The Brooding Lake (aka Lamb to Slaughter)

Dorothy Eden was born in Canterbury Plains, New Zealand on April 3rd, 1912. She worked as a legal secretary before moving to London, England in 1954 to become a full-time writer. She is best known for her writings in the historical, suspense, and gothic genres. Her first novel, The Singing Shadows, was published in 1940. During her lifetime, she wrote more than 40 novels including, Let Us Prey, The Vines of Yarrabee, Melbury Square, The Shadow Wife, An Afternoon Walk, The Salamanca Drum, and An Important Family. She also contributed to several magazines, including Redbook and Good Housekeeping. She died of cancer on March 4, 1982 at the age of 69. 

From what the internet produced, Eden's The Brooding Lake was originally published by Ace in January 1963 as a gothic paperback. The book was published the same year in Europe as Lamb to the Slaughter. In the late 1970s, both Ace and Coronet recycled those same titles for paperback editions of the novel. I attempted to make the novel relevant again by teaming up with Nick from The Book Graveyard to review it on a recent podcast episode and video discussion.

In the book, protagonist Alice arrives in a sleepy New Zealand town after receiving an invitation from her friend Camilla. However, Alice is shocked to learn that Camilla isn't home upon her arrival. Instead, there's a mysterious note that suggests Camilla has run off with a man. It is up to Alice to discover that all is not what it seems in the town. There are some vague notions that Camilla had at least three different relationships with men in town. When Alice delves into Camilla's disappearance, she "lives" Camilla's life by striking up a friendship with two of the men. As the book progresses, Alice's life is in jeopardy as she inches closer to the truth.

The Brooding Lake emphasizes relationships and boundaries, both of which entangle the characters and the plot in a crafty way. This is an actual gothic novel, complete with all of the expected genre tropes like a stranger in a strange land, a large house in which the main character can flee, and a unique isolation that envelops the characters and reader. I found myself enthralled with the central mystery, and the plot moved along in an investigative way that was enjoyable. Recommended. Get it HERE.

Batman - Dead White

John Shirley (The Specialist, Traveler) has experience writing movie, game, comic, and television tie-in novels. He has authored books in the Alien, Predator, Hellblazer universe as well as gaming platforms like BioShock, Borderlands, Resident Evil, and Halo. I learned about his Batman novel, Dead White, when interviewing one of Shirley's writing protegees, David Agranoff. Dead White was published in paperback by Del Rey in 2006.

The plot concerns a white supremacist deemed White Eyes amassing a cult following through a network of high-tech weapons. When these weapons appear on the streets of Gotham, Batman swoops in to investigate. The novel's informative first-half hones in on Batman's search for the weapons and the various tentacles operating from White Eyes' operation. With this being a sort of “ret con” approach, Shirley is careful to explain that despite the year of 2006, Wayne is fairly new in the role of Batman. He's experimenting with what works, how to improve various technologies and systems, and the importance of maintaining a day/night contrast of the Wayne/Batman persona.

While Dead White is a Batman novel, it easily could have been one of Shirley's The Specialist adventures. I kept visualizing Jack Sullivan in place of Bruce Wayne. As the first-half closes, some of the book's action takes place in San Francisco through the eyes of a former Gotham policeman named Cormac. He's in California searching for his missing son. His investigation leads to a rural Pennsylvania mining town in the fictitious Hatchet Mountains. Cormac's arrival in the small town aligns with Batman's own arrival there to track down White Eyes' and his operation center.

While Batman purists may object to the body count, the high-rise levels of violence, and the overall mythology of the character, I felt that Shirley's novel was enjoyable and provided a sort of action-adventure fantasy that placed the Dark Knight in a type of vigilante Mack Bolan adventure. I did enjoy Shirley's introspective analysis of Batman hypnotically seeing the costume in various places, a representation that he's not only the suit, but the embodiment of justice. The costume appearing in the dark recesses of the cave, and at the height of battle scenes, was a neat admission that emphasizes the character's ambiguous struggle. 

Dead White is a men's action-adventure paperback worth pursuing no matter if you are a casual Batman fan or a hardcore Batfanatic. Recommended! Get the book HERE.

Conversations - The Book Graveyard

In this month’s installment of Guide to Gothics, Paperback Warrior teams up once again with Nick Anderson of The Book Graveyard to unearth a paperback relic: Dorothy Daniel’s The Tormented, a 1969 gothic suspense novel from Paperback Library. 

The book was successful enough to warrant two printings, one in 1971 and another in 1974. Since then, this book has lingered for decades in the shadowy corners of vintage gothic collections.

But does it earn its place among the genre’s atmospheric greats?

Together, we dissect the novel through our Gothic Litmus Test.

Stream the audio below, or watch the video on YouTube HERE.

Listen to "Conversations - The Book Graveyard" on Spreaker.

Sinister House of Secret Love #2

As I alluded to in my review of the debut in this DC Comics' title, The Sinister House of Secret Love, the concept was to create an ongoing gothic suspense publication that would capture the same market flavor as the genre's booming paperback business at the time. The first issue was published in September/October 1971, with this second installment hitting shelves in December/January of 1972. 

"To Wed the Devil", the lead story, is plotted by veteran comic illustrator Joe Orlando, and written by Len Wein (Batman, Superman). The artwork was created by Tony Dezuniga, a prolific artist that helped create the characters Jonah Hex and Black Orchid. This offers a little different flavor, compared to the prior issue's artist Don Heck and writer Mary Skrenes. 

In the opening chapter, a young woman named Sarah walks through a large mansion and descends a staircase to confront her father's dearest servant, an elderly woman named Agatha. In the confrontation, Sarah discovers that Agatha has been practicing witchcraft. Agatha defends her practice by stating the ritual is for Sarah to find true love. It is clear that Sarah despises Agatha and wants her removed from the mansion. Agatha seems sincere in her efforts, yet Sarah is possessing a seasoned hatred.

In the next chapters, readers are introduced to Sarah's charming boyfriend Justin, a man she hopes to marry. Yet, Sarah's father has another idea. He explains that the family fortune is in ruins, and that the only way to keep the mansion and business is a bank loan. Yet, the only financial institution that may provide funding to this failing family business is a man named Baron Dumont. The price? Sarah's hand in marriage. Sarah hesitantly agrees to go and live with Dumont and take his hand in marriage to save her father's legacy. To salt Sarah's emotional wounds, she's forced to bring Agatha along as her servant.

On the coach road to Dumont's estate, the caravan is robbed and Agatha is shot and killed. A masked rescuer appears and kills the robbers and takes Sarah safely to Dumont's mansion. Yet, things are really quite bizarre there. Dumont turns out to be the rescuer she encountered in the robbery. He degrades Sarah, kills her cat, and then offers her a life of servitude to his desires. When Sarah attempts to escape she is surprised to find Agatha alive. But, there's a plot twist here too delicious to spoil with my review.

As you can imagine, I was quite pleased with this issue. I loved the chemistry between Sarah and Agatha, an emotional relationship that builds throughout the issue – in life and death. Additionally, Sarah is a rather complex character, one that seems to be unjustified in her early motives to dismiss Agatha. The atmosphere in this genre is the main event, and Dezuniga's artwork using deep blues and bright yellow contrasts nicely with the setting's grand rooms and hallways. The twist caught me off guard, providing a Devilish climax. I also enjoyed the written Epilogue.

If you love a good gothic romp...this one is a riot. 

The One

What if your soulmate could be found with a simple DNA test? That’s the high-concept hook behind 2017’s The One, a fast-moving British thriller that fuses speculative science fiction with a dozen shades of psychological suspense. Marrs, a journalist turned novelist, imagines a near-future world where a company called Match Your DNA promises genetic certainty in love and then shows how that certainty detonates lives like hand grenades.

Marrs runs the story through multiple point-of-view characters, each with a “perfect match” that turns out to be anything but. There’s the lonely tech CEO who falls for a charming everyman, the guy who takes the test despite being in a committed relationship, and the woman whose “soulmate” is half a world away. Most interesting to Paperback Warrior readers will be Christopher, a London serial killer trying to break Jack the Ripper’s record. His match? A London police officer. Every chapter ends like a commercial break cliffhanger, pushing you to read just one more. The short chapters, alternating POVs, and cruel little reversals make this a straight shot of page-turning dopamine. 

Unlike most thrillers that hang everything on one big twist, The One delivers a dozen small detonations that build to a chilling moral: biology might find you the right partner, but it can’t fix what’s broken inside. This all leads to a giant twist that will leave your jaw on the floor. Marrs writes with the clean efficiency of a crime reporter and the dark curiosity of a pulp novelist. If Black Mirror spawned a relationship-drama baby, it would look a lot like this book. There are logic problems with the premise and plot holes you could drive a truck through, but if you turn off your brain and enjoy the ride, the payoffs are there.

Amazon classifies The One as the first book in his “Dark Future” series, but it’s not a series as much as three independent novels taking place in the same broad literary universe. Originally published in the U.K., The One was adapted into a poorly-reviewed Netflix miniseries in 2021. Don’t bother with the adaptation. The book remains the sharper weapon. For readers who like their speculative fiction spiked with graphic murders, forbidden romantic obsession, and ironic social satire, John Marrs’ The One is a modern-era pulp paperback worth your time. Match with this one HERE.

Planet of the Apes #02 - Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel Monkey Planet, published in French as Le Planete des singes, is the catalyst for a booming blockbuster franchise of movies, tie-in books, comics, magazines, and toys. The book's adaptation in 1968, Planet of the Apes, sparked 20th Century-Fox into creating original sequels to the film. In 1970, Beneath the Planet of the Apes was released to mixed  reviews, yet stirred up a $19 million dollar box office off of a budget of $2.5. 

The film was originally shopped to Rod Serling as a possible writer, then to Boulle, who wrote a draft that was later declined by producers. The end result was a group initiative led by director Ted Post, the film's actor James Franciscus, and a robust contribution from British writer Paul Dehn, who drew inspiration from the 1945 atomic bombings. Charlton Heston, the star of Planet of the Apes, hesitantly agreed to return briefly for Beneath, and offered script revisions and an apocalyptic approach to destroy the planet. That ending was scrapped by producers fearing it offered “no hope” in its conclusion. Yet, that version of the script made it to author Michael Avallone's box.

Film producers offered Avallone the opportunity to write a novelization of the film. Although his novel mostly stays consistent to the film we all know (aside from a weird ice thing at the beginning), the book's ending possesses the apocalyptic theme as an atomic bomb is detonated in the finale. It's an enjoyable book, and offers something a little different than the movie, but not a necessity. If you are an ape-man collector then this paperback is probably already in your collection. If not, don't bother. If you don't care about my opinion, get the book HERE. 

Conversations - John Shirley

Legendary writer John Shirley blasts into Paperback Warrior to talk crime, cyberpunk, and chaos. From his hard-boiled new novel The Silver Revolver to the upcoming streaming revival of his ’80s action series The Specialist, Shirley pulls no punches.

He opens up about writing for Blue Öyster Cult, collaborating with Todd McFarlane on Spawn, penning the darkly brilliant Batman novel Dead White, and crafting post-apocalyptic classics like Traveler and the futuristic thriller Stormland.

It’s a wild ride through the mind of one of fiction’s boldest visionaries—a must-listen for fans of pulp, punk, and pure storytelling power.

Stream the audio version on any podcasting platform. You can watch the video edition below or directly on YouTube HERE.