The Other Woman

The Other Woman by Charles Burgess was a Beacon Books title from 1960 that has found new life as a reprint from Black Gat Books. It’s a femme fatale crime novel masquerading as a sleazy sex book. The identity and bio of the author remains a vexing mystery with no help from the internet.

The novel itself is pretty solid. Our narrator is Florida real estate agent Neil Cowan who has a buyer for 40 acres on the lake that would be perfect for a new housing development. The buyer is John Royal, a wealthy town patriarch married to Emmaline, his voluptuous and much-younger bride.

Of course, Neil is completely taken by Emmaline. Who wouldn’t be? She’s elegant, smart and sexy. She’s also got the vibe of a woman looking for trouble. Neil is happily married himself, but this is a 1960 sleaze-crime novel, so the rules are different.

It takes no time at all before Neil and Emmaline commence a hot and heavy affair and even less time before she’s suggesting to Neil that murdering her husband will allow them to be together with all his money.

A sizable percentage of books from this era all have the same setup, but The Other Woman takes an abrupt left turn and becomes an honest-to-goodness murder mystery with Neil at the helm of the whodunnit. There are twists and turns and frame-ups and red-herrings and everything you like from a vintage crime thriller.

Burgess was a solid writer and he ties up the plot with a logical and compelling solution. There are hundreds of books from this era about a wrongfully-accused man solving a crime to clear his own name, yet The Other Woman is as good as they come. It’s literary comfort food and an easy recommendation.

About the Author:

The identity of the author Charles Burgess remains a mystery. Here’s what we know:

Novels:

Backfire (Australia, Phantom, 1959)

The Other Woman (Beacon, 1960)

Short Fiction:

“I’d Die for You” (Manhunt, Oct 1958) 

True Crime: as by Charles L. Burgess:

"Never Kill a Cop!" (Complete Detective Cases, Jan 1947)

"Case of the Buck-Happy Brunette" (Revealing Detective Cases, Aug 1949)

"A Killer with Women" (Underworld Detective, Dec 1951)

"Laughing Stranger from Dalton, Georgia" (Official Detective Stories, Feb 1956)

"Fat Man Blues" (True Crime, May 1956)

Paperback Warrior engaged Florida’s most prestigious private investigative firm to locate the author and his heirs. While there were many solid leads, our gumshoe was unable to definitively solve the case. More on this story as it develops. 

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Stark House Anthology Vol. 01

Stark House Press put together four fantastic anthologies of magazine stories from Manhunt, and to celebrate the publisher’s 25th Anniversary, they are releasing another short fiction anthology from a wider variety of 20th Century crime fiction sources. As such, it should come as no surprise that The Stark House Anthology is a masterpiece.

Editors Rick Ollerman and Gregory Shepard canvassed digests including Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, Manhunt and many obscure publications to curate this collection that appears to be genetically-engineered to appeal to Paperback Warrior readers.

The anthology boasts 30 stories from crime fiction royalty including Harry Whittington, Fletcher Flora, Fredric Brown, Gil Brewer, and Peter Rabe. They also included a never-published short novel called “So Curse the Day” by Jada M. Davis, author of the 1952 paperback One For Hell.

At 458 pages, you’re bound to find something to enjoy here. Reviewing a short story anthology is a fool’s errand, but here are some quick blurbs of stories I read on my first pass-through.

“The Tormented” by James McKimmey

The story originally appeared in the August 1967 issue of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine. The setup is simple. Vince Ecker is a redneck hunter. David Farrel is an over-educated clerical worker. Somehow, they go hunting together on land owned by a wealthy investment tycoon, and Ecker learns where the tycoon stashes his cash. Sounds like it’s time for a heist. As expected, this is a very well-orchestrated crime story consistent with McKimmey’s longer works.

“Nothing in My Way” by Orrie Hitt

Orrie Hitt was the best sleaze-fiction author of his era because his best works were often sexy crime novels incognito. This short story was from Smashing Detective Stories July 1955 issue. The story is about a man who fakes his death for the insurance money and then surgically changes his face so no one will recognize he’s still alive. But in order to enjoy the life insurance money, he needs to get it from his no-good, slutty widow. This is a fantastic story with a great twist ending. Make this one a priority.

“Secretaries Make Such Nice Wives” by A.S. Fleischman

This is probably the shortest story in the book. Taken from the Toronto Star Weekly in 1946, it’s a fun little tale about a man and his wife who are taken hostage and forced to drive the bad guy across the border from Tijuana to San Diego. The driver needs to alert the border police without tipping off the carjacker. The story is just setting up a decent punchline at the end. It’s definitely worth the five minutes of your time it will take you to read it.

“The Geek Girl” by Day Keene

This delightful tale of carny-noir by Day Keene was originally published in Australia’s ADAM magazine in 1953, so we are lucky to find it resurrected here. Opening day of the Carnival passing through Langley is here, and our narrator Morgan (“the talker”) walks the reader through the advance work that makes the road show possible. In town, he meets a beautiful mute girl in trouble with the law and hires her to be a trumped-up geek exhibit on the midway. The story of the geek girl is not a crime story as much as it’s a dramatic and compelling carnival vs. corrupt townie story. But don’t skip this one. It’s a lost classic.

Final Assessment

The editors clearly put a ton of work into The Stark House Anthology and it shows. For 25 years, the publisher has been unearthing and reprinting the finest paperback novels of the 20th century. I hope they continue to compile short fiction from the era because this collection is a total gem. Highest recommendation. 

Buy a copy of the book HERE

87th Precinct #07 - Killer's Wedge

Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels are the perfect remedy for a summer reading slump. The earlier installments of the series stand alone quite nicely, and these urban police procedurals are always short and exciting. I randomly chose 1959’s Killer’s Wedge, the seventh installment, for this excursion.

A crazy bitch walks into the 87th Precinct looking for Detective Steve Carrella. The fellows tell her that Carrella is away, but she can wait on the bench in the hall for him. The lady wants to wait in the detective bullpen, which is a no-go for the guys. When they ask her to leave, she pulls a gun on them, and we have a hostage situation. Man, this is an awesome opening scene.

We quickly learn that the lady wants to kill Carrella. She can explain her reasons when you read the book. She has a container of liquid that may or may not be nitroglycerin, so disarming her is not as easy as it seems. McBain’s takes a different tactic with this aspect of his story, which otherwise would have been filled with nervous tension. Instead, the detectives are mostly annoyed and worried that this nutty chick is going to accidentally kill them all.

There is also a decent B-Story involving a locked room mystery that may or may not have been a suicide. Carrella is investigating this on the streets while his squad mates are being held hostage by the murderous lady awaiting Carrella‘s return to the 87th. This is another plot made entirely possible by the lack of cell phones.

The events culminate in a fantastic action sequence to end the thin paperback. This may have been the shortest of the 87th Precinct novels. A version of it appeared in February 1959’s Manhunt Magazine, and the book lives on to this day as a reprint, e-book, and audiobook. It’s probably not the best 87th Precinct series selection, but it’s not a bad place to enter if you are looking for a short taste of this wonderful McBain universe. Recommended. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Pulp Champagne - The Short Fiction of Lorenz Heller

Lorenz Heller (1910-1965) was an awesome crime-fiction author under a variety of different pseudonyms who was largely forgotten until Stark House Press began reprinting his novels under his actual name. The publisher has released a 13-story compilation of Heller’s short stories spanning from 1947 to 1955 from the pulps and digests.

The compilation has a smart introduction by pulp scholar Bill Kelly, who explains that Heller’s gimmick, if it can be called that, is deep and thorough characterizations nestled into the salacious, pulpy plots. His characters are well-drawn and three-dimensional rather than archetypes or stereotypes that exist solely to push a plot forward. I’ve made this point in my previous reviews of Heller’s novels, and I wanted to see if this literary trick could be sustained in the four stories I sampled from the collection.

“I’ll See You Dead”

This story originally appeared in Detective Tales from May 1947. The narrator is Al Crane, a newly-promoted police detective who is also a family man with a reputation for honesty. One night at a bar, Crane receives a tip that a local torch singer had recently been tossed in the river to die by goons working for a local mobster. As a cop with a sense of duty, Crane is compelled to act.

It’s a pretty good short story with a specific “solution” typical of a lot of pre-Manhunt 1940s crime stories still bound to the conventions of mystery fiction. Heller’s writing is solid as his narrator adopts the hardboiled voice we’ve seen elsewhere from Robert Leslie Bellem and Carroll John Daly.

This was a good story, but I want to see what Heller could do after 1950 when hardboiled crime-fiction got great.

“Forger’s Fate”

This one was from Dime Detective’s April 1951 issue, and it’s organized as a verbatim transcript of a statement provided to the District Attorney’s Office by a Florida man named Wesley Smith. He’s a salesman peddling a check-writing machine designed to thwart forgers. As part of his sales pitch, Smith practices a trick called “muscle forgery” to show how easy it is to copy another’s handwriting perfectly.

After showing off his talent in a bar, Smith is strong-armed into a situation where he is pressured to use his forgery skills to cover up a murder. This is a great story largely because Smith is such a foppish blowhard of a character. Don’t skip this one. It’s a really fun read and a surprisingly violent action story.

“Don’t Ever Forget!”

March 1953’s Detective Story Magazine brings us this gem. Our narrator is recently-retired Police Chief McMahon, who is grabbing a meal and some coffee with his replacement in their dumpy Florida backwater town. A reporter approaches McMahon wanting to do a story on the former chief, who declines the offer.

Later, McMahon learns that the reporter asking around about him isn’t a reporter at all. What’s his agenda? McMahon’s badge-less investigation is solid and the ending is satisfying in this neatly-packaged short story.

“Living Bait”

This one originally appeared in the May 1955 issue of Justice! (a decent Manhunt knockoff). It takes place on a Florida chartered fishing boat with a couple catching tarpons, a local fish. The guy is a wealthy blowhard and his girl is a real dish. The boat captain is telling the story, and his first mate is a colorful, lively character.

A fight erupts and one of the characters falls overboard - presumably dead in the choppy sea. Was it murder or is something else going on? This story was a complete delight and showcased Heller’s superior characterizations.

Paperback Warrior Assessment:

As expected, Pulp Champagne is a terrific collection by an author worth remembering. I will say that if you are looking for very hardboiled crime short stories, any of the Manhunt anthologies from Stark House are superior volumes. Fortunately, we live in a world where you can own them all, so you probably should. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Naked and the Deadly: Lawrence Block in Men's Adventure Magazines

The good people at The Men’s Adventure Library have compiled a collection of short stories and articles by Lawrence Block originally printed in Men’s Adventure Magazines. The collection is called The Naked and the Deadly, and it collects his magazine writings between 1958 and 1968. The mass-market paperback edition has a dozen stories, and the hardcover adds color art, explanatory materials and a bonus story from 1974. 

The introduction by Block explains how these articles and stories came to be. While working at the Scott Meredith agency, men’s publications would regularly call and say, “I need a 2,500-word article about a guy who survives a shipwreck,” and Block would make it happen. Trust me, it’s better when Block explains it. Bottom line: Don’t skip the intro.

Some of the stories included will be familiar to long-time Blockheads. “Great Istanbul Land Grab” and “Bring on the Girls” are extracts from existing Block novels starring his sleepless adventurer Evan Tanner. There are also three novellas starring his private detective Ed London previously reprinted in Block’s collection, One Night Stands and Lost Weekends. Puzzlingly, the book also includes a story attributed to Block’s pseudonym Sheldon Lord called “Queen of the Clipper Ships” that the author claims he didn’t write. Honestly, I don’t know why it was included in a Lawrence Block story collection at all.

Reviews of story compilations can be ponderous, so I sampled four selections for commentary:

“The Greatest Ship Disaster in American History” (Real Men, April 1958)

This is an article about an actual steamship called The General Slocum in 1904 that sailed from NYC on the East River with passengers destined for a church picnic downstream. Poor judgement results in an onboard fire that ended 1,000 passenger lives. It was a real disaster that Block brings alive in his pseudo-historical account

Block leans into his amplified version of events vividly underscoring descriptions of the burning flesh of the children on board. It’s a vivid nightmare of how human negligence can lead to mass casualties.

“She Doesn’t Want You” (Real Men, June 1958)

This is an allegedly non-fiction journalistic article about the inner-workings of the call-girl trade with the big revelation that a lot of these prostitutes are just doing it for the money and are secretly lesbians.

These faux investigative journalism pieces are hilarious in hindsight. Included are fake interviews with hookers who were perfectly straight before “the life” made them hate men and go lesbo. Block is a fun tour-guide for this silly expose that was probably pretty shocking at the time. Now it’s just funny.

“Killers All Around Me” (All Man, September 1961)

A staple of Men’s Adventure Magazines was the completely-fabricated first-person account of an experience that the magazine falsely claims is an authentic story. In this one, Block poses as C.C. Jones, allegedly telling the story of his job in the violent ward of an insane asylum.

He describes some of the crimes that landed the patients in the ward in graphic, grisly detail. He also describes the physical attacks he’s forced to ensure from the lunatics in the hospital. As always, it’s a well-written fake-expose from the author.

“Just Window Shopping” (Man’s Magazine, December 1962)

This is a straight-up fiction short story previously reprinted in One Night Stands and Lost Weekends about a Peeping Tom who likes to watch the ladies undress through their windows.

One night, he’s watching the hottest chick ever and she catches him. The reception he receives is quite unexpected. This is a nasty little story in line with the kind of stuff we used to see in Manhunt Magazine. Nothing fancy, but a sexy bit of noir worth reading.

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Paperback Warrior Assessment:

Hardcore fans of Lawrence Block will enjoy this collection of his obscure oddities. It’s worth the purchase for the Ed London stories alone, if you don’t have them elsewhere. The faux journalism articles written by Block are plenty entertaining, but shouldn’t be conflated with his short mystery works.

If you’re a student of Men’s Adventure Magazine history and want the visceral experience of looking at the vivid art accompanying these articles and stories, go ahead and spring for the hardcover. The art extras and magazine commentary from the editors are a fascinating look back at this niche publishing phenomenon.

Overall, this collection from a mystery grandmaster is an easy recommendation. If you’re on the fence, take the plunge. 

To get a copy of this book, click HERE.

Gutter Road

Many authors have shied away from their early work in the sleaze/soft-core paperback market, but science-fiction royalty Robert Silverberg has made peace with his checkered past allowing Stark House Press to reprint his steamy crime-fiction-adjacent works. The latest vintage reprint is a double, including his 1964 novel Gutter Road, originally released under his Don Elliott pseudonym.

The paperback begins with 38 year-old, married accountant Fred Bauman picking up a stacked female hitchhiker (Reviewer Note: Silverberg is totally a breast man). The young babe is Joanne, and she strikes Fred as a sex-positive kinda gal with an aggressively flirtatious streak. In fact, she teases Fred into such a sexual lather that he forces himself upon her in what we’d call a date-rape by today’s standards.

After their car-bang is fully consummated, Joanne shifts gears and blackmails Fred. She wants $5,000 or she’s going to the cops with a load of his DNA to report his suburban ass for sexual assault. She gives him a couple days to pull the money together before disappearing into the night.

We quickly learn that this isn’t Joanne's first rodeo. In fact, the date-rape-blackmail game is her go-to source of income. Previously, she worked as a prostitute and a dominatrix, but the fake-rape business just pays better. She also has a vibrant, consensual sex life with a hoodlum named Buddy, and Silverberg certainly knows his way around a good 1960s-style sex scene.

There are a handful of side characters and family members in the novel, and Silverberg gives us a peek into each of their secret sex lives. Some of this felt like filler, but it was always well written and compelling. The problem with Gutter Road is that there’s not much of a story arc throughout the novel other than the beginning and the resolution. Otherwise, it’s really just a cycle of sex scenes among the cast of dysfunctional characters.

I will add that the last part of the book finally becomes a crime novel once Fred decides to deal with the problem of Joanne the blackmailer head-on. The climactic sequences are pretty great and in total keeping with the dark, violent, twisty conclusions of the best Manhunt stories from the same era.

Overall, I enjoyed Gutter Road. It was an interesting glimpse into societal norms and taboos from 60 years ago. Even with his early sex books, Silverberg could deliver interesting characters and some damn fine prose with a violent conclusion. I’m glad he and Stark House are making these old novels available.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Shark-Infested Custard

A few years after crime fiction author Charles Willeford’s 1988 death, his estate released The Shark-Infested Custard, an unsold trunk novel written in the 1970s. It’s a polarizing novel of Florida male hedonism that remains available today.

The book is set in a Miami singles-only apartment complex with a pool where four dudes — each around age 30 — hang and drink vodka martinis from Dixie cups. In short, it’s a great town to pick up chicks in a target-rich environment. Each of the four main characters gets a featured section of the book, which consists of four largely stand-alone noir novellas about these swinging guys.

Our first narrator is Larry Dolman, an ex-cop working in the business office for a big PI firm. He and his horny rat pack spend a lot of time strategizing about how to get laid most efficiently. One of these excursions opens the door to a real dilemma when one of the fellows picks up an underage girl and she dies of an overdose in his car. The guys then bumble into a murder they are generally unequipped to handle. All of this is played for laughs in a dark, comedic tone - think Donald Westlake meets Weekend at Bernie’s meets Quentin Tarantino.

The second narrator is a pharmaceutical salesman named Hank, who has been seeing a married woman. When someone takes a shot at Hank, he can only assume it’s her husband. As the attempts on Hank’s life escalate, we get an interesting look at the job of a legal drug dealer and the nuances of the career. It’s another great story with a tidy ending that brings all the plot threads nicely together.

The third novella follows mostly Don, the Florida sales rep of a British silverware manufacturer, in his attempt to heist his employer’s inventory and get away scot-free. It’s a story that could have been slightly edited to fit in quite nicely with Manhunt or any other purveyor of edgy crime fiction.

Lastly, the boys are back together again reflecting on the drama of the other stories and the fallout of their decisions when a sexual encounter takes a very dark turn.

I was completely delighted by these four stories, yet the consensus among reviewers is that is a below-average effort for Willeford. Let’s be clear: I’m right and they’re wrong. These are four dark, humor-filled crime stories about guys whose inability to control their libidos get them into hot water. Willeford’s writing is predictably awesome, and he’s funny as hell. Okay, the book’s title is staggeringly stupid, but the contents inside are four aces. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Heisters

Robert Page Jones (1931-2012) authored nine stories for Manhunt Magazine during the 1960s, including one in 1961 titled “The Big Haul.” The story was expanded into Jones’ first full-length novel, a 1963 Monarch Books paperback called The Heisters. The novel was adapted into a 1967 French film called That Man George (aka L’homme de Marrakech).

Johnny Womack is a truck driver headed from a long-haul home from El Centro, California with an empty load. This is problematic because he could really use some dough. His hot, faithless wife is home with god-knows-whom and the rent is overdue.

Mechanical troubles sideline Johnny in a small California desert town where a three-man heist crew are scheming and planning an armored car knock over. The armored vehicle delivers $750,000 cash to an Army base every two weeks, and it’s just begging to be taken by the right crew. If only the crew had a reliable truck driver to join the plunder squad…

To his credit, the author does an admirable job with character development. The reader gets to spend time with Johnny and the heisters to gauge everyone’s motivations. The heist itself is exciting and well-written, and the aftermath is worthy of Lionel White or Richard Stark. He throws in a great sequence involving an armored car security guard that will knock your socks off.

The aftermath of the heist and getaway has some fantastic unexpected twists that I didn’t see coming and kept me up late turning the pages. The ending violence of this short paperback is worthy of a Quentin Tarantino movie. I can honestly say that The Heisters is one of the finest hardboiled crime caper novels I’ve ever read. It’s never been reprinted, but you should definitely seek out a copy ASAP. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Best of Manhunt #04 - The Jack Ritchie Stories

In this fourth volume of stories from Manhunt, the good folks at Stark House Press took a different approach by focusing on a single author, Jack Ritchie. If you’ve never heard of Jack Ritchie, consider it further evidence that short-story writers don’t get the respect and adoration lavished upon novelists.

Jack Ritchie was the prolific pseudonym of Wisconsin native John G. Reitci (1922-1983). During his career as an author, he sold countless stories to publications including Manhunt, Murder!, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, The Saint Mystery Magazine and on and on. To my knowledge, he never wrote a novel - short works were his specialty.

As Paperback Warrior fans are well aware, Manhunt was the premier fiction digest for hardboiled, noir crime stories in the 1950s and 1960s, and Ritchie began selling his grittiest work to Manhunt in 1954. In total, Manhunt published 23 of Ritchie’s stories through the year 1965.

Mystery fiction scholar Jeff Vorzimmer lovingly compiled this chronological collection of Ritchie’s Manhunt work — as well as five extra stores from similar publications of the era. Vorzimmer’s introduction is also an insightful look into this largely-forgotten, but insanely productive, crime fiction master.

Let’s sample some stories and see if this guy is the real deal.

“My Game, My Rules” (July 1954)

A slumlord is forced to pay protection money to a local mobster. When he refuses, his buildings start mysteriously catching fire. The crime boss has also taken over the local gambling racket as well as the politicians and police force. A coalition of displaced leaders wants the thug gone, and approach our narrator Johnny to make it happen. Johnny has his own reasons for wanting the crime boss eradicated. This was Ritchie’s first sale to Manhunt, and it’s outstanding.

“Hold Out” (May 1955)

As with most of Ritchie’s stories, this one opens in the middle of the action. Ed and his partner have kidnapped a guy named Pete with the intention of holding him for ransom. Pete’s boss is a nightclub owner and may be willing to pay fifty grand to get his right hand man back in one piece. This story has a nasty twist you won’t see coming until it hits you like a gut punch. Top-shelf stuff.

“Shatter Proof” (October 1960)

An assassin arrives at the narrator’s house. It’s abundantly clear that his much younger wife commissioned the hit. Despite the unusual circumstances, the interaction between the victim and his soon-to-be-murderer is surprisingly cordial and businesslike. The patter is so alluring that you may not even see the double-cross coming. Another solid entry.

“Going Down?” (July 1965)

Ritchie’s final appearance in Manhunt finds the narrator on a urban building ledge prepared to jump while a police sergeant tries to keep him talking. The poor copper didn’t ask for this assignment. He was just walking by the building at the wrong time. The comedic back and forth between would-be-suicider and would-be rescuer is a stitch as the men compare their problems and failures. Another winner with a fun ending.

The Paperback Warrior Verdict?

This superb collection is proof positive that Jack Ritchie was a master of the hardboiled short story game. His work exemplifies everything that made Manhunt great, and this compilation should go along way toward cementing his legacy as one of the greats. Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Pursuit of Agent M

DeWitt Samuel Copp (1919-1999) authored fiction and nonfiction books with themes relating to military history, aviation, the Cold War, and espionage. His experience in the Army Air Corps during WWII, and role as a flight instructor pilot provides a unique realism to his writing. Copp also served in the Central Intelligence Agency and taught history and civics at St. Luke's School in Connecticut. 

Copp's literary work includes Notebooks, a three-book series of action-adventure novels written under a pseudonym of Sam Picard. As Nick Carter, Copp authored two novels in the Nick Carter: Killmaster series. The talented writer penned a screenplay for an episode of One Step Beyond, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology show on ABC and scripted episodes for other television programs like Three Musketeers, Kraft Theatre, and Lux Video Theatre. 

His spy-thriller The Pursuit of Agent M has been recently released in a new edition by Cutting Edge in digital and physical formats. The book was originally published as a hardcover in 1961 by Hammond and in paperback by Popular Library a year later. It has remained out of print until now. 

Agent M is Mark Costain, an American spy working for the CIA under the name Mark Vorak. His cover is that he is an engineering director at a Czechoslovakian company that manufactures rockets and missiles. In the time-period of the book's release, Czechoslovakia was a communist country controlled entirely by the very red Soviet Union. 

When readers first meet Costain, he is desperately struggling through the cold, harsh landscape of Czechoslovakia attempting to reach the freedom of the Austrian border. In close pursuit is the Czech military, who have positioned Costain as Public Enemy #1. Considering the novel is a man-on-the-run suspense-thriller, the book's simplistic title is perfectly fitting. 

The Pursuit of Agent M is presented in four acts that feature Czech characters aiding Costain's escape. In the first act, Costain meets an old man tending to his sheep. The brief relationship examines Costain's confession that he was stealing government secrets. The wise old man, who hides Costain from the military, doesn't chastise Costain over killing a police officer. Instead, the old man is infuriated over Costain's “theft” of government intelligence. This surprising response to theft versus murder is an intriguing debate. 

Costain's second meeting is with a poet-philosopher that lives in a one room apartment. The poet insists that he isn't Costain's enemy and allows him safe harbor with food and rest. The only repayment requirement is for Costain to hesitantly listen to the poet's readings asking for praise. When the poet risks death for Costain's getaway, Copp's narrative is morally uplifting, showing readers a most basic human principal. 

The third act, and arguably the most exciting, features Costain's hostage, a woman that is revealed to be the mistress to Krupina, a Czech official coincidentally leading the manhunt to find Costain. This sequence is a fevered, tight-laced portion of Copp's narrative that focuses on the woman's relationship with Krupina, and her efforts to assist Costain as a way to extract revenge on her lover. These events are central to a rural farmhouse with plenty of cat-and-mouse tactics between Costain, Krupina, and the mistress that they both are relying on. It's a brilliant premise that leads to Costain's retrieval of an aircraft, that eventually leads to disaster. 

The book's final act is a resounding resolution that introduces key characters that are paramount to Costain's original mission in Czechoslovakia. The characters include a young woman, Lisa, that shares a romantic chemistry with Costain. It's this satisfying conclusion that breathes a new life into the story, revealing Costain's experiences during WWII, both as a pilot and a prisoner-of-war. The circle becomes complete as Copp presents a roaring sequence of events that spring from a treacherous doctor and his association with the communist government. It's a unique twist on the story relevant to Costain's employer and the horrifying atrocities committed while serving as an undercover agent in the German Gestapo. 

The Los Angels Times said, “The writing and style of the book are superior”, when reviewing The Pursuit of Agent M. I would wholeheartedly agree with their praise as Copp's writing was certainly unique, charismatic, and often endearing. The book, rightfully categorized as a spy-thriller, contains a remarkable amount of emotion - human endurance, philosophy, the consequences of war, moralistic thinking, and personal indebtedness. It's a mature approach to the old-fashioned Cold War, espionage thriller that leaves a strong, noticeable effect on readers. 

As a casual, man-on-the-run story, the novel can be enjoyed as pure escapism, but it would be a travesty to ignore Copp's fundamental, underlining messages sprinkled throughout his work. It really sets him apart from his other military-fiction and espionage contemporaries of that era in a Hemingway style – invigorating circumstances propelling human need and suffering. Whether there is a happy ending is in the eye of the beholder. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Best of Manhunt: Volume 3

The good people at Stark House Press have blessed us with another compilation of hardboiled crime stories from the pages of Manhunt Magazine, the premier digest for crime noir fiction in the 1950s and 1960s.

The introduction by scholars Jeff Vorzimmer and David Rachels tackles the literary mystery of the identity behind the house name of Roy Carroll, a pseudonym employed by the Manhunt editors when an author had more than one story in a single issue. The thought was that magazine readers desired a great diversity of names in the Table of Contents and would somehow feel ripped off if the same author appeared twice.

Several of the Roy Carroll stories in Manhunt are now known to be written by Robert Turner - but not all. The editors performed some investigative legwork worthy of Paperback Warrior to firmly-establish that the Roy Carroll story appearing in the November 1956 issue under the title “Death Wears a Grey Sweater” was, in fact, written by fan-favorite Gil Brewer for which Brewer was paid a tidy sum of $260.

With that mystery about a mystery solved, it’s only fair that we begin our tour of this anthology with the story itself.

Death Wears a Sweater by Gil Brewer writing as Roy Carroll (November 1956)

The story opens with the horrific death of an 11 year-old girl in a broad daylight hit-and-run while her father watches helplessly nearby. After verifying that his little girl is, in fact, dead, her dad — his name is Irv Walsh — goes bananas, hops in his car, and begins pursuing the hit-and-run driver. The confrontation with the car occupants goes poorly for Walsh, and his quest for quick justice is thwarted while his desire for revenge burns hot.

As vendetta stories go, this one is pretty dark, gruesome and sadistic. Brewer’s strongest works were his short stories and this one is no exception. It’s a tough and tension-filled read that packs the appropriate emotional punch.

Services Rendered by Jonathan Craig (May 1953)

Henry Callan is a crooked, hard-drinking police lieutenant investigating the murder of a florist. A suspect named Tommy is in custody, but refuses to talk. The dirty cop visits Tommy’s wife and makes her an offer of regular sex with Henry in exchange for Tommy’s freedom and avoidance of the electric chair.

This is the kind of dark and twisted story that made Manhunt great. Jonathan Craig (real name: Frank Smith) is always a reliably great writer, and this story is consistent with his hardboiled output. Don’t skip this one.

Throwback by Donald Hamilton (August 1953)

Donald Hamilton was the author of the esteemed Matt Helm spy series, but this short story predates his groundbreaking Death of a Citizen by nearly seven years. “Throwback” is an unusual story for both Hamilton and Manhunt as it is a post-apocalyptic story set shortly after the atomic destruction of the USA.

George Hardin and his wife are among the shambling survivors wandering among the smoldering ruins of a freshly-destroyed America. Hamilton’s writing is characteristically beautiful and descriptive. Unfortunately, a coherent plot never comes together, making this story perfectly skippable.

The Red Herring by Richard Deming (December 1962)

Richard Deming appears twice in this Manhunt compilation, and “The Red Herring” won the coin toss for the prestigious Paperback Warrior review. The story stars a Private Detective named Matt Gannon, who is engaged by a corporate CEO.

The company manufactures a radiation detector similar to a Gieger counter but way more sensitive. The company bought the technology from the inventor for a song, and now the creator is apparently sending threatening notes. Gannon is hired to make the case. As expected, Deming does a fine job with a compelling, if rather standard, PI mystery.

The Verdict

The brain-trust behind these Stark House Manhunt anthologies has another winner on their hands. I hope these collections never stop, and they expand to the other hardboiled magazines that popped up in the wake of Manhunt’s success. These short crime stories are an important part of American literary history and need to be preserved for modern audiences and future generations. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Cop on the Corner

Before becoming a mainstay of grim, noir fiction in the paperback original era, David Goodis (1917-1967) was a prolific writer of short stories for the pulp magazines. A handful of these early works has been digitized for modern audiences, including “The Cop on the Corner” from the September 1947 issue of Popular Detective Magazine.

Elrick is a tubby beat cop who spends most of his time on foot patrol loafing and chewing the fat with his friend who runs the newsstand on the corner. One day, their eternal conversation is interrupted by a couple kids who just found a dead body riddled with bullets in a nearby alley. Elrick immediately recognizes the corpse as a local gangster whom Ekrick knows from way back when the racketeer was a lowlife juvenile delinquent running the streets with criminal abandon.

Because of Elrick’s unique knowledge of the dead mobster’s history and associates, he hatches a plausible theory regarding the identity of the murderer. This presents the corpulent copper with an idea to solve the case himself, which will likely earn him a raise and a promotion to the Detective Bureau.

Elrick’s investigation takes him to a skid row alcoholic dame who he believes provides a key to unlocking the mystery of the dead hoodlum. Of course, none of this is as easy as it seems, and Elrick’s fallibility as an investigator leads to a well-crafted scene of bloody violence and a twisty solution.

The plot twist punchline was typical of the endings seen a decade later in the pages of Manhunt, a crime digest that printed several Goodis stories and novellas. “The Cop on the Corner” remains a fantastic read that shows Goodis at the top of his short story game before moving to longer works. If you can score a reading copy, you’ll be happy with your decision.

For reasons unclear to me, “The Cop on the Corner” is not available on Amazon, but it is available at Barnes & Noble for the hundreds of people on earth with Nook devices. There are also scanned and transcribed copies floating around the internet, including HERE.

Path to Savagery

According to Mystery File, Robert Edmond Alter authored over 40 stories for magazines and digests like Mike Shayne, Man from UNCLE, Argosy, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Manhunt. He wrote two novels that were published by Fawcett Gold Medal, Swamp Sister in 1961 and Carny Kill in 1966. Both of those were reprinted by Black Lizard in 1993. We reviewed Swamp Sister in 2020 and it failed to impress us, but we went back to the well again with Alter’s novel Path to Savagery. It was published posthumously by Avon in 1969, three years after Alter's death. The post-apocalyptic novel was adapted into the 1979 Sony Pictures film The Ravagers starring Ernest Borgnine and Richard Harris. 

The book is set about 20 years after a global nuclear war. What's left are large swaths of wilderness, packs of wild dogs, and large cities that have mostly been ransacked. On the coasts, some of these cities are now marshy islands due to excessive flooding from broken seawalls. Civilization now exists in three classes. Flockers guard their food, water, and weapons and exist in packs. Neanderthalers are your common savages that use barbarism on a quest for dominance. The Loners are guys like Falk, the book's protagonist, that simply exist as troubadours scouring the countryside for supplies in an effort to live a peaceful existence. But, Falk packs a .45 and a Thompson submachine gun in case things get hairy. 

The first thing you need to know is that Path to Savagery is nearly awesome. It begins and ends with total awesomeness. What's in the middle is just plain 'ole great. Alter's pace is sometimes sluggish, but at 174 pages he spends productive time on characterization, something that was not afforded to him writing shorts. His descriptions were so vivid and real. For example, in the book's opening pages, Falk finds a dark, cavernous mansion that's been ransacked and abandoned. Bad guys follow him inside, hoping for a quick and quiet kill. Alter's descriptions of Falk fighting the enemy in the dark mansion's bedrooms and hallway were exhilarating. I loved that Falk couldn't see his attacker's faces until they were illuminated by his gun's muzzle flashes. 

Falk moves through the bogs and brambles and stumbles upon a woman named Faina, which he buys for the night using spare tobacco. Faina becomes a supporting character and surprises Falk when he reaches a flooded coastal city. In what becomes the book's central location, Falk and Faina find a large, multilevel department store. The store has different sections like sporting goods, housewares, furniture, camping, clothing, etc. This large department store becomes a hunting ground when Falk and Faina discover it is occupied by a large band of Flockers. 

Without spoiling too much of the story, Falk and the leader of the Flockers, a strong, combative man named Rann, enter a contest of survival. Each of them enters the department store naked without weapons. Once inside the enormous store, they can use anything they find as a weapon to hunt and kill their opponent. Falk and Rann's battle will determine the winner of the tribe's sexiest woman. Falk has a prior connection with the lady, so his efforts to kill Rann are elevated. Rann is fighting to hold his place as tribal leader. 

Needless to say, the idea of living in an abandoned shopping mall is a neat one. Alter makes fun use of this combat arena and adds in some surprising elements that add a dose of horror to the narrative. There is a crime-fiction ingredient as well when Rann conspires with another Flocker to secretly murder someone. The book's premise borders on both science-fiction and post-apocalyptic, making this alternate version of Earth a pretty scary place. 

Despite reading tons of doomsday fiction, and viewing an equal assortment of genre films, I was thoroughly pleased with the book's innovation and ideas. Alter really had a great thing going and I can't help but think this would have been a series if he would have lived long enough to tell it. Unfortunately, Path to Savagery is all we have of this great concept. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

The Brat

The Brat, published in 1957 by Fawcett Gold Medal, was Gil Brewer's 12th career effort, a mid-era crime-noir that is misrepresented by the book's sultry cover. Fans of Brewer's sexier femme fatale novels, like The Vengeful Virgin (1958) or The Tease (1967) may be led to believe that The Brat possesses that same energy level. It includes all of the potent ingredients to make the narrative seemingly explode – wild women, lust, greed, criminality, and average men pushed from their suburban threshold into a world of madness. Like Orrie Hitt, Brewer loved this type of storytelling experience - the sexy seductress weaving a master-plan. But, The Brat doesn't utilize these ingredients to create anything magical. 

In this novel, Brewer mimics Day Keene's more simplistic approach. It makes sense considering the two were friends and even collaborated together. If I didn't know better, I would have pegged The Brat as a Keene novel. The narrative is saturated in genre tropes that are familiar to any seasoned crime-noir fan. The narrative's central element is identical to the “man awakens to find a corpse and flees from the law to prove his own innocence” concept. Only, Brewer exchanges the swanky apartment, soft bed, or suburban house with a bank.

Lee is a fairly wealthy guy before his trip into Florida swampland. It's in the sweltering jungle that he finds the sexy Evis, a backwoods tramp that he can't resist. Her family is redneck loonies, so Evis is rescued by Lee and soon the two ring the wedding bells. But, Evis’ domestication is ripe with greed and self-interest. She carves through Lee's savings, leaving the two almost destitute just a short time later. Evis, who conveniently works at the local bank, pitches Lee a heist plan. She can easily steal money from the bank's vault during her closing shift. Lee slightly agrees, but doesn't want to commit to steering into that lane yet.

Lee arrives from work one evening to find that Evis is working at the bank and she needs him to pick her up. When he arrives at the bank, there's a corpse, missing money, missing spouse, and enough evidence that suggests he collaborated with Evis to commit this criminal act. Terrified of being fried for murder, Lee hits the road to pursuit Evis. Along the way, he is tracked by a greedy sheriff that wants the money all to himself. There's also Lee's best friend that may have been Evis's side hustle to seduce into a joint heist. Lee must avoid the police, find Evis and the missing cash, and prove he is innocent. 

Brewer's novel  is one long road trip as Lee hops from destination to destination searching for clues. The pacing and plot structure never allows the narrative to breathe, making the characters one-dimensional and over-obsessive. This is Day Keene's wheelhouse and he excels at it far better than Brewer. The Brat is similar to Brewer's Sin for Me (1967) novel with its western feel and seemingly endless manhunt. If you must read everything Brewer has written, then you aren't skipping The Brat. Otherwise, there's no need to spend any time reading this less than satisfactory novel.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

All the Way

Charles Williams (1909-1975) was the best American author of 20th century crime-noir fiction that most Americans have never encountered. Thanks to some smart reprint publishers, his work is being introduced to a new generation of readers looking for propulsive plotting and gritty, vivid characterizations. All the Way was a 1958 paperback also released under the title The Concrete Flamingo that has been reprinted by Stark House.

The narrator is a drifter named Jerry Forbes, who’s in Key West, Florida when he spots a sexy dame on the beach giving him the eye. Her name is Marian Forsyth, and she’s a secretary in a small Louisiana town. From the moment they meet, Jerry knows that Marian has a hidden agenda. Even the sex between them feels transactional. For those who read a lot of these types of books, this dame has femme fatale written all over her. 

After getting to know one another a bit, Marian proposes an idea to Jerry. She needs Jerry to impersonate her boss to move money from a stock account into their hands as a prelude to murdering the boss. Marian used to be his mistress, and he failed to marry her. Hell hath no fury and all that. 

As usual, Williams’ writing is head-and-shoulders better than his contemporaries. The monologues he wrote for Marian explaining the humiliation she suffered at the hands of her boss are staggering. The book is a bit of a slow burn, but Williams keeps the emotions running high, so the reader understands the narrator’s anxious longing for this woman bent on destroying another man. 

All the Way is basically the story of a complex and dicey long con. It’s an inventive paperback, but you need to be patient with the novel’s sluggish pace. This elaborate identity theft scheme doesn’t unfold with breakneck action. This culminates in one of the most bleak and tragic conclusions I can remember reading in ages. 

All the Way was compelling and interesting, but I don’t think it’s top-shelf Charles Williams. It would have been more impactful as a 50-page novella in Manhunt Magazine. If you’re working your way through Williams’ entire body of work, you’ll probably enjoy the novel just fine, but don’t make this your first stop. 

Buy a copy of the book HERE.

The Short Stories of John M. Sitan

 A recent Facebook posting in one of my book groups wondered if John M. Sitan was an alias of another writer, such as Jonathan Craig or Gil Brewer, also writing stories for Manhunt at the same time. I had no idea myself, so I did some homework to find out more about this shadowy author.

By way of background, Sitan authored only three short stories in Manhunt and then disappeared as a writer. According to The Manhunt Companion by Peter Enfantino and Jeff Vorzimmer, Sitan wrote the following stories for Manhunt in three consecutive months during 1954:

“My Enemy, My Father” – June 1954
“Confession” – July 1954
“Accident” – August 1954

Enfantino and Vorzimmer review all three stories favorably in the guide, but they single out “Confession” as something special. The story of a serial sniper (reviewed below) was selected by editor David C. Cooke for inclusion in his 1955 Best Detective Stories of the Year anthology. Vorzimmer later featured the story in his curated The Best of Manhunt 2 compilation from Stark House Press released in 2020.

I searched far and wide for any indication that Sitan’s work was ever published elsewhere and found nothing. The guy apparently sold three stories to Manhunt and then nothing else, so it’s not crazy to wonder if he was a pseudonym or a house name.

As fun as it would have been to unmask the pen-name of John M. Sitan, a few minutes of internet sleuthing revealed that he was, in fact, a real guy.

John McElroy Sitan was born on May 1, 1925 in Longview, Washington. He served in the U.S. Army during World War 2 from 1943 to 1946. Upon his return to Washington State, he began a 30-year career as a technical writer for Boeing. It was while he was gainfully-employed by Boeing that he decided to do some non-technical writing for the top hardboiled crime digest at the time, Manhunt.

For reasons unclear to me, he never caught the bug to continue his side-hustle as a fiction writer. Instead, he and his wife Hazel focused on getaways to a cabin John built himself on Mount Index and traveling the world on vacations following his retirement. The couple never had children, and John died on November 9, 2012. His limited contributions to the world of hardboiled crime fiction would have been lost to the ages but for a renewed interest in Manhunt spurred on by Stark House Books, Enfantino, Vorzimmer, and Paperback Warrior.

Copies of Manhunt are rare and prohibitively expensive, so mere mortals are forced to leverage modern short story anthologies that reprint the greatest hits from the legendary digest. As such, I’m left with only one resource to read Sitan’s work - the second volume of The Best of Manhunt from Stark House Books, where I found Sitan’s only enduring story, “Confession” from July 1954.

“Confession” is the story of a sniper named John Egan. As the story opens, Egan is pulling the trigger on his scoped and silenced rifle that results in a nurse’s head exploding as the round penetrates her skull on the street below. Egan is not a paid assassin. He’s a factory worker who happens to be a crackerjack shot with a long gun. He’s basically a serial killer before there was a term for such things.

When he takes to the road, the reader gains insight into Egan’s real motivations. Sadly, our modern society has become accustomed to mass killers without conscience. However, when Manhunt published Sitan’s story, it must have been a chilling peek behind the curtain of a remorseless psychopath. The ending was a bit abrupt to me, but it was a satisfying story in line with the dark fiction that made Manhunt great.

Despite his minimal contribution to the catalog of American crime fiction, John M. Sitan was a unique voice who deserves to be remembered. It would be nice to see his other two stories find a modern audience in a future anthology.

Buy The Manhunt Companion HERE:
Buy The Best of Manhunt 2 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.

First Blood

David Morrell's First Blood (1972) is probably one of the biggest influences on men's action-adventure literature behind Don Pendleton's War Against the Mafia (1969). The novel eventually launched a blockbuster film franchise starring Morrell's main character. I've seen the Rambo films and I'm quite fond of the film version of First Blood. I was curious to read the differences between the film and book. With a few extra dollars, I bought a used Fawcett Gold Medal printing of this classic action novel.

First Blood begins with Rambo (no first name) walking into the rural small town of Madison, Kentucky. With his thick beard and long hair, Rambo stands out in this quiet God-fearing community. Wilfred Teasle, the town's sheriff, is a decorated Korean War hero that is highly respected by Madison's residents. Wanting to shield his little town from danger, Teasle forces Rambo out of Madison. Rambo defies Teasle by walking back into town to dine on burgers and a coke. Once again, Teasle escorts rebellious Rambo out of town only to find him returning again. Three strikes and you are out.

Teasle arrests Rambo and the judge books him for a 35 day stay in jail. When the deputies attempt to shave him, Rambo has a flashback to his military service in Vietman. Rambo grabs the straight razor and disembowels one cop before blinding another. He then steals a motorcycle and flees into the mountains. Teasle, wanting control, doesn't want the state police involved in the manhunt. Instead, he leads his own task force to hunt Rambo through the Kentucky wilderness.

First Blood in novel format is much different than the film. Examples: Rambo isn't in town to visit a friend. Rambo doesn't have a close relationship with Colonel Trautman. Sheriff Teasle isn't a scummy villain. But beyond all of that, the film version depicts Rambo as a humble, quiet, reserved man that has a lot to say about Vietnam veterans and the poor homecoming they received. The novel showcases a loud-mouthed, sarcastic, and defiant Rambo as a psychotic veteran battling voices in his head. Perhaps the most striking difference is that Morrell's story reveals that Rambo has killed at least one homeless person in a park prior to arriving in Madison. It's also hinted that he previously killed another man as he attempted to escape by car. 

I would be remiss if I didn't state that this original version of Rambo weirded me out. There are some similarities (Rambo is a proficient warrior) and then odd moments (Rambo drinking moonshine with hillbillies) that made me question which version I liked. The book's end result effectively squashed any opportunity for book sequels. However, after the film's popularity, Morrell performed a quasi-retcon to write the novelization of Rambo II and III. I'm okay with that. At the end of the day, I can comfortably say I really enjoyed the book and Morrell's writing is top-notch. Plus, one can never truly have enough Rambo, right? Get a copy HERE

Gulf Coast Girl (aka Scorpion Reef)

Gulf Coast Girl, by Charles Williams, has a rather complicated publication history. The novel was released in condensed form in the September 1955 edition of Manhunt under the title "Flight to Nowhere". That year MacMillan published it as a hardback entitled Scorpion Reef. Pan published the paperback version under that title in 1958. In 1955, Dell published the book as Gulf Coast Girl with cover art by Robert Maguire. Dell then reprinted it again under that title in 1960 with cover art by Robert McGinnis. In 1972, it was reprinted by Pocket Books as a paperback titled Scorpion Reef and currently it is that title as a $4 ebook offering through Mysterious Press.

Bill Manning is a 33-year old salvage diver that attended M.I.T., served in the U.S. Navy and authored a few adventure stories. While working in the little town of Sanport, Florida, Manning is approached by a young Scandinavian woman who presents herself as Mrs. Shannon Wayne. She wants to hire Manning to dive in a lake to retrieve her husband's lost shotgun. Manning accepts the job, but is skeptical of her real intentions.

At the rural lake location, Manning locates and returns the shotgun, but knows it was a setup. Mrs. Wayne, who is really Mrs. Macaulay, is attacked in the lake house by three men seeking her husband. When Manning defends her from the assailants, the whole story starts playing out. 

Mr. Macaulay is a salvage insurance underwriter that stole $750,000 in diamonds from a shadowy criminal enterprise. That crime-ring is led by a smooth operator named Barclay. While attempting to escape by plane, Macaulay ends up crashing the plane into the ocean. He escapes with his life, but the plane, and the diamonds, sink into a big area called Scorpio Reef. The Macaulay couple has been on the run from Barclay for months. 

A few high-tension events happen that lead to both Barclay, and his cohort Barfield, forcing Manning and Mrs. Macaulay to sail them to Scorpion Reef. Using Mrs. Macaulay's knowledge of the aircraft's vague location, they will force Manning to dive for the diamonds. Once the diamonds are found, Manning and Macaulay will be killed and the criminals will win back their stolen wealth. 

Providing more information on this story would be a disservice to those of you who have not read it. This was the author's first foray into nautical adventure and serves as a precursor to his novels like Aground (1961), Dead Calm (1963) and And the Deep Blue Sea (1971). However, Williams cut his teeth on crime-noir novels that typically featured sexy female accomplices lulling an innocent man into the jaws of unlawful violence. This is the central feature that makes Gulf Coast Girl so exciting.

The author's twisted narrative is interwoven with violence, sexual chemistry and this thick and disturbing feeling that something very bad will happen to these characters. Barclay's lethal threats, enforce the fact that this nautical voyage is indeed a one-way endeavor. Because of Williams' excellent character development, I really cared about the fate of these two admirable characters and felt touched by the emotional love story embedded in the crime-noir.

As an exhilarating nautical adventure or a straight-laced crime-fiction novel, Gulf Coast Girl is such a pleasure to read. Charles Williams was a master storyteller and this novel showcases that talent tenfold. Highly recommended.

Buy a copy of this book HERE