Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 65

With Halloween quickly approaching, Paperback Warrior Podcast Episode 65 takes a deep-dive into the world of 1970s and 1980s horror paperbacks. We discuss the best and worst in vintage scary fiction with tons of recommendations and reviews. Listen on your favorite podcast app, at PaperbackWarrior.com, or download directly HERE

Listen to "Episode 65: Paperbacks from Hell" on Spreaker.

Parker #01 - The Hunter

Donald Westlake had been writing professionally for several years when his first book as Richard Stark debuted in 1962. The Hunter (later reprinted as Point Blank) was a monster success and launched a 24-book series over the next 46 years with several movie adaptations along the way.

As the novel opens, Parker is pissed. He was left for dead in a post-heist double-cross orchestrated by his own wife and the novel’s primary adversary, a loathsome weasel named Mal Resnick. Adding insult to injury, the backstabbing lead to Parker serving a stretch in jail. The heist itself is a mere footnote to the plot as The Hunter is really a story of betrayal, vengeance, and settling accounts.

Even in this earliest iteration, Parker is a fully-formed, stoic violence machine. He’s like a Terminator in the famous sci-fi series - always moving forward towards the target. The physical descriptions of Parker as a big man with giant hands who doesn’t need a gun to kill are vivid and paint an intimidating picture of the legendary anti-hero.

By the same token, Resnick is a fantastic villain who inspires revulsion in the reader as Westlake fills us in on his own back story. The short version is that he betrayed Parker to steal Parker’s wife and $80,000 in heist proceeds to repay a debt to the mafia, famously known as “The Outfit” in the Richard Stark Universe.

As an organization, The Outfit is the third leg of the stool making The Hunter stand tall as one of the best crime fiction novels ever. Syndicate bosses set up shop in a hotel serving as a high-rise safe house for the mobsters to plan and scheme without fear of violence or the law. It’s an innovative idea borrowed decades later in the John Wick franchise of action films.

The Hunter is also the first in a trilogy of interconnected novels followed by The Man with the Getaway Face and The Outfit. After the first three paperbacks, the series generally showcases stand-alone Parker adventures with a few exceptions toward the end. As such, the first three books in the series should definitely be read in order. This shouldn’t be a hardship as they are all masterpieces.

But start with The Hunter. Don’t sleep on this book. If you read the book decades ago, do yourself a favor and pick it up again. It’s a reminder of how good crime-fiction can be. Highest recommendation. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Violent Saturday

Arkansas-born William L. Heath (1924-2007) served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a radio operator during World War 2 before earning a degree in English Literature from University of Virginia. After selling several short stories, his first novel, Violent Saturday, was published in 1955 and later adapted into a movie. The paperback has been reprinted several times and remains available as a $5 ebook or free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.

The novel opens with three mysterious men arriving in Morgan, Alabama (Population: 4700) on a train from Memphis. They tell their taxi driver that they’re from the electric utility company, but that’s clearly nonsense. They register at the town hotel as Mr. Thomas, Mr. Blake and Mr. Brown, but I wasn’t buying that for a moment. What brings these three serious men to Morgan?

I suppose it’s not giving away too much to say that the three strangers are planning to rob the town’s bank. As heist plans go, this one of well thought out and logical. There are some uncharitable descriptions of black people that wouldn’t fly in today’s world, but I’m incapable of feeling outrage over words used by fictional characters 65 years ago.

The core plot veers off course fairly early as the author introduces the reader to a wide cast of townies - way too many for my tastes - but I was determined to stick it out to get to the actual Violent Saturday part. The myriad of subplots involving the lives and loves of the locals were a real snooze and definitely distracted from the paperback’s enjoyment, and they unfortunately make up the bulk of the novel. The heist and its aftermath are both plenty exciting, but you need to navigate through a lot of nonsense to get there.

If this was the only vintage heist book available, it would be an adequate genre paperback. However, we live in a world where the novels of Richard Stark and Lionel White are plentiful and cheap. Given the vast and superior options at your fingertips, don’t waste your time with Violent Saturday.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Benedict #02 - Gift of Death

Edward S. Aarons' most recognized literary work is the 42-book Assignment series starring the globetrotting CIA agent Sam Durell. However, before that series began in 1955, Aarons authored a two-book series of crime-noir novels starring amateur private-eye Jerry Benedict. The first of the two books, No Place to Live (aka Lady, the Guy is Dead), was published in 1947 and introduced Benedict as a New York political cartoonist who is drawn into a murder investigation when he finds a corpse. The second novel, Gift of Death, followed a year later and moves the action south to a rural Connecticut farm. My first and only experience with the Benedict character is Gift of Death.

In the early chapters, Benedict is summoned to the office of Lucius McConaughy, the editor of The Globe newspaper where the two men work. McConaughy praises Benedict's sleuthing skills for solving the murder mystery found in No Place to Live. He explains to Benedict that his Uncle has recently passed away and a $600,000 inheritance is to be divvied up between himself and five cousins. Benedict's role is to determine who is potentially killing off the cousins to grab a bigger slice of the pie. After cousin Amanda's secretary was decapitated at the family's sprawling farm, McConaughy feels that the murderer was targeting Amanda and mistakenly killed her secretary instead. Benedict agrees to assist and the two travel to Connecticut to submerge themselves in a nest of cousinly vipers.

Aarons' narrative includes a Weird Menace sub-plot at the family farm. The old house is rumored to be haunted, a double-suicide occurred in one bedroom and there's a massive tree that was used for hanging in the early 1800s. Moreover, the unknown killer is attacking at night using a razor-sharp scythe as the killing tool. The author's macabre depictions of grizzly decapitation is combined with his trademark signature of sweeping Gothic imagery. Like Terror in the Town (1947) and The Net (1953), Gift of Death features a thick, foreboding sense of dread and doom. Aarons' drapes the story in old swaying oak trees, dark cornfields, moaning winds and positions the characters in eerie, ghost-like places such as hill-top cemeteries and abandoned summer cottages. Needless to say, Aarons' sense of décor and atmosphere is both stylish and effective.

If you like an old-fashioned, dense murder mystery, Gift of Death will surely be a pleasurable reading experience. Despite the spooky ambiance, I found the characters to be a little shallow and stereotypical undermining the core mystery. Benedict plays the proverbial 1940s detective well, interviewing all the parties while gaining liquid courage from mid-shelf bottles. It's a familiar, well-worn formula that doesn't hamper the narrative's momentum. Overall, I was glued to the story and didn't rush the reading just to pull the mask off.

Aarons' is such a masterful storyteller and Gift of Death proves that in spades. Highly recommended.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Spawn

British horror author Shaun Hutson’s writing career took off in 1982 with the publication of his iconic paperback Slugs (yes, it’s about shell-free killer gastropod mollusks). He found his niche as a great storyteller who can weave a compelling suspense story out of a crazy, gross-out premise. Case in point: his 1983 novel Spawn. Granted, it’s about murderous aborted fetuses, but the novel is also so much more. Read on...

It’s 1946 in Great Britain and Harold - the son of a prostitute - is a seriously messed-up kid. At age 14, he occupies his time giggling as he tortures insects with fire. This harmful diversion leads to the fiery death of Harold’s family leaving the boy grotesquely deformed without a person in the world who cares about him.

We rejoin Harold in 1982 where he has been a resident of a mental institution undergoing intense psychological and physical therapy for over 35 years. He’s sweet, shy, polite and severely scarred. His dilapidated asylum is closing, and it’s time for Harold to rejoin society. He’s hired as a janitor at a local hospital. The facility has basement pathology lab where the giant furnace incinerates the body parts, organic materials, and aborted fetuses from various medical procedures.

The sight of a fetus in the incinerator brings back some awful memories for Harold as he recalls his baby brother’s death by fire. Harold begins swiping the pre-babies and burying them near the hospital, so they don’t suffer the indignity of the consuming fires. The means by which Harold’s fetus friends are eventually reanimated wasn’t particularly realistic, but I can’t imagine a situation where that result would seem reasonable.

Meanwhile, a violent murderer named Harvey has escaped from a rural prison where he spent most of his time in solitary confinement. Two smart police inspectors are heading up the manhunt in hopes of catching the maniac before the body count mounts. This subplot was interesting enough, but the eventual link to Harold and his fetus gang was fairly inconsequential.

Spawn is a fun and bloody bit of escapism, but there’s also some interesting themes running through the narrative. The first is that the human monsters who walk among us are made through childhood abuse and neglect.

The author also seems to be saying something about the personhood of the unborn, but Spawn never feels like a political or religious pro-life parable. Upon reflection, I’m not sure that either side of the debate wants to claim Harold’s zombie abortions as their own. Still, it’s hard not to notice.

As a novel, Spawn is an entertaining gross-out paperback. You’ll cringe and squirm, but it’s unlikely you’ll actually be frightened. However, you’re also unlikely to put the paperback down because it’s well-written and compelling as Hell. You’ll want to see what Huston is going to do next. By now, you probably know if you like this type of thing. If so, you’re certain to enjoy this bloody ride. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 64

Paperback Warrior Podcast Episode 64 explores the legacy of author David Goodis. Also discussed: Black Berets! Eric leaves his house! Used Bookstore haul! Funeral home field trip! Antique store tirade! Wade Miller's Devil May Care! And more! Listen on your favorite podcast app, paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE

Listen to "Episode 64: David Goodis" on Spreaker.

The Pace That Kills

William Fuller was a merchant seaman, an infantryman and a drifter before becoming a full-time novelist in the 1950s. His claim to fame is the six-book series of crime-noir novels starring a Miami playboy named Brad Dolan who drifts along the Florida coast in a houseboat. Shell Scott author Richard Prather describes Fuller as “literate, hard-paced violence, remindful of James. M. Cain.” Aside from the Dolan series, Fuller wrote one stand-alone novel, The Pace That Kills (1956). 

The novel is set northwest of the Florida Everglades, just shy of a rural, dense area known as 10,000 Islands. It's this swampy area where Danny Rivers escapes two cops in route to prison. His fugitive trail leads back to his small hometown. Ducking police surveillance, hounds and road blocks, Fuller's narrative incorporates Rivers' attempts to commandeer vehicles, rob people and murder on his way back home. While this is the most exciting portion of the novel, the author spends a great deal of time creating characters and small town life for the reader.

Through various subplots, readers are introduced to a motel and restaurant owner named Harry and his alcoholic wife Marge. There's also Harry's brand new waitress, a beautiful drifter named June, who quickly becomes the talk of the town. There's also the town's most wealthy citizen, his mistresses and cheating wife. There's a host of other supporting characters that are vividly collected in current and past time lines. All of the town's citizens have a common thread – they have all been touched in one way or another by Danny Rivers. As the news broadcasts about Rivers' escape increases, the town begins to brace for Rivers' imminent return home.

William Fuller's The Pace That Kills is a southern Gothic that mixes Paul Cain and Erskine Caldwell into a warped version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. I didn't find much of it particularly interesting, but I appreciated Fuller's southern-fried style. It works as a small town scandal story or as a "heated, adulterous bedroom community with secrets" novel. If that's your sort of thing, then this is a recommended title. I was hoping Fuller would further develop Rivers' actual crime and the heist money that was tucked away in a secret place unbeknownst to the town. While that plot thread eventually comes to fruition, it's too late in the book to have a sizable impact. The end result is just another crime-noir novel that's written well, but is devoid of any real substance. Readers may want to just stick with Fuller's Brad Dolan series.

Buy a copy of this book HERE