QUICK SHOTS: Dead Ringer: A Hank Bradford Mystery by Mike Warden

 

A while back I went down a major paperback rabbit hole and started tracking down books published by Carousel Books, a division of American Art Enterprises a, uh, porn publisher trying to go "legit." To do this they hired some up-and-comers and some seasoned pros to (it seems) write whatever the hell they wanted. How else could you account for Irwin Zacharia's Protector books or his Vendetta books. Not to mention his Landshark series (which is recently FINALLY tracked down and need to read and review) which features no actual sharks. Chet Cunningham did some work for them, with a couple of Team Three books and some westerns. Mike Newtown also wrote Terror at Boulder Dam for them, an awesome slice of private eye action, again with some westerns and an action series called Intersect File as John Cannon among others. 

I ended up buying a wide variety of books published by Carousel. Westerns, Gothics, Horror, Science Fiction, Action, and Mystery books by random authors probably working under pseudonyms. It's a stack of books that I will eventually read because publishers have a certain flavor all their own. Pinnacle is sorta one thing, Paperback Library is another thing. Leisure is yet another looser thing and publishers like Carousel are so looser they're falling apart. It's clear that there was little in the way of editorial supervision, so a lot of the books are, well, technically BAD. Sloppily written, wrapped up in a hurry once the word count is met, and very much rough first drafts. That's stuff I love for some reason. Don't blame me for bad taste, I came by it honestly.

One of their longest series is the Hank Bradford mystery series, he's sometimes referred to as a "supersleuth," which coincidentally I want on my tombstone with no explanation. Mike Warden either had a few books in his sock drawer waiting for an eager publisher or wrote them all in a blindly white heat over a couple of years. I haven't been able to track down anything on Warden, if that's his real name. So, drop a line if you know anything about this paperback writer. There's precious little information about Carousel books out there in general. 

So, I have several of the Hank Bradford books and figured it was time to try on. Hank's an ex-cop turned part-time criminology professor. He sorta left the force under a cloud after his partner went on a bust by himself instead of waiting for Hank. Hank stuck around long enough to bust the guys who killed his buddy and then turned in his badge. Now, he's sorta broke living in an apartment, looking to get laid, avoiding his crazy landlady and taking it easy mostly. He's far from a hardboiled character; he doesn't pull out a .38 from his cookie jar or slug a baddie anywhere in the book. Mostly he hangs out and talks up his liberated upstairs neighbor and tries to sleep with her. 

But wouldn't you know it, suddenly his lady friend is getting obscene phone calls with death threats. 'Ol Hank sees this as a great time to try and get into her pants, not that she isn't interested either. Hank must be studly. Anyways, toward the end of the Hank finds a dead body of a guy who he saw in another neighbor's apartment, then that neighbor turns up dead after Hank calls his police nemesis, Oscar. And wouldn't ya know it; Hank's lady friend is the prime suspect. So, Hank plays detective for about two chapters and then the obvious conclusion happens. 

This is a pretty half-baked book. The first have of this (luckily) slim novel is all about Hank dealing with his landlady who sneaks into everyone's apartment, getting sick, then hanging out with his lady friend while she's afraid of the phone calls. Then it's like Warden remembered that it was a murder mystery book and killed a couple of people, only to breeze on past any sort of "investigation" on Hank's part. We hardly ever even leave the apartment building. It kind of feels like Warden was describing one lazy weekend he had but threw in some thriller elements to spice it up.

But you know what? I sorta liked it. It was like an hour read all-in-all, the pages flew by and Hank's a pretty okay protagonist, in a regular joe sort of way. It makes me wonder if the temperature every goes up in the series or if they are all "hang-out jams" like this one. Good thing I have more of them.

HANK BRADFORD BOOKS: 

(I think this is a complete list, correct me if I'm wrong)

Wasp in the Woodpile (1980)

Kill F-M (1980)

Death Beat (1980)

Bitter Homicide (1980)

Dead Ringer (1980)

Model for Death (1981)

The Topless Corpse (1981)

Twins in Trouble (198?)

The Condominium Killings (198?)

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!