Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 01

It’s the debut of the Paperback Warrior Podcast! In this episode, we’ll provide an introduction to our hosts Eric and Tom. Together, we look at the show’s primary focus on vintage fiction and our introductions to the genres. We’ll discuss the goldmine of paperback treasure, the famed Chamblin’s Book Mine in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as two novels - "Sins of the Fathers" by Lawrence Block and "Penetrator #14" by Chet Cunningham. Plus we look ahead at the upcoming episodes and highlight some content featured right here on our flagship site, paperbackwarrior.com. Stream the episode below or on Stitcher. Android users will find us on the Radio Public app. You may also visit us on the following services:

Spreaker, Soundcloud, YouTube, Direct Download, Castbox Listen to "Episode 01: Welcome to Paperback Warrior" on Spreaker.

John Marshall #01 - Shades of Gray

The John Marshall spy/assassin series lasted five installments between the years 1976 and 1981. The pseudonym used for these Pyramid Books was “Mark Denning,” but the actual author was John Stevenson (1926-1994). Genre fans may recognize Stevenson as the author of three ‘Nick Carter: Killmaster’ books as well as two of the ‘Sharpshooter’ novels by Bruno Rossi. Oddly, the series continued for an additional two books released only in Italian, but it’s unclear who wrote the foreign-language installments.

John Marshall is a CIA assassin allegedly adept in killing using a variety of methods (a Killmaster, if you will), and this skill set is particularly remarkable because he is missing his left hand. His assignments come from Mr. Cramer, his corpulent CIA supervisor and cantankerous father figure. The setup for the series has one foot firmly planted in the Matt Helm tradition and another in Edward S. Aarons’ CIA corporate structure.

Unlike most literary spies, Marshall isn’t chiseled and dashing. He’s a few pounds overweight, his hair is thinning, and his face isn’t particularly handsome. He gets laid, but it’s mostly off-the-page. The fact that his left hand was replaced with a hook doesn’t really add or detract from the story in any noticeable way.

In the series debut, “Shades of Gray,” Marshall is given two simultaneous assignments in San Francisco. First, he needs to figure out who is shipping combat tanks to South America. Second, Mr. Cramer gives Marshall a seemingly unrelated - and unofficial - assignment to locate and eliminate an unknown subject who is blackmailing Cramer’s niece. The blackmail plot is about 80% of the novel with the tank smuggling being almost an afterthought to our hero. Those unfamiliar with “books” might be surprised to learn that these two plot lines overlap and converge later in the novel, but I totally saw it coming.

The setup is well-done and the main character is cool enough. The problem Is that the plot is a bit of a snooze, and it’s really not much of a spy novel at all. Marshall is investigating two rather mundane mysteries as if he were a basic - and rather inept - private eye rather than a CIA killing machine.

By the time the novel ends, it was difficult to care much who was behind either scheme. Mostly, I was glad for it to be over. I may try another book in the series in the future, but it’s definitely not a priority after this tepid debut. Buyer beware.

Postscript: 

Thanks to the always-excellent “Spy Guys and Gals” website for doing the heavy-lifting and the background research regarding this series and author.

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Stark #01 - Funeral Rites

UK publisher Sphere launched in 1966 and rose to prominence with the 1976 printing of “Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker” by Alan Dean Foster (as George Lucas). But, action-adventure readers know the publisher's work through the myriad of 'Conan' and 'The Executioner' releases. The publisher gained the rights to release Don Pendleton's Executioner series, beginning with “War Against the Mafia” in 1973. Losing the series to rival English publisher Corgi, the company emulated 'The Executioner' motif for a new series entitled 'The Revenger'. 

The Revenger would run for 12 total books, the first ten written by Terry Harknett ('Adam Steele', 'Edge', 'Apache') and the last two by Angus Wells ('The Eagles', 'Jubal Cade'). The house name used by Sphere is Joseph Hedges. Later, Pyramid Books acquired the rights to reprint the books in the US but changed the series name to 'Stark' to avoid confusion with another The Revenger series written by Jon Messman. 

“Funeral Rites” is the debut novel of the series and was released in the UK in 1974 with a printing in the US a year later. The book introduces us to the criminal John Stark, a prison inmate in England. He robbed an electronics company while being employed by a criminal organization called The Company. To keep Stark quiet behind bars, they promise to continue the heroin drop into Stark's lover Carol. The Company henchmen aid Stark in his escape from prison so he can continue to do jobs for them.

After these events transpire in chapter one...this book turns into a real turd. 

Stark is brought to sea and reunited with his arch enemy Ryan. Oddly, Ryan provides Stark a bedroom and a nympho named Sheri. In my opinion, Stark loses credibility when he pounds away at Sheri while thinking of the love of his life, Carol. This just seems incredibly selfish, but considering the lack of depth in the book it makes sense the character is easily disliked. Shockingly, Ryan leaves Stark alone so he can set fire to the boat and escape with Sheri.

The author completely loses direction and focus and dedicates the next 100-pages to Stark sleeping, eating...and sleeping and eating. He goes on tangents about how Stark is ravished from hunger but there's no reason for it. He has money and there's food all over London! Ryan, being the book's villain, does nothing. Instead, the author has our antagonist thinking about his lover Jay and how he misses his vibrator. Ugh. In one astonishing, scene Ryan has a mistress flail him with a tree branch before “impaling” herself on him. It's absolutely bonkers.

Action? Well, there's a little here and there. In one wild scene we have Stark's Colt Python against the bad guy's Tommy – with Stark obviously the immortal hero. In a hilarious scene Stark accidentally elbows Jay, knocking him into a sink where he bleeds to death. To get answers to some question (I stopped following the senseless plot), he thrust Sheri's face into the wound while threatening to drown her in the gash if she doesn't tell the truth. Ridiculous.

I hated this book. And it isn't because the English spell “Pajamas” as “Pyjamas” or that they insult the good guys here by calling them a “Tinker's Cuss” (?). No, it isn't that. This character has absolutely no talent. Stark is a thief who was caught. End of story. There's nothing else to it. The Company wants to capture him, there's a bad guy named Ryan, a lover named Carol Burnett (!) and an effort on the author's part to bury 120+ pages in dialogue and trivial descriptions of tea cups and wall décor. 

How this series lasted 12 entries is beyond me. Why Pyramid felt the need to reprint it, God only knows. For me, this series lasted one book.

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Rudd #01 - Vice Cop

To the extent that crime fiction author Richard Deming is remembered today, it’s for his many TV tie-in novels (Dragnet, Mod Squad, Starsky & Hutch) or his one-legged P.I. character, Manville Moon. However, he also wrote an interesting three-book series of hardboiled police procedurals starring Matt Rudd, a vice cop in the fictional city of St. Cecilia. The three Rudd novels are “Vice Cop” (1961), “Anything but Saintly” (1963), and “Death of a Pusher” (1964) - all of which are available today as cheap eBooks. 

In a 1960 interview, Deming said that his Matt Rudd character (real name: Mateuz Rudowski) was originally designed to steal market share from Richard Prather’s Shell Scott series. Other than both detectives solving mysteries in sexually-charged environments (Rudd is, after all, a Vice Cop), they really aren’t all that similar - other than the fact that first-person narration and the fact that both heroes get laid. For my money, Deming was a far better writer than Prather.

“Vice Cop” begins with a citizen showing up at the police station to report a society dame who hosts “marijuana parties” with sex orgies at her home attended by the idle wealthy. Because the world was a very different place in 1961, the department assigns Rudd to begin dating a sexy reefer user in an undercover capacity, so he could score an invite to this recurring pot party in a private home. (Your tax dollars at work, 1961 America.)

Although the premise is stupid by today’s standards, Deming is still able to weave this into a credible crime novel. As long as you can see this as a historical artifact, “Vice Cop” is a minimally compelling police procedural story with well-written prose and a highly-likable blue-collar main character in Rudd. He’s a funny, and self-deprecating cop who makes you wish you were his drinking buddy. Narration this good makes the 175 pages fly by, but it still wasn’t much of a great novel.

Last year, I read and reviewed the second book in the Matt Rudd series, “Anything but Saintly.” It was a far superior effort than “Vice Cop” and more worth your time. You can probably just skip this one and try some of Deming’s better works. After all, life’s too short to read so-do crime fiction.

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McHugh #01 - McHugh

“Deadlier than Mike Hammer. Sexier than James Bond. Meet McHugh”

I can't help but groan at the poor marketing choice made by Modern Promotions, a division of Unisystems Inc. Publishing. Perhaps that horrific tagline, or the equally horrific cover art, led to the short lifespan for paperback hero McHugh. 

The series, launched in 1959, lasted for five total books – all by author Jay Flynn. The series, rumored to have been created over a drunken lunch by both Flynn and original publisher Avon (who printed under improved artwork), stars US government agent McHugh operating out of a San Francisco watering hole called The Door. His boss is Burton Harts, who routinely sends McHugh chasing island dictators or downed Navy flyers. But the series debut, the eponymous “McHugh”, is a throwback to the hardboiled writing style. 

The book opens with FBI agents Murrell and Foote meeting McHugh at an airport. They want information on a quarry named Johnny Stover, an electronics expert who's gone missing. How is McHugh involved? Stover is dating the sister of McHugh's lover Loris. McHugh, fearing the danger might be too close to Loris, takes to gumshoeing in search of Stover's track. 

The book really gains footing when McHugh runs into San Francisco Inspector Kline. Stover, a hot rod enthusiast, may have purchased a car used in a 1936 gold heist. Some heavy mob players think that car contains clues on where the robbers hid a bulk of the heist. As McHugh becomes closer, both the mob and some heavy-handed criminals start squeezing in. The book's finale is a race to find Stover – hopefully alive holding keys to the car.

Jay Flynn was a talented writer with a penchant for quirky, over the top criminals. While never really pulpy or too contrived, these McHugh books seem wildly cartoonish. Oddly, this writing style or narrative flow doesn't detract from a thrilling story. Flynn's work with McHugh is a joy to read; entertaining, feisty and far from the “Mike Hammer Knockoff” description it unfairly receives from genre fans. While Flynn's life was tumultuous, and an adventurous novel in itself, his work on McHugh is admirable. It's what keeps the old guy turning those yellowed pages. 

Note – For the wild story on the life of Jay Flynn, read author Bill Pronzini's 1988 article HERE.

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Target Manhattan

Brian Garfield died on December 29, 2018 at the age of 79, but he left behind a legacy of important work in the American action-adventure fiction cannon. His obituaries primarily focused upon the fact that he wrote “Death Wish” and “Hopscotch,” but he also authored several great westerns as well as many paperback originals that never received the Hollywood treatment.

After learning of his death, I felt moved to read one of his 70 novels, and I chose 1975’s “Target Manhattan,” which was originally released under the pseudonym Drew Mallory. Today, the short book is available from Mysterious Press under Garfield’s own name, and it’s well worth your time. 

The entirety of “Target Manhattan” is written in the form of transcripts from interviews conducted by a special commission established by the New York Civil Defense Emergency Control Board in the aftermath of a significant “disaster” in New York City. The reader is left to gain an understanding of the scope of the tragedy and the manner the events unfolded from the contents of the formal testimony comprising the book. It’s a brave literary approach that would have failed in the hands of a lesser author.

The incident in question - as depicted on the original Ballentine paperback cover art - involves a lunatic pilot in a WW2-era bomber plane circling Manhattan and threatening to bomb the city unless he receives a $5 million ransom. The scheme to get away with the dough is rather brilliant until he runs up against some pretty clever civil servants who hatch their own plan to stop him.

Beyond that, telling you any more about what happens would be book reviewer malpractice. However, I’m comfortable saying that this book is an unheralded classic of the suspense genre - a real, old-school, high-stakes disaster movie on paper. The government response sequences addressing this exigent threat reminded me a lot of the original “Independence Day” movie, and the after-the-fact interview format of the novel reminded me of Max Brooks’ “World War Z” novel. Perhaps the aircraft spec talk was a bit much for me as a layman, but it never distracted from the story.

Brian Garfield, you are missed - but your work lives on forever. And this one comes highly recommended.

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Tall Dark and Dead

Last year, I read and reviewed the Stark House reprint of Kermit Jaediker’s “Hero’s Lust.” I loved the book so much I moved heaven and earth to buy an expensive used copy of his only other novel, “Tall Dark and Dead.” Just my luck, Stark House has released this rare and collectible book as part of another Lion Books three-pack along with “The Savage Chase” by Frederick Lorenz and “Run the Wild River” by D.L. Champion. The new edition also features a fascinating interview with Lion Books editor and author, Arnold Hano

“Tall Dark and Dead” began life as a hardcover mystery published in 1947 when Jaediker was moonlighting from his newspaper reporter job into more creative pursuits, including comic books and crime novels. In 1951 when paperbacks were the hot new entertainment product, Lion Books reprinted the short mystery with a salacious painted cover by illustrator Robert Maguire that has been restored for the Stark House trade paperback 68 years later.

Lou Lait is a Hollywood private investigator who is engaged by a wealthy woman to recover (i.e. steal) four letters locked in a man’s safe. You see, her husband was a WW2 fighter pilot who went missing in action and was presumed dead. She began seeing another man - a local society columnist - and wrote him some romantic letters. Of course, her husband resurfaces and comes home to resume life with his bride. The ex-boyfriend doesn’t want to let go, and begins extorting money from the woman with her letters as his proof of the accidental infidelity. If Lait can just swipe the letters from the ex-boyfriend’s safe, problem solved.

Luckily for Lou (and the reader), he’s pals with an expert safecracker whose always willing to take on a job like this for an extra buck or two. However, while in the apartment for the burglary, Lou finds the lifeless body of the blackmailer with a knife stuck in his back. Lou has no legit reason to be in the apartment with his safecracker friend, and his client is an obvious suspect. Thereafter, it’s up to Lou to solve the murder.

“Tall Dark and Dead” is a good, if largely unremarkable, 1940s private eye mystery. It’s better than some and not as good as others. It’s certainly nowhere near as great as Jaediker’s 1953 masterpiece, “Hero’s Lust.” I feel the paperback original crime novels of the 1950s were way edgier and more interesting than 1940s output. If you’re looking for a fundamentally solid private eye story, give this one a shot. I’m certainly going to tackle the other novels in the new three-book collection because I have faith in the quality of Lion Books and, by extension, Stark House.

Buy a copy of this book HERE