Men's Adventure Quarterly #05

I can remember watching all of the old war films on TBS as a kid. My father had them on and I always camped out on the living floor to watch all of the action. I can remember repeated watches of The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Geese, Attack Force Z, and Devil's Brigade. Heck, my parents just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and “their song” is Mike Curb Congregation's “Burning Bridges”, the closing credits theme music of Kelly's Heroes. Needless to say, the team-based, do-or-die missions was ingrained into my childhood.

I was happy to learn that Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham's fifth issue of Men's Adventure Quarterly (MAQ) was dedicated to the team-combat “Dirty Mission” sub-genre of military-fiction and men's action-adventure. 

In the issue's opening pages, Deis traces the history of the concept, citing the 1965 novel and 1967 movie The Dirty Dozen as a possible catalyst for the numerous stories that appeared in men's adventure magazines. As Deis illustrates, the story that inspired The Dirty Dozen, “The Filthy Thirteen”, was published in 1944 in True: The Man's Magazine. Deis's opener is punctuated by glorious vintage artwork by Frank McCarthy, Norm Eastman, and popular Spanish comic book artist Vincent Sagrelles. 

The magazine's opening pages also features a short article by Bill Cunningham. He spotlights various films that featured unusual, unfortunate heroes partaking in dangerous military missions. Kudos to Cunningham for including one of my favorites, Uncommon Valor. 

Paperback Warrior is a big fan of Justin Marriott's magazines focusing on vintage books, pulps, comics, and more. One of his most recent projects is a series of fanzines dedicated to the British war comics and comic strips of the mid to late 20th century, Battling Britons. Using simple terms, he explains that the bigger British comic companies were Fleetway IPC and DC Thomson. These are like the Marvel and DC companies in the U.S. One of the things I found most interesting is that British monthly publications featured “pocketbooks”, 64-page stories that were sometimes written by military veterans. This provided a sense of realism and technical detail. Marriott's article is laced with spectacular comic panels from the likes of Battle Picture Weekly and Warlord as well as covers of Commando. 

The bulk of MAQ5 is dedicated to Eva Lynd, an iconic model that posed for MAM artists like Al Rossi, James Bama, and Samson Pollen. One of her most popular pairings was with artist Norm Eastman, which is a working relationship that Deis expands upon. There are numerous art panels and magazine covers to feast your eyes upon, including several that feature both Lynd and iconic male model/actor Steve Holland. In addition, Deis also briefly covers Lynd's work with artist Al Rossi, which was something I honed in on as a paperback fan. Book covers include Orrie Hitt's Women's Ward, Don Bartell's Strange Lovers, and one of the best books I read in 2022, Nude in the Sand, by John Burton Thompson. I really enjoyed the inclusion of fake movie posters portraying Lynd and Holland in action-packed military yarns. These are “fan” movie posters created by Vance Capley and David Goode, originally featured on a now defunct blog called Goode Stuff. Personally, I'm dying to see Fortress of the Damned. But, one can only dream of a film matching the power and vivid imagery of the faux poster.

Glorious Trash blog superstar Joe Kenney offers up a unique insight into his childhood. Kenney explains how he was submerged into the men's action-adventure genre, specifically MAMs and how they spawned his undying love for late 20th century paperbacks. I enjoy Kenney's blog and it was interesting to learn more about his life and what brought him to this wild dance. 

Most of the book's second half is dedicated to outrageous dirty mission stories, a majority featuring scantily-clad women. Stories like “The Captive Stalag”, “Lace Panty Guerillas”, “The Wild Lace Panty”, “Death Doll Platoon”, and the “Nazi Sex Circus”. The vivid artwork from Fernando Fernadez, Bruce Minney, and Gil Cohen enhances these stories and articles. These tales also feature female models like Lisa Karan, Carole Landis, and contemporary photographer/model Mala Mastroberte.

I seem to say the exact same thing after reading each new issue of MAQ: This is their best issue! I don't know where Cunningham and Deis find the time, energy, and dedication for all of these vintage magazines, artwork, reference material, books, the MAM CULTURE, to be featured in such a classy, professional way. This duo has side-projects, blogs, their own enjoyment, and families to tend to on top of what appears to be a full-time job creating these MAQ volumes. My hat remains tipped to their labors of love. MAQ #5 is...well Hell, it's their best issue yet! 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Cheaters

Ledru S. Baker Jr. served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WW2. In 1951, his short literary career began with the bestselling Fawcett Gold Medal paperback And By My Love. He followed with three more novels before his death in 1967. Cutting Edge Books has released nearly all of Baker's works, including The Cheaters, originally published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1952. The book is available in both digital and physical editions as a stand-alone or as part of the Ledru Baker Jr Reader, an omnibus also containing Brute Madness and And Be My Love. 

Orchestra musician and bandleader Jack Griffith works at a posh Hollywood night club that is controlled by the Syndicate, specifically a Mafioso named Moss Morrison. One evening, Griffith is summoned to a meeting with Morrison and offered a peculiar proposal. Morrison wants to divorce his wife, a hot ticket named Mardi, but needs something on her to avoid a huge payout in alimony. Sensing his wife's attraction to Jack, Morrison offers Jack a large sum of money if he can swindle Mardi into a romantic fling. Griffith accepts the deal, but after meeting Mardi he falls in love with her. 

Just when you think Baker's smooth prose is surely leading into the overused “innocent man on the run” formula, the talented author switches the narrative entirely. Instead, Griffith figures out the whole setup while falling in love with a clever and sexy waitress. When she's taken captive by the Mob, Griffith recalls his WW2 days of fighting the Italians in brutal, bloody combat. With an iron-fisted vengeance, Griffith takes the fight to the Mob.

Baker's writing is exceptional and injects a heavy dose of realism and violence for a 1952 novel. The Cheaters mixes the grit and grime of Donald Hamilton (Matt Helm) with the sarcastic afterglow of Mickey Spillane (Mike Hammer). Baker's writing is just so engaging and produces a strong, emotional reaction. An example:

    They looked up, and their startled faces gave me all the time I needed. I shot the first one through the head; his skull and hair rose magically. I snarled and turned to the other one as the noise and blast of the gun, the smell in the room and the power I received from the recoil took me away from Los Angeles and threw me back to the Po Valley.

    I swung the gun toward the other one. He had risen, and his hand was pawing inside the coat when I said: “Hell's waitin'! Good-by!” at the same instant that I fired.

    The first shot threw him back into the chair. The second one caught him in his throat and ripped out the back of his head. I guess it did, because there were little pieces of bone on the window like flys trapped on flypaper. 

If you have a penchant for strong, “fight or die” heroes forced into inevitable violence, then The Cheaters will surely hit you like a ton of bricks. This is uncompromising, unwavering crime-fiction.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Carnival Girl

Cutting Edge Books has performed a marvelous job preserving mid-20th century fiction. The publisher's new editions of classic titles by the likes of Howard Hunt, Ovid Demaris, Ralph Dennis, and March Hastings position these vintage, sometimes expensive literary works, into the spotlight for a whole new generation of crime-fiction and mystery fans. 

One of the authors that Cutting Edge has focused on is Stuart James, an underrated crime-noir author that also served as a staff writer and sports reporter for magazines and newspapers. James also became an editor for Midwood Books, a subsidiary of paperback powerhouse Tower Publications. I thoroughly enjoyed the Cutting Edge editions of James' novels Frisco Flat (1960) and Judge Not My Sins (1951). I was happy to discover another Cutting Edge title, Carnival Girl, authored by Max Gareth, a pseudonym employed by James. The novel was originally published in 1960 by a small, low-budget publishing house called Chariot Books, home of other underrated novelists like Arthur Adlon and John Burton Thompson. 

Norma is a gorgeous Midwestern girl raised by an alcoholic single mom. When she's nearly raped by her drunken stepfather, Norma runs away from home. In the book's opening pages, readers find Norma at an Indiana diner using her last dime for food and coffee. Thankfully, the waitress displays some pity, and arranges for her to catch a ride “west” with a truck-driving customer. However, Norma doesn't realize that the waitress earned an extra tip by selling her to the highest bidder. On a lonely stretch of blacktop, the trucker rapes Norma before she escapes to a nearby farm. After being sized-up by a farm laborer, she manages to escape what is perceived as an attempted rape by flagging down two people traveling with the carnival.

The carny duo (slang for employees of a carnival) convinces Norma that she can make it in the carnival as a stripper. Back then, a fan favorite at rural, small town carnivals is the peep show, where men and boys with enough coins could enter a tent to watch naked women dance. Norma learns a few tricks and before long she is the carnival's number one attraction. But, she draws the attention of three specific men.

Speed is the good guy daredevil that performs motorcycle tricks. He falls in love with Norma, but she doesn't have the same feelings for him. Instead, Norma is lusting after Lee, the bad boy carnival drummer. There's also a man named Frank, who pitches Norma a lot of cash to come to St. Louis to work his nightclub. But, she later learns that Frank is in deep with the Mob and if she takes his job, she'll be passed around as a prostitute making a meager living lying on her back for criminals. It's a twisty, hot triangle with innocent Norma caught in the middle. 

With Carnival Girl, Stuart James completes a vivid, often disturbing character study of this young, unfortunate woman and her abrupt, violent end of innocence. Like Judge Not My Sins proved, James was such a clever storyteller with an uncanny ability to make his characters lifelike. By using a common crime-noir trope, the traveling carnival, James is able to submerge this inexperienced character into a world of depravity. Norma is a living doll thrust into dangerous situations and guided by seedy men with below-the-belt motivations. 

Carnival Girl isn't the proverbial happily ever after story of love on the run, but instead a more provocative look at young men and women pursuing carnal desires no matter the cost. It is these types of stories that made Stuart James such a talented, organic storyteller. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Conan - The Curse of the Monolith

Worlds of Fantasy magazine featured “Conan and the Cenotaph” in their first published issue in 1968. The story was authored by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp and was later featured in the 1969 Lancer paperback Conan of Cimmeria under the title “The Curse of the Monolith”. It was also featured in the 1971 anthology Warlocks and Warriors as well as Sphere Books' 1989 collection The Conan Chronicles. The story was later adapted into comic form in Savage Sword of Conan #33.

The story takes place right after “The City of Skulls” and finds the titular hero serving as a captain to King Yildiz of Turan. He's assigned the duty of delivering a letter to King Shu of Kusan, a minor kingdom in Khitai far to the East (and almost off the map). The letter is to encourage an alliance between Turan and Kusan, an alliance that Shu happily agrees to. Upon meeting Conan, he sends his agreement in the way of a letter to be carried back to King Yildiz. He also sends Duke Feng, a guide and escort to accompany Conan back to the western border of Kusan. Feng has two servants and avoids any sort of manual labor, a trait that Conan fiercely despises. But, when Feng offers Conan a treasure, his interest and possible kinship is peaked. 

Feng explains to Conan that he knows where a large treasure is held at the top of a mountain nearby. He encourages Conan to suit up in armor and to accompany him to a black monolith of stone to acquire the treasure. Why does he need Conan? Apparently there are savages nearby that could attack Feng while he is dealing with the treasure grab. With Conan by his side, watching his back, the treasure can be gained and split. Conan agrees and the two go to the monolith.

Once they arrive, Conan feels a strong magnetic force and is shocked to find that he is nothing more than a fridge magnet. With the armor on, Conan is thrust to the monolith due to the magnetism possessed in the stones of the mountain. Feng explains to Conan why he has trapped him here. Further, a jellylike monster guards the monolith and drops flesh-eating acid on its prey. With Conan trapped by Feng and facing a torturous death by the equivalent of The Blob, he must use his strength to break the power of magnetism. 

"The Curse of the Monolith" weighs in at just 20 pages and is an average story at best. There's nothing to overly dislike about the plot other than its simplistic premise. Carter and de Camp's description of the mountains and monster was vivid and provided just enough atmospheric touch to place the readers into the story. However, this was just another short Conan adventure that was rich with descriptive details but not particularly memorable. This isn't a necessary read.

Red Sonja #02 - Demon Night

Created by Roy Thomas Jr. and Barry Windsor Smith, Red Sonja made her debut in Conan the Barbarian #23 in 1973. The fiery red-headed barbarian was placed in Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Kingdom as a companion to Conan, but she flourished as a lone hero in comics, magazines, graphic novels, and other pop-culture. She also appeared in a six-book series of Ace paperbacks in the 1980s. I read and enjoyed the series debut, 1981's The Ring of Ikribu, and was gifted four more of the paperbacks by my wife as an anniversary present. I celebrated by reading the series second installment, Demon Night, published in 1982.

Red Sonja is in Eastern Zamora when she awakens to find she is the prime suspect in the assassination of Captain Voss. In reality, Lieutenant Keldum killed Voss to gain one more rung of power, setting up the strange flame-haired warrior as the fall girl. Escaping the posse, Sonja journeys into the desert and rides upon a mysterious city called Elkad. Outlining the city's gateway are the bodies of six women, clearly tortured, mutilated, and very dead. 

Sonja is welcomed into the city and learns that the Elkad are a primitive people that sacrifice virgins to an ancient alien race called the Earth-Folk. Learning of this sort of nonsense, Sonja quickly leaves (in a roundabout way) and heads into the nearby mountains to find a magician that has some control over the Earth-Folk. Aside from a few events, this is really where Sonja's portion of the story leaves off.

I enjoyed the book, but my complaint would be that it was really about a young virgin named Tiamu, an Elkad servant. When Keldum and his henchmen pursue Sonja to Elkad, they enter the city and begin throwing around their weight. Tiamu is fearful that she may be the next sacrifice to the Earth-Folk (a horrible way to die), but is raped by Keldum's rival, and second-in-command. In a sequence of events that mirrors Sonja's origin (raped and then supernaturally gifted), Tiamu begins a reign of terror on Elkad and the invading military. We're talking Carrie at the prom sort of terror. She also has a love interest with a magician's apprentice. 

Demon Night is a weird book that incorporates a lot of sorcery and fantasy elements. I'm not a fan of magic, preferring sheer, sharp-edged violence to battle the monsters and dastardly villains of the Hyborian Kingdom instead. I kept picturing the Earth-Folk aliens, buried in their mountain hideaway, as an L. Ron Hubbard creation right out of Scientology 101. Not my thing, but it didn't detract from the narrative. The authors meander a bit here and there, but overall it's a satisfactory adventure tale worth the investment and exploration. Recommended.

The Monster from Earth's End

William Fitzgerald Jenkins (1896-1975) was a prolific writer of early 20th century fiction, including numerous science-fiction, adventure, and western stories for the pulps. He used pseudonyms like William Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald Jenkins, and Louis Carter Lee. Some of his science-fiction and pulp literary work was written under the pen name Murray Leinster. My first experience with the author is his 1959 Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, The Monster from Earth's End, written by Jenkins as Leinster. In 2019, it was reprinted by Gateway as an affordable ebook.

Gow Island (not a real place) lies just 600 miles from the Antarctic ice-cap. Because of its location, the island serves as a supply depot for researchers, scientists, and employees stationed in the Antarctic. Gow Island's population of 19 people are employees that re-supply, stock, and fuel vessels that make sporadic layovers en route to their destination. Visitors arrive on a weekly basis, but normally leave within an hour. Thus, these few island inhabitants live a rather slow, sheltered life under the guidance of the island's administrator, and book protagonist, Drake. 

In the opening pages, Gow Island receives a radar message that a plane housing seven passengers and three crewmen will be arriving from Gissell Bay, Antarctica to refuel before heading back home. On board the plane are items retrieved from the icy surface – several penguins, soil samples, and some vegetation. However, Drake and company receive a disturbing, terrifying call from the plane as it approaches the island – someone, or something, is attacking the crew and gun shots are fired. For several moments there is radio silence, then the plane lands on Gow Island's airstrip on its belly. When Drake and co-workers approach the plane they hear one lone gunshot. Opening the plane's door, they are shocked to discover the pilot shot himself in the head on the runway and the rest of the crew has simply vanished. 

The Monster from Earth's End works well as a survival horror novel. The personnel on the island contend with moving the plane off of the airstrip, but also what exactly happened to create these strange circumstances. The pilot's body is moved to a warehouse, but later than night Drake hears something moving inside the building and discovers the pilot's corpse is missing. There are twigs on the plane that seem to possess some form of intelligence. As the crew's dogs begin to die horrible deaths, and an employee goes missing, the power to the island is cut. Something wants to kill its prey in the dark, far from the light. 

I can vividly recall watching John Carpenter's 1982 horror classic The Thing when I was a kid and being absolutely petrified with fear. That film was a remake of the 1951 movie The Thing from Another World which was based on the science-fiction novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell (written as Don A. Stuart). In many ways, The Monster from Earth's End sort of fits into that same universe. So much that a Wildside Press collection called Short Things featured shorts written by a selection of authors that tie into The Thing storyline. One of those short stories was "The Monster at World's End", authored by Allan Cole, which was obviously a nod to this novel. 

If you enjoy this sort of survival horror, then The Monster from Earth's End is surely a must-read. I was a little underwhelmed by the “monster”, but the pace and atmosphere of the story kept me firmly entrenched in the novel's narrative. There are some truly creepy moments, but often I felt the book hadn't aged well over the course of 60 years. Your mileage may vary, but I recommend reading the book to make up your own mind on its longevity and legacy.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Say it was Murder

Stephen Mertz (b. 1947) is a mystery, action-adventure, and short-story writer that has contributed, or created, series titles like M.I.A. Hunter, Kilroy, Cody's Army, and the wildly successful Cody's War. He cut his teeth in the literary world as a Don Pendleton protegee, penning 12 novels in the hit series titles The Executioner/Mack Bolan from 1982-1986. He's utilized pseudonyms like Cliff Banks, Jim Case, Stephen Brett, and Jack Buchanan. But, perhaps his most descriptive name is “Mojo”, a moniker that friends and family (one in the same) use to describe Mertz through the lights, heat, and haze of a blues bar on the edges of a middle-of-nowhere Arizona town. In fact, the author's newest book is a love letter of sorts, an outlet to profess his love for the magical place he resides in.

In Say it was Murder, published in 2022 as a revised version by Rough Edges Press, Mertz describes Cochise County as Big Sky country. This slice of Southeastern Arizona paints the U.S. and Mexico border, a beautiful 100-miles stretch of open prairie and rugged mountains not to be confused with The Grand Canyon, Phoenix, or Tucson. Mertz places his private-eye protagonist, a fellow named McShan, in Bisbee, the real-life, neo-hippie small-town that he frequents. Mertz, through his fictional hero, experiences a profound connection with the area:

The desert will either chew you up and spit you out or will touch you in ways that are as deep and mysterious as they are difficult to express.

The fondness that Mertz fosters of the land and its lush beauty is only rivaled by one thing, his sincere love for crime-noir. In Say it was Murder, the author steps into the shoes filled by his literary heroes like Mike Hammer and Ed Noon. In fact, Mertz's private-eye, McShann could be a nod to private-eye Rex McBride, authored by Cleve Adams and Mike Shayne, created by Davis Dresser using the name Brett Halliday.

Like Mertz's other private-eye, Kilroy, McShan operates out of Denver, Colorado, a city that also holds a special place for the author. McShan is employed by Honeycutt Personal Services, a large agency with offices in every state specializing in detectives, cybersecurity, bodyguards, and kidnapping protection. This enterprise of ex-military and law-enforcement is ran by Miss Honeycutt, a 63-year old heavyset woman that inherited the agency from her father.

McShan's newest assignment is aiding a client named Marna, a divorced mother that hired the Honeycutt agency to find her missing daughter. When McShan arrives in Cochise County, he learns that the woman's daughter, Janine, has joined a mysterious religious sect. As McShan digs into the case, he learns more about Janine's step-father, a wealthy entrepreneur with a very violent streak. Connecting the dots, the case leads into energy and land development, illegal human-trafficking, incest, and the weird cult-like organization that has a grasp on Marna's family. 

Comparisons are made to Ross MacDonald's fantastic Lew Archer series, and that may be valid, but I felt that Mertz's characters were wilder and more diverse. McShan contends with a deadly lesbian biker and her maniacal brother, the town's barber. I also felt McShan was more reserved in his approach, keeping the dialogue, brief and more directly linked to the case. There is a sexy smoothness to Mertz's inclusion of a blonde bombshell, a potential – seemingly obligatory – love interest for the gumshoe hero. 

With its sturdy, well crafted plot, vivid locale, surprise twist, and shocking ending, Say it was Murder is a brisk, highly-satisfying crime-thriller by one of the genre's best storytellers. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.