Dark Cypress

Michael Avallone (1924-1999) was a prolific author that contributed work to many different publishers and genres. Along with authoring television and movie tie-ins for franchises like Man from U.N.C.L.E., Planet of the Apes, and Friday the 13^th, Avallone penned a number of stand-alone crime-noir and mystery novels. Avallone also authored over 38 private-eye novels starring his character Ed Noon. In the late 20^th Century, Avallone took to writing Gothics using pseudonyms like Jeanne-Anne De Pre, Dorothea Nile, and Priscilla Dalton. Perhaps his best Gothics were penned using the name Edwina Noone, a clever nod to his own private-eye character. My first experience with Avallone's Edwina Noone novels is Dark Cypress, originally published in 1965 by Ace.

The novel stars Stella Owens, a young woman who has arrived at the gloomy, yet magnificent, manor known as Hawk House. Stella has accepted a job as a live-in tutor for Todd Hawk, the only child of a wealthy widow named Arthur Carlton Hawk. Upon her arrival at the mansion, Stella is introduced to Gates, the family's friendly butler, and Dahlia, the family's snobbish housekeeper before being introduced to her young charge.

Stella is immediately consumed with a foreboding atmosphere that surrounds the house and its inhabitants. Dahlia's mysterious behavior serves as an odd voice of authority. Prophetically, she warns Stella that a bedroom upstairs must remain locked and off-limits from any curious exploring. Dahlia's motherly treatment of Todd is both preachy and scolding, a characteristic that lies in stark contrast to Stella's warmer approach. In repeated tutorial sessions, Todd confides in Stella that he is fearful of being taken away soon. He also provides a disturbing account of his older brother Oliver dying in the family's large pool. It's this event that lies at the heart of Avallone's mystery. How did Oliver come to drown in the pool, what's in the locked room and why does Todd suggest that there's an evil presence roaming the dark halls and corridors of Hawk House?

Like any good Gothic, location is key. Avallone's choice to place the characters and events in rural Connecticut during a late New England winter is important. As the tension mounts, the sense of isolation keeps the characters confined to this monstrous structure. Through the narrative, the family's secretive backstory slowly unfolds to explain Stella's precarious dilemma. The storyline is laced with mysterious horror that's nicely balanced with a small offering of romantic development. As a Gothic stereotype, Stella is the vulnerable beauty that becomes trapped in the bad place. Is it the structure or the people that make it a dangerous meeting?

Avallone is just a great author and his use of description makes this chilling novel such a pleasure to read. From cavernous dark forests to narrow, entrapping hallways, Avallone's prose is filled with vivid imagery that proves to be a ghostly character unto itself. If you have a supernatural addiction, Dark Cypress offers just enough sinister happenings to make it a furious page-turner. Unfortunately, the book remains out of print and used paperback copies have become pricey. However, I strongly urge you to spend your hard-earned dollars on acquiring a copy.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×

Drag Strip

In the 1930s, California essentially became the birthplace of the hot rod. Americans desiring the need to speed looked to the Golden State and its quality homemade cars and the crafty mechanics behind them. By the post-war 1940s, more and more hot rods were found on drag strips or illegal street races. In 1951, the National Hot Rod Association was formed (NHRA) as a brotherhood for grease-monkeys and rebels. So, it's no surprise to find mid-20th Century fiction enamored with fast cars and racing. It was a whole genre unto itself highlighted by Henry Gregor Felson's 1950 novel Hot Rod, a book that bestselling author Stephen King stated was a big influence on his writing. 

One of the authors that thrived in hot rod fiction was William Campbell Gault. Besides writing his Brock Callahan series of private-eye novels, Gault authored a number of racing novels like Speedway Challenge (1956), Dirt Track Summer (1961), and The Checkered Flag (1964). I found a used copy of his 1959 race-noir, Drag Strip, and decided to give it a try.

Drag Strip is set in a fictional California town called San Valdestro. The town functions as a hotbed for horse shows, a pedigree of showmanship for the neighboring Los Angeles County residents. It's here that Terry is raised in an upper-class household. His father is a successful attorney and real estate investor and his sister collects equestrian trophies and ribbons. Early in the novel, Terry's father presents him a Woestman-Ebbert, a $10,000 car that would cost about $90K today based on inflation. Needless to say Terry is the talk of the town. But when he ends up illegally racing two brothers, Juan and Pete, he finds himself obsessed with backyard mechanics and customizing junk cars. 

There's two main plot points absorbing most of Gault's narrative. The first is Terry, Juan, and Pete creates an automobile club and inviting various members to join based on skill and interest. In a way it is a fish out of water story as Terry finds that a heavy, greasy wrench is far more rewarding than his shiny silver spoon. Terry's descent from spoiled, suburban rich kid to garage mechanic in a rough side of town is a development that was really enjoyable to read. The second story arc features Terry's automobile club wanting to purchase an abandoned airstrip in town. The idea is to formally run a drag strip there and hopefully pick up an endorsement from the NHRA. The two obstacles are a business investor and a group of aviator hobbyists. 

If you enjoy fast cars, or this particular era of motor-sports history, Drag Strip will surely please. As a car novice, I was satisfied with the young adult approach by Gault to tell a moving story about hard work and overcoming adversity. The pairing of the wealthy and the poor was a wonderful blend that is just as effective today as it was 60-years ago. For those reasons, Drag Strip is an easy recommendation.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 89

On Episode 89 of the Paperback Warrior podcast, Eric takes the reigns for an action-packed 45-mins of vintage paperback discussion. The show hits the road to visit an exciting pulp convention in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Also, a feature on the life and work of author and jazz great Charles Boeckman. Plus: shopping, Bold Venture Press, Theodore Pratt and a surprise visit! Listen on any podcast app, paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE

Donate to the show HERE 

Listen to "Episode 89: Charles Boeckman" on Spreaker.

Make My Bed in Hell

John Sanford (1904-2003) was born Julian Shapiro in Harlem, NY. After graduating from Manhattan's Fordham Law School, Sanford joined his father as an attorney, yet his career in law was short-lived after discovering art and literature by the likes of Ernest Hemingway. In 1931, Sanford authored his first novel, The Water Wheel, the first of three stand-alone titles that are set in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. This fierce and often opposing farmland was the perfect backdrop for the author's impressive storytelling. My first introduction to the author is his 1939 novel Make My Bed in Hell (aka Seventy Times Seven). In 1954, the book was published with misleading cover art as a crime-noir by Avon. In 2021, Brash Books has reprinted the book for modern audiences with an analysis by Cal State professor Jack Mearns.

While Make My Bed in Hell has a rather simple storyline, Sanford's presentation is very dynamic. In a rather unique and innovative style, Sanford writes the whole book as fragmented parts that are placed in various time periods. To add even more complexity to his prose, the author often doesn't identify which characters are talking. The reader is challenged to determine the dialogue's source instead of following a simple “he said” or “she said” formula. While I found myself perplexed at the peculiarity, the concept was a refreshing reading experience.

When the novel begins, middle-aged Aaron Platt walks a snowy path to his barn. It is there that he finds a frigid man lying in an empty stall. In what appears to be a rather cold-blooded response, Platt allows the man to shiver through the night with very little food or water. As night turns to day, Platt's past is presented to readers in jagged sequences. These are dark, extremely depressing visions of Platt's childhood, his endearing mother, and the brutality thrust upon his family by his aggressive and unyielding father. The harsh elements of childhood bullying, family abuse, death, and poverty is presented as a parallel portrait of a rugged, impoverished farming community that faces immense financial adversity.

Sanford really shined as a complex, but readable, young author that had a unique voice. Considering the wealth of literature I have devoured over 30 years, I've never read a novel like this one. Despite its 1939 conception, the book is seemingly timeless considering America's rural towns and communities that are still struggling with financial distress, lack of government funding, and an aptitude that fighting with each other is sometimes the best solution to life's most difficult oppositions. Sanford's characters are hardened by strife and the land they plow and that gritty combination affected me long after the final pages were read. Make My Bed in Hell is the main character's outlook on his tumultuous life and a fitting title for such a poignant literary novel.

Buy a copy of this novel HERE

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×

Race Williams #09 - I'll Tell the World

Carroll John Daly’s Race Willams character was the prototype used by Mickey Spillane for his hardboiled detective, Mike Hammer. For that matter, there’s more than a dash of Race Williams in Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan. Race’s ninth adventure was “I’ll Tell The World,” a novella that originally appeared in the August 1925 issue of Black Mask and remains available today as a reprint.

As the story opens, Race is broke again and hoping for a new client in search of a “confidential agent” for hire. While browsing through the newspaper classified ads, Race sees a coded message that reads:

“Tom: As promised, 69th C.P.W. Two’s day. Eleven years old. Frantic. Dorothy.”

Race smells an opportunity to make some money and his decoding of the message sends him to a Manhattan street corner where someone else’s clandestine meeting is taking place Tuesday at 11pm. Hiding in the shadows, he witnesses a lone woman being abducted by two men who toss her into their car. Ever the stealthy sleuth, Race follows quietly behind.

The confrontation between the kidnappers and Race only serves to deepen the mystery and underscores the depravity uncovered by sticking one’s nose where it doesn’t belong. For her part, Dorothy the kidnap victim is filled with secrets and appropriately skeptical of trusting Race, the stranger who saves her.

The main mystery of “I’ll Tell The World” is: What chaos has Race stumbled upon here? Why the classified ad? Who are the powerful people behind Dorothy’s kidnapping? And what is their agenda? Without a paying client, Race pursues this because he is curious. Just like the reader. Eventually, his curiosity is rewarded with a paying client who engages him to investigate the matter.

And that’s where the story loses its way. Daly falls for the trap of many early 20th Century mystery writers and creates a confusing and labyrinthian plot that is hard to follow and a pain to read. Race’s swagger remains but the plot lost me at the novella’s halfway point. I’m not giving up on Race Williams, but this installment was a bumpy ride best forgotten. 

Buy a copy of this HERE

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×

Panic!

California native Bill Pronzini (b. 1943) is mostly known for his Nameless Detective, a series of private-eye novels that began in 1971 and has lasted nearly 50 installments. Pronzini has also authored over three-hundred short-stories and compiled dozens upon dozens of story compilations. The author also has a number of stand-alone crime-fiction novels on his resume including Panic!. The book was originally published in 1972 and has since been reprinted numerous times through various publishers.

In Panic!, five characters are placed in extreme situations where they are forced to behave in different ways to survive. In essence, it's a gritty, fast-moving crime-noir that checks off mostly everything one needs for the genre: beautiful woman, drifter on the run, a veteran cop and two deadly criminals. Pronzini's prose is fast-paced with most of the attention on the present, although the narrative thankfully explains a few important elements from each character's past that helps to connect the readers to these four men and one woman.

This short book is divided into four days and first introduces readers to a drifter named Lennox. Using a variety of names, Lennox is on the run from a failed marriage. During the divorce, Lennox is ordered to provide nearly his entire life's savings and assets to his ex-wife including a sizable amount of monthly alimony. Refusing to pay, Lennox leaves town and is now penniless and stranded in a dusty desert town called Cuenca Seco. Earning three hots and a cot, Lennox begins working for the town's cafe owner for a few days. While Lennox is working in the cafe's basement, two hitmen arrive to empty their guns into the cafe's owner. Lennox, being the only other party in the cafe, sees and hears the event and immediately runs into the desert to avoid the two killers.

In separate parts of the narrative, the two hitmen are introduced – one a seasoned, veteran killer and the other a wet-behind-the-ears apprentice learning his new profession. Also, there's a woman named Jana, an accomplished artist and author who, like Lennox, is also on the run. Although her situation isn't illegal, she's running from an affair in New York that has placed her career on the rails. She's arriving in Cuenca Seco to spend a quiet week writing the book that will meet deadlines and urgent requests. Unfortunately, she journeys into the desert to study rock formations on the day of the killing. After a dehydrated, panicked Lennox runs to her in the desert, she's unwillingly caught up in the deadly chase – two people with no food and water on the run through a dry wasteland as killers track them down.

Then there's Brackeen. He's the real star, although his role is a bit underplayed due to the nature of the character. In a rather mesmerizing backstory, the author shows Brackeen as a veteran police officer in San Francisco. On a really horrific day on patrol, Brackeen's career as a police officer comes to a screeching hiatus. After years of alcohol and depression, Brackeen attempts multiple careers in multiple places before finally putting down stakes in Cuenca Seco. Due to the lack of crime (and people for that matter), the town makes Brackeen a deputy. The former big city cop spends most of his day patrolling the desert and getting slouched. However, once the cafe owner's body is found, Brackeen is propelled into the story as a lovable loser. The state authorities refuse to accept his plausible – and very accurate – proposal of why and how the cafe owner was murdered. His validity as a creditable asset to the community is questioned due to his alcohol abuse and downtrodden lifestyle. 

There's so many things to love and enjoy about Pronzini's simplistic storytelling. The quest for freedom, overcoming adversity, retribution, the replacement of heroes and the mere idea that the average citizen's best approach to fixing a problem is self-realization. Pronzini's desert locale is symbolic – it's two characters running through life without the emotional resources to contend with complexity.

Pronzini is always solid and Panic! is just another testament to his strengths as an author. Despite one scene presented as outrageously preposterous in 2021 (blatantly obvious to today's reader), the novel has aged well. Whether you love hard-charging crime-fiction or gritty character studies, this brisk novel is just fantastic.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×

Branded

Author Helen Abbott Meinzer (1918-1963) wrote a number of short-stories in the 1940s and 1950s in western pulps like Western Action, Rangeland Romances, 44 Western and Thrilling Western. She wrote these stories using the pseudonym of A.C. Abbott. Along with the short-stories, Meinzer also utilized the name to author two stand-alone novels – Wild Blood (1951) and Branded (1954). Both of these western paperbacks have been reprinted by Cutting Edge Books. Unfamiliar with the author, I chose to read Branded first.

Three years ago, protagonist Rock Kendall owned a large spread of acreage and cattle in Texas with a business partner named Ash Carlton. Unfortunately, greedy Carlton killed a young woman and framed Rock for the murder. Eliminating Rock from the business, Carlton had complete power and control of the ranch. Now, Carlton has expanded his empire into New Mexico using lies upon lies to prepare for a possible state political seat. Rock, a fugitive from justice, rides into New Mexico looking to clear his name and bring Carlton's criminal enterprise down.

Meinzer's writing is just superb as she uses the proverbial “cattle rustling” sub-genre of western storytelling to create an effective and exciting plot. Rock's quest for justice is riddled with obstacles, painful and deadly reminders that guilty until proven innocent was often the frontier's unfair justice system. Through a series of gunfights, fisticuffs and horse-chases, Rock carefully balances two possible love interests – one an untamed wildcat and the other a soft-spoken lady. The hero's twisting turmoil is center stage while Meinzer distributes possible allies and friends as support through the narrative.

Branded is delivered with solid storytelling that stays true to the roots of the genre. The lone hero's battle against the vile villain is a traditional concept - good versus evil in the mountains and plains of an unjust frontier. With its balance of romance and violence, Branded is sure to please western readers.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×