagiarism. Eventually, the Lone Ranger's legal firm settled with Gulick paying $250 both to him and Popular Publications. In a funny send off to the settlement, Gulick volunteered to write Lone Ranger stories but his request was ignored. 

Gulick met his wife while working as a house manager for a Tacoma Theater Company and the two moved to New York. After meeting with the editor of Saturday Evening Post, Erd Brandt, Gulick was pitched the idea of writing his first serial. Gulick knew that was huge money as Ernest Haycox and Luke Short had both earned upwards to $50,000 for a serial. Brandt wanted a historical Pacific Northwest setting for the serial. In his research, Gulick became fascinated with the history of the emigrants into the Washington and Idaho Territories from the Oregon Trail Days. Gulick used the concept to write an 80,000 word novel titled Bend of the Snake. It was Gulick's first full-length novel, however when he pitched it to the Post as a serial they rejected it for being too long. He submitted the novel to Doubleday but it was rejected for a lack of violence. Houghton Mifflin published the book in 1950 and Gulick received a $5,000 movie option. Universal-International bought the film rights, changed the title to Bend of the River, and cast James Stewart in the lead role. 

Gulick settled into writing more full-length novels including A Drum Calls West and A Thousand for the Cariboo. Around this same time an anthology of Gulick's mountain man western short stories was collected into an omnibus paperback titled The Mountain Men. 

In 1953. Gulick joined the Western Writers of America, the brainchild of author Nelson Nye. In 1955 Gulick ran for President of the organization, a position he held in 1956 and 1957. 

Up until the late mid-1950s, Gulick's novels were being published as hardcovers. But, Popular Library offered Gulick the opportunity to write paperback originals. The author wrote Showdown in the Sun, a paperback purchased by Famous Artists, a Hollywood Film company that paid $13,500 for the book. Gulick also began selling rights to his short stories to television shows. In 1961, Gulick sold his story "Where the Wind Blows Free" to Saturday Evening Post for $2500. Gulick wrote novels for Doubleday including They Came to a Valley, which won the Cowboy Hall of Fame Western Heritage Award as Best Western Historical Novel of the Year and Hallelujah Trail, which the Mirisch Brothers bought film rights for $85,000. The movie was released in 1964 and starred Burt Lancaster, Donald Pleasance, and Brian Keith. 

Gulick also flourished in the non-fiction realm as well. He wrote the books Snake River Country and Chief Joseph Country as non-fiction historical accounts. Gulick also wrote a western for Doubleday titled Trails West about a gold mine in Hells Canyon and anti-Chinese riots in the 1880s. The book, which was published in 1979, did well but hinted to Gulick that the western book market had dwindled significantly. 

In 1988, Gulilck's western trilogy was caught up in a publishing feud between Doubleday and Gulick. The publisher wanted each book to be trimmed from 100,000 words to 85,000. The publisher also disagreed with Gulick's overall title for the trilogy as Northwest Destiny. Doubleday published each of the books in 1988 - the first in May titled Distant Trails, the second in June titled Gathering Storm, and the third in July titled Lost Wallowa. The publisher sold 5,000 copies of each book to libraries without any promotion and then let the books go out of print. Gulick was able to have the rights reverted back to him from Doubleday. With permission, Berkley published the books in paperback format.

Bill Gulick died at the age of 97 in 2013 in Walla Walla, Washington. In his autobiography, his final conclusion stated this:

"What the world of writing will be in time to come, I cannot predict, other than to say it will change, as it has in my lifetime. Despite the proliferation in the methods of communication that has taken place during the last sixty-four years, the nation as a whole is no more literate now than it was then, when almost everybody who had gone to school at all could read at the fourth-grade level, whereas now we have students in college who cannot do as well. Back in the 1950s, when I complained to Carl Brandt, Sr. about the way the TV monster that had invaded our living rooms was threatening to replace my beloved Saturday Evening Post, he said, 'Don’t worry about it, Bill. What you should understand is that the American public has a great capacity for accepting a new medium of entertainment without forsaking the old.' In any event, it is time for a new generation of writers to replace mine. All I can say is, 'I wish you well'."

Gulick's last published short story was in 1982 and his last book was published in 2008.

You can obtain many of Bill Gulick's vintage books HERE.

Tarzan #07 - Tarzan the Untamed

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote two Tarzan serials that were published in 1919 and 1920. The first was titled “Tarzan the Untamed “ (aka “Tarzan and the Huns”) and was published in Redbook from March to August 1919. The second was “Tarzan and the Valley of Luna”, published in All-Story Weekly from March to April 1920. The two stories were combined to make one complete novel, Tarzan the Untamed, in 1920 by A.C. McClurg (illustrations by J. Allen St. John). I chose to read the novel version, often presented as the seventh in the Tarzan series (after the short-story collection Jungle Tales of Tarzan).

German troops from the Great Lakes region of Africa (Tanganyika) descend on Tarzan's plantation in British East Africa, spurred by the turbulence of World War I. The titular hero is away at the time, but returns to find charred bodies and the Waziri warrior Wasimbu crucified on the wall. Among the burned corpses is what Tarzan presumes is his beloved wife Jane. Tarzan, enraged by the invasion and the murder of his wife, reverts back to his savage feral state.

In a unique marriage of modern warfare and jungle barbarism, Tarzan annihilates the German troops, first by shaking one to death and then later sniping them off with a carbine rifle. After meeting with British intelligence, Tarzan devises a plan to eliminate German troops from the trenches – with a lion, or what ERB and the apes refer to as “Numa”. The attack and intrigue leads Tarzan to extract revenge on two German brothers, one of which had a hand in Jane's presumed death. Additionally, a pivotal part of the through story is Tarzan's capture and re-capture of a German spy, a woman named Bertha Kircher.

In the second half of the novel, the “Tarzan and the Valley of Luna” serial, the book completely shifts gears into an African wilderness and survival formula as Tarzan and Bertha run into a downed British pilot named Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick. Harold gains a fondness for Bertha despite representing separate warring factions. The most interesting aspect to this portion of the novel is the closing chapters, a wild chain of events that reaches its pinnacle in a city of insane, and very scary, villagers. 

Tarzan the Untamed, while enjoyable and compelling, suffers from an identity crisis created by the publisher. The first half sets the reader on very different path involving this feral Tarzan, a savage swing that briefly recalls the intensity of Tarzan of the Apes a midst rapid-fire mechanization. His unbridled fury sets in motion a chain of violent sequences that are just ripe with emotion and anguish. But, the second half is an endless recycle of story ideas that I disliked in Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. Burroughs consistently rehashes the “rescue and release” formula with Tarzan thrust into chasing Bertha, freeing her from some nefarious predicament (cannibals, soldiers, crazy villagers, apes, lions) only to recycle the concept again in just a few pages. Smith-Oldwick is an admirable, if not lovable, addition to the story but fails to achieve much purpose other than fodder for abuse. 

I'm looking forward to the next Tarzan installment, Tarzan the Terrible, and what appears to be the first in a series of unpredictable adventures in lost civilizations. I think this change of pace may increase my enjoyment of this classic character. I'm not giving up on Tarzan. 

Heads-You Die

Not much is known about pulp writer Ed Barcelo. He authored short stories in pulps like All-Story Detective, Black Mask, and Pocket Detective Magazine from the 1940s through the 1950s. My guess is that he lived in Cleveland, Ohio based on sensational “tabloid” articles he wrote for Exposed like “Cleveland's Shocking Sin Dens for Teenagers” and “Exposing Cleveland's Sin Circus”. My first experience with Barcelo was his story “Heads-You Die” featured in the April 1949 issue of All-Story Detective.

Ziggy is an ex-con fresh out of prison. After a row with his wife Mabel, Ziggy goes for a long walk in the crisp cold weather. Along a rural highway he's stopped by the piercing headlights of a lone car. The suspicious driver makes a strange proposition – he offers Ziggy ten-dollars to bury a soggy bloody sack that he claims is his dead dog. The driver's excuse is that he was hunting, accidentally shot his own dog, and now doesn't have the heart to dig a grave. Sheepishly, Ziggy takes the shovel and bag as the man drives away. Soon, a husky police officer comes by and together, with Ziggy, they open the contents of the bag and discover a headless hacked up corpse. Ziggy does the right thing by clonking the officer and making a run for it.

There's nothing remarkable about Barcelo's story. It is the standard man-on-the-run narrative that has been told countless times. However, there's a frantic pace as Ziggy's original ten-dollars drivels way while hopping from dive to dive hoping to elude the police. It's a type of page countdown as the currently crumbles away. As one might expect, Ziggy becomes his own advocate and hunts down clues to the whereabouts of this mysterious driver. The steady pace, likable character, and short page count provides just enough reason to enjoy this average pulp story. 

Solomon Kane - Castle of the Devil

In the 1968 hardcover Red Shadows (red binding), a fragmented six-page story appeared titled “The Castle of the Devil” by Robert E. Howard. The unfinished story included Howard's stalwart Puritan hero Solomon Kane. The story would circulate in a reissue of the same book in 1971 and 1978, as well as the books Solomon Kane (Centaur 1971), Solomon Kane (Haddock 1972), and the reprints of that same work in 1974 and 1976. It wasn't until Bantam's 1978 paperback Solomon Kane: Skulls in the Stars that readers and fans would find the story completed. The published requested a young British author named Ramsey Campbell to complete Howard's vision. Campbell, at the time a relatively unknown writer, added and edited an additional 12 pages to the story.

In the opening pages a man on horseback spots a “lean somber man clad in plain dark garments, he features a dark pallor.” The man, John Silent, introduces himself and is met with a greeting from Solomon Kane. He tells Silent, “I am a wanderer on the face of the Earth and have no destination.” Silent is shocked to find a Puritan in this savage desolate countryside. He invites Kane to travel with him to Genoa to board a ship for sea. Kane explains he has sailed and found little to his liking on the ocean. 

As the two travel together Silent learns that Kane recently saved a young man from hanging. The man was sentenced to the gallows by Baron Von Staler, who lives in a castle that both Silent and Kane can see through the trees. Upon insistence from Kane, the two travel to the “Castle of the Devil” to learn more about the Baron's presence in this vast forested region.

At the castle, Silent and Kane are introduced to the Baron and his one servant, a hardheaded man named Kurt. In conversation, Kane learns that a Baroness lives in the castle, but keeps to her room and never leaves. Later that night, Kane goes exploring to learn of the Baroness and if she is being kept imprisoned in the castle against her will. What he finds is a shock that involves a fight with Von Staler and the return of the man that Kane saved. 

“The Castle of the Devil” was a unique Solomon Kane story and one that still, after Campbell's contribution, still seems open-ended and incomplete. I was anticipating a larger payoff to the story's finale but was met with a bit of a disappointing end. However, I did enjoy this lackadaisical aura from Kane that I haven't experienced in Howard's presentation of the swashbuckler. Like the Biblical King Solomon, evident in Ecclesiastes, Kane comes across as despondent, lofty-minded, and often perplexed at the meaning of life. When asked about his mission, Kane responds, “I have but one mission, wherever Providence may choose to take me.” The character has always been motivated by purity and an unmatched stamina to defeat evil. But, in this story he seems more intimate and self-reflective, visually as the “thinker upon the rock” as he's seen in the opening page. It reminded me of King Solomon's wisdom literature of “Fear God and keep his commandments, for that is the duty of all of mankind.” 

“The Castle of the Devil” was adapted into comic form in the 19th issue of The Savage Sword of Conan (1977 Marvel), and Solomon Kane Vol. 1: The Castle of the Devil (2009 Dark Horse). 

The Colour Out of Space

The September 1927 edition of Amazing Stories (illustrations by J.M. De Aragon) featured H.P. Lovecraft's short story “The Colour Out of Space”. The author had finished writing his short novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward earlier that year and immediately began this cosmic horror tale which would become one of his most popular works. The story has been adapted to film in 1965's Die, Monster, Die!, 1987's The Curse, and the 2019 film Color Out of Space.  

Like many stories of this era, particularly Lovecraft, the narrator is unnamed. He's a curious surveyor from Boston assigned to the frightful area of Arkham, the fictional Massachusetts city that appears in numerous Lovecraft works. It is in this rural stretch of American countryside that the narrator becomes obsessed with bizarre events that plagued the region over 50 years ago. 

According to a local named Ammi Pierce, a shunned resident deemed crazy by the townspeople, a meteorite crashed onto a farming tract owned by Nahum Gardner. This meteorite possessed strange property values – weird color (or colorless), substance, texture, and the perplexing ability to simply vanish into nothingness. Awestruck scientists can't derive any type of theory on the structural makeup 

Over the following months the Gardners themselves experience a dark metamorphosis. Ammi describes these events in horrifying detail. Beginning with the crops themselves, this isolated farming family experiences a type of blight that affects their supply and animals. The well water becomes contaminated, which seems to affect Nahum's son Zenas, a youngster that seemingly disappears into the well. Nahum's wife transforms into a monstrosity and is kept locked in the family attic. The same thing happens with Nahum's son Thaddeus. After Ammi meets with the family (and presumably mercy-kills Nahum's wife) he is met with a stark warning from Nahum describing the affects of the meteorite and the color being responsible for draining the life of the farm and surrounding community. The story concludes with Ammi and other men returning to the farm to learn of the Gardners' fate.  

No one can tell a more vividly haunting story than Lovecraft. His ability to inject so much sorrow and dismal illustration into his prose is simply remarkable. The attic scenes in particular, culminating in Nahum's broken and fragmented cadence, are permeated with a unique atmosphere that's equally chilling and delightful. It is this final evidence that showcases the ultimate fate for this unfortunate farming family. Without warning, unfairly, their little rural retreat is shattered by an alien invasion that defies explanation or description. It is the lack of color, the colorless attribute, that I feel is the most chilling element to the story. 

The concept of innocence corrupted by an unknown invasion is elementary, yet speaks volumes on the American spirit. Whether it is rain, fire, tornado, hurricane, economic weakness, or in this case a space invader, the vulnerability of the working class farmer is clearly evident. I think Lovecraft, in his own way, speaks to the heart and soul of the farmer and how the balance beam between profit and utter failure is a difficult act. 

The critical praise of this story, “The Colour Out of Space”, isn't just simple hyperbole - Lovecraft was on top of his game and this darkly delicious tale is a testament to his writing prowess. Highly recommended reading. 

The Stranger from Kurdistan

E. Hoffman Price (1898-1988) was a fictioneer of the pulps, a staple of the Weird Tales pioneers alongside Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. He contributed to genres like science-fiction, horror, crime-fiction, and fantasy. His story “The Stranger from Kurdistan” was an early Weird Tales entry that found publication in the magazine's July 1925 issue.

Deep in Europe sits the Tower of Semaxii, a structure that is described as having a height that could caress the very stars. Yet, as towering as the monolith is, there's an equally robust underground chamber that hosts a devilishly routine ceremony. It is here that the narrator watches from afar, advising readers that within this tower of darkness is a gathering of 77 fools that are paying tribute to their lord and master. 

Within a few paragraphs, this shadowy narrator, cloaked in a cape, approaches the base of the tower and quickly passes through the gatekeeper using a blunt command. Inside, the narrator descends seemingly thousands of steps to arrive at his destination, a black mass celebration complete with blasphemous rites. It is here that the narrator asks about the ceremony and shockingly learns that a priest is leading the proceedings. Equally stunning is the display of Jesus Christ and a cross with the assumption that a type of communion will take place.

Shortly, as the communion takes place, 77 men begin to squirm on the ground while howling and moaning with a demonic frenzy. This is when the narrator steps forth and is quickly interrogated by the Devil worshipers. He declares he is equally Ahriman, Melek Taus, Lucifer, and Satan. He then points to the cross and the caricature of Christ and declares him a worthy adversary. Yet, the men deny Satan's claims. He then creates elemental fire, a red blinding flame that enshrouds his appearance. He cries out that he disowns and denies all of them.

Later, Satan is alone at the ruins of the Tower of Semaxii, a monolith he has destroyed off page. Here he says:

“Nazarene, on that day wherein I challenged you to meet me with weapons and on ground of your own choosing to do battle for the empery of the world, I was foolish and knew not whereof I spoke. You they crucified; me they would have torn in pieces, their lord and master; both of us they have denied. I wonder whose  folly is the greater, yours in seeking to redeem mankind or mine in striving to make it my own.”

Price's story is rather basic – the Devil himself meeting his admirers and failing to achieve their trust. As a short story, it maintains a plot-centric flow that doesn't require any character development. In fact, there are  really no characters other than the narrator who proves to be the Prince of Hell. However, it offers a unique dialogue and perspective from the Devil. 

He admits that Jesus is a challenge with his underhanded eulogy. But the most surprising is the Devil's acceptance that humanity would have him torn asunder. He admits that both the son of God and one as free falling as himself have both been denied. The story has the Devil humbled and emotionally subdued. He's less of the mythological two-horned pitch-fork variety and more of a philosopher pondering acceptance and value. 

Price's story preaches a type of sentiment that even Lovecraft  himself was moved by. He was quoted as describing Price's story as “powerful”. As one can imagine, many readers found the work to be blasphemous. With this type of commentary on religion and its worshipers...the audience take will vary. 

You can read this story outside of Weird Tales in the DAW anthology Devil Worshipers (1990), 100 Wild Little Weird Tales (1994), The Devils & Demons Megapack (2015), and E. Hoffman Price's Fables of Ismeddin Megapack (2016).

Holy Judd

A one time editor of Collier's magazine, Henry La Cossitt (1899-1962) also served as a deck hand on a ship and worked as a radio commentator and newspaper correspondent. As a magazine writer, his first published story was “Silent Eyes” in the September 1927 issue of Everybody's. He became a staple in The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and Adventure. My first experience with the writer is his prison-break story “Holy Judd”, which was published in the May 1st issue of Adventure in 1933.

La Cossitt's story's features a protagonist named Jim Judd. He is a former District Attorney that is now serving a five year stint in prison. As the story begins, Judd is now in his third year of the sentence and is considered a model prisoner. His record shows he is a trusted inmate that has a bit more freedom than others. He can leave the prison on short errands for the warden and the people in town know him well. When columnists and prison crusaders stop by the facility for inspection and interviews, the prison board typically places Judd front and center as the proverbial model citizen of the clank. 

A special place in the prison is reserved for bad behavior. It's a little knoll in the middle of the prison grounds that is connected by a twenty-five foot tunnel leading to a small concrete box with eight heavy iron doors. This type of penalty box hosts prisoners that have journeyed off the rails and need a break from the population. It consists of insufferable heat, a claustrophobic atmosphere, and one meal a day served with a small cup of water. It's the last place any prisoner wants to remain confined. Yet one day, Judd punches a gardener for no reason. It was as if he wanted to be sent to the box that day. 

As I alluded to earlier, La Cossitt's story is of the prison-break variety. But, what's remarkable about the plot is that Judd is nearing prison release with a clean record and the aptitude to continue on in some variety as a “reformed” man. Why would he purposely risk all of that to condemn himself to such Hellish conditions complete with an attempted escape blemish on his record? 

Thankfully, La Cossitt's story contains an interesting backstory on how Judd found himself in prison - a bogus bribery charge and set-up from his former law partner. Now, his former partner is close to becoming elected Governor and Judd wants to stop it. There's an elaborate set-up to free himself from the prison, capture a fellow inmate, and a quick home invasion angle. 

La Cossitt has a fantastic knack of building character backstories while still maintaining a brisk pace to keep it purposely plot-driven. “Holy Judd” is an enjoyable read. To my knowledge the story has never been reprinted, but you can read it below courtesy of Archive.org.

Paperback Warrior Primer - Norman Daniels

Norman Daniels (Norman Arthur Danberg, 1905-1995) was a prolific author that experienced tremendous success in the pulp market before creating a second career writing numerous paperback originals, novelizations, and television tie-ins in a variety of genres. He used a multitude of pseudonyms and even collaborated with his wife Dorothy, a sensational paperback writer that specialized in gothic-romance titles. I presented the author's life and literary work on a podcast episode HERE, but wanted to provide a text on this workaholic writer that has seemingly vanished from the reader radar.

Here's a Paperback Warrior Primer on Norman Daniels. 

Norman Arthur Danberg was born in 1905 in Connecticut. He attended both Columbia and Northwestern University. Daniels' first published story was "The Death House Murder", which appeared in Detective-Dragnet magazine in 1932. That same year he saw his stories in magazines like The Shadow Detective Monthly, All-Detective Magazine and Gangster Stories. The December 1933 issue of Thrilling Detective featured a story called “Cold Steel”. This was an important moment for Daniels because it secured a relationship with the pulp powerhouse Standard, which was owned by Ned Pines. They produced a ton of titles in the 30s and 40s and competed with the equally productive publisher Street & Smith. 

Daniels was asked by Standard to pen stories starring their pulp hero The Phantom Detective. From my research it shows that he wrote over 30 installments of the series. After a little bit of a downward curve in pulp sales, the publisher began to think of new ways to gain readers. The idea was to create new heroes. Norman Daniels came up with the idea of The Black Bat character and placed him in Black Book Detective magazine in July 1939. I have a review for the first Black Bat story HERE.

Daniels not only created The Black Bat, he also had a hand in writing, and if not outright creating, a slew of other titles like Dan Fowler G-Man, The Crimson Mask, The Eagle, The Candid Camera Kid, Captain Danger, The Masked Rider, Range Riders as well as also writing for the rival Street and Smith publisher with their pulps like The Avenger, Crime Busters, Doc Savage, The Feds and the popular The Shadow Magazine. 

The author's Masked Detective character debuted in Masked Detective in 1940. It ran for 12 total issues with a 13th story appearing in Thrilling Mystery. Daniels wrote the first few issues of the series before handing the project off to the other work-horse authors of that era like Sam Merwin Jr. and W.T. Ballard. I reviewed the first appearance of the character HERE.

The author proved to be extremely busy in the 1940s writing shorts for the likes of Romantic Range, Army-Navy Flying Stories, Popular Detective, G-Men Detective, Sky Fighters, Clues Detective Stories, Crack Detective Stories, Thrilling Detective, and Exciting Navy Stories.

The birth of the paperback in the 1950s would be a welcome mat for Daniels to increase his productivity. Using a variety of pseudonyms, Daniels went to work on creating a number of full-length novels that appeared in paperback format. While he was writing for this new format, he continued to write shorts for the magazines and pulps like Western Romance and Mystery Detective. But his paperback output really flourished at this time.

Under the pseudonym of Mark Reed he wrote sleazy books for publishers like Falcon and Rainbow. Books like Street of Dark Desires, The Nude Stranger, Sins of the Flesh, House of 1000 Desires. As David Wade, Daniels wrote at least six books - Come Night, Come Desire, Raise the Devil, She Walks by Night, Bedroom with a View, Only Human and Walk the Evil Street (review HERE). Under the name Norma Dunn he wrote Lida Lynn, Shack Girl, The Twist and Another Man in your Life. Under his real name of Norman Daniels, he produced novels like Mistress on a Deathbed, Sweet Savage and Bedroom in Hell.

While writing a lot of 1950s paperbacks, Daniels also wrote television scripts. According to IMDB, Daniels penned scripts for shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Sugarfoot, Colt. 45, Zane Grey Theater, Ford Theater and General Electric Theater among others. In the 1960s, Daniels incorporated television novelizations and tie-ins into his repertoire with books based on shows like Arrest and Trial, Sam Benedict, The Smith Family, Chase, The Detectives, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Avengers, etc.

Also in the 1960s, Daniels created an eight-book spy series called The Man from A.P.E. starring a secret agent named John Keith. That series ran from 1964-1971. I read and reviewed the debut HERE. Daniels also wrote a two book series of spy novels starring a CIA agent named Bruce Baron. These were The Baron of Hong Kong from 1967 and Baron's Mission to Peking from 1968. He also wrote a stand-alone spy novel called Spy Hunt in 1960 (reviewed HERE). 

He wrote for a number of other publishers in the 1960s including several WW2 novels like Moments of Glory, Battalion, and Strike Force (aka Killer Tank, reviewed HERE). 

Daniels also wrote another short series starring a California police chief named Kelly Carvel. These books were The Rape of a Town in 1970 followed by One Angry Man in 1971 and concluding with License to Kill in 1972. I reviewed the series debut HERE.

Daniels also submerged himself into the marketable medical thriller and hospital trend. He authored titles like The Surgeon, Savage Heart, Jennifer James RN, Stanton Bishop MD and The Tarnished Scalpel.

In the 1970s, Norman Daniels began delving into the gothics genre. Daniels wrote many of them under the name Angela Gray. Some title names were The Ashes of Falconwyk, Ravenswood Hall, Watcher in the Dark and The Warlock's Daughter. He also wrote them under the name Suzanne Somers. These had titles like Mists of Mourning, Until Death, The House on Thunder Hill and House of Eve. He also used the name Cynthia Kavanaugh to pen gothic romances like The Deception and Bride of Lenore. He also wrote at least one under the name Geraldine Thayer, a novel titled The Dark Rider.  Daniels even wrote some gothic-romance novels under his wife's name to leverage her market value and name.

Norman Daniels was very prolific because he knew the paperback trends and pop-culture. He wrote what was popular at the time and hinged much of his success on what was selling at the cinema. If spy films were popular then he wrote espionage thrillers. Once the gothic market took off he was quick to jump into that concept. When WW2 and high-adventure became a trend, Daniels was quick to place his efforts in that niche. 

Norman Daniels died in Camarillo California in 1995. Much of his literary work, journals, notes and manuscripts were donated to Bowling Green University where they remain available for anyone wishing to browse the author's work. His wife Dorothy, who sold over 10 million copies and wrote over 150 novels, passed away in 2001.

Bulldog #01 - Ten Fathoms Deep

I've recently re-discovered the literary work of Arthur Catherall. He's quickly becoming my destination for instant gratification. His books, marketed for young adults, have adventure ingredients that aren't a far cry from a Fawcett Gold Medal or Ace paperback from the mid 20th century. Catherall authored a number of stand-alone adventures and mysteries, but he created a number of successful series titles as well. I covered one of these titles, the Fighting Four, and enjoyed the tense atmosphere and brisk pace of the WW2 high-adventures. Looking to repeat my enjoyable reading experience I opened up the series debut of Catherall's Bulldog series. 

In Ten Fathoms Deep, readers are introduced to 17-year old Jack Frodsham. After finishing school, Jack arrives in Singapore to meet with his father, Captain Frodsham. The Captain has enjoyed a successful salvaging and freighting career with his tugboat, Bulldog. Based out of the Lion City of Singapore, Frodsham has made his living in the warm rolling waters of the South China Seas. Now, his dreams of Jack joining the family business have become a reality. 

In the first chapter, Jack's father meets with a man who was purportedly dead. The man, “Husky” Hudson, explains to the Frodshams that he was a mate on the freight ship Tenasserim under the command of Captain Miller. However, the ship was mysteriously attacked and sunk. Hudson was ruled dead by drowning, but he managed to escape the attack. He advises the Frodshams that a criminal enterprise that owned the ship sunk it for insurance money. Captain Miller, who died in the attack, was left posthumously scrutinized under a false public statement that the Tenasserium perished due to the Captain's poor navigation of the the reef. Hudson wants to bring honor to Captain Miller's widow and has a plan in place.

Shortly after meeting with Hudson, Jack's father is nearly killed in a stabbing. Now hospitalized, he asks that Jack meet with Hudson to go over the plan and to take control of the Tugboat for all future jobs. His mate will be Hudson and they are joined with a small group of Malays led by Ahmat. Together, the crew will man the Tugboat to a secret place where Hudson knows that the Tenasserium is lying intact in just ten fathoms of water. If they can successfully retrieve the vessel they can prove that it wasn't the Captain's negligence or a reef miscalculation that led to the sinking. But, as the salvage operation commences, the crew are plagued by two rival tugboats and a crew of cutthroat criminals doing the bidding of a mysterious mastermind. 

Ten Fathoms Deep is an amazing book. First, forget the young-adult stigma that may be associated with Catherall and this series. The book reads like a nautical adventure penned by someone like A.S. Fleischman. In fact, the nautical fiction written by the likes of John Blackburn, Conrad Dawn, Arthur D. Howden Smith, and James Gribben certainly would welcome the Tugboat crew. While there isn't any romance, which is par for the course for a good nautical romp, there's plenty of tense adventure and intrigue that saturate the book under Catherall's excellent prose. 

The book, right at 200 pages, is brimming over with a frantic pace as the Tugboat races against the clock to salvage their target before they are obliterated by rival ships. There's a panic-stricken moment of horror when the Tugboat is nearly bombed and Jack must penetrate a pitch black ocean bottom without a guide. There's shipwrecks, island adventure, sunken treasure, some shady characters, fisticuffs, an aerial romp, and some gun-play. But what really sets this book apart is the amount of contractual intrigue. What I mean by that is that Jack and Hudson must navigate some of the details of the Tenasserium's original logs, their competition with a rival salvage gang, and the swerve of an existing job to take on the Tenasserium retrieval. There's also numerous hotheaded propositions made that force Jack into some really tight spots.

With the level of adventure and exciting locale, Ten Fathoms Deep gets my highest recommendation. This is a must-read and you can get your copy HERE.

Additionally, there were at least eleven of the series installments published between 1954 through 1968. The books were published by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. in England and Criterion Books in the U.S.

The Day the Machines Stopped

Christopher Anvil was the pen name of Harry Christopher Crosby, Jr. (1925 – 2009). Born in Norwich, Connecticut, he served as a U.S. military pilot before launching a career as a prolific science-fiction writer under the Anvil pseudonym. The Day the Machines Stopped from 1964 was his first novel.

The novel begins with two laboratory workers, Brian and Carl, fighting over the same girl in an office love triangle. A newscast on the radio in the background is discussing an ambitious cryogenics project happening in Afghanistan conducted by Soviet scientists. A defector among the scientists is warning the media that these experiments could cause a worldwide failure of all electrical products.

And then poof! The lights go out at the lab. Brian and Carl are dispatched by their boss to see how far the outage stretches and return with a full report of that the men find. In 1964, losing access to your transistor radio was like an internet outage today.

Once outside, Brian and Carl see the extent of the outage. As the book’s cover betrays, everything is out of order — cars, clocks, flashlights, phones — all dead. The laws of nature surely have changed. Human hysteria and lawlessness follow.

The author spends a lot of time (too much, in fact) rationalizing the science behind this science fiction. There are explanations of electron gas that carries a current and hydrometer testing. Most of this can be easily glazed over, so the reader can get to the evolving anarchy.

The journey through a post-apocalyptic wasteland has been done a million times in survivalist literature - although this is a fairly early entry in the genre. You have your wandering nomads and warlords turning to analog weapons to gather power. Pretty standard stuff - all very readable.

The Day the Machines Stopped is a decent entry in the post-apocalyptic genre. It’s been done better elsewhere but this short and entertaining paperback is probably worth your time if you have it in your library. Just don’t spend a fortune chasing it down. Get it affordable HERE. 

Conversations - The Book Graveyard

Eric collaborates with Nick from The Book Graveyard channel to review the 1971 gothic paperback The Shadow Guest. They also explore the gothic paperback scene of the 1960s–80s, focusing on its mix of supernatural and mystery elements. The discussion is available as a podcast you can stream below and as a video on The Book Graveyard channel HERE. I encourage you to watch the video version to see book covers and our physical interaction discussing this great novel. 

Listen to "Conversations - The Book Graveyard" on Spreaker.

Paperback Warrior Primer - George Harmon Coxe

New York native George Harmon Coxe (1901-1984) was a journalist, prolific pulp writer, and novelist. He served as the president of the Mystery Writers of America and he won the Grand Master Award. Unfortunately, his name and literary work have drifted into the passages of time and remains largely forgotten. I chronicled his life on a podcast feature HERE. But, I wanted to provide a Paperback Warrior Primer for those of you wanting a text profile. So, let's take a look at George Harmon Coxe.

Coxe (pronounced like “cokes”) was born in New York in 1901. He graduated high school at Elmire Free Academy. He attended Purdue for one year following his graduation and shifted his curriculum from engineering to literature. He also changed schools to Cornell University. For five years, beginning in 1922, he was a journalist for the Los Angeles Express, the Utica Observer Dispatch, and Santa Monica Outlook among others. 

Coxe was an admirer of pulp fiction. While performing his day job in 1922 - at the age of 21 - Coxe authored two stories for Detective Story Magazine. In the 1930s, Coxe began writing for Street & Smith's Top-Notch before contributing to even more pulps like Clues All Star Detective Stories, Dime Mystery Book Magazine, Detective Fiction Weekly, Street & Smith's Complete Stories, Thrilling Detective, and Argosy. He wrote hundreds of stories from 1922 through 1972. 

In 1934, Coxe creates a newspaper photographer named Jack Flashgun Casey. There had been previous pulp appearances of newspaper reporters that worked as amateur detectives to solve crimes. But not a photographer in the role as an amateur detective. The March 1934 issue of Black Mask featured the first Jack Flashgun Casey story, "Return Engagement". Initially, Black Mask editor Joe Shaw had discouraged Coxe from creating a recurring character, but he later admitted that the character was so well constructed that the series soon became a reader favorite. 

There were 24 Flashgun Casey stories that appeared in Black Mask from 1934-1943. The only exception was a story in Star Weekly in 1962. The Black Mask stories were all collected in Flash Casey, Detective published in 1946 as an Avon paperback. In addition to the short stories, there were five novels starring Flashgun Casey between 1942 through 1964. Those were Silent for the Dead, Murder for Two, Error of Judgment, The Man Who Died Too Soon, and Deadly Image. Three of the Casey novels are available as reprints through Mysterious Press in both digital and physical copies HERE.

Additionally, a Here's Flash Casey film was released in 1938 and was adapted from the series of short stories. A well-respected, much-loved radio show was broadcast for years starring the character. Also, between 1951 through 1952 the series was adapted to a TV show titled Crime Photographer and starred Darren McGavin. 

Another pulp character that Coxe created is Paul Baron, a hard-boiled private detective that was assisted by a scrappy side kick named Buck O' Shea. Baron appeared in four stories in Black Mask in 1936. 

The next pulp character that Coxe created was Dr. Paul Standish. This character appeared in ten stories and one novel from 1942 to 1966. The stories appeared in glossy magazines like Cosmopolitan, Liberty, and the American Book Magazine. Standish is described as a medical examiner that delves into mysterious deaths. He is aided by a police lieutenant and a nurse secretary. In July, 1948, CBS ran a short-lived radio broadcast starring the character.  

The Kent Murdoch series is Coxe's most well-known title. Murdoch appeared in two stories in The American Magazine, but flourished in the full-length novels - both hardcover and paperback. The first Murdoch novel was Murder with Pictures, appearing in 1935. 22 more installments of the series followed through 1965. You can get most of these books, if not all, through Mysterious Press as reprints HERE.

In Paperback Confidential, Brian Ritt describes Kent Murdoch as being a smarter version of the Flashgun Casey series. Murdoch has a formal education, he's sophisticated and well-mannered. He's married to a woman named Joyce and they work as a team solving crimes in Boston's upper crust. In the Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes, Jess Nevins summarizes the character as a photographer for the Boston Courier-Herald. Because he is more intelligent than the police he can solve the crimes. However, many times he has to clear his own name after being accused of being a participant in the crime. Murdoch's wife Joyce plays a prominent role in the first six books and then disappears for the rest of the series. Murdoch also teams up with a hardboiled private-eye in this series named Jack Fenner. This Fenner sidekick would star in his own novels as well. 

Coxe, while succeeding with amateur detective characters, also had an official detective in Sam Crombie. Crombie appeared in two novels, The Frightened Fiancé and The Impetuous Mistress. Coxe's other official detective was Max Hale. He appeared in Murder for the Asking and The Lady is Afraid. Hale is a wealthy New Yorker who attended the State Police Academy and then just doesn't have any motivation to solve crimes. He is sort of roped into crime-solving by his secretary Sue Marshall. 

Coxe also wrote a number of stand-alone crime-fiction novels that were published by a variety of publishers in both hardcover and paperback. In the 1930s, Cox's writing had become so popular that MGM took notice. They employed Coxe between 1936 until 1938 to write screenplays. However, Coxe preferred writing books and stories. Three of Coxe's stories were adapted into films - Women are Trouble, Murder with Pictures, and Here's Flash Casey.

Coxe was elected to the President of the Mystery Writers of America in 1952 and won the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1964. 

In the March 11, 1971 issue of The Island Packet, Eugene Able interviewed Coxe and he had this to say about his literary work and career:

“When you get my age and have written as many book and stories as I have, you have to be careful not to be repetitive. I like to write a book that has a good story with believable characters. If a reader figures out the mystery halfway through the book, I want the story to be good enough and the characters real enough to make them want to finish it. The trickier you get with your ending, the more you sacrifice the story.”

Coxe married Elizabeth Fowler in 1929 and was married to her until his death on January 31, 1984 in Old Lyme, Connecticut. They had two children. 

You can obtain vintage copies of his books HERE.

Fighting Four #02 - The Tunnel Busters

Way back in 2019 I read a novel by British writer Arthur Catherall titled The Strange Intruder. I enjoyed the book immensely and have kept a watchful eye out for the author's work ever since. Unfortunately, despite his accomplishments as a successful young-adult writer, he has gone out of print and out of the public's eye. Thankfully, the power of the internet has produced some scans of a few of his out-of-print books including three of his exciting Fighting Four novels.

Based on the success of W.E. Johns young-adult military heroes, the Biggles, and his subsequent series Gimlet, many authors were hopeful to attract the same consumer base. Like Johns' mid-20th century novels, Catherall established his own team of military heroes, what I refer to as “Team-Commando”, in 1959 titled The Fighting Four. There were five books published between 1959 through 1964 beginning with the series eponymous debut, The Fighting Four. These WW2-fiction novels were published by Children's Press in England using Catherall's pseudonym of A.R. Channel. 

Typically I like to start any series with the debut. Unfortunately, the series starter isn't available to me so I settled for an introduction to the Fighting Four by way of the second installment, The Tunnel Busters, originally published in 1960. 

This 188-page book begins with a fitting introduction to the team members. Sam Foster is the radio communications specialist. China Brown (questionable name) manages the teams firearms and logistics. Curly Bates is the explosives expert. The group is led by all-around fighting man Sergeant Ted Harris. Based on their success in the first book's adventure, which featured a Norwegian locale, the four have been assigned an explosive new mission. 

Hitler has routed supplies for his troops by way of railroad through an underground tunnel from rural France into Italy. Due to the rugged mountaintops, the interior design of the tunnel, and the anti-aircraft defense, British intelligence wants the team to parachute in and detonate explosives within the tunnel. Paramount to the mission's success is working with the rebel French in an isolated village controlled by the Germans.

The Tunnel Busters was a nonstop action sequence permeating with tension. The book's pace kicks off with Sam's spiraling descent away from the team due to a barrage of German gunfire. Miles away, Sam befriends a young shepherd boy and his dog that prove crucial to the mission. From the onset there's a gunfight with Germans, a tense standoff in a nearby village, a rescue attempt, the aforementioned tunnel busting business, and a wild hostage situation that elevated the book's finale into an emotional roller coaster as German leaders are set to execute members of the team. 

Don't be afraid of the “young-adult” aura of this series and its reputation. Despite violent details from the author, it is clear that enemy forces are dying. Granted the team will typically just knock out their opponents or “riddle them with gunfire”, but Catherall's storytelling has a darker overtone at times with talk of torture, firing squads, and threats of mass slaughter. Comparisons are often made to Johns' Gimlet series, which is expected. However, from research online, it suggests that The Fighting Four are more “adult” in nature compared to the Gimlet or Biggles series. 

Despite lukewarm reviews, my sample-size experience with The Fighting Four was exceptional. I thoroughly enjoyed this high-adventure military yarn and would definitely recommend it to men's action-adventure fans of any age. I'll be reading more of these books. You can get them HERE.

Ralph Lindsey #01 - The Venus Death

According to Allan Hubin's 20th Century Crime & Mystery Writers, Benjamin Benson (1915-1959) was born in Boston, educated at Suffolk University Law School, and served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1945. He earned a Purple Heart, two battle stars, and was seriously wounded and confined to a hospital for three years. While hospitalized, Benson received numerous detective stories to read, which encouraged him to write as a form of therapy. 

Benson's first series character was Inspector Wade Paris, a fictional Detective serving the Massachusetts State Police. The character appeared in Benson's first three novels, Alibi at Dusk (1952), Beware the Pale Horse (1952) and Lily in Her Coffin (1954). But, my first experience with this author is his second character, Trooper Ralph Lindsey. The character debuted  in 1953's The Venus Death, and appeared in at least six further installments. 

Perhaps Benson's therapeutic writing or experience in country living influenced his use of characters in unique settings. Instead of placing his creations in familiar big city locales, Benson chooses the rural small-towns and byways of the rural American Northeast. Like Paris, Lindsey is also employed by the State of Massachusetts as a law enforcer, in this case he's a 23-year old “boot”, meaning a rookie in the State Police.

In the opening pages, Benson introduces Lindsey's brief history in quick one or two-page histories. He is a Korean War veteran, the son of a former State Police Trooper, and he has a routine girl named Ellen. The author invests in Lindsey's father, providing a little backstory on how the man was shot in the back on patrol and now remains paralyzed from the waist down. Because of his career being cut short, Lindsey's father is heavily involved in his son's career. He consistently asks Lindsey about firearms, current cases, his patrol, and is there to prod and poke his son for wearing scuffed shoes or having a shirt unpressed. The old man is a wonderful addition to the story.

While off duty at a bar Lindsey meets a young mysterious girl named Manette. She's new in town, works at the local mill, and desperately wants a man in her life. Lindsey takes her out a couple of times and is surprised one evening when he's called to his superior's office. Manette has been found murdered with a bullet in the brain. The murderer? Lindsey's girlfriend Ellen. Could this be a case of jealous rage?

The Venus Death hooked me from the beginning and really never let up. What's interesting about the setup is that Lindsey is mostly restrained from the murder investigation business. Remember, he's a State Trooper involved in highway crime, stolen cars, that sort of thing. But, his connectivity to both women allows him to team up as an apprentice with the  local detectives, a couple of hard-nosed sleuths named Newpole and Angsman, as well as a State Police Detective-Lieutenant named Granger. There's a lot of pressure placed on Lindsey not only because of the crime but due to his father's legacy – tough shoes to fill. 

Through 211 pages, the investigation digs into Manette's past in Chicago, her former husband, and a couple of seedy gentleman that are in town for what appears to be a big heist. How the police handle the preparation for the bust and work through procedural interviews and evidence examinations was really enjoyable. Comparisons can be made to Hillary Waugh's excellent police procedural series Fred Fellows, complete with the tight-knit mystery aspect and the Northeastern locale of Connecticut, a state where portions of The Venus Death takes place. 

Based on small sample size, this Ralph Lindsey series seems like a winner. Recommended! Get the physical book HERE and the digital ebook HERE.