Robert Silverberg is a successful science-fiction and fantasy author. His novellas “Nightwings” and “Born with the Dead” are among five works that gained industry acclaim as Hugo award winners. However, Silverberg cut his teeth on “non-fiction” fantasies and crime noir in his youth. These stories, penned under names like Dan Malcolm and Ray McKensie, were published by zines like “Guilty” and “Trapped”. One of those, the novella length “Blood on the Mink” (1960), was reprinted by Hard Case Crime in 2012 along with the shorts “One Night of Violence” and “Dangerous Doll”.
“Blood on the Mink” is a well-crafted peek at the inner-workings of the Philadelphia syndicate. The book, written in first-person, introduces us to a federal agent who's donned the disguise of Vic Lowney, a successful California mob boss who's traveling to Philly to meet with a mobster named Klaus. Lowney, who's never met Klaus before, has an agenda of infiltrating Klaus' ring and nabbing a counterfeiter. Klaus' agenda is to pitch the counterfeiting idea to Lowney in hopes of selling him the fake currency for a quarter on a dollar. Easy, right?
Things get rather complicated quickly. First, Lowney is approached by a rival New York mobster named Litwhiler. He wants Lowney to cooperate with him and steal the counterfeiter with the promise that he'll sell currency to Lowney at a reduced rate. Further, Lowney is then approached by Klaus' stacked lover with a pitch to kill Klaus, steal the counterfeiter and make a fast break. Lowney, while carefully balancing his government work with pleasure, navigates a series of twists and turns that soon incorporates another rival mobster named Chavez and the counterfeiter's beautiful daughter, Szekely.
With all of these intricate allegiances and deceivers, is the book too dense to enjoy? No. Definitely not. Typically I struggle with a cast this robust with multiple threads. At 157-pages of large font, Silverberg takes it easy on his reader (and himself) by sticking to the facts and creating a brisk, easy read. “Blood on the Mink” shines with just enough action, dialogue and babes. In fact, I liked it so much that I read it in one sitting. While not the literary value of a Keene, Whittington or Brewer, this author sticks to the basics and delivers an excellent crime paperback. Nothing more, nothing less. Recommended.
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During his literary career, Peter McCurtin served as an author, editor, collaborator, and house name. When McCurtin’s name appears on a paperback cover, his actual input into the final product is often shrouded in mystery. With regards to the 1970s iteration of his Soldier of Fortune series, paperback anthropologist Lynn Munroe has done the heavy lifting for us. Books 1-3 were written by McCurtin the man, and books 4-9 were ghostwritten by Ralph Hayes as McCurtin the house name and edited by McCurtin the editor.
The ‘Soldier of Fortune’ paperbacks star - and are narrated by - mercenary Jim Rainey, and each novel finds Rainey in another war-torn hellhole engaging in combat-for-pay. The series was rebooted by McCurtin in the 1980s - also starring Rainey - but I confess that I haven’t done my homework on the backstory regarding that string of novels.
The series kicks off with “The Massacre At Umtali,” from 1976, and a helpful prologue brings ignorant readers like myself up to speed on the history of colonialism, racial strife, and civil war in Rhodesia where the novel’s action takes place. Rainey is our narrator, an ex-marine from Beaumont, Texas, who is engaged to serve as the leader of an anti-insurgent force of mercenaries serving the Rhodesian Army (white European colonialists) fighting terrorist guerrillas (black African insurgents) for $2,000 per month.
McCurtin writes Rainey’s narration in a pleasing conversational style, so it feels like you’re listening to a badass buddy in a tavern telling you about a foreign adventure he experienced. Rainey puts together a slapdash team of fellow mercenaries (“fuck ups and killers”) for his anti-terror mission, and watching the misfit fighters come together as a team was a particularly cool aspect of the story. The mission itself involves finding and removing a particularly reprehensible terrorist leader hiding in a jungle stronghold.
This book has it all: badass main character, fascinating setting, instant readability, and blood-soaked violence. The racial characterizations in the novel are a product of an earlier time - 1976 - that probably wouldn’t fly today, and the morality of European colonialism in Africa is never questioned. However, nuanced social criticism isn’t what you’re looking for in a Belmont Tower shoot-em-up paperback from that era. This cheap-o novel is intended solely for pure escapism, and it succeeds in that mission. This is a remarkably exciting war story with some great twists and turns along the way.
As for me, I’m all-in for this series. I’m particularly looking forward to see what author Ralph Hayes does with the concept in later volumes. Highly recommended.
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Gunard Hjertstedt (March 28, 1904 - January 9, 1969), better known by pen name Day Keene, wrote over 50 novels and is widely viewed as a literary giant within the crime genre community. “Sleep With the Devil” is a mid-career book published in 1954 by Lion. In April of 2017, Stark House Press re-printed this novel as a three-in-one alongside “Joy House” (1954) and “Wake Up to Murder” (1952).
Keene introduces us to the charismatic Ferron, an enforcer for a NYC loan shark named Bennett. Ferron's unwavering commitment has most recently been evident with his deadly beating of a young African American debtor. Now, Ferron is contemplating killing his boss Bennett and doing the proverbial “take the money and run” routine. The only issue is a connection to his greasy lover Lydia, who unfortunately can't live without him.
As we begin to digest Keene's malefactor, we soon realize that there's a deep dynamic with this character. Ferron has an entirely new life in creation under the identity of Paul Parrish. Unlike Ferron, Parrish is a devout Christian bible-seller that lives in a the tiny upstate New York town aptly titled New Hope. There, he's to wed the virgin beauty Amy under the giving but watchful eye of her wealthy father Wayne. Once the wedding bells ring, Ferron/Parrish will inherit a productive farm, new car and the beautiful Amy.
Keene weaves this intoxicating narrative together with barbed wire. Ferron is the seedy, vile criminal we love to jeer, yet Keene miraculously prompts the reader to cheer him on, hopeful that in just the right amount of moonlight this bad guy goes straight. While a fish out of water tale in its own right, the author's talent to blend the crime with passion, purpose and redemption is brilliant. I really enjoyed this book and I'm thankful that Stark House Press felt the same. This is a much-needed reprinting of a classic.
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John McPartland (1911-1958) was born in Chicago and served in World War II and the Korean War. He joined “Life” magazine in the 40s and later penned a number of hard-boiled novels for publishers like Fawcett Gold Medal. One of his earliest novels, “Big Red's Daughter”, was released in 1953 and later re-printed by numerous publishers. Most recently the king of reprints, Stark House Press, released the book as a double with the author's most notable work, “Tokyo Doll”.
McPartland incorporates a lot of 1950s teen angst into this rocky romantic thriller. There's a number of firm elements at play – hot rods, rebellious youth, drug use and plenty of snot-nosed kids from my 42-yr old vantage point. The main character is Jim Work, fresh out of service in Korea and drifting around the California coast. After a fender bender and some punches, Jim follows wealthy punk/bully Buddy Brown and his hot girlfriend Wild Kearny (Big Red's Daughter) to a party house.
After refusing to pay for Buddy's car repairs (Jim wasn't in the wrong), the two square off in a fistfight where Buddy beats the Holy Hell out of Jim. However, Jim's real pain comes from his heart – he's fallen in love with Wild at first sight. In a rather wild chain of events, Wild's father arrives hoping to meet her newest boyfriend Buddy. But, Wild is ashamed of him so she introduces Jim – good looking war veteran - as her boyfriend. It turns out Big Red is a former longshoreman and controls some dock rackets. He's a pretty big deal.
Soon the truth is out about Buddy and Wild's relationship. After Big Red knocks Buddy's block off, Buddy storms off into the night. Wild and Jim go out for drinks only to return and find that Buddy has killed a young friend of Wild's with scissors – of all things. After knocking Wild unconscious in the struggle, Buddy scrams. In the tradition of “whoever smelt it dealt it”, the police are called and immediately point to Jim as the killer. All of this happens in the first-half!
The second-half is a whirlwind of action that blends a jailbreak, manhunt, extraordinary fights and suspense. As Buddy, Jim and Wild run from the law, there's a new story-line introduced about heroin trafficking. With all of these stirring elements, the author builds the action to match location. In the beginning, with more low-key action, the setting is shore-side in Carmel. But, as the action and intensity increases, the location is heightened to the cliffs and mountains above the sea. It's a clever design.
With “Big Red's Daughter” we see author McPartland certainly flirting with greatness. He wrote 11 novels in the 1950s and four screenplays. Dying at the young age of 47, I think McPartland's career didn't reach appropriate heights. Nevertheless, we have some fine novels as a testament to the strength of McPartland's writing. I certainly recommend this book, but at 128-pages you may want to purchase the Stark House double to gain “Tokyo Doll” with your money.
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Andrew Sugar's fourth entry in 'The Enforcer' series was released in 1973 by Lancer. The entire series was purchased and later reprinted by Manor. All of those reprints featured newly commissioned artwork except “Kill Deadline”. Further, Manor released this novel out of it's original series order, confusing readers by stamping #6 on the cover and misspelling the author's name.
For those of you unfamiliar with the series premise, I highly recommend clicking on the Enforcer tag below to better understand why this vigilante series contains science-fiction elements. While not a traditional vigilante yarn, the idea of a company, such as Rosegold Institute, financing a war on crime certainly dresses the part. “Kill Deadline” expands on that formula and offers a fairly simplistic mystery for readers to digest.
The premise is that a wealthy entrepreneur is being assassinated on the tenth of each month by The Calendar Killer. These corporate executives represent successful companies that have refused to sell out or cooperate with the Mob. The latest victim is a friend to the institute, Daniel McBane. Upon his assassination, the company's controls are willed to Richards, who was injured during the murder. Our favorite “enforcer”, protagonist Alex Jason, conceives the idea of replacing Richards with a clone body that Jason inhabits. The mission is to lure the assassin out into the open so Jason's skill-set can capture or kill the hitman.
Like the book's opening pages, which promises an inevitable confrontation between Jason and his nemesis Lochner, the mystery is fairly simple – locate the hitman and the eventual connection between his organization and Lochner. Along the way Sugar's writing introduces some new allies while surprising readers with a shocking death (that even I had to read twice!). Overall, this series is a brilliant undertaking and a really clever spin on the 70s men's action adventure staple. While it was short-lived, at just six total books, this author makes the most of the concept and writes spectacular fiction that is overwhelmingly entertaining. This is a mandatory read for action enthusiasts.
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In 1959 and 1960, NBC-TV aired a private eye show called “Markham” starring Ray Milland that ran for 59 episodes before cancellation. At the time, a young Lawrence Block was hired to write an original TV tie-in novel starring Markham that was finally released in 1961 - after the show had already been canceled. The paperback was originally published as “Markham: The Case of the Pornographic Photos,” but has since been re-released under Block’s original submitted title, “You Can Call It Murder.”
New York P.I. Roy Markham is engaged to find a missing 20 year-old girl named Barb who cleaned out her bank account and disappeared from her New Hampshire college. Her wealthy father is worried and wants Markham’s help to find his little girl. Barb runs with a fast crowd and loves to spend her daddy’s money, so its really just a question of what bad decision she’s made this time.
As always, Block’s writing is superb and Markam’s first-person narration recalls his early Matthew Scudder novels. Clear thinking, logic, and good detecting bring the P.I. closer to the novel’s solution. Markham isn’t a hardboiled detective cracking skulls along the way, but the underlying mystery takes him into the seamy underbelly of society giving the short novel enough gritty reality to keep the pages turning.
Although it was inconsequential upon its release, the original 1961 Markham paperback is now a collector’s item and will cost you a small fortune to buy. The paperback has been reprinted several times as “You Could Call It Murder” with rather generic covers that are readily available. Moreover, Block has been generous with his back-catalog and made the book available on Kindle for five bucks. Whatever the medium, this highly-enjoyable early novel is definitely worth your time. Recommended.
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Giles A. Lutz (1910-1982) was a prolific western contributor that penned 64 novels in his lifetime. Within his robust bibliography, he also utilized the names James B. Chaffin, Wade Everett, Alex Hawk, Hunter Ingram, Reese Sullivan and Gene Thompson. As Brad Curtis he wrote 11 erotic novels for sleaze publishers like Monarch. My first sampling of the author's work is western entry “The Wolfer”. The novel was originally released in 1968 by Tower and then re-printed with different packaging in 1972.
“The Wolfer” is indeed the main character, an inexperienced and hot-headed rancher named Hobart. During a snowy Montana night, Hobart has a disagreement over a woman and becomes entangled in a drunken brawl with an Army captain. After slipping on ice, Hobart is knocked unconscious and awakens to find the captain knifed in the back. Accused of murder, shackles are slapped on and Hobart is sent to death row. Only this is the 1800s and death row is essentially a 24-hour recollection period before execution. The reader knows who really killed the captain, but it's up to Hobart to find the truth.
After escaping jail, Hobart heads into a lonely, barren stretch of wilderness deemed The Breaks. It's a hodge podge of harsh men and women who have escaped society's ills by living in Canada's southwestern region. Hobart, stripped of all assets, seeks solace with a pack of wolf hunters. He learns to hunt for wolf hides while attempting to right the wrongs and clear his name. Despite the tag-line, he is not as merciless as the wolves he hunts.
Even the most barren used book stores will typically have a rather large inventory of old, tattered westerns. It's a big genre filled with countless authors and titles. I'd like to think of “The Wolfer” as just another average western. Lutz isn't cutting edge by any means, offering readers a blunt edge narrative that's just plain dull. While building a story-line around this western rancher, we're immediately turned off by the character's neediness. He requires so much maintenance, from borrowing food, shelter and money to eventually losing fights he altogether should be winning...in most western stories.
Again, this is my first experience with Lutz and I'm sure he is a terrific writer. I have a stack of the author's books in my collection, but based on the small sample size of “The Wolfer” I'm in no rush to read the next one.
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