Rogue Lawman #02 - Deadly Prey

“ROGUE LAWMAN”, the first novel in Peter Brandvold’s series, is a very fine adult western. It’s not adult in the sense that there’s a sex scene every fifty pages (there isn’t). It’s adult in the sense that the characters are fleshed out enough to seem like real people rather than pulp archetypes. 

Much of the book’s action is prompted by a tragedy, in which Deputy Marshall Gideon Hawk’s little boy is murdered by an outlaw. Even more devastating for our hero, grief weighs so heavily on his wife’s mind that it drives her to commit suicide. His own anguish is all but unbearable, and when the outlaw beats the murder rap, Hawk goes rogue. Now he’ll devote the rest of his life to hunting down and killing the West’s worst predators, unburdened by the need to gather evidence, apprehend suspects, and wait for the courts to succeed or fail at dispensing justice.

That first novel is excellent, although ironically the author does such an effective job of conveying Hawk’s grief that the book’s entertainment value is dampened somewhat. This is not at all your typical pulp western material, in which good guys shoot bad guys and all’s well with the world. Hawk is a different sort of hero, grim, taciturn and obsessed, with a hunger for revenge that can never be satisfied.

The second novel in the series, “DEADLY PREY”, is consistent with the first, but some of its rougher edges have been sanded down. Hawk’s sadness has been replaced with acceptance. The action is more exhilarating, the outlaws are both menacing and colorful, and there are a few surprisingly sexy interludes, although there still isn’t much actual sex to interrupt the story. 

Brandvold has a knack for making his scenes vivid by salting his prose with lots of tiny descriptive details. For example, other writers will tell you there’s a fire in the fireplace, but Brandvold will tell you about the popping sounds made by exposed sap in the pine logs in that fireplace, and what the distinctive aroma of the smoke is like. Occasionally this kind of thing weighs down the action, but not often. Usually it just helps bring the scenes to life, and his attention to historical detail is another advantage.

Most of “DEADLY PREY” involves Hawk’s efforts to slaughter a huge gang of killers which has invaded a tiny Colorado town just as a snowstorm hits. Essentially, that means finding ways of killing them one or two at a time, without getting caught or killed himself, and it’s a very satisfying read, with plenty of tension and a few surprises. Along the way the reader will meet some unexpected characters, from the grizzled prospector whose only friend is the skeleton he shares his cabin with, to the outlaw who gets gunned down and farts on his way to the floor, to the roaring bisexual sister of the outlaw leader, who’s every bit as vicious and deadly as he is.

I visualize John Russell (of the old TV western “LAWMAN”) in the role of Hawk, and he’d have been perfect for it. I’m glad that two of my favorite genres--- the western and the vigilante story--- intersect so perfectly with this series. I’m also glad that there are several more 'Rogue Lawman' books on my shelf, yet to be read. And with any luck, Brandvold will write a few dozen more!

Dakota #02 - Red Revenge

“Red Revenge” is another top-notch effort from author Gilbert Ralston. It was released in 1974 through the popular Pinnacle Adventure line and marks the second installment of modern western series 'Dakota'. As I mentioned in my review of the series debut, “Dakota Warpath”, this character is strikingly similar to what Craig Johnson would do years later with his 'Longmire' character. 

This book mentions some of the events that transpired in the series opener. Ralston almost has a hometown feeling to the book, by outlining and describing all of the characters that make up this colorful Carson Valley town. Some were introduced in the prior book, some are new. Dakota has a love interest here named Alicia, and based on the book's ending she could be a recurring character throughout the series. The storyline of Dakota's sick father continues and concludes in this book. Also, the young Native American that Dakota assisted in the prior novel is a steadfast character here - sort of the action-assistant or inexperienced ally. Louis serves as a dialogue direction as Dakota explains to the reader what he's doing with the case.

The Board of Directors of Grayson Electric have been kidnapped for ransom in Lake Tahoe. The employees' families reach out to Dakota to offer assistance. They need to pay three-million in bearer bonds to the kidnappers, or heads will roll. While they sort out the collateral, Dakota starts the search for where the men are being held. This is about half of the book and is a really entertaining nod to detective fiction – checking leads, interviewing potential witnesses, etc. Eventually, Dakota taps a location and loads the guns.

Dakota, being Shoshone, has two blood brothers that join him for the rescue attempt. Ralston absolutely nails the liberation, from hunting and killing to an all-out assault. It's done remarkably well, and includes a fair amount of car run 'n gun and a robust body count. After the high-impact finale, Ralston doesn't just throw the sheets on the corpse. He lets us stick around for 20-more pages while the story is ironed out, bodies are named and Dakota himself explains his actions to law-enforcement. It's a unique angle that few authors rarely conceive and deliver. What happens when the smoke clears and the hero has killed the bad guys? It's not as black and white as the end credits make it seem. Ralston understands that and I applaud him for giving us a little more than standard volume feedback. 

Dakota hits the Big Apple next for “Cat Trap”. 

A Hell Of A Woman

Among the crime authors who rose to prominence in the 1950s, Jim Thompson seems to get more modern praise in literary circles than his paperback original contemporaries. His work is spoken with a kind of reverence that Harry Whittington, Charles Wileford, and Bruno Fischer never seem to receive. Was Jim Thompson really that much better?

“A Hell of a Woman” was a Lion Books 1954 mid-career effort from Thompson. It’s a 200-page, first-person con-man story told from the perspective of Frank “Dolly” Dillon, a door-to-door salesman working for Pay-E-Zee - essentially a walking department store peddling goods on credit installment plans to rural rubes. As the novel opens, we learn that Dillon is working himself into a financial hole and has been skimming cash from his collections to make ends meet with a lazy, dumpy wife in his roach-infested home. 

Thomson doesn’t waste any time getting into the intrigue. In the first chapter, Dillon is trying to sell silverware to an old lady and immediately finds himself in a dark and sexualized situation with the old lady’s buxom niece, Mona. We learn that the old woman’s practice of pimping Mona for sex to traveling salesmen in exchange for consumer products is nothing new, and smitten Dillon promises to rescue the girl from this life of perpetual sexual trauma. 

Thompson’s willingness to mine the depths of human depravity must have been one of the things that set him apart from his crime novelist cohorts. And the murders that take place in this short work are more shocking and violent than others from this era. However, a mere race to the bottom would have been meaningless if he wasn’t such a damn fine writer. The text is very raw, and his descriptions of women, for example, are simply brutal. Dillon’s first person narration is conversational, but it’s also the vehicle for a deeper understanding of his nature - he’s a grifter with a real - though easily compromised - conscience. 

Thompson employs a first-person literary perspective trick halfway through the novel and periodically thereafter that bolsters the idea that he wanted his pulpy crime novel to be more literary than other books of the time. But otherwise, this is just a very entertaining, well-written, gritty noir novel filled with anti-heroes, femme fatales, and double-crosses. It’s a great read and a terrific introduction to Thompson’s body of work. Maybe it’s not breaking new ground, but if the paperback original crime fiction of this era is your thing (and it really should be), “A Hell of a Woman” is truly essential reading.

87th Precinct #01- Cop Hater

It's intimidating to write a literary critique for Ed McBain's kickstarter Cop Hater. Written by Evan Hunter, it's the mantle piece for the police procedural book and the debut of the highly respectable 87^th Precinct series. According to the author, it was written in 1955 after spending a lengthy amount of time within the NYPD researching and planning. In the Thomas & Mercer re-print, Hunter's introduction provides an intimate peek at the book's development (which you can read for free as an Amazon download sample) and the conception of the pseudonym McBain.

While the police procedural could probably be linked to a handful of novels a decade before, the 87^th Precinct series was probably only rivaled by the show that influenced it – Dragnet. While detective Steve Carella is featured as a main character, the series is one of the first (if not first) to feature a conglomerate hero, the squad of cops that make up the fictional 87^th Precinct. The squad is a character just as much as the unnamed fictional city is. Hunter, while struggling with placing the series in New York City, found it much easier to fictionalize the city while using NYC as a primary blueprint.

While not ruining it for the new reader, the concept of Cop Hater is essentially that – a madman targeting police officers of the 87^th Precinct. Like a good Agatha Christie whodunit, the mystery enlarges as the corpses stack up. While never explicit or terribly violent (or I'm just numb), we familiarize ourselves with these officers only to find them shockingly killed off before our very eyes. We're at the scene of the crime, but never know the killer's identity until the end. It's not a first-person narration like a majority of detective fiction, instead it's the author leading us through the alleys, buildings and squad rooms of this sweltering city. Detective Steve Carella is firmly embedded in the action, introduced here along with his fiance, the lovable Theodora Franklin.

The muggy July heat plays havoc on these characters, eroding patience, love and goodwill with a toxic, febrile blanket of exhaustion. Hunter would steadfastly utilize weather as a character itself, inserting climatic changes to these stories to enrich and enhance the atmosphere. At times the dialogue is as simple as the police interviews – Who, Where, What and the allusive Why. It's our struggle every bit as much as the cops. By the closing pages it's all a frantic chase for the pre-smoking barrel, stopping the .45 slug from finding the next blue shirt. 

Cop Hater is masterfully penned, properly paced and is worthy of the praise heaped on it for half a century.

Get a copy of the book HERE.

The Enforcer #03 - Kill City

Andrew Sugar's third entry in his vigilante series 'Enforcer' is “Kill City”, released in 1973 by Lancer. Like the prior two books, “Kill City” was purchased by Manor and reprinted in 1976 with new, more superior artwork courtesy of George Gross (who did early 'Executioner' books before Gil Cohen took over). Gross's artwork really captures the feel of the book, detailing many of the action sequences found within. The red, white and blue color scheme is important to the story fundamentals – Enforcer Jason is preventing a mass terrorist attack on major US cities. With the obligatory ticking time bomb comes some political intrigue and subtext regarding a nation divided by color.

Like the series debut “Caribbean Kill”, the novel starts by revealing a wounded Jason after the finale showdown. The author paints enough sketchy brush strokes to give us a feel of the story, but leaves all the details and plot planning for subsequent chapters. In those, Jason is mugged off-assignment and rescued by a vigilante force called The Patrol. In the incident, the mugger shockingly turns the gun on himself, committing suicide on the sidewalk. Perplexed, Jason takes the mystery to the institute (the place where they make a new body for Jason every 90 days in an effort to fight crime worldwide). Collectively, the institute formulates a tactical infiltration of The Patrol. 

Combining the institute's resources, Jason utilizes a black associate named Calvin to tackle the assignment. The Patrol is actually the Caucasian vigilante force. There's also an African-American version stereo-typically deemed Brigade of Brothers. While the surface level indicates no foul play, Jason and Calvin infiltrate the two forces, black and white, and unveil a global conspiracy to detonate Suicide Stimulators (called Suzies) across major US cities. The overall effort is conducted by one of Jason's rivals from the first book. 

Sugar really nails this one, fetching the same sort of intrigue, mystery and explosive action as the predecessor, “Calling Doctor Kill”. While the clone bodies, Jason's body jumping and his masterful art of Ki have all been elements of the prior installments, these inclusions are more expanded with “Kill City”. Beyond what we already knew, Jason stumbles on a few new tricks while fumbling with the two criminal factions. Sugar, always explicit, throws in some X-Rated steam as Jason works over Janet, his love interest from book two. 

Overall, “Kill City” is a thrill-ride of epic proportions and continues to catapult the series into the higher echelon of the genre.

Thanks to Bob Deis of MensPulpMags.com for the assistance on the book's artist and artwork.

The D.C. Man #02 - Search and Destroy

The D.C. Man was a four-book action series released in 1974 and 1975 by a former Roman Catholic priest named Peter Rohrbach under the name James P. Cody. The series tracks the adventures of a Washington lobbyist and political troubleshooter named Brian Peterson who uses guns, political connections and brains to solve sensitive problems for Capital Hill big shots. One doesn’t need to read The D.C. Man books in any order as they stand well on their own, and relevant facts from the hero’s backstory are well explained in the first few chapters.

In this second installment, Peterson is hired by the attractive daughter of a US Senator to investigate the validity of her father’s recent suicide. At first, Peterson is skeptical that the Senator’s gun-in-the-mouth routine was anything other than self-inflicted, but the reader can see where this is heading once we learn that the Senator has been quietly investigating the scourge of 1970s men’s adventure fiction: The Mafia.

The setup and setting for The D.C. Man books provided the author great flexibility for story ideas - credibly toggling between espionage, crime, and political intrigue. This one is more of a straightforward private eye novel. Peterson follows leads diligently moving from person-to-person conducting interviews. Periodically, unidentified goons try to hurt or stop him, and those scenes of violence are always well-written and exciting. A sexual interest arises with a comely female character, and the resulting coupling is slightly more graphic than most crime novels from that era (but less explicit than, say, a Longarm western). In other words, there’s not much to distinguish this story from a solid, workmanlike P.I. novel starring Mike Shayne, Johnny Liddell, or Peter Chambers.

One thing that sets The D.C. Man apart from its contemporaries is the setting and era. The smoke of distrust and corruption of post-Watergate Washington, DC is thick in this story. Peterson spends a lot of physical and mental energy to figure out if the Senator killed himself because he feared the exposure of his own corruption or whether his corruption lead to his murder. The idea that the late Senator deserves a fair shake isn’t even an option for Peterson until a character confronts him about his anti-politician bias several chapters into the book. The symbiotic relationship between elected officials, their staffs, lobbyists, and the press is the fuel that feeds The D.C. Man books. This is a sexy, violent thriller for American political junkies.

By the time Peterson solves the novel’s central mystery concerning the reasons for the Senator’s death, the body count begins climbing exponentially. The brutality of each subsequent death appears to increase as our hero veers deeper into Mack Bolan territory - a lobbyist’s war against the mafia, if you will. The many action scenes are legitimately exciting and filled with gunplay and gripping suspense.

Overall, this second book in The D.C. Man series was another winner in a series that deserves more accolades than it ever received as a new release in the 1970s. Thankfully, Brash Books has reprinted all four novels in new editions with an introduction by yours truly. Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Earl Drake #03 - Operation Fireball

 The general consensus is that Dan J. Marlowe's “The Name of the Game is Death” and “One Endless Hour” make the best of list for the hard-boiled genre. Those novels, released in 1962 and 1968, were riveting caper romps that symbolized everything we loved about the genre – peril, betrayal, guns and money. It's first person narration from the man with no name (or face!) was mesmerizing, painting a lifespan mired in corruption, vengeance, angst and adversity. While not overly complex, it was deep reading that allowed the reader a spot in the hotseat. We were staring down the barrel as much as the storyteller – the smoking gun a cautionary warning of the hot winds of Hell. While both of Marlowe's novels are held in high regard, those opinions are much weaker for the third and subsequent books of the 'Drake' series. Instead of jerking a .38 Special and navigating vault rooms, 1969's “Operation Fireball” provides M-16s, claymore mines and dodging MIG-17s. It's just a totally different style that isn't altogether bad...it's just seeing the characters on a different stage.

Three-fourths of Marlowe's “Operation Fireball” runs the same playbook as “One Endless Hour”. Earl Drake (his real name was never provided by the author) takes a heist job to steal millions from a Cuban military compound. Replace a Philly bank with a Cuban stronghold and you get the same strategy. The majority of the book is the assembly of players – Drake, Hazel (Drake's lover from the first two novels), Erikson, Wilson and Slater. Each have a role in the heist, complete from transmission, boats, firearms, locks and funding. The book methodically assembles the team, outlines the mission and provides the stakes in much the same way Marlowe aligned the team in the last book. It's the closing chapters that really set it apart.

International waters shows a metamorphosis from caper to spy. Drake is faking his way onto a US Destroyer ship, then faking his way into the Cuban military. From brothels to bars, the team penetrates Havana while dodging firing squads, fighter jets, machine guns and mines. Essentially, it's a new breed of Drake fiction that really showcases a completely different type of storytelling. The book's ending conclusively proves that the series is taking a different direction in much the same way Bolan transformed at number 39. It isn't necessarily a reflection of poor writing, as those books and this specific book still provide entertainment and enjoyment. It's just a different way to park the horse. Whether you continued the series post-1968 or not, Marlowe delivered quality storytelling on “Operation Fireball”. I've yet to explore the rest of the series or any of Marlowe's stand-alones, but based on this entry, I'm probably all in.

Buy a copy of this book HERE