Hell Can Wait

Although he authored more than 170 novels during his 40-year career, only a small fraction of Harry Whittington’s books are available today in any format. I’m hoping that one day the Whittington Estate can marry up with an enterprising publisher to keep the author’s back catalog alive through modern reprints and ebooks. Thankfully, Stark House Press are doing a great job with reprinting a lot of the authors work, including Hell Can Wait, a 1960 paperback that is now available as a twofer with Whittington's other Hellish novel, A Ticket to Hell. 

Our narrator is Greg Morris and he has come to the backwoods town of Koons Mills with a score to settle. Over a year ago, Greg’s wife was killed in a car accident caused by the town’s boss, Saul Koons. At a subsequent civil trial, Koons arranged for false testimony to get himself off the hook and convince the court that the accident was Greg’s fault. After spending a year away mourning the loss of his wife, Greg is back in Koons Mills hell-bent on justice and revenge.

Upon arrival, Greg gets his ass kicked by a group of Koons’ employees while the town’s sheriff declines to interfere. It becomes clear that no one has any interest in helping Greg bring down the town’s patriarch and primary employer. If Hell Can Wait had been written by Don Pendleton, Greg would have gotten his satisfaction with a long gun and a sniper scope. But this is a Harry Whittington paperback, so what does he do? He tries to seduce Koons’ saucy young wife.

Hell Can Wait is a slow-burn of a novel but very compelling. It’s more of a mainstream revenge story than a normal crime fiction paperback. Well, the ending was pure noir, but I won’t spoil it here. Greg is a menacing and rather creepy character for a protagonist, and Koons is a very nuanced villain whose behavior is a bit odd throughout the book - until the twisty ending explains all. At no point did I really know where the plot was headed, which is saying a lot in a genre that usually abides by fairly rigid formulas.

Overall, I can recommend Hell Can Wait as a fun puzzle-box of a vintage paperback. It’s not quite top-tier Harry Whittington, but it will certainly be on your mind long after the last of the 144 pages are done. 

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George Gideon #14 - Gideon's River

John Creasey (1908-1973) authored hundreds of crime novels over a literary career that deployed nearly 30 pseudonyms. One of the British author's earliest works was The Baron series (as Anthony Morton, 1937-1979) of novels starring an ex-jewel thief named John Mannering. Perhaps his most popular series is The Toff (1938-1978), an aristocratic sleuth with a literary resemblance to The Saint. I discovered a 1968 paperback titled Gideon's River on my bookshelf. The author was listed as J.J. Marric, but after brief research I learned that this was part of another series of novels authored by Creasey. The series stars Commander George Gideon of the Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department. Gideon's River is the 14th installment and was published in 1968 by Popular Library.

The novel features Gideon working with various law enforcement agencies along the Thames River to solve a diamond heist. But, in what appears to be a series consistency, the author presents a number of crimes for Gideon's team to investigate. This is unlike other crime-fiction novels where one crime or mystery is the narrative's focus. In Creasey's series, Gideon must solve two to three mysteries per book. Along with the diamond heist, this installment features Gideon searching for a missing girl while also preparing his department for a planned robbery aboard a large pleasure boat called River Belle.

In the book's opening pages, the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police locate a satchel underwater containing a number of industrial diamonds. Gideon assigns Detective Micklewright onto the case which eventually leads to a group of smugglers led by a brutal and sadistic criminal named Screw Smith. With agency resources, the diamond smuggling is traced back to Denmark but leaves Gideon and his department in a heated political exchange with the Dutch Police.

Gideon's own investigation surfaces when a 13-yr old girl goes missing after school. Creasey's narrative focuses on the procedural investigation but also allows readers the girl's perspective as prisoner of a strange man living in a rock quarry. It was this portion of the narrative that produced the best results as Gideon, a father of six surviving children, maintains a close, more emotional bond with the case.

Rounding out the trio of investigations is more of a preparation for a high-profile jewelry and fur show aboard a large riverboat. Gideon's defensive measures are in advance of a planned robbery. This theft circles around to the diamond heist in Denmark, but I won't provide any spoilers on that. Gideon's team collaborates with a number of law enforcement agencies that work the lengthy, fast-churning river.

This series began in 1955 and consisted of 21 novels through 1976. After Creasey's death, four more novels were authored by William Vivian Butler as J.J. Marric. One of the more interesting aspects of the series is that the characters age as the series continues. For example, the series debut, Gideon's Day, features Gideon as a Detective Superintendent. As the series continues, Gideon is promoted to Commander. Further, his six children age through the series and eventually become married and move out. Gideon's second-in-command, Lemaitre, serves for many years but eventually he's transferred out of the department and a character named Hobbs takes the role. In this novel, an event is mentioned from an earlier installment where Hobbs' wife dies. Gideon's River also features more emphasis on Detective Micklewright and his troubles with alcohol and a failing marriage. I could sense that this story also began in earlier novels.

Creasey's prose is like watching a good television episode of your favorite cop series. It's mostly surface level interactions, witness reports and the endless struggles between the media and the law enforcement agencies. It is similar to Ed McBain's (real name: Evan Hunter) 87th Precinct series but not as well written. Considering Creasey's massive production schedule (supposedly over 600 novels), his quality probably varies depending on series and installment. Overall, I was very pleased with Gideon's River and will certainly pursue more of the author's work.

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Lew Archer #01 - The Moving Target (aka Harper)

Author Kenneth Millar's most utilized pseudonym was Ross MacDonald, a name created to avoid confusion with his wife Margaret's literary career. As MacDonald, the author's most coveted and celebrated work is the Lew Archer series of private-detective novels. Like an uncanny second coming of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, MacDonald sculpted Archer as a studious, more sensitive California sleuth. While equally tough with guns and fists, Archer's procedural style is in stark contrast to the era's most iconic private-eye, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.

Archer debuted in a 1946 short story titled Find the Woman. MacDonald's first full-length Archer novel was 1949's The Moving Target.  The book was adapted to film in 1966 under the title Harper with Paul Newman in the starring role as Lew Harper instead of Archer. Newman portrayed the character again in the series’ second adaptation, The Drowning Pool, in 1970. My only experience with Millar's writing was his enjoyable 1953 stand-alone novel Meet Me at the Morgue, also known as Experience with Evil. Being unfamiliar with the Archer series, I'm beginning with the first installment, The Moving Target.

The book begins with Archer's arrival in a posh suburb in the fictional California city of Santa Teresa (probably based on the real Santa Barbara). Archer has been hired by a woman named Mrs. Sampson to locate her missing husband Ralph. The family is old money with Ralph making a fortune in oil and real estate and Mrs. Sampson seemingly indifferent to where, when and how her husband spends his free time. After the initial meeting, Archer is introduced to Ralph's gorgeous 20-year old daughter Miranda and his personal pilot, Taggert. Archer also reunites with an old friend named Graves, a former District Attorney who now specializes in private practice.

Archer's procedural investigation leads to Las Vegas through a criminal named Troy. Both Ralph and Troy had some sort of business relationship and Archer feels that Troy could be a suspect in Ralph's disappearance. But, like most genre works, the idea of magically solving the mystery is way more complex. Archer learns the rabbit doesn't come easy when a ransom note appears demanding $100,000 for Ralph's safe delivery. Entwined in the ransom attempt is a washed up jazz singer named Betty and a declining actress named Fay. Archer teams with Graves to successfully deliver the ransom money but ends up with a corpse to elevate the mystery to murder.

Obviously, there is a lot to unpack in Millar's debut Archer novel. While my synopsis might be muddied, it's for your own good. This is a complex but enthralling narrative that showcases Millar's private-eye as a determined, thinking man's hero who isn't easily swayed into fisticuffs. The mystery is a complex one with a number of possible leads and directions that all circulate around Ralph Sampson's disappearance. Archer is centralized but the cast of characters help bulk up Millar's prose - two hot-blooded female performers, a strongman pilot, the complacent attorney and Ralph's eccentric family. Without the dynamic supporting cast, The Moving Target would be a wholly different novel, albeit still a very good one.

While The Moving Target is technically a 1940s private-eye novel, it should appeal to fans of 1950s crime-noir and hardboiled crime. It feels a bit more modern than I, the Jury, the runaway bestseller that placed detective fiction at new heights of popularity in 1947. In addition, Millar's use of California's rolling seaside hills provides so much more literary space than the rather mundane urban settings of New York City. Archer thrives as a suburban detective and the author's descriptive usage of the surroundings played key parts in the book's climactic scenes.

The Moving Target is a fantastic American novel and deserves the heaps of praise it has received over many decades. The book is still in print and widely available. Buy a copy of the book HERE and see for yourself what genre fans have been talking about this whole time. Lew Archer is simply awesome.

The Avenger #02 - The Yellow Hoarde

Publisher Street and Smith used their own pulp heroes Doc Savage and The Shadow as the prototype for their series of pulp adventures starring Dick Benson, the man known as The Avenger. The hero first appeared in magazines from 1939-1943 authored by Paul Ernst using the house name Kenneth Robeson. While always a likable hero, The Avenger became odd man out in a very crowded pulp market. The series of adventures ended after a brief run in The Shadow Magazine. Like the Doc Savage novels, The Avenger stories were reprinted in paperback format beginning in 1972. After thoroughly enjoying the series debut, Justice, Inc., I was anxious to begin the second installment, The Yellow Hoard.

The story begins as Benson's two teammates Smitty and Mac (introduced in Justice, Inc.) witness the explosive destruction of a four-story building in New York City. After determining that the culprits were after some mysterious “Mexican Bricks,” Smitty and Mac chance upon a young, diminutive woman named Nellie Gray. While the two watch, Nellie uses martial arts to overcome her captors and eventually become freed. Impressed, the two introduce Nellie to Benson.

Benson learns that Nellie's father, Professor Gray, recently led an expedition to Mexico to study Aztec ruins. Connecting the mysterious bricks to Gray's expedition plunges the team into a murder mystery. I won't ruin the shock for readers, but Nellie becomes an active member of the team to find the killer(s). In a way, this is her origin story just as the series' third volume introduces Josh and Rosable Newton.

Ernst's narrative focuses on Benson and his colleagues discovering the whereabouts of five Mexican bricks that display a treasure map when placed together. It's the 'ole “one ring to control them all” bit as the search runs through banks, bombed out buildings, warehouses and, of course, Mexico's Aztec ruins. While pulpy, it isn't an overly zany, suspicious spectacle of weird characters. The action is more of a procedural hardboiled crime mystery that asks the readers to suspend their disbelief during the obligatory hypnosis segments. Benson is still the chameleon as he changes his facial features to infiltrate criminal gangs, but at least he gets caught to prove he's a flawed hero.

The Yellow Hoard should appeal to fans of The Shadow, Doc Savage and other likable pulp heroes from this place in time. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm anxious to learn where the team's next mission takes them. Purchase a copy of this novel HERE.

Killer in the House

Borden Deal (1922-1985) was born in Mississippi and died in Florida. Between those two events, he attended University of Alabama and wrote 21 books under his own name as well as pseudonyms including Loyse Deal, Lee Borden, Leigh Borden, and Michael Sunga. Most of his work was mainstream fiction depicting the New South, but he delved into the world of crime fiction in a 1957 Signet paperback original titled, “Killer in the House.”

Paul and Karen are a married couple - very much in love - living an idyllic rural life with their young daughter when their world gets turned upside-down by an unexpected houseguest. The guest is fresh-out-of-prison Syd, and while Paul greets him warmly, he’s not excited to see his old friend. You see, Paul has a checkered past of his own involving a period of incarceration and successful parole. He’s been honest with Karen about his criminal history, and he’s a new man now - one with a job, a house, and a family.

While in the joint, Syd helped Paul to survive, one day at a time, without going nuts or getting killed during his decade behind bars. By anyone’s estimation, Paul owes Syd a favor, and Syd is back in Paul’s life to collect. As you can imagine, Karen is not thrilled about Paul’s prison mentor staying in their house for any amount of time, but Paul insists and here we are.

It doesn’t take long before Syd pitches Paul on a heist opportunity with a sizable payday. Paul can provide for his family, and Syd can skate off to Mexico to live comfortably forever. Of course, Paul wants to straighten up and fly right, but Syd is a menacing fellow who can be quite persuasive. As the novel progresses, secrets are revealed that make it harder and harder for Paul to decline Syd’s offer.

Aside from a double-barreled, climactic ending there’s not much action throughout the paperback, but the tension and suspense run thick. You’ll need to suspend your disbelief that law enforcement officers are willing to defer tactical police decisions to civilians on several occasions in the book, but that shouldn’t be a deal breaker. After all, this is fiction.

“Killer in the House” is a terrific suspense thriller, and the author does an admirable job of turning up the heat slowly. Two strong characters locked into a test of wills made for an extremely tense page-turner. I’d you like crime novels with a sizable dose of moral dilemma, you’ll love this one, too.

Fun Fact:

My Hollywood sources inform me that Borden Deal’s “Killer in the House” was adapted into a TV episode of “The Dick Powell Theater” airing on October 10, 1961. It was episode three of the first season, and it started Earl Holliman and Edmond O’Brien as the two jailbirds. The TV script changed the characters into brothers. 

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Doomsday Warrior #01 - Doomsday Warrior

Jan Stacy (The Last Ranger) and Ryder Syvertsen (C.A.D.S.) originally met in the 1960s at Washington Square Park in New York City. Caught up in the beatnik cultural movement, the lifelong friends began swapping story and book ideas as well as songs. After working together on two non-fiction novels, Great Book of Movie Monsters (1983) and Great Book of Movie Villains (1984), the two collaborated on a post-apocalyptic series titled Doomsday Warrior under the pseudonym of Ryder Stacy. The series was published by Zebra and ran for a total of 19 installments between 1984 through 1991. The first four novels, Doomsday Warrior, Red America, The Last American and Bloody America were authored by both Stacy and Syvertsen. The remainder of the series was penned solely by Syvertsen. My review is for the series' debut, Doomsday Warrior.

The first installment is set in the year of 2089 where most of the world is either controlled by the Soviet Union or in a widely contested battle with the communist country. Most of the U.S. was decimated by nuclear bombs and the survivors maintain a meager living either as slaves or wretched scavengers that have succumbed to radiation's side-effects. With the nuclear attack occurring in 1984, the book's characters are all second to third generation survivors, a unique approach that mirrors another popular doomsday series, Deathlands.

The series stars Ted Rockson, an action-oriented adventurer that leads an American resistance group called the American Free Cities. While most of the U.S. is controlled and enslaved by the Soviet Union, underground cities still remain that are free and liberated from communist control. Rockson resides in Century City, an expansive free society that exists under a section of Colorado's Rocky Mountains (similar to Jan Stacy's character Martin Stone in The Last Ranger). Rockson's role is to lead reconnaissance patrols on missions to discover new supplies, weapons and enemy patrols. It's during one of these missions that readers are first introduced to Rockson and his Firefighter Team.

After blowing up a large bridge and a number of Soviet personnel carriers, Rockson's team comes under heavy fire from communist forces. After numerous casualties, the team retreats back to Century City to formulate a new plan of attack. The intense battle is reported back to three Soviet leaders – Killov, Zhabnov and Vassily. The trio, who compete for political power, begin an expeditionary patrol to find more resistance fighters. After locating a few underground cities, the Soviets are able to capture a number of American prisoners. Using an advanced technology called a Mind Breaker, the Soviets are able to pull pertinent information from American prisoners. Soon, the captives begin revealing locations of more underground cities that the Soviets hope to nuke.

The first 189 pages of Doomsday Warrior is clearly a debut novel that focuses on Rockson's attempts to break into a Soviet stronghold in Denver to rescue prisoners. His mission is to retrieve the captives, destroy the Mind Breaker units and prevent the Soviets from gaining the location of Century City. It's a riveting, explosive narrative that rivals and exceeds most of the 1980s post-apocalyptic novels (Wasteworld, Deathlands, Survivalist, Phoenix, Outrider, etc.). While that was enjoyable, the logic behind the book's second half is puzzling.

It is immediately clear that a new book begins at page 189. At 347 total pages, one would think Zebra would have capitalized on this and released the book's second half as second installment. These books were retailing for $2.95 each, essentially Zebra would have been doubling their money from avid consumers. Regardless of the publisher's marketing strategy, Doomsday Warrior's second narrative explores Rockson's attempts to locate a technologically advanced race in America's Pacific Northwest region.

The narrative begins with an expeditionary unit returning to Century City to report a strange mutant male they found near the Pacific coast line. This area remains vastly unexplored and the team was surprised to find people, evolved animals and a swath of jungle and wilderness that remains nearly intact despite the Soviet Union's devastating nuclear attack. Rockson, hoping to journey even further than the former team, recruits three men to assist him in exploring this new, untapped resource.

Stacy and Syvertsen really hit their stride in this second story arc. The narrative finds the crew battling mutant monsters, deadly quicksand, Soviet KGB forces and mutant, Neanderthal men. The team's exploration of a shopping mall was extremely enjoyable with just the right amount of humor to keep me laughing throughout. While the military style tactics utilized in the book's opening narrative are missing, Doomsday Warrior's second half is surprisingly far superior. The epic adventure, fast-paced writing, character development and action was absolutely top-notch.

The Doomsday Warrior series is off to a tremendous start with this rock-solid debut installment. As the series continues, I understand the quality begins to decline. However, knowing what the future holds for the series doesn't spoil the fun of this early volume. If you read nothing else by Stacy or Syvertsen, at least sample this novel. I think it represents everything that fans and readers loved about 1980s post-apocalyptic pop-culture. Recommended.

Buy a copy of Doomsday Warrior HERE

Paperback Warrior Unmasking – Jan Stacy’s End of the World

Beginning in 1986, Popular Library published a 10-book series of men's action-adventure novels titled The Last Ranger. It catered to pop-culture's fascination with the post-apocalypse and was fueled by blockbuster films like Mad Max and The Road Warrior. The books starred a lone hero named Martin Stone, a rugged journeyman searching for his sister after a Soviet nuclear attack destroyed most of North America. The over-the-top action featured zany villains, beautiful women, mutants and monsters all competing for authority in American's wastelands. Each novel of this enjoyable series is credited to an author named Craig Sargent. A deep dive online reveals that Sargent was actually Jan Stacy, a rather unknown author that contributed to other post-apocalyptic novels including Doomsday Warrior and C.A.D.S.

Unfortunately, Jan Stacy died in 1989 and his life has remained a mystery to readers, fans and scholars....until now. Paperback Warrior was able to locate Jan Stacy's only known living relative, his stepbrother Samuel Claiborne. In a lengthy interview, Paperback Warrior was able to piece together Stacy's short but remarkable life including his inspiration for writing, his fascination with doomsday fiction and his talented musicianship. Our latest Unmasking article hopes to answer questions that have been posed for decades about this mysterious author.

The end of the world leads us to the beginning...

Left: Jan Stacy / Right: Samuel Claiborne

Jan Stacy was born in New York City in 1948 and grew up during the “duck and cover” time-frame of Post War hysteria between the communist Soviet Union and the U.S., an era that reached a fevered pitch during 1962's Cuban Missile Crisis. Stacy was just a teenager when his father succumbed to alcoholism. His death eventually led to Stacy's dependence on heroin as a teenager. To break the addiction, his mother sent him to Africa to reside with his uncle, an ambassador. As a testament to overcoming drug addiction, Stacy later started a drug rehab program for teens called Encounter.

After attending the liberal arts college Sarah Lawrence, Stacy found himself as a mainstay in the beatnik culture surrounding New York City's Washington Square Park. It's here that Stacy began his artistic and politically charged endeavors.

“Jan began as a folk singer in Washington Square and it was like a really big network with people like Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. This hippie culture is where Jan's artwork and his music came from despite the masculine novels that he would later write. Jan's mother was extremely involved in the War Resisters League and worked a lot in The Village counseling young people on how to avoid the Vietnam War draft. I haven't been able to locate it but there is a photo somewhere of Jan burning his draft card in Washington Square in 1966,” explained Claiborne.

In addition to music, the early 1970s found Stacy exploring Xerox Artwork, an artistic trend that had become a staple in the punk music scene.

Claiborne recalls, “I can remember Jan and I would cut the labels off of Campbell's soup cans and he would make these custom labels with odd artwork and put them on the cans. It became a huge hit and Jan would sell them on the street. Campbell's threatened to sue Jan for $16-million over it so he stopped. Later, Jan opened an art gallery in Soho called Fear of Art and it was just around the corner from Talking Heads' singer-songwriter David Byrne. We used to always think that Byrne got the inspiration for the album Fear of Music from Jan's Fear of Art gallery,”

It was in Washington Square that Stacy met his longtime writing partner, Ryder Syvertsen. After Stacy obtained a job working at the New York Times' Classified Advertising Department, both Stacy and Syvertsen began writing music with Claiborne and coming up with book and story ideas. In 1983, the two collaborated on a non-fiction book titled Great Books of Movie Monsters, published by Columbus Books. The two followed a year later with the Great Book of Movie Villains. In 1984, Stacy produced his first solo book titled Rockin' Reels: An Illustrated History of Rock and Roll Movies.

“Jan loved pulp and movie monsters and we shot a music video involving monsters and quite possibly the most cheesy stop-action movie monster of all-time. We loved the cheesy movies where you can practically see the strings. We did band rehearsals every Saturday and then that afternoon we would watch Kung Fu double-features. We would rehearse, then watch 4-hours of Kung Fu movies and then go smoke pot. But Jan loved horror movies and was a fan of Night of the Living Dead,” explained Claiborne.

Beginning in 1984, Stacy and Syvertsen collaborated on a post-apocalyptic series titled Doomsday Warrior under the pseudonym Ryder Stacy. The eponymous first novel is set in the year of 2089 where most of the world is either controlled by the Soviet Union or in a widely contested battle with the communist country. Most of the U.S. was decimated by nuclear bombs and the survivors maintain a meager living either as slaves or wretched scavengers who have succumbed to radiation's side-effects. The series was published by Zebra and ran for a total of 19 installments between 1984 through 1991. The first four novels, Doomsday Warrior, Red America, The Last American and Bloody America were authored by both Stacy and Syvertsen. The remainder of the series was penned solely by Syvertsen.

In 1985, another post-apocalyptic series emerged from Zebra titled C.A.D.S. (Computerized Attack Defense System). It also ran from 1984 through 1991 and consisted of 12 total novels. The house name given was John Sievert but this was a combination of different authors. The first novel, Nuke First Strike, was authored by both Jan Stacy and Ryder Syvertsen. Installments 2-8 were penned solely by Syvertsen with books 9-12 authored by David Alexander (Phoenix).

Jan Stacy's most prominent literary work would emerge in 1986. The Last Ranger series was published by Popular Library and ran for 10 total installments through 1989 (and ultimately Jan's death). The series protagonist, Martin Stone, is introduced to readers as an athletic, cocky teen who defies his father, a stern and conservative military leader. When the Soviet Union begins a nuclear assault on the U.S., Stone and his family retreat to an underground mountain fortress where Stone's father teaches him survival, martial arts and weapons for a number of years. Once his father dies, Stone emerges from the compound only to witness his mother being murdered and his sister abducted. The monomyth series emphasizes Stone's struggles with authority as he searches the wasteland for his sister. It was Stacy's third consecutive post-apocalyptic series of novels, a trend that may have been formulating at a young age.

“The doomsday thing was really a culmination of things. Jan growing up in the 1960s during the Cold War scare. His mom was Jewish and you have to remember that the European Jewish attitude is that God is out to get them. The idea that you just can't rely on anything was prevalent. Think of Woody Allen, a paranoid guy who thought the world was out to get him. Jan was like that and he loved Doctor Strangelove [1964 black comedy film]. Jan and his mom were also at odds and had a strained relationship. She was a committed pacifist and I think sometimes Jan would write these macho books as a way of defying her,” says Claiborne.

The Last Ranger's Martin Stone paralleled Stacy's own life in many ways. Stacy's strained relationship with his alcoholic father and his avoidance of the Vietnam War mirror events in the series self-titled debut. As the series continues, Native American mysticism is introduced as well as Stone's fighting skills in the martial arts.

“When Jan went to Africa to break his heroin addiction, he brought back these gorgeous African spears. I still have one of them. He also brought back a lot of Asian martial arts stuff. Jan was a great martial artist. He studied Chi Kung, Ba Gua, Hsing Yi and Tai Chi. Jan moved Chi around instead of just using brute strength. He was interested in internal martial arts. He also boxed at the famed Wu Tang Physical Culture Association. It was this crazy squatter place in The Village ran by Frank ‘The Snake’ Allen. Jan started training there and was a really short, fast wiry martial artist,” explained Claiborne.

Stacy was in a lot of musical acts from 1978-1988 and when he was age 29 he asked the younger Claiborne to join his band. The two formed a trio with Peter Ford called Things Fall Apart, which Stacy named after the novel by Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart existed from 1983 to 1987 and had started to find their own sound and audience. The act began opening on Saturday nights at the famed CBGB club in New York City. Just as the band had begun making strides, Stacy surprisingly told the members he didn't want to play gigs anymore.

Left to Right: Samuel Claiborne, Peter Ford, Jan Stacy
Photo Credit: Peter Ford

Claiborne said, “I can remember Jan acting different by 1987. He stopped sharing his drinks or food with me and told me to start rolling my own. That sort of thing. When he said he didn't want to gig any longer we sort of became apart for a couple of years. I remember my daughter being born in May of 1989 and seeing Jan's mother at the hospital. I told her I had ran into Jan a little while back and he looked like death. She got so upset and I was later told that Jan had tested HIV-positive, but I knew right then he had AIDS. Jan was a bi-sexual in New York City and at the time they didn't know how to treat it. They tried AZT on him but Jan just couldn't tolerate the drug.”

In February of 1989, Zebra published the only stand-alone novel Jan Stacy wrote, a vigilante novel called Body Smasher. Claiborne explains the idea behind the novel:

“The book's cover features the real-life professional wrestler Captain Lou Albano. Jan got to meet the wrestler and talk to him about the book. The idea was the book was going to tie into a wrestling promotion. It was a whole cross marketing idea that was to be a successful series of books.”

Stacy's later installments of The Last Ranger were written in a dark, negative tone with Martin Stone facing extreme adversity. In 1988's The Damned Disciples, the series' ninth novel, Stone is enslaved by a religious cult, drugged and forced to stir an enormous pot containing a sedative called Golden Nectar for weeks. I think this novel best orchestrates Stacy's endless cycle of AIDS medications. His body's resistance to AZT could have been Stone's own resistance to the forced drugs provided by his jailer. Claiborne seems to think this was a case of life imitating art. In fact, Stacy may have been on his deathbed when he authored The Last Ranger series finale, aptly titled Is This The End?

Claiborne remembers Stacy's last days:

“Jan was still working at the New York Times when he got sick. I am speculating that he made about $5K per book for the adventure novels. St. Martin's Press was involved with the non-fiction books and they paid more. Jan also had received an advance on a memoir he was going to write about getting off heroin. But Jan did what a lot of people did with AIDS and just stayed distant. Didn't want to hang out. Didn't want to talk about AIDS or anything. I remember calling Ryder Syvertsen maybe in July or August of 1989 and he told me if I wanted to see Jan to go to the Cabrini Medical Center in New York City because he was in a coma. One of Jan's martial arts teachers, Mr. Chen, was this unbelievable World War 2 veteran and he gave Jan some Chi and was able to wake him up from the coma. Jan left the hospital and wanted to go to Cape Cod, Massachusetts to live with his mother and my father. I drove him up in a Dodge Astro Van and I remember he was so small at the time and he had difficulty getting up the steps. We got to the house and Jan was reserved. He motioned for me to come over and he told me he loved me. That was a rare thing and he told me he didn't want to die. His health got really bad at the house and my father and his mother put him back in the hospital where he eventually succumbed to his illness.”

Stone suddenly knew he'd be seeing his mother and father again real soon. Well, that would be nice. He wondered in a strangely calm way within the storm of his fear just what it would be like to die. And suddenly he wished with a burst of incredible force that surged through his body right up from the depths of his libido that he could get laid once more before he died. - Excerpt from Is This The End?

Jan Stacy Bibliography:

Non-Fiction

Great Book of Movie Monsters (1983) w/Ryder Syvertsen
Great Book of Movie Villains (1984) w/ Ryder Syvertsen
Rockin' Reels: An Illustrated History of Rock and Roll (1984)

Fiction
Body Smasher #1: Body Smasher
Body Smasher #2: Death March
Doomsday Warrior #1: Doomsday Warrior (1984) w/Ryder Syvertsen
Doomsday Warrior #2: Red America (1984) w/Ryder Syvertsen
Doomsday Warrior #3: The Last America (1984) w/Ryder Syvertsen
Doomsday Warrior #4: Bloody America (1985) w/Ryder Syvertsen
C.A.D.S. #1: Nuke First Strike (1985) w/Ryder Syvertsen
Last Ranger #1: Last Ranger (1986)
Last Ranger #2: Savage Stronghold (1986)
Last Ranger #3: Madman's Mansion (1986)
Last Ranger #4: Rabid Brigadier (1987)
Last Ranger #5: War Weapons (1987)
Last Ranger #6: The Warlord's Revenge (1988)
Last Ranger #7: The Vile Village (1988)
Last Ranger #8: The Cutthroat Cannibals (1988)
Last Ranger #9: The Damned Disciples (1988)
Last Ranger #10: Is This The End? (1989)

Buy a copy of The Last Ranger HERE