The debut 'Spenser' novel, "The Godwulf Manuscript", was released in 1973. The series launched a successful career for author and creator Robert B. Parker. With a spotlight on private eye Spenser, the author used traditional genre tropes but shifted the setting from Southern California to the Boston metropolis. Parker followed up the debut in 1974 with the series second installment, "God Save the Child".
Like “The Godwulf Manuscript”, its successor follows the gumshoe formula of Spenser accepting and investigating a theft. Instead of a valuable manuscript, the prize is a wealthy couple's son. 15 year-old Kevin Bartlett is missing and his parents hire Spenser to locate the boy. With a $500 retainer and a $100 daily fee, Spenser accepts the case and immediately hits a brick wall. The Bartlets seemingly know very little about Kevin and have sacrificed parenting to chase other goals. Kevin's mother is an alcoholic who chases men by hosting lavish parties. Her husband is a workaholic and generally dismisses the dysfunctional family to pursue more wealth.
Spenser strikes up a relationship with Kevin's guidance counselor, Susan Silverman, a love interest that will stay consistent as the series continues. Susan feels Kevin has gender identification issues and has an unsupported upbringing. As Spenser chases clues, a ransom note appears asking for $50,000 to return the boy safely. Once the family provides the funds, strange, macabre packages arrive hinting that Kevin may have been murdered. It is this turning point that propels the narrative into a more complex criminal investigation. Spenser aids the police and family while aligning with another series mainstay, Lieutenant Healey.
What I enjoy about Spenser, and Parker's writing style, is triumphant in this second installment: the over-indulgent, yet entertaining blend of sarcasm and humor that defines the character. With the familiar genre necessities – mystery, intrigue, love and sure-fire luck – Parker succeeds once again with an addictive, enjoyable thrill-ride for mystery readers.
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Welcome to our western-themed episode of Paperback Warrior. Eric visits through Half-Price Books' flagship store in Dallas as well as a diverse local shop called Lucky Dog. Tom presents a feature on the Adult Western genre as well as a review for "Epitaph for a Tramp.” Eric covers the first installment of "The Trailsman" and hangs out with Paperback Warrior's number one fan. (Music by Bensound) Stream below or anywhere where quality podcasts are offered. Download directly at: LINK
Listen to "Episode 15: Adult Westerns" on Spreaker.
The Malko spy series (known in France as the S.A.S. series) lasted for exactly 200 installments published between the years 1965 and 2013. The paperbacks were written in French by Gerard de Villiers and have been translated into several languages with 120 million copies in print. A dozen of the early installments were translated and published by Pinnacle in the 1970s with a new numbering scheme. Pinnacle’s Malko #2 from 1973 was “Operation New York,” originally released in 1968 as S.A.S. #11.
Malko Linge is a Harvard-educated Austrian prince who accepts espionage assignments from the American CIA to generate income for the renovation and restoration of his family’s royal castle in Austria. The opening scene in “Operation New York” is too awesome to spoil here. In general, Malko is accused of being a former Nazi war criminal and death camp administrator during WW2. The accusers have compelling proof that Malko is actually the Nazi fugitive Rudi Guern, and none of Malko’s words will change their mind.
In order to get to the bottom of the matter, Malko flies to Europe to gather information about the real Nazi which only seems to muddy the waters and amplify the suspicion that Malko and Guern are the same man. Despite the title, the overwhelming majority of the paperback takes place in Europe, not New York, as Malko investigates the life and possible whereabouts of Guern. While seeking witnesses or other substantive proof that he and the the Nazi are not one in the same man, he attracts the attention of actual Nazis and actual Nazi hunters.
One of the fun literary tricks de Villiers employs in his Malko books is the use of real people as fictionalized characters in the novels. One Pinnacle paperback has Henry Kissinger playing a sizable role and one of the later installments available as a reprint from Mysterious Press features Vladimir Putin as a significant character. In “Operation New York”, Malko interacts with holocaust survivor and real-life Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal in a particularly cool scene.
The action and violence in “Operation New York” is outstanding. The story never has time to get dull, and the author dreams up some very cool spy stuff that I’ve never read before. Even the basic plot of hunting a fugitive Nazi to prove you’re not the guy is a pretty darn innovative plot in a genre filled with retreads. This second adventure is another straight-up winner, and I’m going to be really bummed when I run out of English-language editions of this fantastic series. Malko is the real deal.
Fun Fact:
The Malko books remain in print in Italy under the series name “Segretissimo.” I just really like the sound of that.
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Orlando Rigoni (1897-1987), born in Utah, was a prolific author who contributed over 1,000 short stories to magazines and newspapers. Working in railroading, construction, mining and the Forest Service within California's Central Coast, Rigoni used his life experiences to fuel his writing. Under his own name, as well as pseudonyms including Leslie Ames, Carolyn Bell and James Wesley, the author penned several hundred novels in the war, detective, western and romance genres. My first sample of Rigoni's work is a 1970 paperback from Magnum Books entitled “Brand of the Bullet.”
The novel features interim US Marshall Mike Foster as the chief protagonist. Foster is a third generation lawman who hesitantly dons the badge in pursuit of a wanted criminal named Brag Cody. The outlaw escaped from the Rimrock jail, crippling Foster's father and killing the jailer. Trailing Cody to the town of Picaro, Foster and his longtime friend Buck find the town's saloon burning and a number of people dead. Discovering a scorched belt buckle with the initials B.C., Foster assumes Cody died in the fire.
Within a half-day's ride is Foster's extended family, including his cousin Carla. Making a quick stop, Foster learns that his family is mired in a bloody range war with the notorious Devlin clan. Like traditional western fare, the conflict stems from water and who owns the flow. Foster's family wants to dam the river, drying out the Devlins and forcing them to flee. However, it isn't that easy and soon Foster finds himself in the fight while learning more about Brag Cody's accomplice, Billy Childers.
Rigoni's action sequences are enjoyable, but nothing remarkable. “Brand of the Bullet” suffers from too many cooks in the kitchen, an overabundance of characters that don't play huge roles within the story. Due to that major flaw, the plot simply sinks into a convoluted mess that detracts from the action. My other complaint is that the author struggles writing engaging dialogue. However, he proves that there is plenty of reserved talent. For example, I love this portion of text in the opening pages:
“Mike was a lawman's son, raised in the shadow of the jail, haunted by the gaunt outline of the gallows, and burdened with a fear only the men who stand in the no-man's land between crime and the law can know.”
It's an impressive hint that Rigoni surely has better books. However...“Brand of the Bullet” sets a low bar.
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Jeffrey M. Wallman wrote two installments of the ‘Nick Carter: Killmaster’ series and a bunch of novels in the popular ‘Lone Star’ adult westerns series starring a horny female gunslinger and her kung-fu sidekick. He even produced some short Mike Shayne mysteries using the Brett Halliday pseudonym. Under his own name, he authored paperbacks in the historical romance, sword & sorcery, and western genres. This, however, is a review of his 1969 mystery-espionage stand-alone paperback, “The Spiral Web.”
Our narrator is Mike Faron, who is rudely awakened in his apartment by two gunmen in Silk City, New Jersey whom he escapes by running stark naked into a police patrol car parked outside. Silk City is presented as a festering and corrupt slum borne of apathy and neglect. Faron also has a chip on his shoulder against the police relating to some mistreatment he suffered years ago. Today, Faron is a management consultant who has returned to his hometown to help his war buddy’s new business get off the ground. The company is an international courier business that services defense contractors in the greater New York City area needing to securely move documents from one place to another (This was evidently a thing before PDFs.)
One thing leads to another, and Faron finds himself falsely accused of the double murder of two women - one is a courier in his pal’s business and the other is her neighbor. His alibi is weak, and the police feel strongly they’ve got the right guy. As you’d expect, Faron gives the cops the slip and escapes with the pressing need to solve the murder himself to clear his name. If you guessed that he falls in with a capable and buxom beauty who’s willing to help him investigate the matter, you’d be right. And if you think you’ve read this storyline many times before, you’re pretty much right again.
Okay, so the basic plot is cribbed from dozens of other tales of the wrongfully-accused men on the lam. Does the author at least do some interesting things with this tired template? Not really. The “courier of top-secret documents” thing was too obviously a planted plot point early in the novel for it not to be the crux of the mystery’s ultimate solution.
Wallman’s prose is dialogue-heavy and the action moves along at a fast clip. Although the paperback is a hefty 205 pages, the font is top-of-an-eye-chart huge, so it never feels like too much of a slog. It’s not a particularly bad novel, but it’s also nothing special or particularly worth your time.
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George Simenon (1903-1989) authored nearly 500 novels during his literary career. Simeon's most successful work was that of French police detective Jules Maigret. He authored 78 books starring the character, all in French with English translations by publisher Penguin Books. Unfamiliar with his writing, I decided on a popular stand-alone novel entitled “The Watchmaker of Everton.” The book was originally published in 1954 (in France as “L'horloger d'Everton”), but later was re-titled “The Clockmaker.” A 1974 French film adaptation was directed by Bertrand Tavernier.
Simenon introduces us to the fragile character of Dave Galloway, a watch repairman in upper New York. His life is quiet and uncomplicated – working in his small shop downstairs and residing in a small apartment above it. Dave spends most of his time as a single father caring for his 16-yr old son Ben. On Friday nights, he plays backgammon with his elderly friend Musak.
One Friday evening, Dave returns from Musak's house to find that Ben has left. After examining the apartment, Dave learns that Ben took his personal belongings, a suitcase, and Dave's car. Fearing that Ben is headed for trouble, Dave's passive behavior is to simply wait for news of Ben's whereabouts. When Dave talks with a nearby neighbor, he learns that a teen love interest also ran away with Ben.
The middle of the narrative focuses on recollections about Dave and Ben's childhood and the abandonment by Dave's wife when Ben was just six-months old. After these recollections, Dave is notified by police that Ben is a prime suspect in a murder and carjacking. Is Ben innocent? Why did he leave his father? These are some of the plot points addressed and resolved in the novel's last 40-pages.
While Simenon is a good enough writer, “The Clockmaker” has no plot development. There's nothing here resembling a well planned story. It's just simply a character study without a coherent storyline. A father waiting on his delinquent son to be located, arrested and placed on trial is the shallow depth Simenon was willing to wade? There's one addition here regarding Simenon's father and grandfather, but it isn't as engaging as the author predicted.
Perhaps Simenon's other work is something riveting and definitive. However, “The Clockmaker” is not. Buyer beware.
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Before experimental, avant-garde novelist David Markson (1927-2010) became a highly-regarded Greenwich Village literary figure, he wrote two hardboiled noir paperbacks for Dell starring private investigator Harry Fannin. The novels were “Epitaph for a Tramp” (1959) and “Epitaph for a Dead Beat” (1961). The books have been reprinted several times and even compiled together, but neither have been legally digitized for Kindle as of this writing.
“Epitaph for a Tramp” (also released as “Fannin” for a 1974 Unibook reprint) is narrated by Fannin, a former University of Michigan halfback, former newspaperman, former U.S. Army soldier and current private detective living a sweaty and lonely existence in a Manhattan fleabag apartment with his books. One sleepless night at 3:30 a.m., Fannin is greeted to his door buzzer ringing. The uninvited guest is his estranged ex-wife Cathy, whom he hasn’t seen in a year. Upon arrival, she collapses into his arms and dies moments later from a stab wound in her chest. Client or no client, Fannin now has a murder to solve.
We quickly learn that Cathy was no angel during their marriage. She was, in fact, the kind of tramp you’d mention in a paperback book title. I won’t spoil the details but the flashback chapter detailing the trajectory of the marriage between Fannin and Cathy was a helluva ride unto itself and makes the reader want to know more about this girl. The good news is that Fannin also wants the facts, and the reader is along for the ride.
Fannin is a thinking-man’s hardboiled private eye. He makes with the funny wisecracks (like Shell Scott) and genre tough guy talk (like Mike Hammer), but he’s also smart as hell and drops a lot of literary references along the way - T.S. Elliot and Dashiell Hammett among them. The good news is that none of this gets overly pedantic, nor does it get in the way of a great story.
Some of the characters Fannin encounters are drawn with some rough stereotypes that likely wouldn’t fly today. I always enjoy those moments in classic fiction because they help measure the passage of time and the changes in attitude over the past 60 years. If consumed correctly, books like this can be a valuable time capsule of social norms. However, if you require contemporary politeness to fictional characters in vintage paperbacks, “Epitaph for a Tramp” probably isn’t for you.
It’s also a violent read. A character gets tied to a chair in and burned with a lit cigarette. There are quite a few graphic beatings as Fannin stalks the New York streets in search of the bad decisions that led to Cathy’s fatal stabbing. The author clearly took the template of Mickey Spillane’s successful Mike Hammer series and turned the volume up to 11 with an extra twist at the end. It’s both a mystery and a vendetta story, and it’s one of the finest novels I’ve read this year - a highly recommended, absolute must-read.
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