DOUBLE SHOT: Death Pulls a Doublecross and Markham by Lawrence Block

It's probably came up here before, but Lawrence Block is one of my absolute favorite writers. I found him in high school and for a while just sorta went back and forth between him and Donald E. Westlake who I found about the same time. I'd read a Dortmunder then a Burglar book and then a Parker and a Scudder (or a Chip Harrison or an Evan Tanner) and was pretty much guaranteed a good time. 

And lucky for me Block is prolific, so I got lots to treat myself too for years to come. Take Death Pulls a Doublecross, I've had a copy of this for years (the later Coward's Kiss version) and surprisingly never read despite the aforementioned love of Block and my general love of private eye books. So, I stumbled into a copy of the original Gold Medal paperback (another thing I love) and decided to take it for a spin. Then there was something gnawing in the back of my head, wasn't this book supposed to be different book?

See, I also like to read author's talk about their work, and I like to read about the pretty screwy publishing world (especially in the 50s through the 80s) which means I've read a lot of blogs, introductions, interviews, etc. etc. Block has a colorful bibliography with tons of early pseudonym work for, um, the "adult" market under several different names. A lot of these have been republished these days. But all of that used to be a big book-lovers mystery. A lot of still is a mystery when it comes to the adult books of the day. Back to Block, eventually I remembered a book called Markham by Lawrence Block that I'd also had for a long time without reading. Ah, yes. It all came back to me, so here you go:

See, Death Pulls a Doublecross or Coward's Kiss as it was originally (and eventually) titled was supposed to be a book called Markham. Or more to the point it was supposed to be a tie-in book for a TV show called Markham starring Ray Milland who at one time had X-Ray vision, I believe. Block had been hired to write a Markham book and a book on the equally forgotten TV show Johnny Midnight (that became Strange Embrace) but once he finished Death/Coward, he rather liked it and thought it might be too good to be a tie-in book to a show. He showed it to people and they agreed. So, with some changes it ceased being a book about a guy named Markham and became about a guy named Ed London. Oh, then he still had to write the Markham book, more on that later...

Death Pulls a Doublecross is a fine Gold Medal paperback. I honestly have never really been let down by a Gold Medal, sure some are better than others, but I haven't found a real stinker in the bunch, yet. I'll see how it goes. Ed London is out hero here. He's a New York private eye and when we meet him (in a great opening) he's disposing of a nude, female body. Soon, he's on a rollercoaster with stolen Nazi gems, gangsters, perky actresses, complete with gunfire, stolen Beretta's, sex, plenty of pipe smoking and drinking. It's all told in Block's hard-boiled, breezy style. The mystery might be a little easy to figure out if you've knocked about the mystery world, but I bet there's still a few surprises in store for you.

Ed's an interesting private eye, a little more urbane than the usual type (that's probably the Ray Milland touch he was a fancy-dan) who drinks cognac, smokes the pipe, likes classic music and expensive rare books. But don't let that fool you he's still a wonderful paperback hero to follow with a solid punch and a willingness to plant a bullet in a baddie. You can easily see a world where Block wrote a slew of books starring Ed. He didn't. Much like his other Gold Medal book The Specialists, he tried to write other tales of Ed, but they never came out to full length. Luckily, he wrote some short stories which are included in book partially put together by our buddy Bob Deis and his cohorts as The Naked and the Deadly which I now need to pick up, even though I own a copy of One Night Stands and Lost Weekends which collects them too.  

The best way I can describe Death Pulls a Doublecross is that it's an exceptionally well written Mike Shayne or Johnny Liddell or Pete Chambers novel. Which may sound like a knock, it's not. The book treads a familiar ground, doesn't try and reinvent the wheel and just goes about its business of entertaining you in a highly polished, professional way. Which is pretty hard to do if you think about it. So, I whole-heartily recommend this one. The Gold Medal edition is a little pricier, but it's been reprinted a few times (as Coward's Kiss) and is pretty easy to track down. And do track it down.

But it got me thinking about Markham. Which I already had on my shelf, and I began to wonder how different the two books were considering Death Pulls a Doublecross's origin. My inquisitive mind had to know, so I pulled Markham off the shelf. Markham, the show was well before my time, but I have seen a fair amount of 50s/60s detective shows so I understand the format. The show was obviously a "star vehicle" for Milland, the kind of stuff that honestly still gets made. Plug a star into a weekly detective show and rake in the money. It works. Sometimes. This one lasted 60 episodes, a lot today but not that many back then. It was crowded market for detective stuff. It was also promoted by Schlitz beer, which seems to clash with the "upscale, jet-setting nature" of the character. *shrugs*

Markham is a lawyer and private eye (gotta diversify right?) who's cases send him all over the world, but he's based in New York. He's urbane (like Ed London) but seems a bit stuffier. A little less Lawrence Block-humor has been injected into him. It's almost like it was dashed off to meet a contract after a talented writer wrote too good of a book the first time. Hmm. 

That's not to say it's a bad book, far from it. Here the subtitle is The Case of the Pornographic Photos which is just charming and quaint at this point. It's a wandering daughter job for Markham. A wealthy friend's slightly wild daughter has taken off during college and Markham is tasked with tracking her down. You can probably extrapolate from there: private eye shenanigans. Markham (at least Block's Markham) is pretty solid lead, though it's hard to imagine Ray Milland as a private eye. There's some nice Block-lines in there, but it's far from his best work. Either way it's a fun little mystery-lover's easter egg that it exists as a companion piece to Death Pulls a Doublecross. Markham was later released as You Could Call It Murder and it's a pretty cheap pick-up if you want to see what a pro can produce on the quick. 

Like I said, Block is really top-shelf talent. You really can't go wrong with a book with his name on the cover. 

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

QUICK SHOTS: Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner

I grew up on Star Trek (both the original and The Next Generation) both were favorites of my dad. I had the action figures, a phaser of my own and even read a few of the "expanded universe" books via my school's library. I dug Star Wars as a kid too, but I'm much more inclined to call myself a "Trekkie."  My father died rather unexpectedly in my early 20s and for a long while I sorta stayed away from Star Trek in general. But now my wife digs it, and we go to sleep with The Next Generation playing on Pluto TV. A full circle, I suppose. 

So, a little while ago I found out that Brent Spiner, who played Data in The Next Generation had written something that amounts to a mystery novel and I was intrigued. I've always been interested in this little sub-set of mystery fiction, where an actor writes (or has a ghostwriter do it) themselves into a mystery novel. Gypsy Lee Rose did it, George Sanders did it, George Kennedy did it. For all the Star Trek actors who have had books, I'm sorta surprised there's not a Lenard Nimoy plays Sherlock Holmes book, or William Shanter takes his T.J. Hooker training and solves a murder book.  

Brent beat 'em all to the punch. It's not a straight mystery novel either. It's a blend of "fact" and "fiction," telling the story of a deranged stalker he had to deal with in the early 90s during The Next Generation's run. The stalker was real, and bits of pieces paint a little bit of an autobiography, but the flip side is pure gonzo crime-fiction. Twin ladies who look like Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs, one an FBI agent, the other a professional bodyguard, close calls, funny cops, quirky side-characters and fictional versions of the whole Star Trek cast fill out the book. 

It's a mad-cap little mystery adventure with a funny and engaging tone. Brent obviously doesn't take himself too seriously but also indulges in some liberties as the creator of his own little world (both the twins have the hots for him) and then sprinkles it all with some fun in-side showbiz stuff and in-jokes. The early 90s setting was nice to read about too; it never got bogged down in the modern trappings that bore me out of a lot of new novels. The mystery element isn't too bad either, it plays the threat real and so there's enough "danger" to keep it interesting.

In a lot of ways it reminded me of Carter Brown's Larry Baker series about a Hollywood screenwriter who gets tangled up in slightly sexy and mysterious happenings. Or a full-showbiz and updated Dan Turner tale. It was an immensely enjoyable book, I'm sure it helped to have been a fan of Brent before. If you were oblivious to Star Trek, the book would probably lose its charm. But I was right up my alley.

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

QUICK SHOTS: A Lonely Place to Die by Art Bourgeau

Every now and then, I'll roll the dice. It's a big gamble. I'll buy a whole series of books without reading one of them or anything by the author. It'll usually be at used bookstore and a spur of the moment thing. I mean whatever more books is never a problem to me. That's how I ended up all four of Art Bourgeau's "Snake" Kirlin mystery series. I probably picked them up because they were slim Charter books. I don't run across a lot of Charter books, so I'll pretty much always take note of them if I see them and this being a rural set mystery seemed interesting. 

Art Bourgeau apparently had a mystery bookshop and wrote The Mystery Lover's Companion, a book of reviews of mystery novels that I remember checking out of a library at one time but remember nothing about. Either way, he's got mystery chops. He wrote a couple of stand-alones, but his main work seems to be this series about Claude "Snake" Kirlin and F.T. Zevich, two ex-marines who get involved with various murders. Sounds like fun.

A Lonely Place to Die is the first in the series and we are introduced to Snake and F.T. as they return to Snake's old hometown where there's a mayoral race happening where (gasp) a woman is running for mayor! It's riled up all dudes in the 1980s town. Small town life and its quirks is painted well throughout the book. I'm from a one-horse town and I instantly knew a lot of the people Bourgeau wrote about. Anyway, Snake and F.T. mostly want to hang out in a shack, drink beer, joke and fish. Until they do something, honestly despicable to get the murder plot going.

It's a book very much of its time and place. It seems like Bourgeau wanted to meld mystery fiction to the bawdy literary fiction (and its questionable sexual politics) that was happening in the 70's. This is a book more interested in day-drinkin' and vibes than getting down to any detective work. I found the writing pretty fun. I was curious to hang out with F.T. and Snake, even after they did something I found super gross (I'll get to it) mostly because it's not a big deal to the rest of the characters for the rest of the novel. Bourgeau is able to create some fun banter and good 'ol boy-ism's. It did have the feel of a 70s Hicksploitation B-Movie, with mentions of Waylon Jennings, Leon Russell and other musicians I dig which was fun. Anyway, here's the unfun spoiler thingy. 

 

MILD-SPOILER --

So, F.T. and Snake are in their shack in the woods and F.T. sees two women pull up to a nearby cabin. The women begin to kiss outside the cabin then go inside. F.T. goes and peeps on them through a window and the women are having sex. F.T. goes back and the boys wait for days, staking out the cabin for the women to return with a camera.

The women do return. Snake and F.T. takes photos of the women having sex, once they have them, they bust in a blackmail both women into having sex with THEM with the photos. It was a bizarre thing to have your two "heroes" do. And later it's pretty much brushed over, and Snake has a romantic relationship with one of the women and the other is the murder victim that spurn the whole plot.

SPOILER OVER --

 

So, I kept reading this to see if it ever seemed to be a big deal within the plot, nope, it just seems to be played as "boys will be boys," and other then the photos coming into play (minorly) later it's never a big deal. Just gross. It's a pretty dark lump to have in your mostly for laughs mystery-novel. I might not even think about it being in a twisted adventure of The Sharpshooter or in other trashy series, but it stuck out like a sore thumb here. I'm all for complicated characters but if you're not going to explore anything you set-up what's the point of doing it?

Anyway, the mystery itself is sorta not really explored too much. Things happen to solve it without Snake or F.T. doing much. The "red herrings" are all sorta light pink at best, most of the book is devoted to watching houses, bathing in rivers while always trying to get laid and drinking tons of beer. 

The books did have some minor Joe R. Lansdale's Hap and Leonard book vibes, but nowhere near as good. But I got all of them, maybe someday I'll check out the second book, The Most Likely Suspects to see if it was in better and if by the second Bourgeau rounded off the sharp edges any. 

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

QUICK SHOTS: The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes by Michael Kurland

I'm quite the fan of Micheal Kurland's work and I'm still on a mystery-bent, so the second (and final) Alexander Brass mystery called to me from the bottom shelf where I keep my hardbacks. It's pretty clear by now from this blog that I'm a paperback guy, so I have to REAL interested in a book to even consider reading a hardback. The only hardbacks I've ever really liked where the slightly squatter ones the Mysterious Press used to do. I read a bunch of Stuart Kaminsky's Toby Peters that way from the library. But I digress.

Michael Kurland is mostly known for writing about Sherlock Holmes's nemesis Moriarty in a long running series and for the Greenwich Village Trilogy of hippie-sci-fi. He wrote the middle book The Unicorn Girl and appears as a character throughout the trilogy. Men's Adventure fans might know him from his excellent War Incorporated series of 60s spy novels, some of the best of the era. Kurland's a very good writer, clever, suspenseful, and very witty. He wrote a lot of sci-fi and I'm not much of a reader of that genre, so his gems in the mystery/adventure field are extra special to me. 

The Alexander Brass books started in 1997 and finished in 1998. Brass is a syndicated columnist for a major New York paper in the 30s. He's a man of the people, knows cops, crooks, politicians, actors, actress and busboys and everyone in-between. Naturally being a mystery novel, he gets involved with various murders and blackmail plots and the like, sending out his aid-de-camp Manny DeWitt out to uncover the clues while Brass writes his column. 

It's a set-up that is vaguely reminiscent of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin books. Though Brass is, um, more "active" than Wolfe. It's a series that also treads on the same field as the aforementioned Stuart Kaminsky series, where fictional characters interact with real folks (Dorthy Parker and Robert Benchley from the Algonquin Round Table here) though there's less emphasis on it here. Kurland knows the period, the whole thing feels pretty authentic with some mystery in-jokes like Manny hanging out with Black Mask writers and the like. 

The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes is a complicated story about the disappearance of "Two-Headed Mary" a beggar who hangs out in front of theaters and makes friends with all the chorus girls. But is that all she is? There are gangsters, show business types, con-artists, cops, and newspapermen. If you enjoy the old pulp tales of Daffy Dill, "Flashgun" Casey or the Kennedy and McBride stories this is for you. It's got a lot of the same vibe as those reporters-playing-detective-stories. Plus, it twists and turns and lands somewhere pretty satisfactory. 

Kurland's an old pro and this is the work of an old pro. Is it going to change your life? Probably not. Are you going to consistently entertained? Yes, undoubtably. Unfortunately, the series must not have done well. Kurland might have been too late on the 30s/40s nostalgia mystery book for the era, it was kinda a crowded space at the time. So, he only got two books out of Brass and one short story in The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits. What a shame, but luckily, he returned to the time period recently with a WWII spy series called Welker and Saboy. I guess I have to go buy those right now. 

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

QUICK SHOTS: Leonardo's Law by Warren B. Murphy

I came to Warren Murphy's work not through his most popular co-creation, The Destroyer but through his comic mystery novels about the insurance investigator Trace. I stumbled onto the Trace books because I had been reading Gregory MacDonald's Fletch series and the covers of the Trace books ripped off Fletch's design. Big font with the title, bold colors, littler font with a snippet of dialog from the book. So, I guess ripping something off does indeed work from time to time.

All in all, I eventually came to like Devlin "Trace" Tracy more than I.M. "Fletch" Fletcher, Trace's books are more consistently entertaining. So, Murphy was on my radar. The old Thrilling Detective Website told me that Trace is the same as Digger, a character from a different publisher. I liked those as well. The same website told me the Razoni and Jackson who appeared in a Trace book had their own paperback series. I liked those too. then I was off and running reading, The Destroyer and other books like Grandmaster. I was a Murphy fan and somewhere along the way unbeknownst to me, he wrote Leonardo's Law for the short-lived publisher, Carlyle.

When I discovered the book, I promptly bought it and filed it away on a shelf and sorta forgot about it. When winter fully embraces the Midwest, my mood tends to run toward mystery novels, I don't know why it happens, but it seems to every year. Then I start rooting around for forgotten favorites or new-to-me books. I was considering re-reading a Razoni and Jackson when I saw this one shelved next to it and felt like I won some sort of forgotten prize. I cracked it open. 

On the cover you see it's a "locked door mystery." My mystery tastes tend to run toward the hardboiled stuff, but I've read a few Ellery Queens and John Dickson Carr and the like, but it had been years since I've dipped my toe into that particular pool and the idea of Murphy tackling the usually quaint and gentile genre in a paperback original from the 70s was an interesting prospect. From his writing I get the picture that Murphy was a bit of a curmudgeon, his characters like to complain, his plot like to satirize (even if I don't fully agree with who he was poking fun at) and they have a wonderful cynical edge about them, what would a cynical, grumpy locked-room-mystery look like? 

Lenardo's Law is obviously supposed to the first in a series of mystery novels. Murphy was a series guy, especially at the time, and you generally don't write a detective novel to be a stand-alone. Our hero Leonardo is an impossible man, much like Poirot or Holmes. He's a professor, an un-official police detective, super handsome, super smart and tools around in a '37 Cord. He borders on parody as a character and his opposite the regular Joe cop Lt. Anthony Jezail (also the narrator) is a fairly stock paperback cop, if a little Murphy-fied. Their dynamic is fun, and it does echo Murphy at his best, when he has two disparate characters bitching at each other, but it doesn't quite boil over enough to be Razoni and Jackson or Chiun and Remo. Maybe if the series continued. 

The "locked door mystery" is fairly interesting, an asshole author is murdered in, you guessed it, a locked room and there's enough suspects to give you pause. Murphy plays it fair and if you pay attention, you can kind of figure it out (I knew a certain character played a part but didn't know the why) and the ultimate solution is wonderfully ridiculous (like the best locked door mysteries) where the book sorta faulters is spending too much time with some really unlikeable characters. We have to put up with Jezail's boss who's just despicable and it rides the nerves after a while. Murphy's asshole characters are usually entertaining to hang around, but Chief Semple is just too much. It's a slim book; I would have rather hung out with Leonard himself more throughout instead of frustrating jerks. 

I always find these aborted series books interesting. Obviously, Murphy might have found his groove with the characters by book #2 and we could have a totally different type of Warren Murphy series to enjoy. Also, this isn't for sensitive readers, there's a lot (too much) casual racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. etc. I sorta of skip over that shit and just get on with the book and I think Murphy was trying to use it all in the satire, (he had done it better elsewhere) but it's still a drag to have to read all the time. 

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

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!

QUICK SHOTS: No-Frills Books Mystery by Anonymous (Clark Dimond)

One of the allures of the paperback is the attractive cover. The woman of Robert McGuinness, the action of Gil Cohen etc. etc. There are people who collect the book FOR the cover, not what's on the inside. Some people collect people like that too. It's silly to me, I'm a reader, not an art collector. That being said if there's an edition with a sweet cover, I might lay down a few more bucks for the more attractive copy. I'm not made of stone. But what if there's basically no cover?

No-Frills Books was an endeavor by Jove publishing in 1981 created by a guy named Terry Bisson (the science fiction author) who walked through the supermarket one day and decided books could be wrapped in generic packaging just like the off-brand mac 'n' cheese on the lowest shelf. Talk about out-of-the-box thinking. But the idea was more than just not having to pay cover artist, the idea was to distill a genre into it cover elements and cliches. To have the tongue in the cheek and have hungry young writers crank out 18,000-word tales that briskly broke a whole genre down to its basics. It was mac 'n' cheese, but the cheese would be powderier and the noodles tougher. The ingredients were there but you might have to be in on the joke to eat it or be broke enough. 

So, we got Western, Science Fiction, Romance and the topic of the day here, Mystery. As you can see the books looks like a beer in Repo Man and simply tells us: "Mystery - complete with everything: 'Detective, Telephone, Mysterious Woman, Corpses, Streets, Rain.'" And isn't that all you want in a private eye novel? Apparently before it got sacked there was also going to be a No-Frill Bestseller and a No-Frills Movie, tackling bloated airport books and the No-Frills Movie seemed to be a screenplay. Both sound interesting.  

Clark Dimond was behind Mystery. He worked in and around publishing it seems, working on Warren Publications like Eerie and Creepy and apparently in the art department of True Detective magazine. He was also involved with Web of Horror, a competitor of Warren. He didn't seem to write much which is a shame, music seemed to be his main interest (which must have helped in writing Mystery) and had his own recording studio.

Mystery is a private eye novel. A pure-pulp private eye novel. Something that would have been at home in Dime Detective or Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. But it also has a little bit of 80s punk rock too it. An un-named detective gets involved with a sinister recording, one that hypnotically puts people in trances. The Dick rushes around, finding attractive singers, masked killers, shady record players, hypnotists, evil doers while eating beans for breakfast, and gin and tonics in the evening. He's got a .38 in a shoulder holster and some snark. The titular mystery is a little easy, but there's enough twists and turns to keep it all flowing.  Everything the cover promises it delivers, which is actually better than some painted covers! This feels like a hip-Roger Corman produced 80s detective movie complete with corresponding soundtrack on vinyl and cassette. It's Kiss Me Deadly for the MTV generation. 

It's obviously a brisk read, that was part of the idea. Recently I covered the 90s Dime Novel Predator which tread similar ground. Both concepts were designed to attract the customer with a gimmick. No-Frills had their mostly blank covers while Dime Novels were tiny, like, you know, a dime. Now eBooks shave similar stuff, books designed to be quick reads without a lot of challenge...sort of like cracking open a Black Mask in 1935. But no one has really seemed to fully crack the egg and make it popular. I wouldn't know how to either if I'm honest. Some sort of chip implanted into your brain? I.V. novels? Book-Tok or whatever that is?

Bottom line is that Mystery was a super fun read. There's very little in the way of time commitment. I read it one morning over a couple of cups of coffee and it was a nice way to start the day, a little extra pulp for your diet to get you going. 

And like always, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available now on Amazon as an eBook!

The Doughnut Legion by Joe R. Lansdale and MIA Hunter #4: Moutain Massacre by Joe R. Lansdale and Stephen Mertz

I've long been on record with my love of the work of Joe R. Lansdale, like here and here. He's incredibly influential to me as a writer of various things from screenplays right down to blog posts and probably even the occasional text message. I found his work early in life when my brain hadn't gotten all of its little squiggles and his stuff expanded and warped those little squiggles. Thank God, am I right? I'm bad about reading new books though, those fresh off the printing press books kind of novels. But I did this time when I found the newest Lansdale opus The Doughnut Legion at my local library. Gee, that helps 'ol Joe out doesn't? I promise I'll buy it when it comes out in softcovers. Promise. 

Any which way, The Doughnut Legion is one I've been looking forward to once I heard its slightly off-center premise which involves a UFO-loving cult, spooky encounters, evil killers and even a face-stealing chimp which is usually dressed in a little outfit. All of that is solid gold, my friends. 

Our main hero is Charlie Garner an ex-cop and an ex-private eye turned writer who is visited one night by the ghost (or projection or hallucination) of his ex-wife indicting that she's in danger. She is a flighty woman who's gotten mixed up with The Saucer People, a cult that all but runs a small Texas town and does in fact, run the local doughnut chain. I mean it's a mystery novel, so Charlie drags his brother Felix, the strongman ex-therapist turned private eye into the mess. Felix drags his main squeeze the lawyer Cherry into the fray as well and we're off to the races. Like always, the characters shine so bright that you can barely read the page it's so bright. Besides are main crew we get the wonderful wannabe reporter Scrappy, the bored chief of police and his awesome dog Tag. Hopefully this a start of a series to get to spend more time with these people because they deserve it.

It's a book chock full of murders, tough talk, tragedy, shootings, punching's, chimp-related dismemberment, fun banter and a solid mystery with a nicely evil thug of a villain at the top of the heap. I read the book in two-sittings which is common when I crack a Lansdale, the book is so smooth the pages glide on by. It reminded me of the works of Fredric Brown, especially the Ed and Am Hunter books with its quasi-supernatural/sci-fi bits which is something not a lot of folks do then or now. It's more than just a fun read, so don't be like me and go buy it and give Joe some cash. 

I was still in the mood for Lansdale, so I decided to trek back to the earlier and pseudonym years. Back in the day the always readable Stephen Mertz had a series he created called M.I.A. Hunter where Mark Stone went back over to 'Nam and had some action and adventure. In the style at the time, he filled out the ranks with some other writers, like Joe and fellow Texan and awesome writer Bill Crider. Some years later Subterrain Press put out a big thick fancy numbered hardcover of the three novels Stephen and Joe worked on together. It's long out of print and I've long wanted it. So, about mid-way through The Doughnut Legion I decided to treat myself and picked up a copy. Even though I have the whole run in paperback. That's the life of a book-nerd, folks. And I didn't help Joe or Stephen either, since I bought it second-hand. I'm a terrible fan. 

#4 Moutain Massacre is the one I chose to read, mostly cause it had ninjas. I'm a sucker for dogs, ninjas, cold beer and hot ladies. The M.I.A. Hunter books are an off-shot of the 80's in general, Mack Bolan, Chuck Norris, Rambo and the lot. Missing POW's where a big thing back then, hell Stephen kinda kicked off the craze with The Executioner #43 Return to Vietnam. In the intro Joe makes it clear that he, while respected the kind of writer that could work quickly and efficiently within the Men's Adventure field, that he was always uncomfortable writing within the set confines of about anything. But like most authors could use the cash it would generate. He bought a Plymouth Horizon that was then referred to as "the MIA Hunter Car." 

Joes got nothing to be embarrassed about Mountain Massacre reads like an author (or authors) having a lot of fun. Working from an awesome and tight Mertz outline Joe lets hisownself seep into the book in the right measure. Stone and his buddies Terrence and Hog Wiley are over in 'Nam rescuing folks when they get mixed up with some mystical bandits that live in the hills and act all ninja-y. They are shocked to find out that some of the bandits are American ex-GI's. Later they get a gig to the tune of a cool million to find a rich man's son who's a POW and since that'll help save a lot of guys and Stone's a cool dude, they take the gig, and they get mixed up with the bandit/ninjas again in obviously action-packed ways. 

Hog Wiley is the stand-out "Lansdale character" here. He's an East Texas giant of a man who could exist in a lot of other Joe books. What I'm saying is he's a hoot and a half. The banter of with the team foreshadows stuff like Hap and Leonard and even Charlie and Felix from The Doughnut Legion. The action of course is fast and furious, and Joe's martial arts skill come in handy. The ninja stuff also seems to run alongside The Doughnut Legion, the fringe-touches of the supernatural that run through Joe's work. 

All in all, both books rock and roll for different reasons and they both show that Joe is Joe no matter what. The Doughnut Legion is out now, and the M.I.A. Hunter books are all available as nice eBooks, so really there's no excuse for missing out on some quality entertainment. 

And sorry for the lengthy time between reviews, I'm about neck-deep in pre-production of a feature-length film called Arrive Alive, that starts shooting in less than two weeks. I wrote and am producing the picture, which is a throwback to 70's crime films and Gold Medal paperbacks. This might mean a slow-down in the book reviews in the next couple of months, but I'll certainly be trying to get some book time. 

QUICK SHOTS: A Fistful of Empty by Benjamin M. Schutz

Benjamin M. Schutz was a part of the post-Spenser private eye renaissance of the 80's, but seemingly got a little lost in the shuffle. Before I went totally nuts for buying books on the internet, I remember looking for some of his books for ages. I'm sure I found out about him, and his private eye Leo Haggerty from the Thrilling Detective Website and it sounded good. Eventually I tracked down the first in the series Embrace the Wolf and enjoyed in enough to buy the books when I found them, but not to do my searching. See, this is me saying I'm stupid. 

Leo Haggerty is a PI working in Washington DC, with a steady girlfriend, Samantha, who's a novelist and a much more dangerous bounty-hunting buddy named Arnie. The set-up looks familiar to those who have tested out Robert B. Parker's Spenser (or a lot of post Spenser cash grabs) but when I read the first book, I remember thinking that Schutz was a good enough writer to shake the set-up up and do his own thing. Haggerty isn't above fisticuffs or a shoot-outs, but does stop and play with the notions of moral repercussions of his actions. More Lew Archer than Mike Hammer. Which of course, was a central part of a lot of the 80s-90s detectives. Kinder and gentler, but eh, you still have to have some thrills in your thrillers, so gunfight!

So, Embrace the Wolf was a nice paperback detective book, and he wrote a handful more (one winning a Shamus) before he wrote A Fistful of Empty. And boy howdy, what a book A Fistful of Empty is. For a fifth book in a fairly standard series, it's a complete destruction of the formula. I kinda wish I read them through to see what impact the change had, but c'est la vie. It's a big stake-up and a ballsy move. 

Leo makes a choice one night to go help Arnie on a bounty hunting gig. It's partly a macho "get your brothers back" thing, it's partly a knee-jerk to being behind a desk too long and craving a little excitement but what it really is the ultimate bad decision that changes the course of his life and those around him. See Samantha really wanted him to come home and in choosing Arnie there's a crack forming. Then with something hidden in Arnie's car during the arrest leads to a brutal attack on Samantha that haunts the novel to the murder of the "super-badass" Arnie and leaves Leo fully culpable for the revenge that is on his mind as he goes on the run to figure it all out. 

The Arnie/Leo function is a lot like that of Spenser/Hawk. You can have a nice shiny hero with a moral compass who functions fine in society but still give the bloody vengeance of a Hammer as long as you have an outlier who doesn't feel like they owe anything to society and who's personal code is more important that of the masses. That's an 80s thing which isn't really in the Men's Adventure of the 70s. Revenge ruled then, and I think a lot of writers liked that immediate catharsis but felt like couldn't let go of the Marlowe-knight-type. 

With Arnie dead and his girlfriend shattered by the attack, Leo has to be by himself as he lives nearly on the run from mysterious killers and figure out just why this has all happened to him. He also has to deal with the fact that it was all ultimately his fault but not just going home to Samantha one night. The mystery is nicely complex, the villains are nasty, some outright and the rest are just nasty with their indifference to human life. The secondary characters that Schutz populates the novel with are all interesting in their own way, from research lab techs to computer hackers, to evil Neo-Nazi's to corporate assholes. The central McGuffin is nice and simple, yet big and it all unfolds at a hectic pace. 

A Fistful of Empty was a helluva book that should get a lot more attention. Leo is a fine, flawed hero and what was particularly refreshing is that Samantha is a woman-character who was just as well-written. Her feelings and actions ring true, and it'll break your heart a little. Schutz wrote one more Leo book after this and then turned to short stories mostly which I immediately bought. This is one of the finest private eye detective novels I've ever read. 

QUICK SHOTS: Crockett #3: Brand of Fear by Brad Lang

I can think of nothing more relaxing to do in my leisure time than picking up a 70's Leisure Book. See what I did there? I was in the mood for some private eye action and settled in with Brad Lang's Crockett series. I've had the first two for a long time after reading about them on the Thrilling Detective Website back in the day. I think the third one, "Brand of Fear" was a newer pickup, and it seems to be a harder to track down on. I'm pretty sure it came home to me via an eBay lot. Anyway, I finally decided to read one of them and I picked the third one to start, go figure. 

Brad Lang's Fred Crockett series was short lived, three books from 1975 to 1976 with a "hippie detective" gimmick. Crockett's got long hair, ya see. Crockett is a younger detective with the trappings of his age bracket. He casually smokes weed, hangs out in dive bars, drives a GTO, etc. etc. He may be younger but he's an ex-cop with a criminology degree who packs a 4" Smith and Wesson .38 in a shoulder holster and can crack wise with the best of them. He's a lively, different but comfortably familiar paperback detective. 

"Brand of Fear" is a blackmail novel. You know where that leads, don't you? Murder. Or various murders. Crockett is hired by a guy named Beacher who's getting squeezed for cash because of a compromising photo that proves that he is gay. To complicate the matter the man he's with in the photo is a prominent figure. Crockett's on the case and when the blackmailer turns up dead and Beacher is arrested, only Crockett can prove his innocence. Along the way there's gunfights with mob-guys, hitman, sleaziods, lots of oddball underworld-types, parties, hippies, prostitutes, tough talk, casual sex, getting knocked-out and all the rest of the fun stuff. 

You can tell Lang was younger than most of the paperback writers of the era. Casual mentions of Spock from "Star Trek," pinball halls and Crockett watching his favorite TV cop show, "Baretta." Not to mention the fairly ahead-of-the-time treatment of the gay characters in the book. Sure, a few slurs are used, but that miles ahead of how gay characters are usually treated in that era. Especially when you think that it was packaged as an action series for macho men. 

Brad Lang's got a nice midwestern, young thing going, and I couldn't help but think of Max Allan Collins early work in the Nolan series. The writing is tight and reads quick. I breezed right through the book and had a helluva time with it. It didn't break the mold, but it tweaked it enough to be consistently interesting. It's a shame Lang didn't continue the series or continue writing. These are ripe of reprints.

QUICK SHOTS: The Owl by Robert Forward

Robert Forward, as in forward momentum I assume because "The Owl" is all about making you run through the pages. Ya'll like action? How about some mystery? Sex? Violence? Yes, of course you do. Why else would you read a blog like this? Anyhow, Bob Forward has a long history writing for animated T.V. shows like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Rambo: The Force of Freedom, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, even Super Dave. In the haze of writing some of mine and your favorite 80's cartoon's he squeezed out two novels about Alexander L'Hiboux aka "The Owl," a L.A. crimefighter with who doesn't sleep and likes public transport.

Lying somewhere between Norvell Page's The Spider and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, The Owl is "justice for hire," not really a classic P.I. but not a moralistic "Batman-type." He's a guy who wanders the streets as a scourge to the bad guys with a killer reputation and since he doesn't sleep, he's got a lot of time on his hands to be badass. He's an 80's off-the-grind, bulletproof-jacket wearing, Peacemaker-packin' version of Race Williams. You hire him and turn him loose.

The teenage daughter of a guy gets her face blow-torched and dies, the father wants vengeance and for a price, The Owl is on the case. Along the way there's a lot of shooting, chasing, murder, sneaking around, bus rides, shady bars and the slowly unfolding backstory of The Owl. Forward really never lets The Owl take a breath, even after some bullet-holes The Owl is up and back on the case which is a nice twisting and turning tale of smuggling, blackmail and death. 

There was even a T.V. movie with Highlander-star Adrian Paul, which I watched after reading the book. Which really didn't capture the feeling. You'd need a full-80's-era motion picture budget and mood to capture the full impact of the book. I couldn't help thinking of the late-80's T.V. adaptation of Mike Grell's Sable while watching, which was full of the big ideas of the AWESOME comic but lacked the dollar signs to fully realize it. But as an aficionado of that era of action shows, it wasn't too hard to sit through, feeling like comfort food for my action-junkie soul. 

"The Owl" is a nice mixture of the narrative thrust of a Spillane novel with the trappings of some of the 70's Men's Adventure heroes and a much bigger dollop of pulp heroes. As I was reading, I was also reminded of F. Paul Wilson Repairman Jack series, albeit without the supernatural stuff. Forward is a fine writer who write clean so you never get hung up as your gliding through The Owl's violent adventure. It's a shame there's only one more novel in the series "The Scarlet Serenade" which was never published in the U.S. (I have a NEL paperback) until Lee Goldberg's wonderful Brash Books reprinted them both. So, their easy to pick up and enjoy...which I'm sure you will. 

QUICK SHOTS: Dark Chant in a Crimson Key: A Mongo Mystery by George C. Chesbro

 When I was a younger man, we'd go to Oklahoma City to visit my grandma which was always nice but like a lot of family visit-trips, it was also very nice to get away from your family for a while. When I was getting to be book crazy, I looked up all the used bookstores in the phone book (aging myself) and my mother and me would take a circuit. On one of these such trips I found myself with a copy of "Shadow of a Broken Man" by George C. Chesbro starring the world-renowned criminologist, former circus performer/martial artist turned private eye Dr. Robert "Mongo the Magnificent" Frederickson, who also happened to be a dwarf. I cracked that book open and it in turned cracked my mind open. 

It was dizzying display of spies, assassins, horror, detecting, action and suspense as Mongo, in true private eye fashion, doggedly unravels a mystery. I read it in one sitting at my grandma's house and was immediately hooked and it was one of those first tastes of genre-bending fiction that showed me that not all detective stories had to be like all the others. And Mongo is such a wonderful character, stubborn, loving, loyal, smart as hell and a tough cookie to boot. His supporting cast grew over time, and they are all as colorful and interesting as him. Eventually I read the books to hang out with friends. The Mongo books slip in and out of genres, sometimes straighter mysteries, sometime fantasy, sometimes horror, or sometimes they're international espionage tales. There's a Mongo for every mood. 

But they were hard to come by, Chesbro was never a best seller and though the series lasted a long time there never was a lot of copies floating around, I guess. Or people just kept 'em. But I slowly got quite a few of them, but eventually I got distracted by other books and then suddenly it dawned on me one day that I had all these Mongo's to read.

"Dark Chant in a Crimson Key" really starts in 1986 with a book by Chesbro called "Veil" which was supposed to kick off a Men's Adventure series about a badass ninja-ish 'nam vet named Veil Kendry. Well, his published basically thought the book was too "high-brow" for the M.A. market and asked him for a rewrite. He liked "Veil" so instead he just wrote a different book. Enter John "Chant" Sinclair. A badass ninja 'nam vet out to be badass. As David Cross, he got three books out of the series and published "Veil" too boot. Sweet deal. The Chant books are top shelf, nearly ignored Men's Adventure books.

Veil showed up in the Mongo books eventually (which is where I know him from) and with "Dark Chant in a Crimson Key" so does Chant. I plucked this one off the shelf simply because it was a mash-up of all his series characters and I thought it'd be a fun ride. 

And, hey, I was right.

Mongo is hired by a rich guy who controls a charitable organization who just got ripped off by the Master Criminal John Chant who used his cunning and master of disguise skills to funnel money and then brutally murder some people. Mongo is simply hired to go see how Interpol is doing on the investigation and takes the job mostly to have a nice Swiss vacation. But since this is a mystery/action novel he's soon in the middle of the trouble between an ancient Japanese cult of killers and the mysterious Chant. 

Before too long his brother Garth, Veil and his lady friend/snake-expert are all there and backing Mongo up as he hunts Chant and slowly peels the onion of the supposedly ruthless killer. It's a short book that is always interesting, even if the middle is bogged down in a little too much talking. But when Chant shows up the pages light on fire. There's constant danger, ninja mysticism, CIA skullduggery and easy banter. Chesbro seemed like he had a lot of fun with this one.

I've been meaning to read "Veil" for years and now that I've reacquainted myself with Chesbro's world I'd imagine I'll get to it quickly. 

A Trip to King Country and The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

I think most readers at least sample Stephen King. From the ones that are supposed to be "high-brow" with their "literature" to the "casual reader," who just want a nice story. And the thing is that he works for pretty much everyone. I know that there's people out there that don't like his work. I just haven't met many and I'm sure they would all be those kinds of folks who "don't like horror." Well, here's one for them. A simple tale of a mysterious death. I was all aboard the Hard Case Crime train when "The Colorado Kid" came out, pretty much buying all of them as they came out and reading most of them as I got ahold of them. 

But I didn't read King's. I don't know why. I was fan, I mean I was fan from my teenage years when I spent a few months pouring through his early back catalog. He's nostalgia for me and a lot of people, capturing a bit of time in our life when horror movies and books were everything. Simple times of blood, gore, thrills, chills and shattering suspense. Salad days. The King books were in my house for as long as I can remember. My mother was a fan, so there they sat, fat little paperbacks with bold colors and dark black covers. Striking images that are lodged in my mind from way back as a child. Back when you wanted a little spookiness in your life, but the actual stuff was far TOO SCARY. 

Man, that monkey on the "Skeleton Crew" cover. Boy howdy, what a creepy little fucker.

It sort of boggles my mind I didn't read this sooner. Maybe it was that his newer stuff post-90's didn't really connect with me, maybe I didn't like that it was a mystery novel by the master of horror. Maybe I'm just an idiot. 

I am.

"The Colorado Kid" is a mystery novel. Well, it's a novel about the nature of mystery. About why people seek the mysterious in their life. The book takes place in Maine ('natch) and is about three reporters, two old men and one young woman and a mystery ('natch) within the framework of the novel. The titular "Colorado Kid" shows up under odd circumstances on a beach, a near impossible occurrence since we find out his only have hours to travel from Colorado to Maine. King throws curveball after curveball at you, solutions that mess up your reader's sleuthing and he probably likes the idea of you (the reader) scratching your head at the tale. 

As I said this is about WHY people try to figure things out. It's about the characters, like all of King's books, the characters are the draw, and the rest is just fine fun. Dave, Vince and Stephanie sit around and talk the whole book and that's why it's engaging. They are people you'd like to get some lobster rolls or a coffee with and bullshit. There's no action, there's not really much suspense and the murder happens "off screen" but it's a thrill-ride, nonetheless. 

In his afterward King says that this would be a divisive novel. I can see that, the "solution" which I won't spoil is either going to work for you or it's just not. But that's the nature of mystery. King's an institution. I imagine it's weird to be a man and an institution, but he does it with humor and grace. I enjoy hearing him speak as much as I do hearing his characters talk. If you take the novel as a long afternoon coffee with Mr. King, I think you'll enjoy it more.

I haven't read the other two Hard Case Crime King books; they seem to lean into his more usual territory i.e., spooky shit. But that won't stop me from trying them out. This one was pleasant little trip into King Country, man, it's nice to be able to read a Stephen King in a couple of hours. That doesn't come around much. 

QUICK SHOTS: To Kill a Dead Man by Charles Runyon

Charles Runyon is one of those authors I had been meaning to read for, I don't know, ten plus years. I never seemed to luck into any of his books but in the sphere of Gold Medal Paperbacks a lot of people praised his work, so I was always on the lookout. Luck struck at the local libraries book sale where I scooped up a lot of his Gold Medals and this Major release. Runyon seems to be more remembered for his work in science fiction and that seemed to be what he preferred. Knocking off the crime stuff for the cash. Sounds criminal.

I got a soft spot for Major books. They aren't usually for everyone. There's a lot of weird and funky sometimes not-quite good books honestly. This isn't one of them. This is a rock-solid crime novel. Boy howdy, I know it was for the cash, but Runyon did lay down the good. Makes me wonder how it landed at such a low-tier publisher. It's easily better than a lot of what Fawcett put out in the 70's or Dell or Pyramid or Popular Library. Maybe it was just too hard-boiled, because this is rough and tumble book. At first glance it seemed like it could have easily been in the 50s-60s run of Gold Medals. But then it hits some lurid twists that are right out the 70s-era paperback. 

Johnny Quill is the right-hand man/paid killer for a mob guy named Fabius. It starts with that old gem: someone who needs to die has their buried treasure and the villains want it. Quill is sent to kill 'em good. But quickly transforms in an "on-the-run" book once he meets Norma the dead man's woman. Then it's a siege novel on a small tropical island. All the while Quill proves that he's a hard-man. We're talking Earl Drake or Parker hard. He doesn't hesitate to survive and doesn't much think about what he's had to do, i.e., murder of the innocent. His relationship with Norma is the center of the book and it's one not of conventional "love" but passion, boredom, necessity and eventually a recognition that she's as much of a survivor as he is. 

Oh, and there's a bunch of action. The siege is compelling and well thought out. Quill goes around killing and collecting an armory like he's in a video game as Fabius and his boatload of goons waits offshore and send waves of reinforcements. Both trying to figure out how to get to what is SO close but nearly impossible to get to kill their troubles away. Fabius is a sick and slick villain who's smart and taught Quill everything he knows; they spend much of the book at loggerheads because they are too similar in nature.

This one NEEDS to be republished. If it was published by a bigger company, I'm sure it'd have a little cult following, instead of being a footnote and outlier in Runyons bibliography. If you like Drake, Parker or Quarry, seek this one out.