Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 05

In this episode, we discuss the massive Mack Bolan universe, including the origin, spin-offs and legacy of "The Executioner". Additionally, Eric reviews the 88th "Executioner" novel, "Baltimore Trackdown", by Chet Cunningham. Tom reviews the newest adult western novel, "Gunsmith: Deadville", by Robert Randisi. Listen below or on streaming services like Apple, Google, Spreaker, YouTube, Stitcher, etc.

Listen to "Episode 05: The Executioner Mack Bolan" on Spreaker.

The Last Notch

Arnold Hano is an esteemed sportswriter, winning numerous accolades including 1963's Sportswriter of the Year. His 1955 non-fiction account of the 1954 World Series, “A Day in the Bleachers”, placed him in the annals of baseball history. Along with freelance work, including The Saturday Evening Post and The New York Times, Hano wrote many paperback originals under the pseudonyms of Gil Dodge, Matthew Gant, Ad Gordon and Mike Heller. Using his managing editor experience with Bantam, Hano became editor-in-chief of Lion Books from 1949-1954, developing crime-noir legends like Jim Thompson and David Goodis.

While working at Lion Books, Hano wrote a classic western tale entitled “The Last Notch”. This 1958 novel was released under the name Matthew Gant to avoid the optics of publishing himself in his authoritative role as editor-in-chief. The book was reprinted in 2017 by Stark House Press under imprint Black Gat Books. It features an introduction by David Laurence Wilson, including insights from Hano on his career and literary body of work. As of the time of this review, Hano is still writing at the age of 97.

“The Last Notch” is a western. The genre tropes are clearly evident – cattle rustlers, six-guns and fast-draws...of both iron and whiskey. However, it is written to exclude one of the centerpieces of the frontier story. There's no clear hero. No white hats to be seen. It is devoid of any strict boundaries between right and wrong, and lacks any social conventions for the characters. It's as if Hano's goal was the non-traditional definition of a hero. It's not until the book's closing pages that the moral courage is unveiled, finally allowing readers the satisfaction of some semblance of a heroic figure...as little as that may be. But I think that is where “The Last Notch” excels as an abstract western tale that defies the mandatory genre attributes.

The book's central character is an old gun-slinger named Slattery, an bi-racial killer-for-hire who has accepted his final contract - $5,000 to kill a “target to be named later”. Faces and names mean very little to men like Slattery, so he accepts the job and does what killers do - hangs out at the bar with similar men. One of them is a cold-blooded youth named The Kid, essentially Slattery's heir apparent. The arrogant young man wants to knock off Slattery and assume his position as the King of the Killers. Slattery isn't buying it and refuses to face The Kid in a gun-duel.

The territory has a newly-elected governor who is issuing amnesty to men like Slattery. In retribution for his sins, the tired gun-hand wants to kill one more time, accept “forgiveness” from the elected official and turn in his guns for a pardon. In a way, Slattery feels this act is a cleansing of the sins, a way to simply ride off into the sunset and die. The book's exciting dilemma is revealed when Slattery learns his $5,000 target is the governor himself.

Hano employs a back-story inspired by the mega-success of 1957's “Mandingo” by Kyle Onstott to paint Slattery's past as a plantation slave and his subsequent birth out of wedlock following the coupling of a white master and a black slave. The author uses the opportunity to provide adversity for Slattery, essentially shaping him into a grim-faced killer, a sweeping hand of death that just does the job and coldly forgets about the last one. Mixed into the narrative is a riveting side-story of amnesty for cattle rustlers, which cleverly crosses into Slattery's goals of killing the governor.

There are basic westerns, and then there are special westerns like “The Last Notch”. Genre authors and hopefuls would do very well to improve their plotting by simply reading the book's 14th chapter, if nothing else. While the action heats up in the finale, it's a slower, more methodical approach bordering on psychological suspense that sets this apart from rudimentary western storytelling. Kudos to Stark House Press and Black Gat for bringing this fantastic novel back into circulation.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

The Woman Aroused

Leonard Zinberg (1911-1968) was an accomplished author of crime and noir fiction during the dawn of paperback original novels as a popular form of entertainment. His first published book was “The Woman Aroused” originally released in 1951 by Avon under the pen name “Ed Lacey,” a pseudonym later streamlined into “Ed Lacy” for the majority of his published works. His debut has been reprinted several times and remains available as a 99 cent Kindle eBook.

When we meet our narrator, George Jackson, he is separated from his fashionista wife. They still get together once a month to watch a movie, screw, and fight, but the functional marriage is basically over. George works as a writer for an oil company’s internal newsletter and shares his backstory with the reader about growing up as a child in Manhattan with a successful plumber as a father. His personal history is fascinating and broadcasts to the reader that this won’t be your typical helping of noir fiction.

One morning George is surprised by a visit from an old friend named Hank Conley who has just returned to New York after nearly a decade in the Army - a period that encompassed World War 2 and its aftermath. Hank gives George an envelope containing $7,000 in cash and asks George to stash the loot until Hank’s divorce is final, so he can begin enjoying his savings. It helps to bear in mind that in 1951, $7,000 was enough money to base an entire novel around.

Of course, Hank dies under suspicious circumstances while George remains in possession of the $7,000 - creating a moral dilemma for our hero. While still deciding that to do, George travels across Manhattan to meet Hank’s widow, and you can see exactly where this is going. Then things turn in a very different - and much, much darker - direction than I was anticipating. I don’t want to give it away, but this was way more twisted and perverse than the femme fatale story I was expecting. Instead, the author wrote a novel about survivors coping with the traumas of war that echo long after the final shots are fired. “The Woman Aroused” is not really a crime novel, an action story, a mystery, or a noir drama. The book isn’t easy to classify, but it’s unquestionably the kind of fiction that will stay with you long after it’s over.

This being the first novel for Zinberg/Lacey/Lacy, it’s clear that the author had a lifetime of thoughts and ideas in his mind to play with in his narrative. As such, this short work is peppered with Big Ideas about war, peace, love, marriage, economics, atrocities, and more. Just because a paperback is essentially pulp fiction doesn’t mean it can’t be thoughtful - and deeply unsettling - in the process. If you’re looking for something completely different, “The Woman Aroused” is a well-executed literary oddity. Recommended.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Tropic Fury

Looking at the 1960s hierarchy of successful paperback publishers, Connecticut's Monarch Books is in the lower echelon. Despite my best shopping practices, I've yet to acquire a really good Monarch published novel. With a fantastic cover painting by American prolific artist Harry Schaare, the 1961 paperback “Tropic Fury” looks to change that. It was written by Jeff Sutton (1913-1979) under the pseudonym Christopher Gale. Wildside Press has reprinted the novel in e-book format for $2.51. 

Set in 1941, the paperback introduces us to Commander Joe Stark, an operative for the Office of U.S. Naval Intelligence. His superiors have asked that he depart to the Pacific peninsula of Malaya. Fearing that the Japanese will invade and capture the region, Stark's mission is to oversee the destruction of the Malay's oil fields, an asset that the Allies can't gift to the enemy. Once Stark arrives at the mission's destination, the potential of this WW2 high-beam act quickly dissolves.

Stark's arrival on Mala partners him with a trio of potential bedmates:

- Selinda – the bold, sexually aggressive wife of oil superintendent Mike Hawker

- Yoshi – a beautiful, doll-like nurse who plays hard to get

- Suzanne – sultry daughter of the local doctor that may be a celestial nymph

Obviously, the title “Tropic Fury” quickly changes it's meaning from what would be perceived as a rousing war novel. Stark asks some questions, interviews the oil field laborers and learns that he has a fifty-million dollar decision on his hands – when to actually press the detonator. With the Japanese on the outskirts, the bulk of the book is just Stark's decision making, which also includes which babe to bed down before destruction ensues. Yawn.

“Tropic Fury” is simply terrible. Make the right decision now and refuse to be mesmerized by the book's flashy cover. You deserve better than this.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Cash Madigan #01 - The Buried Motive

Bruce Cassiday was one of those authors who transitioned nicely from the pulp magazines to paperback original novels in the 1950s. He wrote a few Flash Gordon books in the 1970s and a host of other genre novels under an army of pseudonyms. He also wrote a biographies of Dinah Shore and Betty Ford, if that’s your bag. For awhile, he served as the fiction editor for Argosy Magazine and the brains behind many of their “book bonus” features.

Cassiday also authored two crime novels in the “Cash Madigan” series (if two books can even be called a series) - both released in 1957. One was half of an Ace Double titled “The Buried Motive” and the other was “While Murder Waits,” published by Graphic Books. The intended series order probably doesn’t matter, so I am hereby declaring “The Buried Motive” as Cash Madigan #1.

Cash is a Manhattan “bonding investigator,” a career that surprisingly doesn’t require a leather vest or a ball gag. Instead, he investigates employee embezzlements for a big company that insures employers against such losses. Cash’s job is to chase down the embezzler and recover enough stolen money to make his employer whole after the claim is paid. He’s basically a collection agent for an insurance company.

“The Buried Motive” assignment brings him to the small farming town of Gotham, Missouri to meet with an informant. The stool pigeon has info to provide Cash regarding the whereabouts of an embezzler who disappeared with $200,000 in payroll funds from a New York manufacturing company insured by Cash’s employer.

Upon Cash’s arrival in town, he reports to the trailer of his informant only to find that someone has butchered him with a carving knife. Although the logical suspect is the missing embezzler, Cash is quickly arrested for the stoolie’s murder. A baloney alibi from the town cutie springs him from police custody, but Cash remains in town to solve the murder, find the embezzler, and recover the missing dough.

Cash is a stereotypical wisecracking, tough-guy private eye in the mold of Shell Scott or Mike Hammer. The first-person narration is easy to read and follow, and Cassiday’s plotting is solid, if unremarkable. The mystery was pretty basic and nothing you haven’t read before. There’s murder and blackmail and deceit and missing money and if you haven’t read a warehouse of private eye paperbacks already, “The Buried Motive” will seem fresh and interesting. However, if you read a lot of these types of books, you’ll probably find this one to be just an average outing.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

The Man From W.A.R. Inc. #01 - Mission: Third Force

California author Michael Kurland is one of those guys who has published novels in several different genres. He wrote a successful series of mystery novels in the Sherlock Holmes universe starring Professor Moriarty. He also has a sizable back catalog of science fiction and alternative history titles spanning 1964 to 1990. Of greater interest to Paperback Warrior is his “The Man from W.A.R. Inc.” action series that lasted three installments from 1967 to 1969.

W.A.R. Inc. is Weapons, Analysis, and Research Incorporated, a for-profit American company that provides training and logistical support around the world to clients (mostly small nations) desiring greater stability. The hero of the series is W.A.R. Inc. employee Peter Carthage, who uses the skills he honed in U.S. Army Intelligence to fight evil for profit. “Mission: Third Force” from 1967 is the first Carthage novel in the trilogy.

The campus of W.A.R. Inc. contains a giant underground fortress beneath New Jersey farmland for drills and experimentation. The corporate lair is unimaginably high-tech...for 1967. The unintentionally hilarious descriptions of the equipment includes space age technology including “digital tape recorders” storing mountains of data. The “modem mercenaries” of W.A.R. Inc. are primarily research and development types as
well as consultants - not unlike the cadre of “Beltway Bandit” defense contractors we have today. The weapons developed in the company’s “dirty tricks” department are cool as hell and seem to be borrowing a page from the James Bond films.

Peter Carthage is one of three people in the firm with the title of “Expediter.” In this first adventure, he is sent to the fictional Southeast Asian kingdom of “Bonterre,” formerly a French colony in Indochina. The author basically took the colonial history of Vietnam and superimposed it over a Thai-style constitutional monarchy to conjure up Bonterre. Anyway, the country is experiencing instability caused by guerrilla insurgents from the kingdom’s northern province as well as the shadowy influence of a right-wing “Third Force” also seeking to topple the current government from within.

The Bonterre ambassador wants Carthage to train his armed forces in combat and intelligence to be used against the guerrillas while establishing a link between the insurgents and the traitorous Third Force. Carthage puts together a multi-disciplinary team of colorful fellow employees for the training engagement and spearheads the investigation into the Third Force himself.

The result is a ton of fun to read. Carthage is basically Sherlock Holmes in a third-world guerrilla warfare environment. He uses clues and deduction to unearth Third Force operatives among Bonterre’s military and government class. And when the time comes to kick-ass, he and his crew justify their hourly billing rate. It’s also a hilarious book, but not in the cartoonish way of the fake spy novels of the late 1960s. Instead, the author peppers the dialogue with clever wisecracks and sarcastic remarks from Carthage and his crew causing me to laugh out loud more than once. The novel also has a good sex scene but nothing particularly graphic.

Kurland’s writing and plotting is exceptionally well-done - although the climactic ending felt a little rushed. The story moves forward with vivid characters and no dull moments. I’m frankly surprised this series wasn’t a greater commercial success justifying more than three installments. In any case, I’m overjoyed to have acquired all three books in the series. Snapping up these paperbacks should be a no-brainer for any vintage adventure fiction fan. Highly recommended.

This book was discussed on the fourth episode of the Paperback Warrior Podcast: Link

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 04

The newest episode of the Paperback Warrior Podcast is out now! In Episode 4, we discuss the brand new Stark House “Manhunt” magazine compilation. Also, we check out the “Man from U.N.C.L.E” influence on spy fiction and offer two new reviews. We close out the month of July with our top three book picks of the month. Don't miss it! Follow the show on any streaming service as well as below:

Listen to "Episode 04: It’s a Manhunt!" on Spreaker.