Lawrence Lariar was a cartoonist who edited a popular series of anthologies in the 1960s reprinting the best cartoons of the year. Less famously, he also wrote crime novels under the pseudonyms Michael Stark, Adam Knight and Marston la France - as well as under his own name. “The Day I Died” is a 1952 stand-alone crime adventure published as a Signet paperback under Lariar’s name. The novel is currently available as an eBook from Mysterious Press.
The premise of “The Day I Died” was too delicious for me to leave unread on my shelf. Tom Coyle is a loser with no reason to go on living. Today, he’d be diagnosed with depression and properly medicated. In 1952, he’s just regarded as a sad sack and his desire to end it all seems quite reasonable. Rather than committing suicide, Tom makes a devil’s bargain with a local underworld boss. The mobster takes out a life insurance policy on Tom and gives him $10,000 to live large for the next four months. After a period of cash-rich debauchery, an “accident” will occur ending Tom’s life and quietly giving the mobster a healthy payday.
With the exception of the insurance company, everybody wins, right? Tom is spared another day living a life he hates, but he gets to taste the good life he otherwise couldn’t afford for a few months Meanwhile, the godfather makes a tidy profit from the insurance proceeds. What could go wrong?
Plenty, as it seems. During his four month countdown to death, Tom finds love, begins to enjoy himself, and has second thoughts about his death wish. For the first time in his life, Tom actually wants to live. However, the gangster isn’t excited at the prospect of extinguishing the deal. Can Tom do anything to cheat his own contracted death?
Chronic depression is serious business, and the author does an admirable job of illustrating the hopelessness of Tom’s mental state for the book’s first half. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make for a pleasant or exciting reading experience. It takes way too long for Tom’s devil’s bargain with the mobster to happen, and the reader is stuck bearing witness to his intense sadness for far too many pages before Tom receives the money and the ability to enjoy himself for a bit.
Once Tom starts to party in the Miami sunshine with the mob’s money, the reader is forced to endure a tedious relationship drama with a series of overlapping love triangles. Simmering in the background is an underworld rivalry with stakes never made completely clear. Lariar essentially takes a cool idea and pisses all over it with wooden characters, a meandering plot, and tepid action. By the time the big twist ending happened, I was too bored to care. I was ready to see Tom just die to end the misery of this wasted opportunity of a novel.
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“Wake Up Dead” is a 1974 private-eye novel by a shadowy and unfamiliar author named William Wall. A thorough search online failed to reveal any other known works. Locating the author's identity is a conundrum considering the book's publisher is equally as opaque. The paperback was issued by Papillon Books, copyright Aware Press, Inc., a 70s publishing house that dabbled in a handful of genre related titles like “Mr. Tomorrow,” a post-apocalyptic work by soft-core erotica author Con Sellers. Further, the publisher recycled the “Wake Up Dead” cover from a 1970 Belmont paperback entitled “Logan” by Alan Joseph. It's a bold move considering the paperback cover art fails to match any of the novel's actual content.
The book's protagonist is private investigator Tony Boyle, an apathetic sleuth with a declining business. Accustomed to his wealthy, affluent lifestyle, Boyle is yearning for business to pick up when in walks Marsha Vickers, a stunningly beautiful woman seeking to retain Boyle's services. Her wealthy Uncle Johnny, beneficiary of a lucrative trust fund, has been missing for several days. Concerned for his safety, she engages Boyle to find Uncle Johnny.
After a day of inquiries, Boyle learns that Marsha has received a ransom call from Uncle Johnny's kidnapper. The price is $25K for his safe return. Marsha must consult the trustee to obtain the ransom money. During this exchange we learn that Uncle Johnny only receives $1,500 per month, a rather paltry stipend considering the vast fortune in the trust. Once the money is placed at the drop site, Uncle Johnny is released. As Boyle starts to question the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping, there’s evidence to suggest maybe the whole thing was a scam.
There's an enormous plot twist regarding Uncle Johnny, the $25K and the kidnapper, but It would be cruel to spoil your surprise here. Suffice to say that Boyle's assignment isn't finished once Uncle Johnny is returned. Instead, the book's second half is centered around Boyle's investigation of Uncle Johnny's day-to-day life to provide greater clarity and answers.
Like all good crime stories, there are gambling debts, an enforcer and pages upon pages of clues for the determined reader to work through before the solution is revealed. The punch-line wasn't overly original, but it was probably entertaining enough to satisfy fans of Carter Brown's whodunits. If that’s the caliber of mystery you enjoy, you may like “Wake Up Dead.” If you demand more from your crime fiction, you can safely skip this largely derivative effort.
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President Bill Clinton and novelist James Patterson had a 2018 hit with their bestseller “The President is Missing,” (ghostwritten by David Ellis), but there was another book with the same title released in 1967 by Henry A. Milton. I was unable to learn anything about Milton other than finding that the copyright is in his name (i.e. likely not a pseudonym), and the paperback was published by Banner Books, a Hearst Corporation subsidiary.
Oddly, our friend Bob Deis at menspulpmags.com informs me that Milton wrote a “Fiction Book Bonus” titled “The Day the President Disappeared!” for the April 1961 issue of “Bluebook Magazine.” It’s impossible that a book published in 1967 was adapted into a short story six years earlier - with key characters’ names changed. The magazine story has no reference to the related novel while still claiming to be a book bonus. It’s likely that Bluebook published the short story by Milton who then expanded it into a full novel six years later. Moreover, it was not unusual for Men’s Adventure Magazines of the era to misrepresent original short stories as “Book Bonus” articles. Oddly, it seems that Bluebook’s misrepresentation succeeded in conjuring a book into existence years later.
Anyway, here’s the review:
It’s the weekend before an important summit with the Russians, and the President (the author never gives him a proper name) is at Camp Victory (a fictional Camp David with way crappier security) working on his speech and relaxing before the meeting. His beleaguered third-string press secretary Mike McDowell, the novel’s protagonist, is leading the skeleton crew of staff at the camp who didn’t get the quiet weekend off, and no one is expecting any action.
Not so fast! After noticing an unmanned door to the President’s quarters that should have had a Secret Service posting, Mike sheepishly goes inside to discover, you guessed it, The President is Missing! Please note that the President is also missing from the narrative. This is one of those episodes of The West Wing featuring the staff hashing out a problem without the boss around, which, I suppose, is sorta the whole point of the paperback.
Also missing is an enigmatic university professor who plays Gin Rummy with POTUS on lazy weekends like this. The timing of the President’s disappearance is both inconvenient and mysterious. Could this have something to do with the upcoming summit with the Russians? A coup from within the administration? Perhaps a romantic affair? It’s up to Mike and the tight circle of people in-the-know to solve the mystery before it leaks to the press and sparks a national crisis.
For such a high-stakes situation, the book itself is pretty devoid of action. It’s more like an Agatha Christie mystery with a bunch of people in a remote lodge trying to figure out whodunnit and what was done. I kept thinking that Mack Bolan would have handled the situation quite differently. By the time the solution to the President’s disappearance is revealed, I was past the point of caring all that much. I enjoy both politics and mysteries, but I just can’t stand being this deeply bored. As such, file this one in the “don’t bother” pile.
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After seven installments of Stephen Mertz's 'M.I.A. Hunter' series, the popular title takes a slight shift into a new direction. Beginning with this eighth entry, “Escape from Nicaragua,” we discover Mark Stone's combat hardened trio working in unison with the U.S. government, a rather unique turn of events considering Stone had been targeted by the CIA and FBI.
In the last novel, “Saigon Slaughter,” Stone has a revelation about his team's future. It's 1987 (the series was written in the 80s) and the Vietnam War has been over for 14 years. The idea of malnourished prisoners of war still alive in Vietnam's harsh climate is a stretch. Further, Stone's network of intelligence has become sporadic and inconsistent. His admirable missions of saving prisoners of war may be finished. In that book's rowdy finale Stone rescues American prisoners from Saigon and conveniently returns them during a U.S. summit with Vietnam.
“Escape from Nicaragua” has a sense of continuity by mentioning these prior events in the novel's opening pages. Now, the CIA and FBI have stricken Stone's trio from the record books in what is perceived as an exchange for their labor. U.S. government agencies, impressed with Stone's fortitude, will now contract his team for messy assignments...like freeing two CIA operatives from a Nicaraguan prison.
Those of you excited about this new series direction, and the enticing idea that Stone might be assassinating drug lords, dictators and communists while utilizing upgraded intel, should really hold your applause. “Escape from Nicaragua” doesn't really present itself as anything other than a recycle of the prior seven books. Stone's team hits Honduras for intel, then penetrates the Nicaragua jungle to align with freedom fighters who assist the trio in liberating the prisoners.
Seasoned magicians say the rabbit don't come easy. I'd say the same for “Escape from Nicaragua.” The magic of transforming this series into a “Phoenix Force” styled mercenary unit apparently isn't easy. The collaboration between series creator Stephen Mertz and a relatively unknown writer named Arthur Moore lends a sense of familiarity to the novel, but the plot never really pushes the envelope. The series, while certainly delivering action-packed goods, should have turned the corner on this eighth novel. Looking ahead to the next installment, “Invasion U.S.S.R.,” appears to have a similar theme – Stone freeing a U.S. journalist from a Soviet prison. I'm hoping for the best.
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In 1959, Harry Whittington submitted for publication a crime noir novel titled “Never Find Sanctuary” that Fawcett Gold Medal published as “Backwoods Tramp” with a salacious cover indicative of the soft-core sleaze of the era. When Black Lizard republished the paperback in 1988, it was given the title “A Moment to Prey” with an insightful introduction from Whittington detailing his highs and lows of his writing career.
Due to an unusual series of events I won’t spoil here, former Major League Baseball pitcher Jake Richards is hot on the trail of an armed payroll robber named Marv Pooser who just scored $100,000 in a daring heist. A promising clue brings Jake to Pooser’s hometown in rural Florida - nearby the author’s own hometown of Ocala. The locals in the mosquito-infested town are suspicious of strangers and don’t take kindly to an outsider asking questions about Pooser, so Jake is greeted with a backwoods-style ass whooping.
Meanwhile, Lilly is a hot little swamp chick selling fried fish at her family’s restaurant in the same part of rural Florida. She’s got issues of her own and has always wanted more than the constant sexual harassment she must endure from the restaurant’s clientele. Referring to Lilly as a “Backwoods Tramp” is wholly inaccurate after the reader bears witness to what happens to a local man who tries to manhandle the girl. Circumstances thrust Jake and Lilly together - figuratively at first - but you can see where that’s headed. After all, she’s the kind of girl men get obsessed over.
Jake enlists Lilly’s help in finding Pooser, and that’s when things go bonkers. Pooser is one of the most vile, devious and reprehensible villains in crime fiction. In fact, this whole paperback is pretty crazy. Crazy sexual. Crazy tense. Crazy violent. Because it’s Florida, deadly snakes and man-eating gators play a key supporting role in the mayhem leading up to the beat-the-clock climax.
Fawcett Gold Medal was selling consumers a bit of swampland of their own by packaging “Backwoods Tramp” as a sexy seduce-the-swamp-girl paperback. What readers inevitably found was a menacing rural noir filled with violence, darkness and double-crosses. Or, in other words, top-notch Harry Whittington at his most twisted. Highly recommended.
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Author Paul Bishop is a 35-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department. Receiving “Detective of the Year” accolades twice, Bishop starred as the lead interrogator on the ABC reality show “Take the Money and Run” developed by marquee name producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Along with his 15 published works, Bishop also is the writer and editor of the essential reference work “52 Weeks 52 Western Novels – A Guide to Six-Gun Favorites and New Discoveries”.
With his commendable career in law enforcement, Bishop writes with conviction and authenticity. His experiences are easily conveyed in his artistry, evident in his five-book literary series starring LAPD Detective Fey Croaker. The first novel, “Kill Me Again”, was published by Avon Books in 1994. It introduces us to the seasoned Fey, a West LA detective and supervisor of the homicide unit. It was the top detective spot in the division and she's the first woman to hold the job.
Bishop explains, “I based Fey in part on two of my long term, very experienced, female detective partners. Walk into any LAPD detective squadroom and you'll find one or more versions of Fey. She's got some hard earned miles on her. She street savvy. She knows how to fight dirty, not just politically, but physically, and is more than willing to kick your ass if you take her on. She's forty with a string of bad marriages, bad choices, and bad boooze behind her. She expects and demands a lot of her people, but in return she is loyal to a fault and will fight like a tiger for them. Basically, she's about as far from a twenty-something, hard-bodied, high heel wearing, female TV detective as you can get”.
Just shy of 300-pages, “Kill Me Again” is a riveting mystery procedural that has plenty to unpack in terms of the central character. While Bishop expands the murder case, he slowly allows readers a more intimate view of this rather complex character. From her early career rise, tumultuous love-life and murky childhood, there's a lot to offer beyond a stand-alone story.
Bishop, detailing the character's beginnings, explains, “By the time I was ready to write Kill Me Again, I already had a handful of novels published. Two were connected, but the others were all stand-alones. Career wise, I felt I needed a series character strong enough to carry at least four books. In creating Fey Croaker, the protagonist of Kill Me Again, I plotted out a four book personal story arc for her. I knew exactly what position I wanted her to be in personally at the end of each of the first three books, forcing her to deal with everything that had come before in book four. Each of the four books would have a standalone plot, but there would be a through story dealing with Fey's abusive upbringing, which would come full circle and to resolution in book four”.
Beginning with “Kill Me Again”, Fey's relationship with her father is shown as a key role in her development as a detective, rising through the promotions after 16-years in the unit. As a sexually molested child, the novel provides brief passages explaining Fey's protection of her brother and her abuse from both her father and family friend. It's a prickly family tree, cultivated by sorrow and regret, and written with a grainy sense of realism.
“At the time, I was also working full throttle in my career with the LAPD. As a detective, I spent almost all my career, 30 out of 35 years, investigating sex crimes from indecent exposure to child molest to rape to sexual homicide and everything in between. I was always aware of how victims processed the assault emotionally. There were those whom it destroyed, and others who were never able to break the cycle of victimhood. But I was fascinated by those who flat refused to be defined by something beyond their control. They were determined not to just be survivors of sexual assault, but victors over it. They struggled and they fought and they failed and they picked themselves up again. I admired these incredible individuals, and this was what I wanted to exemplify through Fey Croaker”, explains Bishop.
“Fey is a high functioning detective, but a low functioning human. She is aware of this and ferociously fights those emotional forces that have threatened to cripple her since she was a child...As the omnipotent author, I was going to give her a chance at redemption if she could lead me there over four books.”
“Kill Me Again” received a sequel in “Twice Dead”, published in 1996 by Avon. Following the mystery-procedural formula, the novel centers around an NBA athlete charged with murder. Later, the book was later re-titled as “Grave Sins”. In 1997 the third novel, “Tequila Mockingbird” was published by Scribner in hardback and by Pocket Books in paperback. The same publishers produced the series' fourth entry, “Chalk Whispers,” in 2000. A 68-page novella was released in 2014 entitled “Pattern of Behavior", which was also included in Bishop's short story compilation of the same name. All of the books have been republished in digital formats, including Kindle, by Wolfpack Publishing.
Bishop concludes, “The greatest compliment I've received as an author is when either female law enforcement personnel or individuals who have been through the ringer of sexual assault approach me at a writing function, sometimes with tears in their eyes, and ask, 'How do you know this?' 'How do you know what it's like to be a woman on this job?' Or in the case of one woman, 'How do you understand what it feels like to be a child of the silence?' My answer is always the same, "Fey told me..."
Fey Croaker Purchase Checklist
1. "Kill Me Again" (1994 Avon)
2. "Twice Dead" (aka "Grave Sins" 1996 Avon)
3. "Tequila Mockingbird" (1997 Scribner/Pocket Books)
4. "Chalk Whispers" (2000 Scribner/Pocket Books)
5. "Pattern of Behavior" (2014 Wolfpack)
Before he wrote full novels in every conceivable genre, Norman Daniels was a prolific author of short stories for the pulp magazines. The March 1936 issue of “Secret Agent X Detective Mysteries” features a story by Daniels titled “Boomerang Blade” that was once available as a stand-alone eBook and currently exists within a Radio Archives audio reprint of the entire magazine.
“Boomerang Blade” is not a ‘Secret Agent X’ story but rather a hardboiled tale starring ex-boxer turned ex-cop turned taxicab driver, Jason McGee. After fixing a flat tire one night, McGee accepts a job driving home a drunk from a nightclub with a generous fare covered by a local underworld boss. After arriving at the requested destination, McGee learns that the drunk is actually a corpse with a chest wound. Before he can figure out what happened, McGee is forced to convince his former police colleagues that he’s not a murderer. When that fails, McGee gives the cops the slip and takes it upon himself to solve the murder and clear his name.
The 1930s tough-guy vernacular is a lot of fun to read 83 years later - like opening a suspenseful time capsule. The “murder suspect clearing his own name” plot is a trope that’s been done a thousand times, but for all I know, it was fresh and innovative in 1936. In any case, Daniels keeps the story moving and McGee is a great companion on the wild ride this short story provides. If you’re looking for a 15-page pulp diversion, “Boomerang Blade” is certainly worth your time. Recommended.
Buy a copy of Secret Agent X #24 March 1936 HERE
