Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 25

On Paperback Warrior Podcast Episode 25, the guys take a deep dive into the world of Nick Carter: Killmaster. Tom introduces listeners to James Howard’s obscure Steve Ashe series, and Eric reviews the nautical heist classic, “Hell Ship to Kuma.” Check it out on your favorite podcast app or listen online at paperbackwarrior.com. Stream the show below or on any podcast service. You can also download the episode directly HERE. Listen to "Episode 25: Nick Carter: Killmaster" on Spreaker.

No Room at the Inn

American author Bill Pronzini has written over 40 novels for his private eye series Nameless Detective. Beginning in 1971, Pronzini focused his efforts on anthologies and short fiction, contributing hundreds of short stories to magazines like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine while compiling over 100 collections. Along with his Nameless Detective novels, Pronzini's body of work features over 35 stand-alone novels and a number of pseudonyms including Jack Foxx, William Hart Davis and Alex Saxon.

One of Pronzini's most interesting creations is the characters of John Frederick Quincannon and Sabina Carpenter. From my deep dive, the first Quincannon appearance seems to be the 1985 Quincannon novel that introduces both characters. There we learn that Quincannon is a former U.S. Secret Service agent who's turned private detective after murdering a young woman and her child with a stray bullet. Teaming with love interest Carpenter, the two operate out of 1890s San Francisco and accept various jobs that conveniently propels a number of sub-genre narratives – locked room puzzles, whodunit sleuths, mystery, western and adventure. It's fertile ground to harvest a number of series installments.

There are dozens of Quincannon short stories stemming from the character's debut novel and its follow-up Beyond the Grave, co-written with Pronzini's wife Marcia Muller in 1986. The marital collaboration has created eight more novels in the series and a fantasy-styled “reboot” to provide more international intrigue. My first sampling of Quincannon is the 1988 short story “No Room at the Inn,” which originally appeared in the Harper Collins mystery compilation Crime at Christmas.

Pronzini's rich attention to detail saturates this holiday themed short. Atmospheric, mysterious and eerie, “No Room at the Inn” places lone Quincannon high in the Sierra Nevada during a Christmas Eve blizzard. Guided by the full moon's light while riding a rented horse, Quincannon is on the trail of Slick Henry, a counterfeiter who specializes in mining stock. Henry is a confidence trickster, ascending through the ranks of the most notorious and dangerous criminal lists of 1894. Quincannon has accepted a $5,000 assignment to nab Henry for the West Coast Banking Association.

Fearing for his own safety in the storm, Quincannon begins losing hope in tracking Henry through the high foliage and decides to concentrate his efforts on survival. Miraculously, Quincannon rides into a small, seemingly abandoned community for shelter. Once there, he finds that people have gone missing in the midst of dinner. Further, there's still horses in the barn as if the township left on foot in the storm. Once the first body is discovered, the novel quickly moves from western to sleuth as our main character discovers the whereabouts of Henry...and his motives.

Pronzini proves that his storytelling talents were certainly diversified. “No Room at the Inn” is immensely enjoyable both as a western and a dark thriller. Never reading Quincannon before, this introductory, early short story certainly has my attention. I'm looking for more of this character in the future.

Note - “No Room at the Inn” can be found in Pronzini's Leisure compilation entitled Burgade's Crossing (2004). Despite the misleading artwork, the compilation is strictly a Quincannon theme featuring eight total shorts from sources including Louis L'Amour Western Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and Pronzini's own compilation Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services. For an easy, affordable introduction to the character, track this old paperback down. It's well worth your time.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Catch the Brass Ring

Stephen Marlowe (born Milton Lesser, 1928-2008) is best known for his series of private-eye novels featuring Chester Drum. Along with notable science-fiction work, Lesser authored over 20 stand-alone novels. My introduction to the writer is his first work under the pen name Stephen Marlowe, the 1954 Ace paperback Catch the Brass Ring.

Gideon Frey is an Army veteran fresh off of a violent tour in the Korean War. Fighting side by side, Frey had struck up a close bond with fellow soldier Bert Arthur. Near the end of service, Bert offered Frey a job when they returned stateside. As Catch the Brass Ring opens, readers learn that Frey has just arrived at a Coney Island amusement park called Tolliver's. Only instead of a warm welcome from the owner Bert, he finds police cars, an ambulance...and a body bag.

Marlowe attempts to keep readers engaged by running two plots simultaneously. The first involves Frey's investigation into his friend's murder. His suspects range from two gay massage therapists (readers will need to overlook the historical stereotypes), a bizarre pizzeria owner, a hot female employee and Bert's mourning girlfriend Karen. On the suspect list himself, Frey also must contend with the local cops who are quick to point fingers at a new stranger in town.

The second story-line is a sensual love triangle as Frey falls for a beautiful heiress named Allison. She's worth a fortune thanks to her wealthy, blind husband Gregory (think of Anna Nicole Smith's old sugar daddy). But, Allison is a nympho and demands sex at the most impromptu times. In one hilarious scene, Frey and Allison make love on a small boat with the blind Gregory just a few feet away! Frey is torn between his heated desire for Allison and Bert's grieving girlfriend Karen, who turns to Frey for sexual healing.

For argument's sake, this is really just a romance novel with a crime thrown in. I think the cover speaks volumes and conveys the above sentiment. I'd speculate that most buyers weren't reading only crime-fiction, especially considering the Stephen Marlowe name would have been unfamiliar at this point in time. There's a second-rate murder mystery, but it's just not very interesting. Those plot points are few and far between and are just fodder to keep Frey jumping from Karen to Allison and back again.

Overall, crime-fiction fans can stay clear of this one. I caught the “brass ring” and wasn't terribly impressed.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Dust in the Heart

New York Times bestselling authors Lee Goldberg and Joel Goldman (founders of Brash Books) have remained steadfast in their preservation of the Ralph Dennis body of work. Dennis, a South Carolina native, was born in 1931, received a masters at the University of North Carolina and produced a steady stream of fine fiction that mostly went unnoticed by mainstream readers. Passing away in 1988, Brash Books has rekindled the fire for many of Dennis' published work, including the 12 installments of the 1970s hardboiled series Hardman. Along with re-editing and reprinting published novels like Atlanta (newly released as The Broken Fixer) and MacTaggart's War (reprinted as The War Heist), Goldberg has discovered numerous unpublished manuscripts from the Dennis archives.

The most recent Brash Books project is a Ralph Dennis manuscript penned in the 1987-1988 time-frame. This is reflected in discouraging letters Dennis wrote to colleagues about the unsold work. Dust in the Heart is a different novel and avoids the pitfalls of the men's action-adventure paperbacks of the 70s. Like his other works, it is set in the southeastern U.S., but in a fictional North Carolina town rather than his go-to of Atlanta. That's not to say it doesn't possess the author's consistent ferocity. Indeed, Dust in the Heart is perhaps Dennis' most profoundly disturbing book due to the subject matter – a serial sex-killer preying on six year-old children. Dennis' use of sodden, rural fields, counterbalanced by a dark seedy strip club, envelops the flawed hero and the reader. It's upon this black canvas that Ralph Dennis outshines his prior efforts.

The novel's protagonist is Sheriff Wilton Drake, a former Navy sailor who found his life upended by a sniper bullet in Lebanon. The bullet not only shattered his hip but his marriage, too. After fifteen years and a lot of empty bottles, we now find Drake as the proverbial small-town badge in Edgefield, North Carolina. Drake's alcoholic desires are partnered with his obsession for Diane, a stripper working at The Blue Lagoon. The author sometimes uses these as handrails as Drake climbs through procedures, small-town politics and bureaucracy to solve a young girl's brutal rape and murder. It's here, in the rain where readers first discover Drake hunched over the girl's body. As the procedural narrative tightens, another child goes missing, pushing Drake and his department to find the killer before the next victim.

There's a number of elements that Ralph Dennis uses that may parallel his own career. As essentially his last literary work, Dust in the Heart has a number of references to things that are just outside the grasp. Drake's romantic feelings are within reach, but his relationship with Diane is challenging and cold. The investigation may reveal the killer, but it's too far of a reach for a conviction. Cleverly, Dennis even uses the weather, explaining that snowfall barely touches “Edgefield”, instead pocketing just west of Greensboro every winter. The author's idea of elements within sight but out of touch could be self-reflective of the author's commercial failures as a producer of popular fiction. There's even a side-story where Drake spars with an F.B.I. Agent for credit in the newspaper. These are all indicative of the author's career missteps and failings.

Dust in the Heart is an effective, smart police procedural starring a purposefully flawed hero. While certain genre tropes are familiar, the author's ominous prose is masterful. Dust in the Heart proves that even small-town America can be the most threatening. It's this cold, sinister approach that makes Ralph Dennis' final pen-stroke his most enduring legacy.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Girl Out Back

After his successful 1951 debut, Hill Girl, Charles Williams (1909-1975) went on to become one of the most respected crime-noir novelists in history. His penchant for rural small-town crime is enjoyable, especially with the sexy female accomplices his novels typically feature. Nothing exemplifies that more than his 1958 paperback original Girl Out Back, expanded from his 1957 novella, “Operator.”

30 year-old Barney Godwin is a complacent businessman in the small lake town of Wardlow. While he isn't fighting with his nagging wife Jessica, Barney runs a profitable bait and tackle shop. It's here where he first meets the luscious vixen Jewel, a woman equally complacent with her abusive husband. While paying for her husband's boat motors, Jessica pays Barney in new, crisp $20 bills which feature a red stain. Thinking nothing of it at the time, Barney is surprised when an FBI agent visits his store inquiring about unusual money in the area. It's here where Barney's life takes a tumble...he tells the agent he hasn't seen any uncommon currency.

Barney's infatuation with the memorable money is rivaled by his heated desire for Jewel. After learning some details about a recent bank heist, Barney begins to unravel the money mystery. He believes he knows the location of the stolen money, but his obstacles are Jewel's gruff husband and an old, backwoods recluse that's obsessed with pulp detective magazines. How they mix into the stolen loot is the bulk of this clever and engrossing narrative.

Without ruining this superb novel for you, Girl Out Back can be described as a tongue-in-cheek look at the pulp crime genre, including a few hilarious jabs at southern romance and plantation novels. Williams is a master of his domain, and it was interesting for me to read the author's commentary, through story, on the crowded 1950s crime-fiction genre. Girl Out Back delivers an intriguing mystery, a sensual beauty, and a tantalizing scheme for the average man to rise above suburban normalcy. It's a captivating triangle that could only be told by the high caliber talent of Charles Williams.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 24

It’s the end of the year and the last episode of the Paperback Warrior Podcast for 2019. In celebration of our inaugural year, we are revisiting the greatest books we read this year along with lots of edgy vintage paperback talk. Stream below or at your favorite podcast provider for our “Best of 2019” extravaganza. Download directly HERE Listen to "Episode 24: Best of 2019" on Spreaker.

Murder in Room 13

Albert Conroy was a pseudonym used by Marvin Albert for much of his crime-fiction and western paperback output during the 1950s through the 1970s. Sadly, most of his work hasn’t been reprinted and isn’t available digitally, so modern readers are left to pay collector prices for the old paperbacks with lurid covers. Murder in Room 13 was a stand-alone mystery published as a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback original in September 1958. It was adapted into a French TV movie called Adieu is Marin!.

Our narrator, Steve, is an ex-boxer and current trucker who meets Maude while passing through the seedy town of Riverton. Dinner with the beautiful stranger evolves into a one-night stand in Maude’s motel room - Room 13 from the title. After giving Maude the good pickle-tickle she desires, Steve leaves the sleeping nude behind in the motel and is arrested the next morning for her murder. And if you didn’t see that coming, you didn’t read the title.

Steve is whisked into a police interrogation room where he’s grilled by cops about what he supposedly did to Maude. Sometime after Steve left Room 13, Maude was beaten and strangled to death. Steve admits to having consensual sex with her that evening - she was alive at the time - but he maintains he didn’t kill the girl. Because of the overwhelming physical evidence against Steve, the cops aren’t buying his claims of innocence, and he is placed under even more intense pressure to confess. Of course, the opportunity arises for Steve to solve the crime himself to clear his good name, and Steve the boxer/trucker becomes a man-on-the-run investigating a serious homicide.

The basic plot of the innocent man accused of a murder he didn’t commit has been done a million times, but the author brings some new twists to the story throughout the lean 159 pages. There’s also a good bit of intense violence along the way and well-written, propulsive action. Overall, the paperback was a decent one written in a straightforward and compelling voice, and although Marvin Albert has done better, there’s plenty to enjoy in this fairly formulaic vintage paperback. Buy a copy of this book HERE