Star City Shopping

The Paperback Warrior hits the road again in search of vintage paperbacks. The spectacle continues to Virginia's iconic Star City of the South for stacks and stacks of antique juvenile fiction, Find Your Fate adventures, Fawcett Gold Medal westerns, and a look at vintage comics, Hot Rod magazines, and some nostalgic lunch boxes. It's a book shopping bonanza and it's happening right here! Watch below or stream on YouTube HERE.

Paperback Warrior Primer - Charles Williams

Charles K. Williams (1909-1975) is an iconic crime-fiction writer that mastered the genre with his unique blend of criminality, sex, and conversational narratives.  He authored 22 books and was one of the best-selling writers in the Fawcett Gold Medal stable. John D. MacDonald, touted by Stephen King as the “hardest of the hardboiled”, said that Charles Williams was probably the best among his peers but never got the break he needed. His most productive years were 1951 to 1960, an era that produced 17 published novels. 

We've written a great deal on Charles Williams here at Paperback Warrior. We also covered his life and body of work on Episode 56 of the podcast HERE. But, we wanted to offer up a Primer piece for fans and readers to continue celebrating his achievements. 

Williams was born in 1909 in San Angelo, Texas. Later his family relocated to Brownsville, Texas and Williams went to school there. In 1929, Williams dropped out of school in the 10th grade and enlisted with the U.S. Merchant Marine as a radio operator. It was there that he fell in love with the sea, an aquatic serenity that would later influence much of his writing. 

In 1939, Williams, now married to Lasca Foster, worked as an electronics inspector in Galveston, Texas. Three years later he acquired a job in Washington State at the Puget Sound Navy Yard. During WWII he worked as a wireless operator, radar technician, and radio service engineer as a civilian with the U.S Navy. In 1946, Williams moved to San Francisco to continue his radio inspector career. 

In the late 1940s Williams had begun working on a novel titled Hill Girl. He began shopping it to publishers in 1950 and it was published by Fawcett Gold Medal one year later. At the same time he experience a small taste of the dying pulps with his short story, “They'll Never Find Her Head”, published in Uncensored Detective in December 1950. The 40-year old author quit his day job to concentrate on writing.

Often the author's first three novels are referred to as “The Girl Trilogy” - Hill Girl (1951 Gold Medal), Big City Girl (1951 Gold Medal), and River Girl (aka Catfish Tangle, 1951 Gold Medal). In these books, Williams walks the line between a noir crime novel and forbidden romance story. Williams followed the success with his most well-respected novel, Hell Hath No Fury (aka The Hot Spot), published by Gold Medal in 1953. Anthony Boucher of The New York Times reviewed the book and described Williams' writing style as reminiscent of Cornell Woolrich and James M. Cain. 

The author's nautical suspense began to surface with his 1955 novel Scorpion Reef (aka Gulf Coast Girl), a book based on a novella titled Flight To Nowhere (Manhunt, September 1955). Williams' writing career evolved into more sea-bound stories and settings, evident with books like The Diamond Bikini (1956) and The Sailcloth Shroud (1960). One of his most popular novels is a two-book series starring a boat broker named John Ingram and his lover Rae. The two first appeared in the 1960 novel Aground and then re-appeared in the 1963 book Dead Calm. 

Twelve of Charles Williams novels were adapted into film or television works in the U.S., France, and Australia. The Texas native also contributed to six screenplays including the 1964 French film Les Felins based on Day Keene's crime-fiction novel Joy House. 

When his wife succumbed to cancer in 1972, Williams moved to a property located near the California and Oregon border. Suffering from depression, he relocated to Van Nuys, California and took his own life on April 5th, 1975. 

His novels and stories are critically-acclaimed and celebrated by publishers like Stark House Press and Hard Case Crime that continue to reprint classic crime-noir for future generations to enjoy. 

Get his Fawcett Gold Medal vintage paperbacks HERE. Reprints from Stark House Press HERE.

Line of Sight

In 2000, American historian Jack Kelly set aside his non-fiction writing to author a femme fatale noir novel in the tradition of James M. Cain. The book is called Line of Sight, and it’s quite a wild ride.

Our narrator is a cop named Ray Dolan. He’s a patrol officer in a fictional washed-up, decaying, former industrial town called Mansfield, New York. I’m guessing the author drew inspiration from the brick-strewn lots and burned-out factories in New York’s Hudson Valley where he resides.

Ray is a good cop. Honest and hardworking. 35 and single. In the opening scene, he intervenes when a fellow officer tries to beat a suspect with a blackjack. Later that night, he spies the family who just moved into the house behind him. Especially the wife, Sheila. Her husband is an asshole, and Ray quickly becomes infatuated.

We also get to see a lot of great policework from Ray, who is an outstanding and heroic cop. There’s an interesting sub-plot about a racially-tinged incident of excessive force by a fellow officer and the pressure Ray is feeling to engage in a cover-up for the greater good of the force.

As the secret romance between Ray and Sheila intensifies, Ray learns things about Sheila’s husband that would make any right-thinking man wish the guy was gone. It’s a crime-fiction novel, so you kinda see where things are headed. Or do you?

It takes awhile, but a murder does occur. The aftermath is completely bonkers — in a good way. Mark it in your mind. On Page 145, the paperback goes from a good-enough novel about a cop to something totally wild. You want jaw-dropping plot twists? Double-crosses? Patsies? Stool-Pigeons? This fantastic paperback has it all.

The author combines a twisty modern thriller with the femme fatale noir template created by James M. Cain (later honed by Gil Brewer, Harry Whittington, and Orrie Hitt) to create a crime fiction masterpiece. The book seems to be out of print at the moment, and that’s also a crime. Do what you need to do, but find a copy and read this book. Highest recommendation. Get a copy HERE.

A Taste of Terror

Martha Albrand (1914-1981, b. Heidi Huberta Freybe Loewengard) was a German-American novelist that earned France's highest crime-fiction award, Police Literature Grand Prize, for her 1948 novel After Midnight. The novel was adapted into film in 1950 as Captain Carey, U.S.A. starring Alan Ladd. Albrand's novels are critically-acclaimed high-tension novels that incorporated WW2 espionage themes. My only experience with the author is her late career effort A Taste of Terror, originally published in hardcover in 1976 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The book introduces readers to Kent, a commercial airline pilot living with his wife Kitty and their teenage daughter Kate in the American Northeast. Around three months prior Kent was forced to belly-flop his airplane due to icy conditions and runway gear that refused to descend on the approach to the landing strip. The landing created a fireball that fatally engulfed over 100 passengers and left many more crippled and hospitalized. As the book begins Kent himself is nursing a broken left hip and ankle. But the real pain is about to start. 

Kent receives a threatening letter in the mail. The anonymous sender states that Kent must commit suicide to atone for his errors in landing the plane. Further, if he doesn't commit suicide, the letter's sender will kill Kate. He's left with the choice of saving his daughter by killing himself or simply ignoring the threat and potentially risking his daughter's life. 

The plot of the book lured me right in. Unfortunately, that's the only thing Albrand could really cook up this late in her career. The plot is simply wasted as readers spend 200 pages succumbing to endless dialogue between Kent and Kitty over their marriage. Kitty has an affair, Kent pines over a female family friend, and Kate is semi-dating the 17-year old neighbor. Eventually, Kent hires a bodyguard that is completely out of her element and lets Kate become captured. The inept FBI (sure sure) doesn't follow up with leads, a private-eye is murdered, and all of these “highlights” of a tension-filled thriller are just one to two-page nods that should be important but aren't.

Overall, my first sampling of Albrand was a dreadful experience. However, this was a late career entry and should be a small sample size in the grand body of work. Her 1940s and 1950s novels are heralded as fine espionage thrillers and worth the price of admission. Let's call A Taste of Terror an experimental first bite that begs for a better meal.  

Conversations - Greg Shepard

Over the last seven years, Paperback Warrior has discussed, reviewed, promoted, and contributed to amazing Stark House Press publications. In this exclusive interview, Greg Shepard, Stark House's founder and editor, sits down with Eric to discuss his career in publishing, including Zebra's mass-market paperbacks in the 1980s and early 1990s, the humble beginnings of the Stark House name, working with the estates of heavyweight crime-fiction icons like Harry Whittington, Carter Brown, Lionel White, and the multiple series titles that he published and continues to publish. This insightful interview peers into the paperback publishing process from start to finish and offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the book business. Stream the audio only portion HERE. Stream the video below or on YouTube HERE.

Winterkill

Kathryn Johnson is a bestselling author of over 40 published novels. She was nominated for the Agatha Award and earned the Heart of Excellence and Bookseller's Best Awards. Her most well known work is The Gentlemen Poet, a novel that has Shakespeare escape to the New World. What drew me to her writing was the young-adult novels she wrote in the 1990s using the pseudonym Nicole Davidson. These were published by Avon under their young-adult imprint Avon Flare. I wanted to read her first novel, Winterkill. It was published in 1991.

Winterkill was written for young adults, however, after reading it, I can honestly say this is no different than any mystery from the early to mid 20th century. The narrative would also please horror readers - which is probably the young audience the cover catered to. I would imagine if you enjoy the childhood perspectives in books by the likes of John Saul, Dan Simmons, or even Stephen King, then that element is strongly used by Johnson - a vulnerable teen placed into extreme situations. 

The book stars Karen, a high school student that is forced to move with her parents to a small town in Vermont. This little town, which features a ski resort, is far different than Karen's New York City roots. There's a fish-out-of-water scenario with Karen initially becoming shy, self-sheltered, and protective in terms of negotiating her emotions at a new school with new people. Thankfully, Karen loosens up and befriends a fellow student named Matt and his popular friends. Matt and Karen begin dating.

Karen also befriends a less popular girl and develops a little rivalry with a local girl named Jerrie. One night at a party Matt tells Karen he has to leave for just a little bit but he will return. Karen gets worried and follows Matt only to see him run over in a hit and run. She can't make out the car through the snow and fog. Later, she discovers that her own car was used in the hit and run. But who would want to kill Matt? Why use her car to do it? Karen then sets out to solve the mystery by eliminating her fellow students as suspects. The finale of the book takes place on the ski slopes as Karen tries to outfox the killer. 

This book was a lot of fun and contained an absorbing mystery. In terms of young-adult novels, this one has some profanity, talk about sex, and of course at least one murder. Again, in comparison to early 20th century mystery fiction, there isn't anything too far out of bounds from just a straight up traditional mystery novel. There is a hint of the supernatural, but it is subjective. Karen's necklace was handed down to her from her grandmother. The necklace has opals that change color depending on how much danger Karen is in. Now, it could just be the lighting or some type of scientific explanation of the weather affecting the stones. There's no clear answer on this, so it is up to the reader to determine if there was something supernatural involved. Personally, I don't think so.

Winterkill was a lot of fun and I have a few other books by this same author I'm willing to read now. If they are as good as this then I'd be very pleased. Recommended. Get the book HERE.

The Butcher #26 - The Terror Truckers

Along with a couple of contributions from Lee Floren, The Butcher series was authored by James Dockery until October 1977. This 26th installment, The Terror Truckers, proved to be the last Butcher novel to be published for over two years. The publishing hiccup by Pinnacle was due to Dockery leaving the series (or being dismissed?) and the title finding a suitable author. By December 1979 literary journeyman Michael Avallone was brought in for the remaining nine books. 

The Terror Truckers is an unusual men's action-adventure novel. Aside from the obligatory graphic sex-scene, which is pretty darn dirty, this book could work as a juvenile fiction novel. It features a young boy and his dog assisting Bucher in his case to disrupt criminals gassing the heartland of America. It is literally Lassie meets The Butcher. If I'm lying' I'm dyin'. 

The book begins, like all Butcher installments, with the entire first chapter consisting of Bucher's abandonment by his parents, his childhood at the orphanage, and his later recruitment into the Mob as a a hitman. The author then goes into Bucher's reversal to back out of nefarious activities, the bounty on his head offered by the Syndicate, and his involvement now with the shadowy good-guy organization White Hat. Par for the course, two Mob gunners (always named something like Mazulli or Lorenzo), try to kill Bucher in the first chapter and he gives them the 'ole KOOSH! That's Batman for the sound of a silenced Walther P38 spouting a 9mm dumdum. 

The Terror Truckers plot consists of a group of domestic terrorists unleashing mysterious gas on the farming community of Dayton, Ohio (official home of The Book Graveyard booktuber). The gas spews from tanker trucks (“thermos bottles” in trucker jargon) and it is up to Bucher to delve into the mystery. Bucher's journey to Dayton from New York is met with an incident on the road from the truckers. It turns out there is a leak within White Hat and the terror truckers know Bucher is on the case! The next logical step is for Bucher to eat at a truckstop and then ravish and horizontal bop a beautiful waitress later that night. 

Soon, Bucher is thrust into the chaos and fights the truckers on the highway, at a local farmhouse, and then at a covert meeting in Pittsburgh. But his unlikely ally isn't the partner White Hat sends in for a rare assist. Instead, it's a young farm kid named Lem and his Lassie-imitating canine hero Old Ben. Lem is sporting a .22 rifle and has enough spunk and determination to save Bucher's bacon a time or two.

The Terror Truckers is a fun pulpfest that never takes itself seriously. My early readings of this series was met with disappointment due to my lofty Mack Bolan-esque expectations. The Butcher is modern pulp with zany villains, outrageous fighting sequences, impossible heroic saves, and a colorful character that is on the same pages as any Black Mask superhero from the early 20th century. Butcher is Black Bat...not Bolan. Once you figure that out then the series makes way more sense and can be enjoyed for what it is – senseless fun with predictability. Get The Terror Truckers HERE.