Recently I added a new bookshelf; it's just a little squatty cheap one found at Wal-Mart for extra cheap. It was an impulse buy, but bookshelf-space is always limited at my joint, so I buy 'em when I find 'em. So, I found a spot in the bedroom (thanks, to my awesome wife for indulging me) and decided to make it an exclusively horror shelf and get a few books out of my basement to help me with my other gig over at Fathom Press reviewing stuff.
That's a long-winded wind-up to me finding a book called The Reunion by L.V. Roper. And that's not even the book I'm reviewing here. Maybe I should just get to the point, huh? So that got me thinking about L.V. Roper who was among other things a member of the Kansas House of Representatives and I live in Kansas so it's an interesting little tidbit for me...and probably me only. Anyway, back in the 70s he wrote a couple of handfuls of Men's Adventure/Mystery novels, a couple that bordered on horror and romance novels as Samantha Lester. I think generally his best-viewed novel is Death-As in Matador, a hitman tale with a faux Paul Newman on the cover. I haven't read that one yet, I'm saving it for a rainy day I suppose.
He clearly had a thing for private eyes. My personal favorite of his works is Hookers Don't Go to Heaven, a Kansas City set mystery book that though written in the 70s it really feels like 50's Gold Medal-type private eye yarn. Then there's Renegade Roe which pretty much oozes 70s. This is the kind of book that it would fee wrong to read without an ad for Kent cigarettes in the middle. It might as well come with a patch of shag carpet to set it upon once you're done is what I'm saying.
I have read this one before and I hadn't really planned on reading it again. Though I did remember it sort of fondly, I think I liked the style and the feeling of the book rather than the ACTUAL book. When I found Roper's Reunion it made me wonder where the Renegade Roe books were and I found them on a shelf of honor, a big monster where I keep a lot of my favorite stuff on and me made me wonder if I actually liked the book or lumped it by Martin Meyers Hardy series because the covers are similar.
I couldn't help myself I cracked it open and thought I'd just flip around and see what the whole jam was about and two hours of couch laying and a beer or two and I had reread the thing. After that I looked up Renegade Roe on the Men's Adventure Papers of the 20th Century Facebook group and low and behold I had given it a mini review of the book back in 2019. Here it is:
"This is the 2nd "Renegade" Roe book starring swinging Native American private eye Jerry Roe. It's an easy going read, a little light on the action but it makes up for it with sex, day drinking, and talk about headbands. Even though mystery is fairly lightweight and the characters a just a smidge above cardboard cutouts it all works for me and it's a lot of funky 70s fun. L.V. Roper only wrote a handful of books, and I seem to have magically picked most of the up without trying too hard, anybody know anything about him?"
I liked it more than that this time. In fact, I really had a great time. I enjoyed all the day-drinking and talk about headbands EVEN more. It's very much a product of its time and if you go in expecting an action-packed tale with jets, fisticuffs and gunfights, you'll be disappointed. It's more akin to a 70s TV detective show. Only with more saucy bits. Roe is a fun character who's a cliche in every way and it's a fairly racist character at that. He's a step-above Tonto because at least he kicks ass, solves the mystery and sexes all the sexy ladies. The Lone Ranger would blush.
But all these books are sexist and racist, I like to warn people (I think the cover is warning enough on this on though) if your sensitive to this kind of thing, this isn't the book for you. Not everything is for everyone and that's okay. But these are almost too goofy in concept and execution to take seriously. Though Roper's does have an easy writing style, clean and simple and he tells a pretty coherent story with some flourish, that's pretty much all I need with a slim paperback.
So yeah, I accidently this book and I'm glad I did. I really don't reread very much (there's too many unread books in my house for that) but it can be nice to visit an old friend. Pittsburg State University in Kansas houses Roper's papers, comprising of the normal stuff, correspondence and such as well as his manuscripts. They don't seem to have all his manuscripts, but one is entitled Jade Jaguar which makes thinks it might be a third book in the Renegade Roe series. It's got the same title gimmick (color/animal), and I can't find any other book Roper wrote with that title. I can imagine he already had this one written before popular library pulled the plug. So, there may be more adventures of Renegade Roe out there, just sitting a special collection room. Maybe one day I'll take a road trip and put on my Sherlock Holmes hat to investigate.