Married to Murder

Married to Murder began its life as a novella by Norman Daniels (real name: Norman Arthur Danberg, 1905-1995) from the March 1949 issue of Popular Detective. It has since been compiled into an anthology of Daniels’ work by ebook reprinter The Pulp Fiction Book Store.

Dan Adair is revolted by his new wife Janet. Dan suspects that Janet murdered his crippled brother Russ a week earlier, but Janet is pretending that she never knew the man. Russ went over a cliff in his wheelchair on the outskirts of his sprawling estate falling to his death. The prevailing theory is that Russ killed himself or died in an accidental fall, but Dan doesn’t believe that for a moment. Now Dan has moved into his brother’s mansion with his new bride in hopes of getting to the bottom of the situation.

At the time of Russ’ death, Dan was engaged to Janet. His theory is that she killed Russ, so Dan (and presumably his new wife) could inherit Russ’ portion of the family’s wealth. There’s some decent physical and circumstantial evidence to indicate that Janet had been to the mansion around the time Russ died - something she denies. If Dan can prove that his blushing bride killed his brother, his intention is to murder Janet and take his revenge. But is it also possible Janet’s plotting to kill Dan to have the estate to herself?

As pulp magazine mysteries go, Married to Murder is a propulsive and compelling read. There are several action set-pieces, and Daniels’ writing is economical and solid. If you’re somewhat familiar with 1940s pulp fiction, you know the direction the mystery is headed, but it’s still an enjoyable ride. This story is definitely a fun way to kill an hour.

For reasons unclear to me, The Pulp Fiction Book Store doesn’t sell its ebooks on Amazon.com. Instead, their entire library is sold directly for download from their website HERE. Loading the MOBI file into my Kindle was easy enough and well worth the effort. 

Wagons West: The Frontier Trilogy #01 - Westward!

Beginning in 1978, author Noel B. Gerson (1914-1988) penned the first of book of the immensely popular western series Wagons West. Set in the early to mid-1800s, the Wagons West series focuses on the fictional Holt family of American frontiersmen. The main character is Michael “Whip” Holt, a wagonmaster who faces danger and seduction in each book's adventure. The plots were created by Lyle Kenyon Engel and published under the house name of Dana Fuller Ross.

Beginning in 1989, another series was introduced under the title The Holts, an American Dynasty. Authored by James Reasoner (Abilene, Stagecoach Station) also under the name Dana Fuller Ross, the series ran for 10 installments and focuses on Whip Holt's sons in the late 1800s. That brings us full-circle to the subject at hand, an exciting Wagons West prequel trilogy titled Wagons West: The Frontier Trilogy.

This three-book series of early American frontier action consists of Westward! (1992), Expedition (1993) and Outpost (1993). James Reasoner wrote the series under the familiar house name of Dana Fuller Ross and Lyle Kenyon Engel's Book Creations, Inc. produced it. Similar to what Louis L'Amour did with his popular Sacketts series, Engel came up with the idea of an “origin” story introducing the Holt family in the early 1800s (prior to Whip Holt and son Toby). I had never read a Wagons West book and found this prequel debut, Westward!, to be the perfect stepping stone into this long and successful American saga.

In Westward!, brothers Jeff and Clay Holt are introduced to readers in the year of 1805. The book's opening pages explains that young Clay is part of the Corps of Discovery, a group of burly adventurers who made up the assorted crew of Lewis and Clark's expedition into America's vastly unexplored far west. Through early action, Clay fights a duo of Native Americans while conversing with the real-life historical figure Sacajawea. In this early exchange, readers learn that Clay is quite the frontiersman and very daft with his flintlock musket, Cheney pistols, hunting knife and tomahawk. Right away, I knew I was in for a real treat.

Westward! proves to be an epic saga of both Clay's struggles in the wild as well as his brother Jeff's farming life in the fertile Ohio Valley. At a whopping 477-pages, Reasoner finds plenty of room to weave in a number of intricate story-lines. The first is Clay's acclimation back into civilization after two years in the rugged wilderness. Second is the book's middle chapters that expand upon a deadly and violent feud between the Holt and Garwood families. Like the famed Hatfields and McCoys, both of these families come to blows with the Garwood brother Zack and Pete proving to be a dangerous threat to Clay and Jeff's parents and siblings. The novel's third act places both brothers into the wild, untamed land of the west as they fight rival trappers, Native Americans and the vengeful Garwoods.

I would place Westward! alongside classic frontier westerns like Zane Grey's Spirit of the Border trilogy and Louis L'Amour's Jubal Sackett and To the Far Blue Mountains. Granted that's a huge accolade, but it is absolutely a valid comparison. Reasoner's writing is just so good and brings to life not only this early Holt generation, but also America's beautiful history. I've always been fascinated by the early 1800s exploration of North America and the Ohio River Valley and Reasoner seems to be writing just for me. He speaks to me so well with these adventures and his descriptions of the rugged, majestic beauty of America's early frontier. If you love this style of western storytelling, Westward! is a must read. I've already purchased the rest of this trilogy as well as the first book of Reasoner's second and last Holt follow-up trilogy, Wagons West: The Empire Trilogy.

Note:

I had the pleasure of talking with James Reasoner about this novel and series. He explained that he isn't sure who came up with the idea of the Wagons West prequels, whether it was him or his editor at Book Creations Inc. He told me that his wife half-jokingly said, "What they don't tell you is that it was Lewis and Clark...and Holt." He said everything else just sprang from that. He believes Westward! is not only the longest book he has written but also his best-selling novel. He went on to add that a third trilogy was in the planning that would have been titled Wagons West: The Rogue Trilogy but at the last minute, Bantam changed their mind.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Man from A.P.E. #01 - Overkill

Norman Daniels (real name Norman Danberg, 1905-1995) was a prolific American author who successfully shifted from pulp magazines to paperback originals in the 1950s. After long running pulp series titles including The Black Bat, Daniels saw a resurgence in his popularity by authoring novels in multiple genres. Whether it was crime-noir, military-fiction or a Gothic-romance, Daniels was considered a good - never great - always consistent author.

Perhaps his most widely known paperback work is his Man from A.P.E. spy series of the 1960s. Now, before you think this is a collection of theories and essays on evolution (man from ape, get it?), remember the time frame. By the 1960s, Ian Fleming's James Bond character had become marketing gold. Every publisher and author was cashing checks from the creation of Bond spy-clones. Norman Daniels was no different. He authored eight installments of his espionage series from 1964-1971.  My first experience with the Man from A.P.E. books is the debut, Overkill, published in 1964 by Pyramid.

In Overkill, readers are told that A.P.E. stands for American Policy Executive, a clandestine agency of the U.S. government relatively unknown to America's other intel agencies. The organization uses a select network of spies across the globe to fight terrorists and criminal-masterminds. Really, it's a series of "the good guy Americans fighting those Russian and Chinese baddies." The star of the series is a character named John Keith, an A.P.E. secret agent that goes by the code name Darius. In Overkill's second half, it is disclosed that Keith was a language arts major in college and is able to speak several languages fluently (suspiciously similar to Jack Higgins' spy-character Paul Chavasse from 1962). This comes in handy in negotiations with allies and criminals worldwide.

In this series debut, Keith is assigned the task of locating a missile in Albania. After talking with his Russian sources, Keith learns that years ago Russia provided the Albanians a catastrophically-dangerous medium-range missile. The Albanians hid the missile and refuse to return it to Russia. Through network chatter, Russia and the U.S. discovered that four Chinese scientists are headed to Albania to work on sanitation issues. Of course, this is really a front for China to assist Albania in assembling the missile and destroying parts of Moscow in hopes that the world will blame the U.S. Smartly, Russia has bought the cover story and are allowing the Chinese scientists to cross their country to perform their task. The idea is that the Russians can follow the scientists and discover the missile's secret location. What's Keith's role? He is to work with the Russians in fighting a common enemy.

Personally, this read like a less action-packed Nick Carter: Killmaster paperback. Daniels plays it straight and doesn't provide a funny nickname for Keith's .45. Like Carter, Keith gets laid while on assignment and generally spends most of the job just interviewing people and avoiding hot water. There are some fisticuffs, some gunfire and a compelling investigation as Keith tries to locate the important missile (it could have easily been a gemstone, a world-changing document, a defector, or a KFC recipe) that doesn't really matter in the narrative itself. The journey is important, and Daniels does a serviceable job making this as exciting as it can be. I loved the book's final pages and the inevitable showdown between Keith, his ally and the Russian agents. For that alone, Overkill is well worth the price of admission. I'd certainly read another installment. You would, too.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 75

On Episode 75 of the Paperback Warrior Podcast, the guys discuss Canyon O’Grady, Ledru Baker Jr., Able Team, Bagging Books, Longarm, Trailsman, Robert Randisi, and more! Listen on any podcast app or at www.paperbackwarrior.com, or download directly HERE:

Donate to the show using this LINK. 

Listen to "Episode 75: Canyon O'Grady" on Spreaker.

Like Mink, Like Murder (aka Passion Hangover)

Like Mink, Like Murder was a 1957 Harry Whittington novel that only received a French-translated printing (as T’as Des Visions!) after failing to find a U.S. publisher. The book was later heavily-adapted into a 1965 sleaze paperback called Passion Hangover. Whittington’s original manuscript has been lost to the ages, but literary scholar David Laurence Wilson reverse-engineered the sleaze paperback into something resembling Whittington’s original vision for a Stark House re-release.

The narrator of Like Mink, Like Murder is a milkman named Sam Baynard in the town of Dexter City (Population: 100,000). Sam is an ex-con whose past catches up with him when a hot babe named Elva tracks him down in Dexter City. She and Sam were crew members working for a gangster named Kohzak until Sam got nabbed robbing a jewelry store. Sam kept his mouth shut, served his prison time and then landed a straight job delivering milk to squares.

Sam used to be in love with Elva, who’s the main squeeze of Kohzak the gangster. For his part, Sam blames both Elva and Kohzak for his incarceration and just wants to be a milkman and assimilate into legit society. Unfortunately, Kohzak insists on Sam’s help to pull off a payroll heist, and he’s not the kind of mobster who takes no for an answer. Will Sam succumb to the pressure and return to a life of crime? Will he finally get into Elva’s britches? What about his promising future in the fast-growing field of dairy delivery? These are the dilemmas Sam and the reader navigate over the course of this 35,000 word paperback.

The writing in Like Mink, Like Murder was a bit clunky in the opening chapter, but things smooth out considerably thereafter and begin to feel like a normal Whittington potboiler. There’s a real emotional core at the center of the novel as Sam is torn between the straight life of a milkman and the potentially lucrative life of a stick-up man. Whittington did a great job ratcheting up that tension throughout the short paperback.

Where does Like Mink, Like Murder rank in the library of Whittington’s work? I’d say it’s a solidly better-than-average Whittington novel - likely due to the edits made by Wilson 50 years after the paperback’s original conception. Whoever gets the credit, if you dig a tightly-wound crime noir suspense novel, you’re sure to enjoy this one quite a bit. It’s part of a three-pack of Whittington’s lost works released by Stark House and a great value for your money. Highly recommended.

Buy a copy HERE

The Hunter

With books like Death Wish (1972) and the Executioner debut War Against the Mafia (1969), the vigilante brand of storytelling was highly marketable in the 1970s and 1980s. Pop-culture was ablaze with films like Taxi Driver (1974) showcasing average men pushed to the brink of sanity by heinous and traumatic events. As a reader and fan of this genre, I'm always searching for more vigilante stories from the 1970s. That's why I was delighted to find a paperback called The Hunter written by an unknown author to me named Robert Holland. It was originally published as a hardcover in 1971 by Stein and Day and as a paperback by Day Books in 1981. The cover depicting a man holding a rifle and staring at a city just screams “vigilante saga” to me. Further support is the marketing tag: “Hunting animals is the only thing Billy Oakes knows. In the city the animals are people.” Needless to say, I quickly threw my quarters at the store clerk and ran to the car with my new purchase.

The book begins by introducing readers to young Billy Oakes. He's a country boy living in the hills of northwestern Georgia. When he isn't hunting animals for food, he's maintaining an incestuous relationship with his sister. Billy's mother is dead and his father is in the pen for murder. Other than his intimate relationship with sis, Billy's only other relative is a cousin named Daniel. Years ago, Daniel witnessed Billy brutally murder someone. Fearing for his own life, Daniel and his wife Sarah fled to Lakeport, NY. After years of living in rural Georgia, the maniacal Billy hops a freight train in hopes of forming a domestic new life in New York with his cousin.

Holland is a serviceable writer, but he forces readers into a killer's deranged mind. Aside from saying just a few words, Billy remains a silent, savage animal that eats raw meat and lives in the dark urban tunnels beneath the city's bridges. On the toughest streets in town, Billy embarks on a bloody rampage where he slashes randomly chosen victims with a razor sharp knife. Lakeport's law-enforcement become baffled by the spontaneous killings, but Daniel recognizes Billy’s signature style and the condition he leaves the bodies in. Fearing that Billy has discovered where he and Sarah live, Daniel reports his suspicions to the police only to be turned away by what they feel is a silly speculation. As the book builds to a finale, Billy and Sarah prepare to confront Billy alone...once and for all.

The Hunter certainly had the potential to be great. However, the story-line is just so basic with very little development. I feel that the author really lost his way in leading readers to some sort of emotional connection between Billy and Daniel. Aside from a single-paragraph flashback, there's very little connecting these two men. With Holland leaning heavily on Billy's murderous path to Daniel, the story could have been enhanced with a more charismatic bad guy. Billy is such a primal killer that there's just not enough dialogue or sensible thinking for readers to really understand the character.

My biggest disappointment with Holland's story is that a much better concept is served to readers as a minor side-story. Daniel has a black neighbor named A.L. with this really awesome backstory of being an undefeated boxer who was framed and later imprisoned. Upon his release, A.L. begins saving his money to invest in the city's crumbling real-estate. His idea of flipping houses is a real positive take on urban development and overcoming adversity and racism. When the mostly-white police force tries to pin the killings on A.L., he fights back and becomes a local hero for the black community. This is the story the author should have been telling us all along. It deserved to be a full-length novel. Instead, Holland settled on this weird “killer stalking the city” formula that just never became exciting. Don't be fooled by this paperback's vigilante cover art. The Hunter came up empty handed.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Night Walker

Donald Hamilton hit the jackpot in 1960 with his Matt Helm series of spy-adventure novels. Before that, he churned out a respectable library of stand-alone westerns, mysteries, and thrillers, including Night Walker from 1954. The novel was reprinted by Hard Case Crime in 2006 and remains in print today.

The paperback opens with U.S. Navy Reserve Lieutenant Dave Young hitchhiking his way to Norfolk, Virginia to report for duty. A stranger named Larry Wilson gives Dave a ride and during the trip, Larry knocks Dave unconscious with a tire iron. Dave awakens in a hospital bed with his head wrapped in bandages. The nurses are under the impression that Dave is actually Larry and claim that he was in a car accident alone. It quickly becomes clear that Larry staged the accident with the intent of switching clothing and identities with Dave. Moreover, the car containing unconscious Dave was on fire and almost exploded. Bottom line: Dave was never supposed to wake up in the hospital or at all.

While still sedated, Dave is discharged from the hospital with his face wrapped in bandages and sent home with Larry’s estranged wife, Elizabeth. She seems to have an understanding about what’s just happened and admits to Dave that this is her first kidnapping. I won’t spoil the hidden agenda here that has swept poor Dave into all this intrigue, but it’s compelling as hell. This is one of those novels - like Hamilton’s Line of Fire - that is filled with revelations as the story unfolds. Dave finds himself enmeshed in the the type of impossible quandary that Alfred Hitchcock would have loved.

Dave’s core dilemma is this: Larry Wilson is a pillar in the community. Who would believe that Larry would have staged an unprovoked attack on Dave, a stranger he picked up on the road? What would the police think if told this story by a man wearing Larry’s clothing and wristwatch? Dave figures correctly that - despite having done nothing wrong - the unlikely situation makes him look guilty of something, including desertion from the Navy. Meanwhile, where’s the real Larry?

Beyond that, there’s not much else I want to tell you about Night Walker - other than you should get a copy and read it ASAP. It’s a fun thrill ride of changing loyalties with tons of plot twists along the way. It’s the thinking man’s suspense novel you deserve. Fans of his work will recognize Dave’s cool-under-pressure commitment to logic and reason as Hamilton’s early attempt at finding the voice he later used for the Matt Helm books.

Hard Case Crime was smart to reprint Night Walker. Some other enterprising reprint house should take the initiative and get Hamilton’s other stand-alone books back in print. The guy was a national treasure and deserves to be remembered. Recommended. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE