Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 114

In this very special episode of the Paperback Warrior Podcast, Eric celebrates Black History Month with an exciting and education feature on Black Detectives in vintage fiction. In addition, Eric reviews the brand new issue of Men's Adventure Quarterly, specifically the UFO pop-culture in vintage magazines, comics, and film. Also, a look at one of Eric's favorite podcast channels and much more. Stream below or on any platform. You can also view on YouTube HERE or download HERE. 

Listen to "Episode 114: Black Detectives" on Spreaker.

Dollanganger #01 - Flowers in the Attic

Cleo Virginia Andrews (1923-1986), known as V.C. Andrews, was a commercial artist, illustrator, and portrait painter. In 1979 she struck literary gold when her first published novel, Flowers in the Attic, soared to the top of the bestseller lists just two weeks after its release. The book was adapted into a film by New World in 1987 and then again in 2014 by Lifetime. The novel spawned four sequels and spurred the author to write similar titles.

Corrine and her husband Christopher are living a tranquil suburban life in Pennsylvania in 1957. They have four children, Chris (14), Cathy (12), and twins Carrie and Cory (5). In the opening chapter of the book Christopher dies in a car wreck. Left penniless and struggling to pay the bills, Corrine makes a difficult choice to move her family back to her childhood home in Charlottesville, Virginia. But, it's a trip laced with danger, deceit, and deep scars. 

In later chapters readers learn that Corrine experienced a terrible childhood. Her father is a multi-millionaire and a Bible thumper. Corrine's mother is a physically abusive woman that instills rigorous discipline. Corrine was ousted from the family when she fell in love with Christopher. Returning to her childhood home means a reunion with her evil mother. The plan is for Corrine to establish a relationship with her father again so she can get back into the family's graces and, more importantly, the will. 

Corrine has never told her parents she has children. In an off-the-page meeting, Corrine and her mother agree to scurry the kids into the family's enormous mansion through a backdoor where they will secretly be tucked away into a bedroom that connects to the home's large attic. The idea is for this stay to be temporary with Corrine suggesting it could only be a night or two. Instead, the temporary stay evolves into a hellish three-year ordeal ripe with punishment, physical pain, and psychological torment.

Flowers in the Attic is told in first-person perspective from Cathy. She explains the day to day lifestyle the kids must endure as well as the changes that happen to each of them. Chris matures into a young man, Cathy reaches puberty, and the twins devolve into unhealthy children void of sunlight, proper diet, and vitamins. It's a road to ruin left to the reader to navigate through nearly 400 pages. The motivation to keep turning the pages is the idea that these kids may escape this horrible habitat. Additionally, the mystery involving what is actually happening with Corrine and her parents is just so compelling. I found myself consistently wondering just what is happening outside of the children's smothering residence while simultaneously finding the incest elements of the book truly disturbing.

The author tackles a number of domestic and social issues through the lives of these characters. The element of greed is presented in a way that it affects generations of people. This family tree has become so rotten despite possessing tremendous wealth and opportunity. The inclusion of incest is important as it demonstrates this ugly invasion into the sanctity of the innocent. The incest is symbolic for the greed affecting the family members – twisting and corrupting what should be wholesome. The idea of classes is expanded on here as well with the lower class scrounging for leftovers and morsels while surrounded by financial flourishes. Religion is presented in a negative way through “the grandmother” (name never given) and her insistence on quoting the Bible. The children, who initially are faithful, lose their faith through the dismissal of hope. 

Andrews was certainly a powerful storyteller and delivered a mesmerizing narrative with Flowers in the Attic. Despite terrible reviews at the time of publication the novel has inched its way into the upper echelons of all-time popular fiction. I enjoyed this very much and look forward to reading the sequel, Petals on the Wind. 

Get Flowers in the Attic HERE

Forgive the Executioner

I wasn't able to determine anything about author Andrew Lane. There is another writer named Andrew Lane with titles like Young Sherlock Holmes, Crusoe, and The Six Directions Sequence, but based on his date of birth in 1963 it would make him just a high school student in 1978, the year that Forgive the Executioner was published. 

This 225-page New English Library paperback introduces readers to Alan Paine, a married man with a young son and daughter. Living in West of England, Paine's father was British and his mother American. Serving the British military, Paine became an expert marksman and explosives specialist. After serving in the Vietnam War, Paine retired to a paper-pushing clerk working for the county on the nine-to-five grind. 

As the book begins, Paine's daughter is walking through the forest on the way home. She's attacked by three men, raped, and then shot. When Paine's wife and son go searching for her they stumble on the same three men and are rewarded with fatal shots to the head. 

In the following chapters readers learn that nearly two years has passed and Paine is now working under the alias Max Case as an explosives expert and assassin for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). By working within the IRA ranks he secretly creates “accidents” that kill his fellow soldiers. However, Paine's vengeance isn't strictly reserved for the IRA. He also uses his deadly role as a way to kill the opposing Protestants that vow to keep northern Ireland within British reign.  Paine doesn't care who he murders because he feels that the whole bloody war led to his family's death. 

Other than Paine, the other main character in the book is a woman named Siobahn. She's working for the Protestants as a double agent in the IRA. Her leadership leads to many IRA soldiers perishing under “mistakes”. Paine meets Siobahn and the two develop a romantic involvement. The book's finale involves Paine being ordered to break out the three IRA men that killed his family.

Forgive the Executioner is an unusual novel. At times it works like an effectively tight counter-terrorism novel with Paine planning and performing hits on an assortment of mid-tier terrorists. These scenes are presented well and deliver just enough violence to satisfy any vigilante-fiction reader. However, the book becomes so silly in parts that I often contemplated if Lane was writing satire. 

Several times in the book Case changes his look by simply cutting and dying his hair blonde and shaving. This miracle makeover gives him the ability to weave in and out of close compatriots as a different person. Often he fools people he has closely worked with in the past, including Siobahn, who he fools into believing he's two different people. It is this sort of nonsense that makes it unbearable to even suspend disbelief for enjoyment's sake. I get the 'ole face switcharoo bit from the pulp era, but this is 1978. 

My other issue is the over-the-top graphic sex. This book reads like a porn novel with Case plowing through pus...women...on nearly every other page. I get the hyperbolic sex scenes, but the women he's with nearly gasp themselves to death when he whips the manhood. 

My guess is if you enjoy workaday action-adventure paperbacks then Forgive the Executioner shouldn't be a far cry from plain 'ole titles like The Butcher and Nick Carter: Killmaster. Tepid recommendation, but good luck finding a copy. 

The Gauntlet

After reading several of Bryan Smith's blood-soaked horror novels the jury is still out for me. I disliked his collaboration with Brian Keene on Suburban Gothic. I liked his novel The Freakshow a little more. My favorite of the author's work is Deathbringer, although I read it before Paperback Warrior's creation. I keep seeing his books on Amazon and the descriptions just keep getting me to click, “Yes, I would like more terror and torture, take my money.” I don't know why or how his books consistently end up in my shopping basket. But here we are again with another Bryan Smith book, The Gauntlet, published in 2023 by Grindhouse Press. 

An average guy named Nick gets into an argument with a crazed neighbor. After the verbal confrontation, the crazed neighbor goes back inside and this suburban squabble is put to rest. However, Nick receives an online message from the crazy neighbor's wife Krista. She thanks Nick for standing up to her husband. As weeks pass both Nick and Krista end up in an online relationship. As The Gauntlet begins, Krista has ran out on her husband and married life, taking up with Nick on the road. Together the two head into the Pocono Mountains for an irresponsible quick vacation and to plan what awaits them when they return to reality in a few days. 

Running low on gas, with the next city in two hours, the two stop in rural Beleth Station. Pulling into this nowhere town the two notice that the streets are void of people. When they pull into a gas station Nick is attacked by a person wearing a mask and carrying a machete. After his blood hits the pavement Krista takes off running down the abandoned streets searching for help. What she discovers is a town that is opposed to outsiders. No one leaves, no one enters. When they do, they are forced to run a macabre late-night game called...you guessed it...The Gauntlet.

Bryan Smith's novel works like a combination of The Running Man, Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, and any of those violent Saw movies. The game is that Nick and Krista are forced into running through the town's snowfall barefooted to complete objectives – like getting to a phone booth that contains a pair of shoes. Or, to a warm car to rest for 15 minutes. But, the two are separated and must complete different challenges. There's a side-story about a guy named Sean hoping to join a rebellious group of citizens to overthrow this crazed small town government and their Dystopian leadership. 

The Gauntlet isn't a bad survival horror novel. If you are familiar with Bryan Smith's writing then you should already know he writes on the trashy side. There's offensive language, graphic sex, hideous torture, and gross-out violence. I hesitate to even deem this type of stuff “horror” because it is more action-adventure with depravity as the core. If that's your jam then you will certainly enjoy running The Gauntlet. Get it HERE.

Paperback Warrior Guest Appearance on Zak Skiver

I teamed up with Zak Skiver for a discussion on vintage fiction! Topics covered included a deep dive into the disturbing suspense thriller Flowers in the Attic, an overview of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, the differences in Conan in Robert E. Howard stories compared to the comic form, and Zak's newest novel New Town. Watch it HERE or stream below:

 

Vice Trap

I know very little about author Elliott Gilbert (1924-2000). His first novel, Don't Push Me Around, was published by Popular Library in 1955. The book was reviewed by paperback scholar Gary Lovisi in Paperback Parade #84 in 2013. Gilbert also wrote Too Much Woman for Beacon in 1961. But, the subject of this review is his 1958 Avon paperback Vice Trap. In 2025, the book was released as both a paperback and ebook by Stark House Press imprint Black Gat Books. This new edition preserves the original paperback art by Harry Schaare.

Vice Trap's locale is a key part of Gilbert's twisty narrative. The book takes place in California – my guess is San Diego – with an attention to the southern border with Mexico. It's here that Nick, the narrator, works odd jobs as a mechanic. Months ago he was busted by a narcotics agent named Madrid and spent time behind bars. Now, Nick plays poker, smokes a lot of weed, and pines for his ex-lover Lona. The problem is that Lona is now Madrid's girl.

In the book's opening chapters Madrid visits Nick and it is established that the two, despite the past bust, are at the very least cordial acquaintances. Madrid gets Nick to fence items for him to pay off some bills. Easy stuff like radios, cameras, etc. But, it's clear that Madrid probably stole these items from criminals he arrested or from an evidence locker. The fencing back and forth allows Nick to visit Lona and the two pick up their heated relationship again – behind Madrid's back. 

Madrid pitches to Nick a bank heist idea. Nick gets a couple of his friends together, including a charismatic guy named Sand-O. The deal is to knock off a bank during a rodeo parade. Madrid will volunteer to patrol the parade off-duty and make a cover for the guys to rob the place. Then Nick will need to floor the Ford across the border before the gates close. But, as these things play out in paperback heists, things go afoul and by the book's end there's murder and lots of hospital bills. 

Vice Trap was a pretty good crime-noir novel. The inner workings of drug deals for weed in the mid-20th century was fascinating, although now it seems rather laughable. Petty crimes leading to unrest. The bulk of the book focuses on Nick and Lona's relationship, their longing for peaceful days, and the reality that both are caught in life's sinking wheel rut. Madrid makes a great heel and Nick serves the role as a slacking rebel. But, the book is a slow burn at 178 pages. The heist pitch doesn't occur until the 60-page mark. If you want to submerge yourself in the druggie life of the 1950s there's plenty to keep your attention. Recommended. Get a copy HERE.

Ranking January Reads

The year's first book ranking video is now out! In this video, Eric ranks his top ten reads of January 2025. This is the widest span of reading in the show's history - the 1800s all the way to 2024! All ten books are presented here with capsule reviews, loads of amazing artwork, and tidbits about authors. Stream below or on the YT channel HERE.