Wilderness

Sparked by the violent 1972 film Deliverance (based on the 1970 novel by James Dickey), the 1970s were filled with literary and film thrillers involving hunters or hikers encountering criminal activity in the remote wilderness. Author Robert B. Parker established his cash-cow character of Spenser in 1973 and decided to venture out with his first stand-alone novel in 1979, a Dell paperback aptly titled Wilderness that remains in-print today. The book is a deep-forest survival tale that pits the average citizen against hardened criminals in desolate Maine.

While jogging home from the gym, successful author Aaron Newman witnesses a woman being shot in the head. After talking with the police, he identifies the shooter as a notorious bad guy named Karl Randolph. Aaron agrees to testify against Karl in court with the police’s assurances that Aaron’s identity won't be revealed until the testimony begins. However, after returning home from the police station, Aaron finds his wife Janet nude and hogtied with the initials K.R. carved into her abdomen. Freeing her, Aaron receives a call saying that his family won't be murdered if he tells the cops that he fingered the wrong guy as the shooter.

Placed in a conundrum, Aaron takes the safe road and tells the police it was all a mistake. The cops, knowing that Aaron has been threatened, urge him to testify. Their warnings that Randolph never lets any witness live haunts Aaron and Janet. The two seek out their good friend Hood, a badass Korean War vet, to hunt down Randolph and kill him instead of prolonging the ongoing fear. After flunking a few attempts, the three decide the hit is best executed at Randolph's secluded mountain cabin in the Maine forest. But it's here where things get complicated and the three find themselves facing a group of armed men in the rugged wilderness.

Even though the “wilderness” aspect doesn't really come to fruition until halfway through the novel, the suspense leading up to the outdoor thrills is riveting. Oddly comical, the scenes where three civilians attempt to organize the murder of a vicious mobster over beer and steak were just so much fun to read. There's some action early on, the proverbial cat-and-mouse tactics and some interesting revelations about Aaron and his wife that add more depth to this action-thriller.

While the title Wilderness bluntly describes the book's eventual setting, I can't help but think that Parker was speaking of the savage human condition in all of us. When faced with the threat of death or family harm, Aaron and Janet delve into a dark, almost neanderthal state where survival of the fittest is the only thought. Whether it's an underlying subtext on humanity or just simply a twist on the western frontier tale, Wilderness excels as a pleasurable reading experience. I continue to find great things about Robert B. Parker's writing style, and Wilderness is just another fine example of his remarkable storytelling ability. 

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 60

On Episode 60 of the Paperback Warrior Podcast, we discuss the legacy of the Hard Case Crime paperback imprint with loads of reviews of the good, the bad, and the missteps from the popular publisher. Also, Tom preps for a Dallas book-hunting trip with advice from Eric, and a crazy story from 1987 you won’t believe. Listen on your favorite podcast app, stream below or download directly HERE:

Listen to "Episode 60: Hard Case Crime" on Spreaker.

Timothy Dane #8 - Hell is a City

In his introduction to the Ramble House reprint of William Ard’s 1955 novel Hell Is a City, Francis M. Nevins makes a compelling case that the paperback is the finest installment in the popular ten-book series starring Manhattan Private Eye Timothy Dane. I’m also told that the series can be read in any order, so why not start with the best?

It’s ten days before the mayoral election in New York City. The polls indicate that corrupt mayor, Big George Kramer, is looking at a tough race against his challenger, the honest Manhattan District Attorney. The idea of losing the race is galling enough to the mayor, but the prospect of facing a subsequent investigation into his graft and embezzlement fills Big George with a special kind of terror.

Meanwhile, a disturbed young man kills a vice cop trying to engage in coercive sex with his virginal sister in a fleabag hotel. The scared siblings - Rita and Jamie - got away from the scene of the crime, but they know darn well that it’s only a matter of time before the cops catch up with them.

These two plot lines collide when the mayor decides to leverage sympathy for the dead cop to smear his anti-corruption opponent. Private eye Timothy Dane enters the scene after being engaged by a local muckraking newspaper to investigate the cop killing and poke holes in the mayor’s martyr narrative. Meanwhile, Rita and Jamie are on the run without knowing who they can trust.

Overall, Hell Is a City is pretty good, but I question those who say it’s Ard’s masterpiece. I enjoyed Wanted: Danny Fontaine and All I Can Get way more. The heroes of those novels are way more interesting and charismatic than Timothy Dane. Hell Is a City is a well-crafted bit of crime fiction, and you’ll probably enjoy it just fine. I just question how high it should be on your priority list. I think I probably got sucked in by the hype, and by that measure, the paperback under performed.

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Hoke Moseley #01 - Miami Blues

Beginning in 1953, the novels of Charles Willeford pushed crime fiction boundaries with his distinctive plots and genre-bending conventions. Thirty years later, Willeford concluded his career with his Hoke Moseley series of hardboiled noir thrillers, novels that would prove to be the author’s best-selling works. The series ended after four installments coinciding with his 1988 death. Willeford originally titled the first book Kiss Your Ass Goodbye, but the publisher insisted on the more benign title of Miami Blues for the 1984 release.

Miami Police Homicide Detective Hoke Moseley responds to an airport crime scene involving a dead Hare Krishna who bothered the wrong traveler and paid the price. We also meet Freddy Fenger Jr., a freshly-released ex-con ripped with muscle and responsible for killing the Hare Krishna. The story basically toggles between Hoke’s investigation and Freddy becoming an established resident of Miami with an expertise in strong-arm robberies.

The characters in Miami Blues are colorful and vivid. In Florida, Freddy quickly finds himself a girlfriend - a dimwit prostitute named Susan (professional name: “Pepper”), and watching their relationship quickly slide into dysfunction made for fascinating reading. As the orbits of Hoke and Freddy began occupying the same airspace, things become both violent and, at times, hilarious. Miami Blues isn’t a mystery at all but rather a propulsive thriller that sets up a violent confrontation at the novel’s climax and delivers the goods when the time is right.

There is a gritty and raw feel to Willeford’s early work that is replaced with a smooth readability of Miami Blues. It’s clear that the veteran author sought to emulate a quirky Elmore Leonard vibe, and Willeford achieves that goal with additional edginess, political incorrectness and hardboiled violence. Miami Blues far outshines Elmore Leonard’s Florida crime novels in quality despite the fact that Leonard made more money with his inferior products. Make no mistake, Willeford is the real deal.

In short, Miami Blues is one of the best books I’ve devoured this year. It’s a quick and breezy read, and I can’t wait to enjoy the rest of the series. Don’t sleep on this one. Highest recommendation.

Addenda:

The Hoke Moseley Series:
1. Miami Blues (1984)
2. New Hope for the Dead (1985)
3. Sideswipe (1987)
4. The Way We Die Now (1988)

In 1990, I saw the film adaptation of Miami Blues starring a young Alec Baldwin. I recall enjoying the movie although I remember nothing about it 30 years later. Despite this utter gap in my memory, I’m comfortable saying that the book is way better than the movie. It always is.

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Designing Fiction: A Richard Himmel Paperback Primer

Did one of America’s most famous interior designers have a side-hustle writing tawdry paperbacks at the advent of the new medium? Today we take a peek behind the curtain and present you with the untold story of author Richard Himmel.

Richard was born in Chicago in 1920 and called the city home for nearly all his life. The young man loved the written word and attended University of Chicago to study writing under the tutelage of his mentor Thorton Wilder, the writer of Our Town. 

“He always intended to become an English teacher. He was a voracious reader,” Richard’s son John Himmel told Paperback Warrior. “In his library, he had first editions, including a D.H. Lawrence collection. He was always drawn toward the literary arts.”

Richard’s plans to teach writing were sidelined by World War 2. When the time came to serve, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. However, an illness prevented him from being shipped overseas into the fields of battle. “The Army realized early on that he was a pretty smart boy, and he was assigned to General Patton’s staff,” John explained. “He wrote pamphlets and brochures for all sorts of things such as identifying Japanese aircraft as well as a primer on the Japanese language.”

After the war, he returned to Chicago with the intention of becoming an English teacher. While waiting for this to occur, he took a job at his sister’s housewares store in the northern suburb of Winnetka. “He began taking on decorating jobs and his career was made,” John said.

Richard’s knack for colors and spacing eventually made him one of the most sought-after interior designers in the United States with high-profile clients including boxer Mohammed Ali and Hugh Heffner’s Playboy Club. However, as his business was growing and becoming established, he never lost his love of the written word. 

Around 1950, a new outfit called Fawcett Gold Medal had plans to revolutionize the publishing industry by releasing all-new novels directly to the paperback format with salacious painted covers. For the past decade, paperbacks had just been reprints of successful hardcover literary works. The idea of releasing original material in a 25 cent paperback filled an important hole in the book market for readers after the pulp magazines had disappeared. Paperback originals were poised to be the next big thing, and publishing houses like Fawcett Gold Medal needed talented authors who could write compelling prose quickly.

At the time, Richard – and all of America – had become infatuated with the prose of Mickey Spillane and wrote a book called I’ll Find You about a hardboiled Chicago lawyer named Johnny Maguire who functions as a private eye for his clients. Richard submitted the manuscript to Fawcett Gold Medal, who released the book in 1950 as the imprint’s fifth paperback original. The book was an instant success and saw five printings through 1955 and a second life in 1962 when it was re-released as It’s Murder, Maguire. 

“He got a literary agent in New York named Sterling Lord, and they worked together to get his books published,” John said. This put Richard in good company as Lord represented some of the biggest names in 20th Century literature including Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, and Howard Fast. 

The second installment of the Johnny Maguire series was The Chinese Keyhole from 1951. It’s an odd sequel because there is no mention of Chicago whatsoever whereas the first novel was steeped in local Windy City sites and flavors. Another major change is that The Chinese Keyhole is a spy novel, not a hardboiled crime story. There’s a hasty explanation at the beginning of the book that Attorney Johnny Maguire was also an occasional spy for a shadowy U.S. intelligence agency. The paperback is great, but it was a weird and abrupt genre shift. My theory is that Richard wrote the book as a stand-alone spy thriller and his literary agent or publisher told him to edit the book to make it Johnny Maguire #2. Mickey Spillane taught the publishing world that there’s money to be made in series characters, and Himmel was apparently happy to oblige.

Later in 1951, Fawcett Gold Medal released the third Johnny Maguire novel, I Have Gloria Kirby and things went gangbusters. Over one million copies were sold firmly establishing Richard as one of the bestselling authors in the Fawcett Gold Medal stable. It was also a big year for Richard and his wife for another reason - the arrival of their son. They chose a familiar name for the boy: John Maguire Himmel. 

Throughout the 1950s, Richard was working during the day as an interior designer and at night as a successful writer pecking away at his typewriter with two fingers and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Growing up, I still remember that sound, and I still have his typewriter” John said.

The success of the Johnny Maguire series opened the door for Richard to get his romantic and sexy mainstream novels published as well. The best of these books (The Sharp Edge, Beyond Desire) were also published by Fawcett Gold Medal while others found homes and multiple printings elsewhere. The Johnny Maguire series continued for five total installments through 1958’s The Rich and the Damned.

This was followed by a 19-year hiatus from writing and publishing. “There was a period in his life when he wasn’t really writing because his career as a designer took off,” John said. “He really didn’t have much time to write, but it was always in his mind. Eventually, he went back at it.”

Richard returned to publishing with three longer stand-alone thrillers between 1977 and 1981, each with page counts exceeding 300 pages. The novels were successful and moved the action to international settings, including Iraq, Cuba, and China. By this time, Richard was a high-profile member of Chicago society, and each subsequent paperback was greeted with increasing fanfare. John recalls the release party for his dad’s 1979 Cuba thriller, Lions at Night. Richard used a parking lot on a busy street corner of Chicago’s famed Magnificent Mile for the extravagant outdoor gala. “He rented actual lions and guys dressed in guerilla fatigues for a big-ass party there, and he sold a lot of books,” John said. “My dad was quite a showman.”

Richard’s final manuscript, a novel with a working title of The Uncircumcised Jew, failed to find a home. The book was submitted to publishers through his agent in the 1990s and just didn’t sell. Richard’s literary winning streak had ended. “I think he got a little bit discouraged,” John said. 

Aging and dealing with health issues, Richard’s career as a novelist ended, but he never fully retired from the decorating business. According to John, his father was sick for a long time at the end of his life. “He was a heavy smoker and obviously a workaholic. He also didn’t get much exercise.” Heart problems lead to his death in 2000 in Florida.

Today, Richard is mostly remembered as a visionary in the field of interior design. John took over the business and has continues in the field keeping the Himmel name alive as the go-to brand for upscale decorating clients. 

The Johnny Maguire series, one of the most successful side-jobs of the paperback original era, was almost lost to the ages until Lee Goldberg’s Cutting Edge Books started reprinting the books in 2019 as trade paperbacks and affordable ebooks. John is thrilled that his father’s literary work has found a new audience in a new century. “There was very little that he put his mind to that didn’t excel. My dad was a generic genius.”

Richard Himmel Bibliography:

1950 I’ll Find You / It’s Murder, Maguire (Johnny Maguire #1)

1950 Soul of Passion / Strange Desires / The Shame

1951 The Chinese Keyhole (Johnny Maguire #2) 

1951 I Have Gloria Kirby / The Name’s Maguire (Johnny Maguire #3)

1952 - The Sharp Edge 

1952 - Beyond Desire 

1954 Two Deaths Must Die (Johnny Maguire #4)

1955 Cry of the Flesh

1958 The Rich and the Damned (Johnny Maguire #5)

1977 The Twenty-Third Web

1979 Lions at Night

1982 Echo Chambers

Footnote  

Thanks to Paperback Confidential: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era by Brian Ritt for providing information used in this feature. 

Night Extra

World War 2 veteran William P. McGivern worked as a a police reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin and The Evening Bulletin before publishing his first novel in 1948. Specializing in crime-fiction and mysteries, McGivern's journalism experience clearly played a large influence on his narratives and plot-points. Nothing showcases that more than his novel Night Extra, published by Pocket Books in 1957.

The book's hero is newspaper reporter Sam Terrell. While working the “night extra” (a special late evening edition of the newspaper recapping important events), Terrell receives a tip that Richard Caldwell, white-hat candidate for mayor, may be having an affair with a mob kingpin's girl. After interviewing the girl, Terrell learns that she has secretly relayed some mob details to Caldwell in hopes that he can use it to win the election. However, hours later it's reported on the police scanner that the girl has been found dead in Caldwell's apartment. Terrell thinks it's a frame job and can validate it with an eyewitness that says the killer wasn't Caldwell. When his sources are questioned and his story buried, Terrell sets out to set the record straight for the public.

Like any hardboiled crime-fiction protagonist, Terrell interviews key witnesses and participants to shake down an unnamed city's corruption. McGivern's contemporary, author David Alexander, utilized the same formula for his eight-book series starring Broadway Times reporter Bart Hardin (1954-1959). Other authors like Richard Sale and Fredric Brown wrote short-stories starring newshounds that worked like private-eyes to break or solve murder cases. McGivern's positions his hero to crack the case, but he stacks the deck with crooked cops and politicians for the hero to combat. The author adds some social commentary on the media's ability to sway voters with their story, an ethical message that is still prevalent today.

Night Extra doesn’t reinvent the hardboiled formula, but the author certainly showcases his talents and strengths in perfecting it. This was a fast-paced narrative with some touching characters in which readers will invest. I'm not sure if Terrell was a recurring character in McGivern's other novels. But if he wasn't, he should have been. Highly recommended.

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 59

Paperback Warrior Podcast Episode 59 features a discussion of William McGivern with a review of his classic, Night Extra. We also discuss Armchair Fiction, Sterling Noel, William O’Farrell, Milton Ozaki, Reporter sleuths, Michael Brett and more! Listen on your favorite podcast app, stream below or download directly HERE

Listen to "Episode 59: William P. McGivern" on Spreaker.