“A Grifter’s Song” is an ambitious contemporary literary project orchestrated by author Frank Zafiro. The idea is a series of 90-page short novels - released more or less monthly - about a con-artist couple on the run. Different authors are invited to write installments that are collected into “seasons” like a television show. The cover art is a gorgeous throwback style and the line-up of writers who have committed to the series looks promising.
Down & Out Books is the publisher of “A Grifter’s Song,” and their business model relies on selling subscriptions like Netflix with the latest edition being delivered monthly to your eReader device starting in January 2019. Individual installments will also be sold separately through the publisher or via Amazon Kindle. Hard copies will be published compiling three episodes in each paperback volume starting in July 2019.
Titles and authors for Season One are:
• The Concrete Smile by Frank Zafiro,
• People Like Us by JD Rhoades,
• The Whale by Lawrence Kelter,
• The Movie Makers by Gary Phillips,
• Lost in Middle America by Colin Conway,
• Losing Streak by Jim Wilsky.
Authors committed to Season Two (launching in 2020) are:
• Eric Beetner,
• Asa Maria Bradley,
• Eryk Pruitt,
• Holly West,
• Scott Eubanks,
• Frank Zafiro.
So, we have great cover art and a cool delivery gimmick, but this series will succeed or fail based on the quality of the books. I love con-artist stories, so I decided to check out the first two novellas.
A Grifter’s Song #01: The Concrete Smile by Frank Zafiro
In this inaugural episode, we meet long-con experts Sam and Rachel mid-sting In St. Louis. Sam has a blowhard businessman - who fancies himself as a real ladies man - on the hook. Meanwhile, Rachel - a real head turner - has a key role in the grift that is also one of the book’s best surprise reveals.
We learn that Sam and Rachel had some recent problems in Philadelphia when they conned a good chunk of change from some mafia types who aren’t excited to forgive and forget. The hope is that if they stay off the Philly mob’s radar screen long enough, they may be able to extend the useful life of their kneecaps well into the future.
An interesting subtext to this short novel - and likely the series - is the idea that Rachel leverages her intense sex appeal against the target, and this sparks pangs of jealousy in Sam despite the fact that Rachel is a total pro just playing her part. I hope future installments by the other authors tease out this idea as it creates a compelling inner conflict in Sam and tension between the principals.
The con itself is a rather complicated business transaction where the partners are gently manipulating the mark into buying a company that has no functional assets. The modest con turns into a possible big score - with added risks - along the way. The plot doesn’t get too bogged down in the details of the underlying transaction and instead chooses to focus on the human element of the coercion. The result is a fascinating character study of a con-game mechanics that recalls the glory days of Fawcett Gold Medal paperback originals from the 1950s.
The tension and excitement is ratcheted up considerably for the last act of the book with an interesting twist propelling the couple into their next installment. Overall, “The Concrete Smile” was an outstanding debut of a series that hopefully can sustain this level of quality in the hands of new writers who didn’t create the series from scratch.
A Grifter’s Song #02: People Like Us by JD Rhoades
The second installment in the “A Grifter’s Song” was penned by a Shamus Award winning mystery author from North Carolina named J.D. Rhoades. The shift in writing style from Zafiro to Rhodes is never jarring, nor does it take reader out of the story. The new author also provides a wider range of third-person perspectives throughout the novel beyond just Sam.
The action moves to Raleigh, North Carolina where Sam and Rachel team up with a grandmotherly grifter named Aunt Sally who Sam knew back when he was coming up in the game. Aunt Sally catches wind that there’s a contract on Sam and Rachel from the Philly mob and offers to bring them in on a con assuming that they needed a gig.
In this case, the target is a rich southerner with a fetish for Civil War memorabilia. The plan is to sell him a counterfeit long-sword of Stonewall Jackson while convincing the mooch that it’s the real deal. To do that, Sam needs to don a tweed jacket and become a fellow collector of American historical artifacts essentially vouching for the authenticity of the sword while driving up the price. Rachel plays the alluring female bait keeping the mark off-balance with lust.
If this book was just about a jackass getting fleeced by some expert grifters, it would have been perfect. Rhoades is clearly a talented writer who knows his way around a good plot structure. However, the author chooses to make this fun little crime story a political statement by wading into the unfortunate culture war currently plaguing the U.S.
You see, the Civil War loving target is a de-platformed history professor harboring regressive views about the treatment of black slaves in the south. This makes him a hero to the alt-right and a villain to the woke left when all I wanted to do was read a damn con-man story. After all, I read crime fiction to get away from the political culture war, and I suspect I’m not alone. Right wing straw men being ridiculed in a left-leaning thriller is just as creatively bankrupt as the bestsellers of Brad Thor and William Johnstone when they slaughter cartoonish fictional liberals. If I want a culture war, I have Twitter on my phone.
Of course, the author escalates the conservative craziness into a place where no right-thinking American could find a rooting interest in the race-war loving villains of this thriller. If that gives anyone a greater sense of comfort about injecting politics into the series, so be it. I’m just not sure that alienating half of one’s potential audience is a wise business strategy while trying to get a new series off the ground.
The shame is that the actual con-artist story here is otherwise well-executed. The violent aspirations of the manhunter from the Philadelphia mafia increase the stakes to make this grift work, and the conclusion was good enough to keep me interested in Episode 3.
Series Evaluation
“A Grifter’s Song” has the capacity to be a total blast of it sticks to clever cons and exciting thrills. The installments are the perfect length to never overstay their welcome, and con-artist stories give the authors plenty of room to spread their wings and get creative. Sam and Rachel are great leads, and the unsympathetic mooches chosen for their scams are worthy targets.
The idea of a loosely-affiliated network of grifters across the U.S. who know each other and occasionally collaborate is a fun universe in which to set a series. In that sense, “A Grifter’s Song” recalls Richard Stark’s Parker novels where heist pros gather to set up big scores as a team. The network of independent actors for these scams should keep the series fresh and evergreen.
The ongoing story arc that has Sam and Rachel one step ahead of hunters from the Philadelphia mafia ties these stand-alone con-man stories into a real series with a sense of urgency and continuity. That aspect reminded me of the old TV show “The Fugutive” or even “The A-Team.” No matter how well or poorly any fraud scheme goes, there’s still this unsolvable problem hanging over their heads.
Based solely on the first two installments, it appears that “A Grifter’s Song” has the potential to be a real winner. Hopefully, future episodes won’t poison the well with individual author’s worst instincts and personal agendas. A strong editorial hand should ensure the literary success of this ambitious project. I’m interested to see where this is headed. Recommended.
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“The Trail to Peach Meadow Canyon” is a short Louis L’Amour novel (about 73 modern pages) that originally appeared in the October 1949 issue of “Giant Western” magazine. Since then, it has been reprinted several times in various L’Amour compilations. It’s also available as a Kindle eBook for three bucks.
The setup for this story is awesome. Mike Bastian is an orphan who was raised by enigmatic rancher Ben Curry as his own son. However, in addition to book smarts, Curry taught young Mike a unique set of skills including pistol marksmanship, quick draw, knife throwing, lock-picking, and safecracking. As Mike reaches adulthood at age 22, he learns the truth: his adopted father is an old-west crime lord who has personally engineered Mike to be the ultimate criminal mastermind who can take over as the new Godfather of the West.
The sheer scope of Curry’s criminal empire is staggering. He has over 100 men working for him - mostly executing Curry-planned heists far away from his base of operations in a giant mansion along the Colorado River where Curry lives like a feudal lord. However, Curry is getting old and wants to retire to his distant ranch with his estranged wife and children while enjoying his wealth for his remaining years. And he wants young Mike - who has never committed a crime in his life - to take over his underworld empire.
This creates a moral dilemma for Mike who loves Curry but is not immediately excited about immersing himself in the dark side and basically becoming Darth Vader on a horse. As an orientation to the life, Curry tasks Mike with handling the planning of an upcoming heist of a train transporting gold from the mines. What if Mike declines the offer? Will he accidentally force the hulking kingpin’s hand to wipe out his own adopted son?
All of this was shaping up to be a cross between The Godfather and Richard Stark’s Parker in the Wild West when the novel took an abrupt left turn. Mike meets a girl with whom he has a connection that presents our young hero with a new - and substantially lower-stakes - moral dilemma to solve. This causes the heist novel to quickly become a rescue-the-girl book - an exciting adventure as well, but not the book I was expecting after the great world-building L’Amour does in the story’s first half.
In any case, the author’s writing is top-notch and his descriptions of western settings and topography of the region are incredibly vivid. The book’s resolution was satisfying enough even if it wasn’t the bloodbath heist story I was expecting. In any case, “The Trail to Peach Meadow Canyon” is a quick read and an easy recommendation.
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Gold Eagle originally had the idea for 'Track' as 'Hunter', which would have made more sense overall. At the time NBC had the 'Hunter' name branded for television, thus 'Track' is given as this series name. It had a 13-book run from 1984-1986 and had a mythology of protagonist Dan Track “tracking” down 99 stolen nukes.
According to the “Brian Drake at Large!” blog, and comments Drake made at Trash Menace, Ahern had less than favorable opinions of the Track series. According to Drake, Ahern had publishing constraints and disliked the series' title. Perhaps his lack of enthusiasm is the driving force behind the debut's failure. “The Nintey-Nine”, the series opener, is a lethargic read that left me wishing the book length was the standard 180-pages instead of 220. It was a bear to get through.
Dan Track is a retired Army Major and former member of the branch's Criminal Investigation Division (CID). The beginning of the book has Track undercover and under covers with arms dealer Desiree Goth. After investigating her robbery of Wiesbaden arsenal, Track decides to break cover and detain her. Unfortunately, Goth and enforcer Zulu overpower Track and the prologue's closing pages has Track fighting drug runners in a North African desert.
Early chapters introduce us to series villain Johannes Krieger and his liberation of terrorist bomber Klaus Gurnheim. Krieger's “super power” is that he can alter his appearance to look like anyone. This Nazi sympathizer even becomes a woman in one ridiculous scene where he recruits a pilot at a gay bar. Krieger has the plans to capture 99 nuclear warheads from a military installation...because anyone can do this with a little planning, right?
Track teams with a global insurance underwriter, Sir Abner Chesterton, and his truck-driving nephew George to stop Krieger. So, what's so bad about the veteran good guy facing the mad bomber? The fact of the matter is that it's so utterly ridiculous that it's hard to even throw out logic to enjoy simple 80s fun. In one scene we learn that an IRA terrorist has captured the top floors of a department store. They have threatened to blow up the building if their demands aren't met. Intelligence, led by a Sir Edward Hall, advises that the terrorist has 80 people AND...there's a girl in a wheelchair. It's this sort of nonsense that is maddening. As if terrorists planning on bombing a building filled with Americans isn't enough to warrant Track's attention, the author has to add a handicapped child into the equation to really heighten the sense of urgency. Why?
The ridiculous notion that Krieger can walk into a military installation and force a General to hand over nuclear warheads is just too easy. To dumb down the reading even more...NO ONE but Track, George, Chesteron and an assemblage of 10,000 black mobsters even know the warheads are missing! The finale has Track saving the city of Chicago by stopping a train but my brain checked out with 40-pages left. It was truly an exercise of internal fortitude to get through this much nonsense. Don't track 'Track'. Just leave this series alone in the wild.
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The problem with Harry Whittington is that he wrote so many books that it’s hard to differentiate his crime fiction masterpieces from the so-so paperbacks he authored for a quick paycheck. While I consider him one of my favorite authors, I find myself repeatedly acquiring and reviewing novels that just aren’t his best work.
Whittington’s “So Dead My Love” was released in 1953 as half of an Ace Double paired with Stephen Ransome’s “I, The Executioner.” At some point, “So Dead My Love” was also released in Australia under the title “Let’s Count Our Dead,” and it was also included in the 2001 “Pulp Masters” anthology edited by Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg.
Jim Talbot is a New York private eye returning to his hometown of Duval, Florida (population 35,000) after a ten-year absence. He’s come at the request of Mike, an attorney and politician who functions as the benevolent political king of Duval. Mike needs Talbot’s help to find Mike’s missing law partner, and Talbot owes Mike a big favor from a decade earlier. Because this is a Harry Whittington novel, Talbot quickly learns that Mike is now married to Talbot’s old flame, Nita. Did I mention that she is beautiful and stacked?
Anyway, Mike seems to be a pretty honest politician, but his rival is a corrupt sheriff who controls the rackets in Duval. Could the sheriff have anything to do with the missing lawyer? Perhaps Nita knows more than she’s saying? Can Talbot navigate the corruption of Duval to learn the truth? Throw a spicy young stripper into the plot to further confuse Talbot’s loyalties, and we have a pretty traditional hardboiled mystery.
I’d describe “So Dead My Love” as a middle-of-the-road Whittington novel. It’s nowhere near as brilliant as “A Ticket to Hell” but it’s way better than “Saturday Night Town,” for example. The mystery was legit, and Talbot was a compelling main character to follow through the twists and turns thus making this paperback a fairly easy recommendation. Don’t move heaven and earth to buy a copy, but if you can read it on the cheap, it’s worth your time.
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It's no secret that I really didn't care for the ninth installment of Don Pendleton's vigilante series The Executioner. Vegas Vendetta was a marathon of complacency, resting on the laurels of Bolan's status as the mob killer. With that novel, the narrative was one-dimensional, relying on planning and plotting The Strip's war of attrition, but Pendleton just never got to the white-knuckle action. Or, really any action. Thankfully, the author shifts gears with the tenth volume, Caribbean Kill. It begins and ends with a bang.
Bolan, fresh from his Vegas hit, boards a plan and haphazardly flies it smack dab into a mob mansion on Puerto Rico's southern shoreline. Bailing before impact, the flying firebomb scorches the site, scattering Glass Bay's mob army into the jungle. The tone is set as Bolan diagnoses his situation:
"He had two full eight-round clips of ammo, plus six rounds in the service clip. He was literally up a tree, soaked to the skin with sticky salt water. He was hungry, and he was just about physically exhausted. Less than a quarter-mile away, an army of some fifty to seventy-five guns was methodically sweeping the periphery of the bay in a determined hunt for his person." – page 32.
From some brief but captivating cat and mouse tactics, Bolan begins to diminish and demoralize the ranks, eventually catching a ride into San Juan where the majority of the book's action takes place. Bolan eventually befriends a female cop named Eve. She's running a covert scheme to take down a mobster named Sir Edward. The two become a romantic item, with the author going as far as describing Eve as the Female Executioner. They hide out with farming couple named Juan and Rosalita while the mob scours the countryside for their whereabouts.
With the help of a pilot named Grimaldi, Bolan is able to ebb the tide. Hunting both Sir Edward and Quick Tony Lavagni (had a cameo in Executioner #05), the fight takes him through the jungle, up the shoreline and into the city streets. It's this wild-ride that's bumpy, thrilling and laced with gunfire. With Caribbean Kill, Don Pendleton is firing on all cylinders. Place this one up there with the series debut, Nightmare in New York and Chicago Wipe-Out as early standouts.
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During his prolific career, Michael Avallone wrote around 38 novels and countless short stories featuring his private eye character, Ed Noon. Most of the early installments are straightforward mystery novels in the bawdy tradition of Shell Scott or Milo March. Later in the series, Avallone reinvented the Noon character as a spy working on special assignments handed to him directly by the U.S. President. Toward the end of the series, I’m told that Noon tangles with UFOs and aliens. He was an all-purpose, multi-genre hero for the ages.
“Lust Is No Lady” is the 14th novel in the series - although I’ve found that they can be enjoyed in any order. The paperback was originally released in 1965 by Belmont Books and later again under the title “The Brutal Kook.” Avallone’s son, David, is a successful comic book writer who has lovingly kept the Ed Noon series available as affordable Kindle editions while preserving the original cover art wherever possible.
The story opens with Noon’s car experiencing a blowout while driving through desolate Wyoming en route to a much-needed California vacation. While preparing to change the tire, a small airplane flies out of nowhere and starts dropping bricks from the sky onto his car - destroying any hope of a roadside repair.
Setting out on foot in the blistering heat, Noon finds a half-dead, naked, Native American woman staked to the ground with vultures circling above. The language barrier prevents a full explanation, but the woman leads Noon to a small settlement in the middle of nowhere called Agreeable Wells where every person that Noon encounters behaves in a guarded and suspicious manner.
While stranded with these oddball settlers, Noon is not exactly a prisoner but not quite a guest among them. A brutal murder occurs and Noon - being a hotshot NYC private detective - lends a hand toward getting to the bottom of the situation. However, the bigger mystery to the novel involves the true reason these people are in the middle of nowhere. For much of the novel, Noon is an observer bearing witness to a feuding and duplicitous small community brimming with dysfunction and greed.
At some point during this short paperback, it occurred to me that “Lust Is No Lady” was Avallone’s attempt at placing Noon into a Western novel - albeit one with periodic attacks by a killer airplane. The good news is that this works splendidly thanks to the author’s knack for compelling storytelling and vivid characters. The action sequences - particularly the one at the book’s climax - are all expertly engineered for maximum excitement.
As long as you know what you’re getting - a big-city private detective plopped into an old west adventure - “Lust Is No Lady” is an easy recommendation. You really can’t go wrong with the Ed Noon novels of Michael Avallone.
Postscript:
Thanks to the efforts of David Avallone, an unpublished Ed Noon book called “The Walking Wounded” by Michael Avallone will finally be published. The novel was written in 1973, and features cover art by contemporary comic book artist, Dave Acosta. Keep an eye on Amazon for details about this exciting release.
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