Mr. Majestyk

Born in New Orleans, Elmore Leonard (1925-2013) began writing successful western fiction in the 1950s. In 1969, Leonard started writing hard-hitting crime novels such as The Big Bounce, The Moonshine War and Fifty-Two Pickup. This is also when Leonard started writing screenplays. After working with Clint Eastwood on Joe Kidd (1972), Leonard started writing the screenplay for Mr. Majestyk. Leonard's original idea was to have Eastwood play the lead. Due to earlier commitments, Eastwood was replaced by Charles Bronson (Steve McQueen was considered) and the film was published by United Artists in July 1974. Leonard penned the film's novelization and it was published in paperback format by Dell.

The book presents Colorado melon producer Vince Majestyk to readers. He won a Silver Star for his heroic service in Vietnam as a U.S. Army Ranger and is now in his second year of farming. After losing money in his first farming year, Majestyk is now in a high pressure situation to successfully harvest his crops to keep the farm afloat. To ensure his success, Majestyk employs experienced Mexican migrants to work on the farm. His work force admires and abides by his commitment.

After a short trip to town, Majestyk returns to the farm to find a low-level hood named Kopas instructing his work force. Kopas says he has hired cheaper work that will save Majestyk money and boost his profits. Majestyk, never accepting anything of this, is shocked by the audacity of the criminal. Eventually, both come to blows and Majestyk takes Kopas's shotgun and drives him away. Later, the police arrive and arrest Majestyk for assault.

Majestyk finds his greatest trouble behind bars. A mafia assassin named Renda is housed with Majestyk and both are transferred to another jail. During the bus journey, Renda's mob operatives try to free him from custody. Instead, Majestyk hijacks the bus and takes Renda to the mountains. It's here that he cuts a deal with the police: his freedom for Renda. In a surprise twist, Majestyk and Renda are both freed. Renda promises Majestyk to kill him for selling him off to the cops.

There's a lot of noble aspects of the Majestyk character. His commitment to Mexican migrants, including fair wages and a secure workplace, his military service and his general good nature regarding the treatment of others is admirable. All of thee characteristics are what attracts a Mexican union representative named Nancy. She falls in love with Majestyk and becomes a major character in the last chapters. I also really liked his relationship with foreman and friend Larry and the respect he slowly receives from law enforcement as the narration expands. Majestyk is an average Joe that readers can easily cheer on.

In terms of violence, both Renda and the mob proves to be worthy adversaries. Majestyk's financial hardships, the stress of farming, and the threats to his livelihood and life are ongoing problems in Leonard's story. The intimidation and interaction between Renda and the low-end thugs is intense and adds another layer to what is already an engaging story. 

My only complaint against Leonard's work is the extent to which the police are responding to the escalation of tension and violence. They are simply targets when the mafia easily disrupts the bus journey and they appear incompetent in the arrest of this high-profile mafia assassin in Renda. The roadblocks they structure, the tracking techniques and the weak protection they provide Majestyk are just not plausible.

Overall, Mr. Majestyk is a fine crime-fiction novel (and film) with an engrossing narrative ripe with interesting characters. Leonard's story is convincing and sometimes even draws on the heartstrings. Majestyk's heartbreaking ordeal is essentially the Everyman facing overwhelming adversity. It's this simple and compelling plot that makes Mr. Majestyk so enjoyable. 

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I'll Call Every Monday

Orrie Hitt (1916-1975) was a suburban family man in Upstate New York who was quietly one of the most successful creators of sleaze paperbacks in the 1950s and 1960s. His plots were largely noir fiction with a heavy dash of non-graphic sexuality and bad decisions driven by greed and lust. During his life, he authored upwards of 150 novels before dying penniless. His second published book, 1953’s I’ll Call Every Monday, remains in-print today.

In the 1950s, the life insurance and annuity business was a different animal. Policies were sold by door-to-door salesmen who were also responsible for collecting the regular - often weekly - premiums from the customer. That’s the setup in I’ll Call Every Monday, and our narrator, Nicky Weaver, is a door-to-door cold canvasser and a premium collector in a town called Devans with a population of 15,000. 

Early in the novel, Nicky meets two very different dames. The first is Sally. She’s a maid at the hotel Nicky occupies, but she wants to be a torch singer and nightclub hoochie-coochie girl. Anyway, Nicky is interested in her for all the normal reasons that guys get interested in cute babes. He eventually sets her up with a job at a cabin resort and a place to stay. It’s the beginning of a convenient sexual relationship, and Nicky really seems to like the arrangement. 

The second woman is Mrs. Irene Schofield, a busty sexpot from the nice side of town who Nicky meets when canvassing a neighborhood to sell some policies. She has a forty-inch bust, and you just know she’s gonna be trouble from the first time she appears on the page. Nicky tries to resist her charms the best he can. After all, he’s got Sally holed up in a cabin not far away, and Irene is a married woman. 

After relenting to his base instincts, Nicky quickly becomes a busy guy like any fella would juggling two dames. Mr. Schofield travels to New York every Monday, giving Nicky and Irene some alone time at her place. Meanwhile, he’s got pretty Sally waiting for him at the resort cabins. It’s a nice schedule until the idea of insuring and murdering Irene’s husband is raised. The plot then takes on similarities to James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, but it’s still a lot of fun to read with a unique twist ending. 

The author gets into quite a bit of detail surrounding the ins-and-outs of the door-to-door insurance game. You can decide if you find that stuff compelling or if you want to just breeze past that stuff. The sex scenes are genuinely erotic without being graphic, and Nicky is just the horndog protagonist that a reader of these books can appreciate. Overall, the paperback was an above-average Orrie Hitt affair and a good place to start for readers unfamiliar with his work. Recommended. 

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Mongo's Back in Town

Emil Richard Johnson (1938-1997) authored 11 paperback original crime novels and won an Edgar Award while serving a 40-year sentence for murder and armed robbery in Stillwater State Prison in Minnesota. His 1969 novel, Mongo’s Back in Town, was the basis of a 1971 TV movie starring Joe Don Baker, Telly Savalas, Martin Sheen and Sally Field.

It’s Christmastime as Mongo Nash arrives home to an unnamed city on a Greyhound bus. However, this is no ordinary trip home after a six-year absence. You see, Mongo is a killer-for- hire, and he’s back to take care of a contract killing at the request of his brother, Mike. The brothers have a complicated relationship involving a bar and a girl that Mike arguably stole from Mongo. But when Mike needs someone whacked, he still calls his hitman brother to get the job done. 

Mike needs Mongo to kill a thief and recover some stolen goods before the goods are due to the local mobster. Meanwhile, we have a federal agent in town named Gordon also looking for the same stolen items. Gordon spots Mongo visiting all the wrong people and assumes he’s mixed up with the shady deal. This sets up the compelling cat-and-mouse game that provides the meat of the paperback’s second half. 

I know this sounds biased, but Johnson was an amazingly good writer for a guy in prison. His own favorite writers included Ed McBain and Mickey Spillane, but his plotting more resembles Elmore Leonard and Charles Willeford. The storytelling and pacing are flawless, and the characters are vivid and fully-realized for a 156-page paperback. 

You need to be prepared for some graphic hardboiled violence as well as some retrograde attitudes toward women and sex. Mongo is not a nice guy, but you can appreciate his professionalism under the awkward familial circumstances. Prison was a good place for the author to study the mannerisms of hard case sadistic tough guys, and Mongo is clearly an amalgamation of scary men with a short fuse that Johnson likely encountered while incarcerated. 

Mongo’s Back in Town is a great crime novel. I’m told it’s Johnson’s best work, but that’s not going to stop me from further exploring his body of work. Unfortunately, his books have been out of print for some time and can be a costly used purchase. Hopefully, some enterprising reprint house will take the initiative to revive Johnson’s books, and this lost classic would be a great place to start

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When Eight Bells Toll

The mid-1960s may be the best period for adventure writer Alistair MacLean. From 1963, the Scottish native released Ice Station Zebra, When Eight Bells Toll and Where Eagles Dare within three years. The three novels also became successful film adaptations featuring such leading men as Rock Hudson, Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Anthony Hopkins. Having read and enjoyed Where Eagles Dare, I wanted to acquire more novels by MacLean. I decided on When Eight Bells Toll. It was originally published in hardback and as a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback.

When Eight Bells Toll is presented as a first-person account by a character named Phillip Calvert. He works for the British Secret Service and his direct report is Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Arnford-Jason, which thankfully is shortened to the nickname Uncle Arthur for the bulk of the book's narrative. After several cargo ships were hijacked in the Irish Sea, Calvert is sent undercover to investigate.

As the narrative unfolds, readers realize that secret service agents were planted on these ships because of the cargo - millions of gold bullion. Calvert and his partner Hunslett explore Scotland's Torbay Island in the guise of marine biologists. There's a number of suspicious characters, including a wealthy Lord, a former actress and a shipping magnate. While Calvert is getting closer to the hijackers, he finds himself a target. 

MacLean's story is unlike high adventure novels like Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone. In fact, I'd label When Eight Bells Toll a detective novel with adventure tendencies. The story follows a private detective formula with inquiries, interviews, shady ladies and mysterious characters. There are a lot of shootouts, underwater adventures and nautical nuances to turn it into a real page turner. Calvert is a likeable hero and the support casting was diversified enough to add a lot of twists. 

Whether you like gumshoe crime novels or nautical adventure, When Eight Bells Toll will appeal to you. Alistair MacLean's career reached a production peak at this point in his career, and this is just another chapter in his remarkable talent as a storyteller. Read it now, please.

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Driscoll’s Diamonds

Crime-noir author Marvin Albert (1924-1996) began writing stylish, high-adventure novels in the 1970s under the pseudonym Ian MacAlister. It was a commercialized combination of successful writers such as Ian Fleming and Alistair MacLean. I especially liked Albert's writing style and I've been on an adventure-fiction kick of late. It was this motivation that led me to try out the 1973 Fawcett Gold Medal paperback Driscoll’s Diamonds.

In the middle chapters of the book, it is explained that the mercenary Driscoll, his partner Royan and three other hardmen ambushed diamond smugglers in Africa. Following the shooting, the diamonds were successfully stolen and the gang fled the scene. En route to the getaway plane, Royan betrayed the group and killed all but Driscoll. In the bloody exchange, Driscoll took the diamonds, left on the plane, but then crashed near a shore in the Middle East. Having survived the accident, Driscoll’s diamonds were stuck in the pilot's seat that was now underwater. 

Albert's narrative is a sprawling adventure yarn as Driscoll attempts to reclaim the diamonds from the sunken aircraft. He is in love with a woman named Shana and both have a big future planned based on recovering the diamonds. Unfortunately, Driscoll and Shana are both taken hostage by Royan and several hardened mercenaries. They have to lead Royan to the diamonds in return for their lives. Driscoll knows that he and Shana are dead anyway, so he's fighting tooth and nail along the way. There's a multitude of escape attempts, gun battles and the obligatory tough guy talk as Royan and Driscoll recount some of their old missions together. 

I loved this novel and found it better than Albert's other Middle East scavenger hunt novel, Valley of the Assassins. Driscoll and Shana are two admirable characters and I liked the heated tension between the various characters. There's a surprise when two other parties join the hunt, but I'm going to leave that unexplained in the hope that you read this book. If you love desert climates with tough men betraying other tough men looking for dirty money, then you are going to love Driscoll’ Diamonds. It's a gem.

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Hell Is Too Crowded

I recently read Alistair MacLean's book When Eight Bells Toll. What was interesting about that book was that MacLean structured it in a private-eye formula. It was a different but entertaining novel, although quite different from the typical high adventure tale typically associated with MacLean. This thought led me to a novel by Jack Higgins called Hell Is Too Crowded. It was written as Higgins' own name, Harry Patterson, and initially published in 1962. It was later reprinted under the Higgins pseudonym by Fawcett Gold Medal. 

Like MacLean's When Eight Bells Toll, this book is in fact a crime-noir and a different style from the typical espionage and adventure plot that Higgins normally produced. In the first chapter of the book, readers learn about the American Matthew Brady. He is a structural engineer who had worked internationally when he met a beautiful British woman. After a brief affair, Brady began sending her money in the hope that they would save for a marriage and an average suburban lifestyle. After discovering that she had left the country with the money, Brady falls into a state of intoxication and eventually collapses on a bench in London.

A pretty young woman ends up finding Brady on the bench that night and offers to take him back to her apartment. The woman is obviously a prostitute, but she appears sincere in her concerns. The two take a short stroll beside a dark cemetery and enter the second floor of a large Victorian house. As Brady enters, he notices the face of a man watching them through the bottom window. After a coffee, Brady becomes sleepy and begins to faint on the sofa. His last look before sleep is the man from downstairs looking over the woman's shoulder. 

Brady wakes up listening to the detectives talking around him. The generous woman has been horribly mutilated and Brady is the chief suspect. The police does not accept his version of the story and after several months, the narrative finds Brady in prison. Building on his experience as a structural engineer, Brady began designing an escape plan. He must find the real killer and clear his name before the hounds of justice are on his trail. 

Needless to say, the crime-noir trope of an average man waking up to a female corpse is a familiar one. The late 1940s and 1950s are ripe for stories like this. The rapid pace, mystery development and problem-solving skills of the main character reflect the likes of Day Keene. The setting, complete with graveyard and seaside house, combined with the central story also reminds me of Edward S. Aarons' early career.  

While not a Higgins adventure, Hell Is Too Crowded is still worth the effort. It was enjoyable to find the author immersed into the crime-noir genre. Further, it may have inspired Higgins to write a better, more adventuresome novel in 1971's Toll for the Brave. It has a similar storyline, but focuses more on the high adventure storytelling that he perfected. 

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The Survivalist #03 - The Quest

Jerry Ahern's The Survivalist is one of the most popular post-apocalyptic titles of the 1980s. The literary series lasted between 1981 and 1991, totaling 29 volumes. In 2013, the series began new installments authored by Bob Anderson and Sharon Ahern. After reading the first two volumes, I like the character of John Rourke a lot. I'm compelled to learn more about his journey through Soviet-occupied America. This third novel, The Quest, was published by Zebra in 1981 and features Rourke in his home state of Georgia. 

There are a number of scenarios that weave together in The Quest. After arriving in Georgia, Rourke leaves Rubinstein at his survival retreat as he explores the area in search of Sarah and the children. After a brief skirmish, Rourke receives a proposal from a former fellow soldier named Bradley. He asks Rourke if he is willing to help find a NASA scientist. In exchange, Bradley will send a correspondence through the resistance network inquiring where Sarah is.

During this time, KGB commander Vladmir Karamatsov visits his wife Natalia in Chicago. In the series second installment, a friendship was formed between Natalia and Rourke. Karamatsov knows this and starts physically and verbally abusing Natalia. In her defense, she injures Karamatsov and runs away from the house. Later, Natalia's father, General Ishmael Varakov, learns of Karamatsov's attack. Varakov wants to get in touch with Rourke, an enemy of the state, to kill Karamatsov. His reward will be complete liberty to him and his family.

By all accounts, Rourke is an extremely busy character in The Quest. By assisting Bradley, Rourke becomes involved in a local resistance operation that eventually loses. Through his exchange with Varakov, the last exciting chapters of the book relate Rourke's mission to kill Varakov.

This series installment is important because it introduces the Eden Project storyline. This will become a major consideration in the series in the future. The involvement of NASA before the nuclear attack, the ultimate goal of the project and its end result constitute a large part of the future narrative. But for now, The Survivalist is a lot of fun and this is just another great chapter in the long storyline. I would recommend you read them in numerical order.

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