Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 105

Today's brand-new episode focuses on one of the most polarizing authors of the early to mid 20th century, Sydney Horler. He wrote 150 books and authored over 1,000 short stories while waging a headline war with his contemporaries. We dive into his life, his involvement in London's criminal underworld, and the many series titles and characters he created. Eric also reviews a private-eye novel from 1984 and discusses a heated marital dispute in the parking lot of a Jacksonville bookstore. Play the episode below or on any streaming platform. Download the episode HERE. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Facebook, X, and YouTube. 

Listen to "Episode 105: The Crazy Career of Sydney Horler" on Spreaker.

Simon Ark #02 - Hoofs of Satan

The Famous Detective Stories February 1956 issue includes “Hoofs of Satan”, the second appearance of occult detective Simon Ark. He first appeared in the magazine a few months earlier. Those of you unaware of the character there were at least 45 Simon Ark stories and they were all authored by series creator Edward D. Hoch. Ark travels the world searching for the Devil while investigating bizarre occurrences that suggest an evil presence. He teams with an unnamed narrator that progresses from a reporter to a publisher and then a partner with Ark in a detective agency. 

“The Hoofs of Satan” takes place in the winter of 1945 in North Bradshire, a village that lies on the edge of a forest on one of the main highways from London to the coast. The narrator, in third-person this time, describes it as a relic of the Middle Ages that somehow survived the 20th century. Simon Ark is there to investigate the village and later explains to a Chief Inspector that a hundred years ago several villages in that area discovered strange cloven hoof-prints in the snow. The villagers followed the path of the prints through the forest but came to a certain point where the dogs would just howl but go no further. 

Simon Ark, the Inspector, and the village mayor examine new hoof-prints that have appeared in North Bradshire. The trio interview the owner of a house where the majority of the hoof-prints appear. A man named Summers agrees to help the group find answers on who – or what – is making these tracks. Ark has some suspicions and meets with a neighbor named Hunt, a strikingly beautiful married woman that was a popular actress before her retirement a couple of years ago. Ark believes there may be some connection between Hunt, her husband, and Summers. A love triangle? But, what does that have to do with hoof-prints?

Despite Ark's explanation of the weird happenings in North Bradshire, the story eventually drifts into familiar territory in these Ark stories. There is a logical explanation, a murder, and a central mystery on who the killer is. The prints in the snow are unusual but explained in the story's conclusion. As the story ends there is a dark tone as readers discover that Ark may have dished out vigilante justice. The ending suggests that maybe there was a supernatural element marked by Ark leaving an ankh behind. 

This was a fun bit of escapism that puts Ark into the role of leading a mystery investigation. The story is more procedural and follows a well-worn template but it still works well. Readers gain a few tidbits about Ark along the way which contributes to the grand mystery of who the heck Ark really is. As usual, suspend your disbelief and have fun with it. That's what the Simon Ark stories are really about. 

You can obtain this story by purchasing City of Brass: And Other Simon Ark Stories. It is a collection published by Mysterious Press and it features three Ark stories. You can buy it HERE.

Friday the 13th - Friday the 13th Part 3

In one of the more bizarre occurrences in paperback history, two film novelizations occurred for Paramount's Friday the 13th Part 3 (often listed with III). The first was authored by Michael Avallone, a crime-fiction author that wrote the popular Ed Noon series of detective fiction as well as early installments in the Nick Carter: Killmaster series. Avallone wasn't a complete stranger to spookville. He also wrote gothic romance novels that possessed a familiar supernatural scent that appealed to 1970s readers. His F13 novelization was timed perfectly for the release of the film to theaters in 1982. However, Signet hired Simon Hawke, who had previously penned the prior two Friday the 13th novelizations, to write his own novelization of Friday the 13th Part 3 in 1988. Weird, right?

I like Avallone's writing so I chose to read his take on the film first. As a kid, I rented Friday the 13th films so much that the tapes were at my house more than the rental store. I also camped in front of cable television in the late 80s watching the USA Network air the films every Saturday on the Captain USA show or their Saturday Nightmares prime-time spot. Needless to say, I knew what the next page was going to offer. 

Avallone mostly sticks to the script for 90% of the book. If you haven't seen the film, this one has Jason attacking teen visitors at a nearby farm called Higgins Haven, which is adjacent to the Camp Crystal Lake original battleground. Many fans call this film “the barn one” because the action and body count intensifies in that dwelling. Plus, there's plenty of sharp things in there to penetrate soft bodies.

The hero of the film/book is Chris, a young woman that lived a horrifying ordeal as a child when she saw Jason Voorhees face to face in the woods. While she's dealing with repressed memories of that night, she orchestrates an outing to visit the lake where the murders occurred. She brings friends along that just make for easy slasher fodder – two potheads, a horny couple, a creepy lunatic nerd, and another sensible girl. She also brings her boyfriend Andy along for the massacre as well.

Jason begins hacking his way through the characters, including three black bikers, until Chris is the proverbial last girl. Avallone's writing borders on satire at times as if he is secretly rolling his eyes at the ludicrous concept of the undead killer killing...again and again. The perfect example is his take on the imbecile police in the third chapter, aptly titled “Give Him the Axe!”. Avallone is such a great storyteller that he is able to draw out some of the tension and cat-and-mouse intrigue to heights that even rival Harry Manfredini's intense musical score. 

The book's ending drifts into a different version than what is seen on film. In this book's ending Chris completely decapitates Jason whereas in the film she simply cleaves him in the head with an axe. Big difference. She also awakens in bed with the doctors and police outside in the hallway questioning her sanity. She escapes the room and journeys back to the barn to search for clues that the murders actually happened. She wants to prove that she didn't make all of this up. She finds a leg, a foot, and an arm in the hay before Jason decapitates her. The police then go check on Chris and find her still in bed. The whole scene was a nightmare. 

In the film, one of the best segments is when Chris escapes to the canoe and at dawn she sees Jason peering from a window before Mrs. Voorhees corpse erupts out of the water, which is later proved to just be a nightmare. Avallone omits this segment. I took a peek at Simon Hawke's treatment and he kept his novelization strictly to the film version, which may be why he was hired to do another novelization of the film in the first place. 

I love the Friday the 13th films in the same way that any old timer will tell you they loved all of the Hammer and Universal horror films when they were a kid. Jason, Michael, Freddy, and Leatherface have become the new Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy. This book is a nostalgic trip through time but also showcases a superb writer doing the most he can with an unrealistic story. For that, I applaud the effort. This is an entertaining read.

Simon Ark #01 - Village of the Dead

Edward D. Hoch was a prolific writer that penned hundreds of shorts across several different genres in dozens upon dozens of magazines. He was a big deal for publishers and editors looking for content for their monthly or weekly books. While there have been several memorable characters in Hoch's bibliography, ranging from Ben Snow to Captain Leopold, the one that fascinates me the most is the bizarre occult detective Simon Ark. 

Simon Ark debuted in “Village of the Dead”, a short story featured in Famous Detective Stories in December 1955. In fact, Ark's first six appearances were in that magazine before spilling over into magazines like Crack Detective and Mystery Stories, Double-Action Detective and Mystery Stories, and Tightrope!. Eventually, the character would become a fixture in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. There were at least 45 stories featuring Simon Ark between 1956 and 2008. 

In “Village of the Dead”, an unnamed narrator (he is never named) recounts a strange event that occurred in a small American town – The Gildaz Horror. In first-person, the narrator explains that he was working as a reporter scoping out political stories when a teletype hit the newsroom about a mass suicide occurring in the tiny village of Gidaz, just south of the narrator's location. He quickly gets to the scene and discovers that a majority of Gidaz's population took a fatal jump from the top of a hundred foot cliff. 73 people now lay in bloody shreds on sharp rocks lying at the cliff's base. What would make all of these people commit suicide together?

As the narrator begins researching the story he enters one of the abandoned homes and meets another investigator – one of a different sort. He introduces himself as Simon Ark, but advises the narrator that his name is not important. He is described as not appearing old, yet there were tiny lines of age if you looked close enough. The narrator says in a way Ark was a very handsome man, yet he couldn't imagine women ever being attracted to him. He later describes Ark as seemingly from another world or another time.

The two team up together to learn more about the suicide and eventually meet another reporter named Shelly that was originally from the small town. Ark discovers a book in town called The Confessions of Saint Augustine that looks as though it was burned. Later, they discover that a man calling himself Axidus came to town two years ago and began a new religion for Gidaz. The population trusted him to a fault, which may have been their downfall. Through the course of the investigation the narrator and reader learns more about Simon Ark – he may be 2,000 years old, he speaks Coptic, hints that he knew Saint Augustine himself, and that this Axidus may be an evil figure from long ago. How does it all tie together?

There are readers that absolutely love the Simon Ark stories and others really hate them. I've had the fortune of reading a lot of them and I really enjoy the character. “Village of the Dead” by itself isn't strong storytelling and ends with a Scooby-Doo type ending. That's the thing about the Simon Ark stories, they have a bizarre menace theme that eventually leads to a logical explanation instead of some far-flung supernatural one. However, what makes the stories cool is there is always a lingering thought that maybe there was something supernatural occurring. Like in this story Axidus is probably just a quack fanatic that got rich quick or he really was some ancient enemy from centuries ago. 

The thing with Simon Ark stories is that he is on a mission to find the Devil. It is his goal to combat evil across the globe and to eventually bring the ultimate fight to the Devil. But, he isn't a pulpy over-the-top hero. Instead, he solves mysteries in a Sherlock Holmes way with the narrator playing Watson. As the series progresses forward the narrator becomes a book publisher and then eventually partners with Ark as a detective agency. The supernatural and bizarre menace possibilities tend to lessen as the series matures in the 60s and 70s. 

Many Simon Ark stories have been reprinted in physical and digital collections. A passing glace on Amazon will net you a handful of titles with this story included. Start here as a base and then work your way forward. I'll bring you more Simon Ark reviews to guide your way through the darkness. 

Get Simon Ark books HERE.

Paperbacks from Hell Visualized Feature

Way back on Episode 65 we covered the horror sensation of Paperbacks from Hell. This remains one of our most beloved features. What better way to celebrate this feature's popularity than a visualized enhancement!?! We've repurposed the segment into an awesome visual experience complete with dozens upon dozens of full-color horror vintage paperback covers and photos from our own personal collection. Enjoy the show HERE and be sure to subscribe. 

The Maze and the Monster

The August 1963 issue of Magazine of Horror and Strange Stories featured stories by powerhouse authors like Robert Silverberg, Frank Belknap Long, Ambrose Bierce, H.G. Wells, Donald A. Wollheim, and Robert W. Chambers. I've been reading a lot of Edward D. Hoch stories recently and wanted to try a stand-alone short by the writer. I found his story “The Maze and the Monster” included in this issue. The story is also included in an anthology collecting 52 shorts called Devils and Demons, edited by Marvin Kaye and published by Doubleday in 1987.

The beginning of “The Maze and the Monster” begins with a tourist named William Nellis traveling from London's West End to the wild waters off the Atlantic Coast of North Africa. Like the typical pulp nautical adventure things go awry quickly and the ship Nellis is aboard crashes on an island during a storm. Alone on the beach, washed up and in distress, William is delighted when two men wearing a sort of greenish uniform appear. But, they level their rifles at him and march him to an island fortress.

After his half-day stay in a dungeon, William is brought in front of Captain Cortez. It is explained that William has arrived on the Island of Snails. He discovers that Cortez owns the entire island and controls all of the people. He has also devised a wicked game for his prisoners to play. William is brought to a dark underground level of the fortress and explained the rules of his game.

Before him is two miles of passageways that form a dark maze. The door behind William be sealed and and his only choice is to enter the maze with no weapons. Inside, he will find two possible exits – one leads to a paradise of pleasure beyond his wildest dreams and the other leads to a savage beast. To instigate things Cortez has his men enter the maze and pull out the remains of the last prisoner that entered. Then, the door shuts and William is left in darkness.

This was a creepy short read that showcased Hoch's penchant for placing ordinary people into extreme circumstances. The writer thrived for decades and penned numerous stories for the pulps and digests. The ending is a slamming door that surprises the reader (and the main character) and it left me feeling something after reading the last line. Recommended. You can read the story below. 

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 102

The Paperback Warrior Podcast is back! On this episode, Eric explains the show's new format while also presenting features on pulp author and screenwriter William L. Chester and the history of vintage paperback publisher Handi Books. Tom checks in from the road after browsing the third best bookstore in America. In addition, Eric reviews the 1971 suspenseful mystery paperback Crawlspace by Herbert Lieberman and sorts through a stack of new arrivals. Stream HERE, watch on YouTube HERE, play below, or download the episode HERE

Listen to "Episode 102: We're Back!" on Spreaker.

Tales of the Zombie #1

If you have read, or want to read, my review of the Savage Sword of Conan #1, I point out the changing of the guard at Marvel in the early 1970s. When founding publisher Martin Goodman retired, Editor-In-Chief Stan Lee ushered in a new line of black and white magazines to compete with Warren's staple of Eerie, Creepy, and Vampirella titles. These magazines were distributed by Curtis, an affiliated Marvel company. By releasing these comics in magazine format the company was able to leapfrog the Comics Code Authority. The newfound freedom allowed a bit more violence, a touch of nudity, and some mild profanity.

The first of the books was Savage Tales in 1971, followed by a Marvel Monster Group brand that consisted of titles like Dracula Lives!, Monsters Unleashed, Monster Madness, and the subject matter at hand, Tales of the Zombie. The black and white brand was arguably cemented by the long-running Savage Sword of Conan title that began in 1974.

Tales of the Zombie was the brainchild of Roy Thomas (Conan the Barbarian, Amazing Spider-Man, Doctor Strange), but the book's star character, Simon Garth, was created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett in the mid 20th century. The character and origin was originally presented in the Atlas Comics (pre-Marvel) title Menace #5 (July 1953). Both Thomas and Steve Gerber (Captain America, Man-Thing) wrote a 12-page prequel/retcon to the story and inserted it as the first story for Tales of the Zombie #1, published in August 1973. Then, they cleverly reprinted the Atlas Comics story as the second story in the first issue, making a smooth two-part introduction to kick off the debut and series. 

The first issue features an incredible painting by Boris Vallejo (Conan). The contents are:

"Altar of the Damned" - Steve Gerber & Roy Thomas/John Buscema & Tom Palmer
"Zombie!" - Stan Lee/Bill Everett
"Iron-Head" - Dick Ayers
"The Sensuous Zombie!" - Tony Isabella
"The Thing from the Bog!" - Kit Pearson & Marv Wolfman/Pablo Marcos
"The Mastermind" - Tom Sutton
"Night of the Walking Dead" - Steve Gerber/John Buscema & Syd Shores

In the opening pages of "Altar of the Damned", a Louisiana bayou is ripe with women dancing in a ritual as the Voodoo Queen appears holding a gleaming ceremonial blade. Her sacrifice is a tied and gagged Simon Garth, draped upon a smooth stone altar. As the knife whips upward into the air, Garth ponders the sounds of his final scream. But, miraculously the killer cuts his bonds and provides a warning for him to escape before his captors discover his absence. Garth runs into the dense swamp and hides behind a tree. The writers take this opportunity to bring readers up to speed on the events leading to Garth's capture.

Simon Garth is a wealthy businessman that runs a successful coffee company by exploiting the labor force and overworking them. One morning as he is leaving for the office, he engages in an argument with his daughter Laurie and his groundskeeper Gyps. Later, Garth catches Gyps, who is a short pudgy pervert, sneaking a peek at Laurie skinny dipping in the pool. Garth fires Gyps but is eventually blindsided by him, knocked unconscious, and then delivered and sold to a group of Hoodoos that pay well for human sacrifices. 

Full-circle back to the beginning of the story, Garth moves from behind the swamp tree and is attacked again by Gyps, only this time he is fatally stabbed with shears. Gyps and the Hoodoos bury a very dead Garth. However, Gyps wants the ultimate revenge and asks the Hoodoos to resurrect Garth's corpse so he can make him a slave. The Hoodoos honor Gyps' request and provide a necklace for Garth to wear and a controlling power through a magical coin that Gyps controls. "Altar of the Damned" ends with Garth seemingly a braindead slave-corpse. 

This second entry, "Zombie!", is the reprinting of the original 1953 story. The only changes made were to add longer hair for Garth to make a modern match with the prior story. In "Zombie!", Gyps summons Garth and makes him go to the city to steal gold. When Garth is found by the police he is shot repeatedly but doesn't die. Sometime later he returns to Gyps empty-handed. Gyps then orders Garth to go to a house and kidnap a girl that he is infatuated with. When Garth goes to the house and sees the targeted girl, some semblance of his old self kicks in and Garth refuses to get the girl. Instead, he goes back to Gyps and kills him before lying down in a grave. The narrator states at the end that the girl was really Garth's daughter. 

Let's face it. This is pure genius on the part of Thomas and Gerber to retcon this simple undead story from 1953 into a more intricate presentation of the proverbial riches-to-rags cautionary tale. The placement of the prequel before the original 1953 story was just an excellent concept. This origin tale is developed well and explains so much to the reader in 24 pages. The art layout and pencils from both Buscema and Palmer provide shadowy darkness behind Gyps, reiterating this is the bad guy being described in dialogue. I really enjoyed Gyps revealed as the narrator, the master controlling the slave. Also, there is a convincing subtext here of Garth molding his labor into lifeless blue-collar slaves and then role-reversal as Garth transforms from master to slave. Well done.

"Iron-Head" is a five-page short-story that features a grave robber killing someone. To escape authorities, the man gets a job on a private yacht doing deep-sea dives for a crew of treasure hunters. When they realize one more treasure chest remains, the man schemes a plan to go underwater in his iron diving suit after blowing up the boat. With the treasure hunters out of the way, the man gets the chest and then slow walks across the ocean floor to a nearby island. He plans to rest on the island and await a rescue crew. Instead, the island is filled with savage cannibals. His only way to survive is to pretend he is some sort of ironbound God inside the suit. However, he can't take the suit off or remove the helmet for fear the natives will discover his con. After days without food and water he finally....well I don't want to ruin it for you. It was a simple entertaining story. Nothing more, nothing less.

Tony Isabella presents an article on zombies at the movies. In "The Sensuos Zombie", Isabella documents the first zombie films from 1932's White Zombie and 1936's Revolt of the Zombies through the 1969 shocker Night of the Living Dead.

Pablo Marcos is one of my favorite artists and his illustrative style highlights "The Thing from the Bog!", authored by Marv Wolfman and Kit Pearson. The synopsis is that centuries ago a bog in the Northern Jutlands of Denmark was used to kill vile criminals. Two years before the story takes place a witch was tortured and sent to her death in the steaming waters of the bog. Her pact with the Devil allows her to return to life as an old hag. She finds a young child and then secretly becomes his "Witch Guardian". The boy and his stepfather are cutting peat in the area and unearth a corpse. One thing leads to another and soon the town is overran with zombies. The story has one too many flashbacks, and the plot is a bit scrambled, but again, Marcos is the real highlight here and his descriptive drawing of graveyards, skulls, witches and...death is simply awe-inspiring. 

"Mastermind" by Tom Sutton is a simple two-page story that has a mad scientist creating a Frankenstein creature called Manaak. 

The third Zombie (Simon Garth) installment, "Night of the Walking Dead", is a continuation of the first two stories of the issue. Garth's daughter Donna is at the morgue and identifies Gyps' corpse on the tray. She explains to a detective that a mysterious amulet/coin may have some connection with her father's murder. As she stares into the coin and talks the next page reveals that Garth is stirring in his dirt bed. 

A hunter is stalking the bayou as Garth rises from the grave. There's a bit of action here as Garth fights the hunter's hounds before going into the town to find Donna. As Donna is leaving the mortuary a druggie desperate for money mugs her. Garth shows up and shows a bit more intelligence while killing the mugger. As the story ends Garth is walking away, presumably back to his grave. 

Tales of the Zombie #1 was entertaining from cover to cover. The selection of writers and artists was the perfect combination to deliver some of the better horror tales you'll find in this era of Marvel black and white. While cautionary tales are always dominant in the horror comics, the idea of a "heroic" zombie playing the star is unique and edgy. Readers can sense the personal anguish and despair in the Garth character while also sharing Donna's grief over her murdered father. The satisfaction is delivered when the bad guys get their comeuppance. 

You can get still find copies of the Marvel Essentials trade paperback that collects the Garth stories. Buy a copy of the book HERE

Wolfshead

If I may take some liberties here, I'm introducing my review of Robert E. Howard's horror tale “Wolfshead” with a fun tidbit of how this story became published. I'm summarizing pages 76-77 of The Last Celt: Bio-Bibliography of Robert E. Howard, specifically the chapter “Lone Star Fictioneer” by the book's editor Glenn Lord.

After Howard's first two published stories, “Spear and Fang” (Weird Tales, July 1925) and “In the Forest of Villefere” (Weird Tales, Aug 1925), Howard went to work writing “Wolfshead” (a sequel to "In the Forest..."), a supernatural narrative featuring a werewolf terrorizing an assortment of characters in a castle. Weird Tales accepted the story and paid Howard $40. The plan was for “Wolfshead” to be the lead cover story for the April 1926 issue. While artist E.M. Stevenson was completing the cover art, he discovered that he had either misplaced the story or simply lost it. Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright contacted Howard and asked him to mail a carbon copy of the story as a replacement. Unfortunately, Howard never made one so he had to re-write the story from memory. Eventually the original manuscript was found prior to publication and Wright paid Howard an additional $10 due to the mistake.

That is a goofy way to begin my review of “Wolfshead”, but on that introduction you have learned that “Wolfshead” was the lead story for the April 1926 issue of Weird Tales and it was only the author's third story to be published (outside of his local school paper). And...what a story it is!

In first-person narration, an unnamed individual is explaining to a group of soldiers that despite their adventures on wind-lashed seas they have never experienced “hair-raising, horror-crawling fear”. To demonstrate that the narrator has seen terror first-hand, he recounts a time that he was invited to a castle.

Dom Vicente sends an invitation for the narrator to join him and a gathering of guests to a vacation on the African coast. Here, Vicente had cleared the jungle and built a huge castle, complete with storehouses and a nearby village of slaves and workforce. The narrator accepts the invitation and joins the guests at the castle for a few days of flirting and drinking. With his Spanish friend de Seville, the narrator explains that upon first impression he dislikes a man named De Montour. He feels that the man isn't trust worthy and may have a hidden agenda of some kind.

That night, De Montour enters the narrator's bedroom and kindly warns him to lock his bedroom door at night. Things are apparently amiss in the castle. The next morning the narrator and guests learn that a villager was ripped to shreds by some sort of animal. Suspicions are aroused when a guest is attacked in the house. The narrator places his bets that De Montour isn't all that he appears to be. As the narrative continues, the killer is revealed with a backstory on lycanthropy.

While some may disagree, “Wolfshead” is an entertaining, fleshed-out tale that captures the imagery and imaginations of several genres – horror, swashbuckling, action-adventure, locked-room mystery, and even fantasy (to a minor degree). The suspect is pretty easy to pinpoint but the fun is just getting to the reveal and explanation of the attacks. While there is an isolation among the prey, the castle halls are still frenzied with accusations and suspicions. When the reveal is made, the story makes an advancement into sword-fighting and minor military campaign. Overall, just a versatile story that should appeal to readers in the broadest of terms. I didn't read "In the Forest of Villefere", but I feel like the events in that story were relayed here. 

Roy Thomas penned a 1999 comic adaptation of this story for Cross Plains Comics. Kull the Conqueror #8 (May 1973) features an adaptation of the story with Kull inserted as the main character. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the werewolf horror film series Howling used this story as an obvious blueprint for the fifth installment, Howling V: The Rebirth (written by Clive Turner), which is a fantastic film and a real highlight of that otherwise sub-par series.

You can get the Lancer paperback collection, which includes and is titled after this story, HERE

Ship Trial

New Yorker Frank De Felitta (1921-2016) served in WW2 and began his writing career in the 1940s working on radio programs like The Whistler. In the 1950s, he wrote for anthology television shows like Suspense, Tales of Tomorrow, and Danger. As a novelist, De Felitta hit the big-time with his late 70s bestsellers Audrey Rose and The Entity, both of which were adapted to film. De Felitta has been on my radar for a long time simply because he directed one of my favorite horror films ever, 1981's Dark Night of the Scarecrow. I'm trying out his writing with a review of Sea Trial, a 1980 nautical-thriller originally published by Avon with a cover by Ed Scarisbrick. Pictured is the 1982 Avon paperback with a cover by Victor Gadino.

New Yorkers Phil and Tracey are lovers and both are married - but not to each other. When Tracey's spouse reports to a remote overseas job it coincides with Phil's timing to take a "solo" vacation away from the wife and kids. The two Manhattan yuppies meet up in Coral Gables, Florida for a two-week private cruise with a salty charter Captain named McCracken and his wife Penny. It is the perfect getaway for infidelity and hot romance. But, there's something seriously wrong with McCracken and Penny.

On board the 800-foot luxury yacht, Phil and Tracey, who pretend to be married, are initially treated like a king and queen, basking in the sun while being served 24 hours a day by the two hosts. Yet, McCracken seems particularly aggressive in gaining Phil's backstory, often testing him with odd questions about boating (newsflash: Phil doesn't boat) and physical feats of blue-collar strength (newsflash: Phil is a white-collar lightweight). Likewise, Penny is ritually subservient to McCracken and often takes potshots at Tracey for her “easy” life in New York. Slowly, this aquatic paradise is turning into a nit-picky Hell. But, things are about to get much worse.

Days out at sea, McCracken informs the couple that the ship has malfunctioned and that supplies will need to be rationed. Additionally, due to loss of power the ship is being pulled by a current to carry them further out to sea instead of into more popular trading waters where they have a possibility of rescue. The De Felitta's narrative transforms into a survival-horror ordeal as the four face harrowing circumstances that test their emotional and physical prowess. When Phil finds a shipping log of McCracken's prior customers he notices that they have all been rated on a scale from one to ten based on endurance and internal fortitude. What the heck is going on?

While the book's synopsis suggested something supernatural, Ship Trial evolved into something much different. The novel's first half is a slothful voyage as the four characters talk about their experiences and personal lives. There is also a good bit of tepid, non-graphic lovemaking between Phil and Tracey and a ton of cooking and tasting delicacies. As much as these events seemed trivial and unnecessary, it sets up the second half of the book splendidly. When the author makes the switch from lollygagging to “oh my God we're all gonna die” the abruptness adds to the entertainment. It's like rubbernecking on the highway to see just how bad the carnage really is and then rear-ending the car in front of you. Sea Trial turns the corner and prepares for a fast-paced ride to oblivion. 

If you love survival-horror or maybe just the high-seas tension and suspense of Charles Williams (Aground, Dead Calm), Sea Trial is worth its weight in gold. I loved this book and I think you will too.

Note - If you want more survival-horror aspects of nautical adventure, read our reviews for Kenneth Roberts' Boon Island, Hammond Innes' The White South, Jack London's The Sea-Wolf, and Max Brand's The Luck of the Spindrift. Buy a copy of Sea Trial HERE

The Tea Party

Charles L. Grant(1942-2006) was a popular horror, science-fiction, and fantasy writer that began writing short-fiction in the late 1960s before becoming a full-time novelist in 1976. If you browse any used book store chances are you will find a Grant book. He was extremely prolific, used at least eight different pseudonyms, and dabbled in a little bit of everything from television tie-in novels to editing the 12-book anthology series Shadows. He served as both President of the Horror Writers Association and Secretary of Science-Fiction Writers of America. 

The Tea Party was published in 1985 by Pocket Books with a cover by Lisa Falkenstern (fun fact: she took a cover-art course from Pocket Books' art director Milton Charles) The genre of “dark fantasy” applies to the novel in part due to Grant's incorporation of reincarnation, immortality, and parallel universes. I would imagine somewhere in the dense narrative is a cautionary tale on real estate overdevelopment and the erosion of the small town.

In a small Connecticut farming community, lies an abandoned mansion known as Winterrest. The house's history dates back to the 1700s and is ripe with historical deaths and disappearances. A Seattle native named Doug moves to the tiny town after accidentally killing a man and serving four years in prison. Doug is overachieving by dating two characters in the book, Judy and Liz, and all three of these people are as interesting as an empty soup can.

The tiny hamlet begins to experience unusual phenomenon - mini-earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, and landslides. The town residents begin to behave strangely each time they interact with Winterrest. 

A bizarre real-estate agent, who may be the Devil, invites a group of the residents to afternoon high tea at the house. When they arrive, the man explains that the house is awakening and needs to eat people to sustain its soul. No, seriously. It's there. Apparently there are other Winterrest houses existing as well.

The Tea Party is just an absolute literary mess with no clear path to a conclusive and definitive narrative. Nothing makes any sense. Grant has a plethora of ideas which never seem to fully come to fruition. I managed to endure until page 264 of 320 pages before calling it quits and moving on to much better books. If you made it to the end then you receive my fondest praise and admiration. 

Winterrest and this novel are now being repossessed by the Paperback Warrior Bank and permanently placed in the Hall of Shame. 

Retown

Like many of the new breed of acclaimed indie horror authors, Boris Bacic started as a Creepypasta short story writer on Reddit. He since has become a popular novelist with a series of unrelated small-town horror paperbacks, including 2022’s Retown.

An Oregon software salesman named Jason is dispatched to close a deal in the remote town of Riverton. The town is so off-the-beaten-path that even his car GPS approaches the dirt roads and snowy mountains with great trepidation. The closer he gets to Riverton, the more he regrets the trip as his cell phone dies and a stranger warns him to stay away.

While on the outskirts of Riverton, Jason witnesses something that was truly rattling and scary for both the reader and the character. Upon his arrival into Riverton, the author does a great job of creating an uneasy vibe. Everything is off. No one behaves normally. The locals fluctuate between indifference, rudeness and a passive hostility. Jason can’t wait to leave, and get home to his family hours away.

But it’s not that easy.

The Amazon book description gives away a major plot point that occurs 22% into the book (shame on the publisher), but I won’t spoil it here. The upshot is that leaving Riverton isn’t as easy as driving over the mountain. The entire town is under the spell of a supernatural force of some kind, and the townsfolk seem to be resigned to just lie back and take it. Could Jason be the resistance the citizens of Riverton need to break their chains?

Once the mystery of Riverton is revealed, the book stops being as scary and becomes a giant escape room mystery. Fans of the TV show Lost or Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines will feel right at home here. The revelations about the town, its caretakers, and its power are dealt out sparingly throughout the book. Some readers will be satisfied with the answers, and others will not. But no one will deny the creativity and inventiveness of this eerie novel. Recommended. 

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The Dead Remember

The August, 1936 issue of Argosy featured a horror western short-story titled “The Dead Remember”. The author was Robert E. Howard, a veteran of both westerns and horror stories. Howard was closely linked with Weird Tales along side his contemporaries in H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. He made $17.50 for the submission. Since then, the story has circulated in collections like Horror Times Ten (Berkley 1967), Pigeons from Hell (Ace 1979), and The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (Del Rey 2008). My version is in a paperback called Trails in Darkness, originally published in June 1996 by Baen. 

This 12-page story features a rough 'n ready cowhand named Jim Gordon. One night he visits an acquaintance, an African-American man named Joel and his wife Jezebel. Joel and Jim begin shooting craps and drinking tequila and Joel takes all of Jim's money. The obligatory accusation of cheating arises and Jim fatally shoots Joel twice in the belly. Jezebel runs out and attempts to fire an old musket, but it misfires and Jim fatally shoots Jezebel in the chest. In her dying words, she screams this curse at Jim:

“You've killed Joel and you've killed me, but by God, you won't live to brag about it. I curse you by the big snake and the black swamp and the white cock. Before this day rolls around again you'll be branding the devil's cows in Hell. You'll see, I'll come to you when the time's ripe and ready.”

It is these chilling final words that haunt Jim. Soon he becomes paranoid and begins having accidents that nearly kill him. In the story's finale, there is a hint of a supernatural entity that comes for him. Whether it was or wasn't is in the eye of the beholder. I'd like to think it was supernatural. 

These types of “curse you” horror stories are a dime-a-dozen, but Howard sure had a knack for reeling the reader into the macabre. What makes this story interesting is the fact that it is presented in a series of letters by the various characters that interact with Jim through the story. These are all presented in a detailed way that doesn't reveal everything at once. As the letters are presented from different points of view, it is up to the reader to ascertain what is really happening. 

If you like your horror westerns then don't let this one slip your memory. After all, the dead remember. 

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Sea Curse

Robert E. Howard earned $17 when he sold his story “Sea Curse” to Weird Tales. The magazine published the story in the May 1928 (Vol. 11 Number 5) issue with a Curtis C. Senf cover. This selection falls into the category of Howard's horror/weird stories and has been featured in dozens of publications over the past 94 years including Marchers of Vahalla (Sphere 1977), The Howard Collector (Ace 1979), and Shadow Kingdoms (Wildside 2004). My reading of the story is from a paperback titled Eons of the Night, published by Baen in 1996 with a Ken Kelly cover.

“Sea Curse” is set in the small coastal village called Faring. Howard used this same town for his stories “Restless Waters” (pub 1969, aka “The Horror at the Window”), “Out of the Deep” (pub. 1967), and his poem “A Legend of Faring Town” (pub 1975). Don't be thrown off by the impression that these stories are somehow connected. They aren't. The characters are specific to just the story and never spill into the other tales.

The story begins as readers learn of old Moll Farrell, a rumored witch that has very little to say to anyone, minds her own business, and makes a living from gathering clams and driftwood while raising her young niece. This is a fishing town, which brings lots of weathered sailors in and out of the harbor. Unfortunately, two of the very worst hang around Faring – John Kulrek and his pal Lie-lip Canool. Off-page, Kulrek rapes and kills Moll's niece, casting her broken little body into the raging sea. 

After a few days, the young girl drifts to shore, cold and lifeless. Word quickly makes it to the village and they all run to the coastline. Standing over the dead girl, a drunken Kulrek raises his drink and says, “A health to the wench's ghost!”. Immediately, Moll Farrell screams a curse on Kulrek with the main point being addressed to Canool:

“You shall be the death of John Kulrek and he shall be the death or you! You shall bring John Kulrek to the doors of Hell and John Kulrek shall bring you to the gallows-tree! I set the seal of death upon your brow, John Kulrek! You shall live in terror and die in horror far out upon the cold grey sea!”

Kulrek and his small crew set sail at dawn on a long voyage. Months later, Canool arrives in town and tells the village that Kulrek deserted ship in Sumatra after a fight with the skipper. 

Later, the narrator of the story, a “harum-scarum” lad (no name provided) and his friend Joe are out in the water in a thick white fog. They hear the sounds of a large boat, but can't make out the direction. They spend hours drifting through the fog honing in on the sound of the oars. They finally locate a gloomy rotten galley and climb aboard the rickety planks. I won't ruin the surprise for you, but they discover a horrifying sight that ties into Kulrek's desertion and departure from Canool. Moll Farrell's curse comes to fruition in a terrifying climax.

I can't say enough great things about this Robert E. Howard horror story. While the idea of a curse being wielded to avenge the loss of a loved one or friend is overused in these types of stories, the format works perfectly for this eerie tale. Howard's writing is so descriptive with the veiled sea, grey fogs, and the shivering end of the wharf. I love the way he presents the story's most emotional and moving aspect, the grisly discovery of the young girl. He does it in such a smooth, elegant way that hits like a fist on a hollow coffin:

“All the while beyond the shoals, we heard the never-ceasing droning of the heaving, restless grey monster, and in the dim light of the ghostly dawn Moll Farrell's girl came home. The tides bore her gently across the wet sands and laid her almost at her own door. Virgin-white she was, and her arms folded across her still bosom; calm was her face, and the gray tides sighed about her slender limbs.”

That is just such a powerful description that contrasts with the loud-mouthed drunken rage of the girl's killer. As Moll Farrell screams the curse, Howard digs in deep with rage and despair clashing with insults and warnings for the two sailors. It's nothing short of brilliant. 

If you love nautical stories, then you'll be seduced by the coastal atmosphere of Faring and the chill of this ghostly seaside tale. Highest possible recommendation. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Devil Wind

It’s 1985ish and I’m a young adolescent walking around our local K-Mart department store with my $5 allowance for the week. I’m typically scoping out the latest Hardy Boys installment, those cool “modern” ones with the explosive painted covers, or an R-rated movie novelization (living in the bible-belt, R-rated flicks were off the table, so my only option was to read the novelizations). But today…I see the incredible covers for a series of young-adult horror paperbacks called Dark Forces. I snag Devil Wind, the fourth installment, and camp out in my porch rocker to consume black magic, the occult, and the Dark Forces. I don’t recall the quality of the book, but I do remember enjoying it and picking up a few other books in the series before moving on to Stephen King, John Saul, and Dean Koontz.

 
Bantam published 15 Dark Forces young-adult paperbacks from 1983-1984. These were all stand-alone novels - roughly 160 pages – that challenged for market superiority among the crowded ranks of Point Horror, Goosebumps, Private School, and prolific author Christopher Pike (Kevin McFadden). That guy was everywhere. The series was authored by a rotating blend of writers including Scott Siegel, Les Logan, Bruce Coville, and Jane Polcovar. The collaboration of Paul Alexander and Laurie Bridges produced three series installments - Magic Show, Devil Wind, and Swamp Witch. 

For funsies, I tracked down a copy of Devil Wind and gave it an adult spin nearly 40 years removed from my first experience with the book.

 
The novel stars Peter Wardwell, a high schooler living in the small coastal New England town of Northport Bay. In the book’s opening pages, readers learn that a dilapidated house was recently demolished, and Peter found an old whistle in the rubble. With his new whistle, and his family’s boat, he takes his sweetheart Mary Jane (human not plant) to a small, hidden cove he discovers down the coast. Mary Jane immediately gets the creeps there and the place reeks of rotted flesh. But Peter insists they stick around and soon pulls out his whistle and takes a blow. A thick fog rolls in and the two become separated. Peter falls into a deep slumber and Mary Jane is rescued by a salty sailor. The two soon find Peter and bring him back home. Only, this isn't really Peter.

 
Over the course of the book readers experience Peter’s transformation from a kind American boy into a Satanic warlock from the 1700s. You see Northport Bay experienced a curse from Simon Wardwell, Peter’s great-great-gr….you get the point. Simon died in the little cove, along with his sadistic followers. But, when Peter blew the whistle, his body was possessed by this creepy Satan-worshiper. Between Mary Jane, the salty sailor, and a wise old woman in town, they must stop Peter from raising Hell on Northport Bay on Halloween.

As a breezy horror paperback, Devil Wind is a lot of fun to read. The four key characters made a great team-up to fight the forces of evil, complimented by the authors' emphasis on character development (despite the short page count). It's a young-adult novel, so don't expect any Jack Ketchum or Bryan Smith slaughterhouse action. Instead, the storyline is your classic small-town horror that places average people into extreme situations. I got the vibe of John Carpenter's excellent The Fog, so if that's your palette, then this should please any age group. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Night Shoot

In researching Scottish author David Sodergren, a review blurb I read described his fiction as “modern horror for vintage fans”. That sort of stuck with me when I borrowed a friend's paperback of Sodergren's Night Shoot. The book was self-published in 2019, one year after the author's acclaimed debut The Forgotten Island. As a fan of vintage slasher flicks, I was excited to sample Sodergren's writing.

Night Shoot's past-tense, third-person narrative (you have to be specific these days) features Elspeth Murray as the protagonist. In the book's early introduction, readers learn that Elspeth is in her fourth year of film school to become a professional set designer. She lives with her girlfriend Sandy and the two seem to be reaching a milestone in their relationship. 

Elspeth's class has paired her up with a small crew of classmates that must complete a film as their final exam. The group is mostly misfits that are working on a low-budget horror movie called The Haunting of Lacey Carmichael. While some of the film has been shot at the school, the director has called in a family favor to his father to use an estranged uncle's cavernous manor house to shoot the majority of the film. There's a lot more to it, but giving anything else away is giving you the steak before the sizzle. 

The rule is that the film crew has to get in and out of the house in one day, allowing just a few hours of shooting time before the rigid 8PM deadline to get the Hell out. This rule is important to the owner of the place, a stuffy old fart that doesn't appreciate the tedious task of having young snot-nosed kids ruining the woodwork. As the film crew sets up in the giant mansion, a hideous “something” is in the attic watching and waiting. 

In a fast-paced 80s slasher style, each of the film crew is knocked off in heinous fashion. It follows the beloved formula of ticking off the characters until the final girl is left alone in the house with the “something”. I was getting some serious Linda Blair vibes from the VHS classic Hell Night (1981), but also shades of the flick Curtains (1983) and the lost gem The House That Vanished (1973). Setting is always important for these stories and the use of an enormous manor house nestled on a cliff overlooking the North Sea was pretty spectacular. Kudos to the author for using every square foot of the house's interior, with chase scenes spilling into offices, hallways, attics, bedrooms, rooftops, and closets. 

Night Shoot is a 230-page horror novel for the casual mop-headed rental-store veterans out there. I love a good 70s and 80s romp where the actress evades the masked man through campgrounds, houses (big or small), malls, schools, barns, and mines. If you love that stuff, then Night Shoot is a popcorn classic. I can't wait to read more of this author.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Night of the Mannequins

Texas-born Stephen Graham Jones (b. 1972) contributes to horror, crime, and science-fiction genres. He has earned critical praise for his novels The Only Good Indians and My Heart is a Chainsaw. He is also a multiple winner of the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson literary awards. Reading the praise, I jumped into his novella Night of the Mannequins not only to experience Jones for the first time, but also because mannequins are downright terrifying.

There isn't a lot to this little story. The plot is fairly simple and straight-forward. A kid named Sawyer is killing off his friends to protect their families from being killed by a mannequin. But, to jump to that extremity, there are events leading up to this.

Sawyer and his friends find a discarded dummy in the forest. “Manny” becomes the group mascot and gets hauled around from place to place kinda like Pete the Pup in The Little Rascals – only Pete was real and this mannequin isn't. However, for Sawyer that all changes. 

The group play a joke on their friend at the theater and place Manny in a seat, then they go complain to management that somebody in the crowd is being too loud. But, the joke is on Sawyer when he witnesses Manny getting out of his seat and walking out of the theater. Is Manny real? Is IT alive? 

Sawyer believes that one of his friends, and their family members, is run over in the street by Manny. He also believes Manny is stealing food from the neighborhood and eating in some hunkered-down locale in the woods. It's really out there man. But, to protect all of the innocent family members from being murdered, Sawyer decides he will just take a less violent approach and kill his friends before Manny can. If his friends can't be slashed to death by the slasher, then innocent lives will be spared.

Night of the Mannequins is a goofy serial-killer-slasher novel that is told from Sawyer's perspective. I have a minor beef with these types of stories because I don't want to be trapped in the mind of a lunatic. Some readers, and horror fans, love this sort of thing. I'm borderline with it. I like that Jones knows how to get into the story and get out quickly, leaving a short space here to do his thing. At 144 pages, this book is a real breeze that's enjoyable and fun without any excess baggage. Recommended.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Dark Harvest

According to trusty Wikipedia, Norman Partridge (b. 1958) has authored two detective novels starring a retired boxer named Jack Baddalach. He won his first Bram Stoker award in 1992 for his collection Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales. He also won Stoker awards in 2001 for The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists and in 2006 for Dark Harvest. In scanning retail bookshelves, and movies on various streamers, I can't seem to escape Dark Harvest. It's available in digital, physical, and audio versions and was also adapted into a 2023 film and released by MGM. Accepting it as an omen, I decided to just give the book a whirl. 

The novel is set in an unnamed Midwestern small town on and around Halloween night. The town is unlike any other because it has a strict set of rules that are enforced by a macabre annual contest. Here's the setup:

Every year on Halloween, one male citizen journeys into a town cornfield and digs up a small boy-sized corpse. Using a process unknown to readers (and I'd speculate the author), this corpse comes to life and is provided some sort of jack-o-lantern head and vines and tendrils that make up arms and legs. Injected into its torso is a big bag of delicious candy. The animated corpse then has only one mission. The corpse must make it to the old church before midnight. The corpse is named The October Boy, but some refer to it as Sawtooth Jack. Oh, and the corpse can legally kill anyone in its way.

Okay, with me so far? Continue on...

A week or so before Halloween, the teenage male boys are placed into a type of solitude by their parents to starve them. The purpose is because on Halloween night, the male kids are let out and they must hunt and kill the corpse. Like a Capture the Flag kind of thing. Whoever the lucky kid is that can successfully kill the corpse before it reaches the old church wins the annual prize – a free pass to get out of town and his parents get a ton of money. The kids are starved purposefully so they will go after the corpse in an aggressive way to eat the candy inside. 

You're probably thinking, what sort of puny prize allows someone to just leave town. Well, that's the kicker. You see in this town no one can ever leave. The only way out is by winning the prize. Also, if you are a female, well you're just completely trapped in town forever because females aren't allowed to compete in the game.

Dark Harvest is one-part Stephen King in its The Walk and The Running Man dystopian contest. The other part is similar to Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, based on a small hamlet's annual weirdness. Partridge's writing is like a bleak crime-fiction novel, with plenty of pistol and shotgun blasts to compete with many men's action-adventure paperbacks. He also uses a quick and punchy prose that delivers a smooth, short-sentence presentation for his readers. I liked the more masculine wording Partridge uses to describe cars, motors, guts, and gunshots. He has a gritty, more realistic style that isn't punted away by the dark fantasy make-believe of the overall story.

My real complaint with Dark Harvest (besides the irritating present-tense narrative) is a popular one. The book's violent wrap-up doesn't provide any explanation as to why the town is the way it is. If you are looking for closure, none will be found. The mystery of the magical corpse, why the game is played, and the overall necessity of the corpse's death is left unanswered. Reading Dark Harvest reminded me of why I gave up on Lost by the second season. I had a sense of urgency to know the answer. In that regard, the reading experience was unsatisfactory. But, getting to that conclusion was actually a lot of fun. Your mileage may vary. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Lantern Man

Having read four of Jon Bassoff's nine novels to date, I'm convinced he might be the most talented and thought-provoking author in the business. When writing a blog dedicated to reviewing vintage fiction, of which many of its authors are long dead, it is unusual for me to even refer to a writer as still being alive and relevant. Yes, Bassoff is alive (and well I hope) and continuing to write amazing books that defy any specific genre. He's as much a murder-mystery guy as a horror writer, as much a crime-fiction stalwart as a noir enthusiast. If Bassoff was a filmmaker, nods to David Lynch would certainly be warranted. He's that good.

In The Lantern Man, originally published in 2020 by Down and Out Books, Bassoff once again takes his readers into a dark strip of American Gothic, a Bible Belt of the Devil where small-town killings somehow find a shaded pathway to a not-so-idyllic family. Like his previous novels in Corrosion and Beneath Cruel Waters, The Lantern Man is set in a small community nestled in a rural stretch of Colorado mountains. It is here that mining was once prominent, and like any mining town, there are inevitable childhood rumors of a murderous miner that steals away children in the night to feast on their flesh. This rumor of “The Lantern Man” plays a big part in the murder of a teenage girl. Did a killer miner from days gone by murder her or was it a young man named Stormy Greiner?

The book is presented in a pretty innovative way, with comparisons made to House of Leaves (Mark Danielewski) or Dracula (Bram Stoker). The book is presented as texts, but made up of diary entries that feature footnotes written by a detective. It is a form of ergodic literature where the reader is forced into a sort of game to review all of the book's passages and clues. It isn't a heavy lift and can be read seamlessly from beginning to end. 

Ultimately, the narrative is a pretty twisted venture into some really dark places. The book's protagonist, Lizzie Greiner, is immediately disclosed to the reader as a suicide victim, a young woman who burns herself to death in an old mining shack. Beside her charred body is her journal, left in a fireproof box in a way that spells out all of the events leading up to her death. 

Detective Russ Buchanan is assigned the cumbersome chore of weeding through the journal and interviewing witnesses that may hold the answer to the girl's murder. The real answer lies in the eye of the beholder – none of the evidence or witnesses provide an indisputable explanation. The author's message is purely subjective. 

The Lantern Man is an extremely rewarding reading experience. The text is a great story, saturated in family ties, mystery, and a compelling narrative. But, the presentation is equally satisfying and designed for fans of crime-fiction. No matter what genre you prefer, this novel checks off every box. Highest possible recommendation.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.