Secret Agent X #1 - The Torture Test

If you ever find yourself burning out on the sullen anti-heroes of 1970's-80's paperbacks, and getting tired of the coldness, the sex and the cynicism in them, the vintage pulps are the perfect alternative. But while fabulous characters are all over the place in the pulps, finding great stories isn’t necessarily easy. 'Doc Savage', 'G-8' and 'The Spider' are classic heroes, but these stories were written for a young crowd - basically 12 to 16-years old. You get lots of action, weird villains and a brisk pace, but sometimes things collapse into such silliness that you become detached from the story rather than being carried along by it. At the other end of the spectrum are heroes like 'The Shadow' and 'The Phantom Detective'. Here the stories are a bit more adult and less fanciful, but sometimes the prose is dry, plodding and short on thrills. I love all of those characters. But I’ve found that the stories I tend to enjoy the most come from the middle of the spectrum, where you’ll find lesser-known heroes like 'Jim Hatfield', 'Operator 5' and 'Secret Agent X'.

Agent X makes his debut in “The Torture Trust” (1934), an imaginative and energetic novel full of action and atmosphere, menace and mayhem. It’s got naturalistic dialogue and there are no goofy sidekicks following the hero around. Paul Chadwick (as Brant House) handles this enigmatic character with skill, sharing Agent X’s thoughts and feelings just enough to make him human, without ever losing the aura of mystery that makes him fascinating. We’re told almost nothing about who he is (not even his name), where he came from or how he got into his dangerous profession.

In this adventure, Agent X battles an unknown trio of hooded extortionists who are terrorizing the city, torturing their victims with acid when they don’t pay up. At first, he has almost no clues to work with, but he methodically zeroes in on the villains’ identities and location, step-by-step, right through to an effective climactic confrontation. Chadwick must have realized he had something special here, because he would later recycle the story for another 'Secret Agent X' novel, “The Hooded Heroes”, in which the only real improvement was to make the villains even meaner, pouring molten lead down their victims’ throats! 

Like many of the great pulp heroes, Agent X frequently goes undercover, wearing disguises and elaborate make-ups as he conducts his operations. He really takes that work seriously in “The Torture Trust”, studying film footage and voice recordings of his subjects before meticulously applying many thin layers of makeup to complete his impersonation. This is quite a contrast to 'The Shadow', 'G-8', 'The Phantom Detective' (and Agent X himself in his later novels), whose make-ups are slapped together in a few moments, often in the dark or in moving vehicles. That attention to detail pays off, both for Agent X and the author and it helps set this thriller apart. Like all the best hero pulp stories, it’s grounded in the real world… but anything can happen on the next page.

The Vigilante #01 - New York: An Eye for an Eye

This novel, “New York: An Eye for an Eye”, is the debut of a six-volume series entitled ‘Vigilante’. The house name is V.J. Santiago, but it’s written by Robert Lory of ‘John Eagle Expeditor’ fame. It’s a Pinnacle book, and was released in 1975 with easily one of the worst covers of the genre. It’s made painfully abysmal by the promise that it’s “More ruthless than The Executioner and more vengeful than Death Wish!”. Luckily, the book’s pretentious (boisterous) claims are overshadowed by quality writing and an engaging story. Surprisingly, this one is a solid representation of what makes this “revenge” sub-genre so compelling.

The book’s prologue quickly introduces us to a very violent East Seventy-Seventh Street in New York. A young woman named Janet is raped and killed across the street from our protagonist Joe Madden. It’s an eerie precursor of the horror awaiting Madden and his young wife Sara. Lory takes some time introducing us to Madden and building the obligatory relationship not only with his wife Sara, but the reader as well. We go through a hectic day in the life of Madden – business meetings, projects, deadlines in the hustle and bustle engineering field. The two leave a social engagement late and find themselves robbed and viciously assaulted on a vacant subway car. The result leaves Madden hospitalized and his young wife dead.

Lory crafts a progressive, well-developed novel around grief. It’s a portrait study of Madden’s mental state, painting the metamorphosis from shock to grief, heartbreak to hopelessness and ultimately anguish to vengeance. The author blankets each chapter in bleak realism, enveloping the reader in the downward spiral of this man. While “vigilante” is certainly a descriptive term, most of the book is the poignant sea of sorrow. Within the first week of the attack, Madden starts to create a campaign for vengeance. The author builds in a little know-how by explaining that Madden has killed before. He served in the Korean War and provides a little background on a memorable battle. Beyond this, the character knows nothing about crusading or righting the wrongs of lower-class America. He enters battle with a makeshift kitchen knife housed with tape inside of a cardboard sheath. His targets are of the low-life variety – muggers, purse-snatchers, etc. - but he averages a kill a night. Later, he pushes the envelope and keeps an assailant’s .38 revolver and uses it in a climactic killing of a trio of rapists.

The series could be misconstrued as a clone of the vigilante spawn of 1968. At least for this novel, that certainly isn’t the case. While probably not as relevant as an Elmore Leonard or Brian Garfield, the book is every bit as engaging as Messmann’s ‘Revenger’. While this “revenge the death” study in human behavior is captivating, the hardcore fans could shrug off it’s overutilized plot. I’d approach the book as more of a portrait of loss instead of the gritty, men’s action adventure that it professes to be.

Snowbound

Classic crime publisher Stark House Press has reprinted Bill Pronzini's 1974 stand-alone heist novel, “Snowbound”. This edition is also packaged with another short Pronzini novel called “Games”. “Snowbound” is a well-written short novel about a heist crew (think of Richard Stark's ‘Parker’) who decides to lay low at a safehouse in a small, wintery, mountain town where everybody seems to know each other. In addition to the hold-up crew, the town is also occupied by a boozy recluse with a mysterious past, a mayor with a sexual secret life, a horny housewife seeking companionship, a couple expecting their first child and a handful of secondary side-characters. The cast is vividly-realized as Pronzini takes the time to give them each actual subplots and character development - something often lacking in classic heist novels. A snowstorm and an avalanche seclude the snowbound town and creates the novel's central tension that drives the story forward. The plotting reminded me of Stephen King in the way a cast of independent characters converge in the novel's protracted, bloody climax. The easy-read story moves at a good clip, and the ending was very satisfying. Fans of heist novels and "confined space" suspense stories will find a lot to enjoy in “Snowbound”. Highly recommended.

The Trailsman #256 - High Country Horror

This ‘Trailsman’ adventure, “High Country Horror” (James Reasoner as Jon Sharpe), starts out being a wilderness survival story, as Skye Fargo meets a wagon train of settlers in serious trouble. They’ve been deceived by their guide, who steered them into the mountains far from the Oregon Trail before robbing and abandoning them just as the first blizzard of winter arrives. These opening chapters are superb, and they were so promising that I was a little disappointed that the book soon changes course. 

Instead of a Donner Party drama of hunger and slow death, we find Fargo leading the settlers to the shelter of an abandoned fort, where the crooked guide re-appears with his well-armed outlaw gang and terrorizes them all over again, though Fargo does his best to help. Amid this action are interludes with a death-dealing Sasquatch-like figure known as the Lost River Lurker, who appears from time to time to attack people before mysteriously disappearing. 

These narrative pieces don’t necessarily fit together perfectly, but the author’s gifts for atmosphere and suspense make it all work. The story concludes with a strong confrontation scene and then, as if to place a cherry atop the sundae, there’s a surprise twist. But that twist didn’t make much sense to me. I won’t give anything away, but the revelation we get is a bit hard to believe. Sometimes a sundae doesn’t need a cherry, and I think the novel would have been better had it ended half a page sooner. But overall, this was a gripping novel and the Lurker really helps it stand apart from the roughly 400 other ‘Trailsman’ stories.

Winner Take All

Mark Steele is an out-of-work Man of Adventure bumming around San Francisco when he hears a knock at the door. The man on the other side of the door is a stranger - but one who looks exactly like Steele. This is the opening scene of James McKimmey’s 1959 Dell paperback, Winner Take All. This obscure crime novel has been given a second life through a 2018 re-release from Stark House Press. This new re-issue is packaged with a 1957 “innocent man accused” novel called Perfect Victim, also by McKimmey, as well as a 2004 interview with the author by “Noir Originals” scribe and author Allan Guthrie. 

It turns out that Steele’s doppelgänger is a heretofore unknown twin brother who was separated at birth. And while Steele lived a hardscrabble life fighting in wars and taking care of himself, Byrd planted his flag into the privileged trappings of the idle rich - trust funds, women, booze, and gambling. As hardboiled genre fiction fans might expect, the reason that Byrd seeks out Steele was not for a tearful brotherly reunion. He comes with an offer: Can Steele pose as Byrd to negotiate a settlement on a large gambling debt owed to the mob? Seeing an opportunity to turn a buck and find some action, the braver brother accepts, and the story is off and running.

It would have been easy for McKimmey to structure the novel differently - by having the non-violent brother drafted to take the place of his soldier-of-fortune twin and find his own manhood in the process. Instead, the author puts us into the mind of the brother who is more comfortable in a world of violence and unpredictability, and that adds to the fun of this one. While the set-up of this short novel is rather contrived, the execution is superb - mostly due to the author’s skill with first-person crime novel narration. The book has all the trappings of the hardboiled crime stories of the paperback original era - thuggish mobsters, a sexy femme fatale (or two) and twisty double-cross plot devices. It’s a blast of a story - violent, sexy, and compelling - and well worth your time. 

The Executioner #07 - Nightmare in New York

The seventh installment of The Executioner series is 1971’s Nightmare in New York. Finally, the riveting action arrives both domestically and sequentially in this triumphant return to form for author Don Pendleton. After the series’ debut quartet, the thrill-ride slowed as it was exported to Europe. The fifth and sixth volumes were off-target for Bolan and his experienced skill-set. Humor, perverse sexcapades and a bizarre treatment of the character left plenty to be desired. With Nightmare in New York, the series experiences a revival with one of the best entries in Pendleton’s initial 38-title run.

A dark, ominous tone is set in the book’s prologue. Pendleton recaps the first six books and advises that Phase One and Phase Two of the Mafia War, which he calls “The War of Attrition”, has ended. He promises readers that Phase Three is here and it’s “The War of Destruction”. Pendleton prophesizes: 

“He will hit them now in their omniscience, in their omnipotence; their omnipresence, he reasons, will then fold under its own weight. Bolan is in the saddle, his mount is destiny, his target is the Kingdom of Evil – wherever its ugly head may rise”. 
The grim nature at the beginning spills into the book’s opening scenes of Bolan arriving stateside through Kennedy International airport. Flanking the emerging Bolan is Sam “The Bomber” Chianti and his Manhattan-based Gambella Family. In a strange, yet superbly written encounter, Bolan exits a helicopter into a hail of gunfire. He escapes - with hot lead in the shoulder and a small tear in his hip - thanks to a trio of young beauties.

The book starts to settle in as Bolan is nursed back to health by the three young women. The author takes the opportunity to establish a relationship and continue to build on Bolan’s need for love despite hopeless abandonment of normalcy. The Gambella Family is now the primary target for Bolan, particularly Chianti’s lifelines. In Bolan’s acute awareness of Mafia operations, he leisurely kills three hired hands in a hotel, stuffing them in a trunk before shaking up the mob shops and racketeering joints. 

In hilarious scenes, we see Bolan talk the talk and walk the walk right into the lairs of lieutenants and Mob don Freddie Gambella (snatching a cool 25K on the way out). Frequently, he kills and leaves his trademark marksman badges. This is the classic Bolan we saw in Phase One and Phase Two, that slick and violent destroyer; the swift and cold hand delivering point blank justice.

After learning of the brutal rape, torture and death of one of the trio of young girls, Bolan is the grimmest we’ve seen him since the original War Against the Mafia. He hits the mob hard in a meat packing plant, at one-point firing round after round into the head of a deceased enforcer. Her age, beauty and prior friendship sets Bolan on a vengeance trail. He calls a local television station and coolly warns: 

“I am going to destroy the Gambella Family. One by one, crew by crew, business by business – I am going to wipe them. I will not be bought off or scared off by threats against defenseless and innocent persons, and if one more sweet kid is turned to turkey because of me, then these turkeymakers are going to discover what a real nightmare is all about. There is no escape for these people. I know each of them, I know where they go and what they do, and I am going to hunt them down, all of them, and I am going to execute them.”

This book not only flashes the same gritty badge as the early part of the series, it also recalls key characters. Bolan has a verbal exchange with undercover enforcer Leo Turrin, an older ally from the opening quartet. He asks Turrin about Valentina and the status on his younger brother (whom we haven’t heard much about until now). I love how Bolan explains to Turrin in the exchange, “I’m no detective. I’m an infantryman”. No truer words have been spoken about this turbulent character. The book’s finale captures Bolan’s barbarous assault on Stoney Lodge, the Gambella headquarters. The heated exchange leaves Bolan with only one choice – go fight the next battle in a war he can’t win. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Spur #15 - Hang Spur McCoy!

There were over 40 volumes of the western series ‘Spur’. The Leisure house name was Dirk Fletcher but these were actually written by journeyman writer Chet Cunningham (‘Jim Steel’, ‘Outlaws’, ‘Pony Soldiers’). “Hang Spur McCoy!” is book number 15 and was suggested as a good starter for new readers. There’s a brief introduction in the opening chapter, but later expanded as a sufficient backstory in Chapter 12. Spur McCoy grew up in New York as the son of a wealthy merchant and importer. After graduating from Harvard, Spur took a commission in the infantry during the Civil War. As a captain, Spur was appointed as one of the first US Secret Service Agents. For validity, the author states Spur was chosen out of ten finalists for his horse riding and service pistol marksmanship. After exceptional service in Washington, he was transferred to St. Louis to manage all of the action west of the Mississippi. Thus, a series was born with a legitimate character, purpose and the open-ended ability to place him in any sort of drama and adventure in the perilous west. 

Cunningham kickstarts “Hang Spur McCoy!” with a bang. Our government agent is firing at an outhouse with a Spencer repeater. During the exchange Spur is wounded badly with a leg shot and awakens in the midst of a noose-ready posse. The sheriff and three make-shift lawmen have sentenced Spur to a lynching after accusing him of rape and murder. Once he successfully defends his position, the sheriff comes to Spur’s aid only to be outnumbered by the hostile trio. With a bound sheriff, the three struggles tying a noose. The sheriff assists, but cleverly ties a Murphy’s Knot to allow a faux presentation of Spur hanging. The deed is done and the three ride off with the sheriff staying behind for the pulse check. Other than a horrendous rope-burn and a bum leg, Spur is ready to complete his mission.

Some authors may be complacent with this being a simplistic and over utilized plot. Stretching out a revenge yarn for 200-pages is quite manageable and most authors worth their salt can milk this. While the author has Spur tracking those responsible for his hanging, the bulk of the story is the assignment – solving a counterfeiting racket in Twin Falls, Idaho. It’s slightly convenient that one of the hangmen is directly associated with the counterfeiting, but it’s forgivable. The action has Spur in detective mode sourcing the operation from start to finish. Along the way is a plethora of lovely ladies for the inevitable mattress romps. Fans of the series understand (need?) the obligatory 10% sex inclusion and it certainly spaces out the gumshoe portions in pleasant fashion. The finale has Spur unarmed in the forest facing adversity…and two armed gunmen. While Cunningham heats the barrels, “Hang Spur McCoy!” pauses for a tender moment as Spur shows compassion for one of the accused. This unique angle is one of the many little nuances that makes Cunningham’s work so enjoyable.