Lady Wrestler

The Gardner Francis Fox Library, established in 2018 by Kurt Brugel, has created a remarkable resource to explore the author's life and literary work. Along with information about the writer, the online library offers a robust selection of Fox's novels and pulp stories in ebook and audiobook formats. You can obtain affordable digital copies of sexy spy series titles like Cherry Delight and Lady from L.U.S.T. or sword-wielding tales starring Kothar or Kyrik. Thankfully, the library also includes numerous Fox stand-alone novels that he wrote under pseudonyms. One of those, Lady Wrestler, was published by Midwood (F193) in 1962 under Fox's pseudonym of James Harvey. Vintage copies of the paperback net over $200, but I was able to purchase the book for two bucks. 

The novel opens with Bella Woods completing a short, ill-fated run of a Broadway performance. The experience left her financially devastated, emotionally depleted, and her body abused by the show's perverted producer. In bed with the sleazy promoter, Bella comes to the realization she needs a change and new life goals. An interview with a male model and entrepreneur opens up a world of possibilities: Pro-Wrestling. 

Brick hires Bella to join his budding stable of female wrestlers. With these eight ladies, Brick hopes to secure a few local bookings, tap into the market share of male pro-wrestling, and secure a television deal. It's all on the up and up, and Bella rightfully trusts Brick and his tunnel vision.

Bella arrives at Brick's family farm house and meets the other wrestlers. There are women there who use gimmicks like an obese jungle native, a tatted carnival oddity, a royal Queen, a revolting slave, etc. Needless to say, it is a colorful house filled with diversity and different perspectives. Bella's conflict is with a rival ex-Broadway star named Charlotte, that is sleeping with Brick. Her other conflict is with Brick's sister, a domineering lesbian named Cleo, who rapes Bella during her first night at the house.

Through Lady Wrestler's narrative, readers enjoy the rags-to-riches rise of these eight women from bingo halls to a local television program. Fox weaves a multitude of minor plot points that include Brick's financial struggles, Bella's romantic flings with Brick, Cleo's uprising, and the lifestyles of a few minor characters both in and out of the ring. The most satisfying plot point is a lawsuit from the television producers over Bella's indecent exposure on their programming. 

After watching the Netflix show GLOW, which fictionally documents the rise and fall of the women's Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling organization in the 1980s, I found so many interesting comparisons to this 1962 paperback. The characters, the TV deal, the promoter, the lifestyles – all of this is remarkably told by Fox nearly two decades before G.L.O.W. first aired on television in 1986. 

If you enjoy pro-wrestling, then you will really enjoy Lady Wrestler. The gimmicks and wrestling personalities were thoroughly enjoyable, and I liked Bella's perspective of being new to the industry. However, Fox was just a serviceable writer, never great but never dull. His writing leaves something to be desired, but nonetheless has enough variance and texture to bring these characters to life, albeit a little wonky on dialogue. 

For $1.99 you can't go wrong. Get Lady Wrestler HERE. 

Matt Helm #06 - The Ambushers

Donald Hamilton's sixth installment of the Matt Helm series, The Ambushers, was published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1963. The book was loosely adapted into a comedic spy film in 1967 with star Dean Martin. As the old saying goes, the books are always better than the movies. The Ambushers is proof positive.

The book begins with Helm in a place he describes vaguely as “let's call it Costa Verde”, an unknown banana country in South America. His mission is to carry a heavy sniper rifle through the jungle, meet up with a resistance fighter named Jimenez, and help assassinate the country's newest political rival. After snubbing a revolution, Helm's job is through, and he can head back to Washington. But like most Helm novels, things don't go quite according to plan. During the successful assassination, Helm finds two surprises. First, a nuclear warhead that was probably smuggled from the Russians. Second, a former Nazi senior leader whom Helm recognizes from a prior mission. 

In Washington, Helm receives a backhanded compliment from his direct Mac – praise for succeeding on the assignment. But Mac's associates scold Helm for ignoring two international threats during the mission. Defensively, cool-headed Helm dismisses their Monday morning quarterbacking and expresses interest in his next mission.

The fallout from the assassination is now spreading into southern New Mexico. In a quiet suburb, the former Nazi leader that Helm identified is now setting up shop for a new movement. Helm's job is to team with a reserved, previously traumatized agent named Sheila to expose the leader and quell this new Nazi uprising. 

Hamilton's prose is a smooth telling of espionage in a conversational tone. Both Helm and Sheila work well together, creating a cohesive fighting pair that both complement each other's scarred pasts. When the two find themselves at odds with a Russian spy (lovely as ever) they must jeopardize the mission to stop a much larger threat. There's plenty of mountainous terrain, gunfire, fisticuffs, and tepid lovemaking, but the real main event is always Helm's thoughts. In a generous first-person perspective, Helm talks to the reader in a way that is just uniquely captivating. 

I paired my reading of Hamilton's narrative with listening to Stefan Rudnicki's gripping audio narration. Either way, your experience with The Ambushers will be thrilling. Highly recommended. Get a modern reprint HERE or vintage copies HERE.

Pack Animals

I've always admired Greg F. Gifune's writing and have covered his books here on the blog and on the YT channel. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to exclusively reveal his newest book's cover, a glorious piece by the talented Zach McCain, an internationally published artist who also created visually striking artwork for Gifune's 2022 horror novella Savages (Cemetery Dance). Since seeing the cover for Pack Animals (Macabre Ink), I've been anxiously counting the days until the book's release. Finally, the hunt is over. Or is it?

Thankfully, Gifune's writing style - an effective combination of visceral violence and horrifying psychosis - takes on one of my favorite aspects of horror. Like Savages, the early description for Pack Animals was a homage to the survival, late-night horror films of the 1970s and 1980s. Films like The Pack, Day of the Animals, The Howling, and Grizzly all sprang into my mind. This was the VHS market I grew up in in the 1980s and early 1990s, and I'm always searching for that same nostalgia in pop culture.

Pack Animals begins with an unknown woman arriving at a medical facility. Inside, she learns that her husband, or boyfriend, has experienced a significant trauma and now remains in a state of mental shock as his body recovers from exhaustive injuries. Inside his room, there's this heavy vacuum that seemingly sucks the hope from the room. The man is despondent and silent as he fixates on something far beyond the hospital, far beyond anything the two of them can understand.

As the book's narrative unfolds, Gifune then takes readers back to the start to explain the happenings and surroundings that have crushed the man's body and spirit. The author introduces a group of thirty-something male friends starting with Truck. He has experienced infidelity, a divorce, and a type of midlife crisis reassembling his life. He moves to an off-the-grid place nestled deep in the rural mountains of New Hampshire. Yet his peace and tranquility are shattered routinely with night visitors that hover in the treeline. Truck's defense is a shotgun, a handgun, and lots of ammunition, which sends up red flags for the tiny community. They don't trust outsiders and send one of their own to warn Truck to keep the peace. 

Later, Truck's assemblage of friends arrives to spend a week with him in his newfound mountain oasis. On their drive to Truck's house, they see an old woman in a bloody nightgown walking through the forest. Later, at Truck's house, they discover there's no phone signal. This isolation becomes alarming when they find Truck's behavior unsettling. He warns the group to leave before dark, before the visitors arrive. When they refuse, Truck provides them with details on something, or someone, that he chained up in his shed. Is Truck insane, or does the darkness bring a host of Hell?

I'm careful with reviewing Gifune's work because it is subjective. Many of his novellas and full-length novels play havoc with your imagination. Many of the horrors in the author's work present themselves differently depending on the reader. However, there's no denying that Pack Animals is a monster story. The book's cover, title, and synopsis suggest a werewolvish type of reading experience, and I believe the lead into the book's release promises survival horror. But it still possesses many of the ingredients that make Gifune's writing so good. 

Truck's move to the country reminds me of the events leading to Lance Boyce's move to snowy Maine in the excellent Lords of Twilight, one of Gifne's best. The disturbing arrival of the town sheriff called to mind the arrival of Bob in Gifune's equally entertaining The Rain Dancers. The idea of average individuals stranded and cold is a concept that Gifune often uses, most effectively in Midnight Solitaire. However, as much as Gifune uses his old tricks to scare us, it isn't simply a recycle. With Pack Animals, Gifune takes all of these elements and thrusts them into an action-oriented, fast-paced survival yarn that is bone-jarring horror, but equally a white-knuckled thriller. It is compared to Gifune's Savages, which is a fair comparison, but also something like Oasis of the Damned. These stories and concepts work well because they pit vulnerable, everyday people into harrowing fight-or-flight situations that push the boundaries of mental awareness and physical exhaustion. 

I could write for days on Greg Gifune's work and how much of an impact he's made not only as an author, but also as an editor. It is novels like Pack Animals that remind me just how great a storyteller he is. If you are searching for an enjoyable action-oriented monster novel, pack your bags for Pack Animals. It's a trip worth taking.

Get the book HERE.

Random Notes – I jotted down a few things as I was reading the book that didn't necessarily fit the review. The sheriff's name of Leland made me think of the nefarious shopkeeper and rival of Sheriff Pangborn, Leland Gaunt, the star of Stephen King's Needful Things. There's a character mentioned at the end of Pack Animals named Maynard. This seems like a nod to Herman Raucher's classic horror paperback Maynard's House. It would be remiss of me not to say that Michael McBride's own monster novel Snowblind came to mind as well. Both Pack Animals and Snowblind should now be the high-water mark of the survival horror genre. 

Condemned to Devil's Island

Blair Niles (1880-1959) was a Virginia native that authored non-fictional accounts of global human suffrage and fictional novels that expressed commentary on social issues. She was a founding member of the Society of Women Geographers and was honored with a Women's National Book Award. I'm always searching for an entertaining prison-themed adventure, so I decided to read her novel Condemned to Devil's Island, which was published as a hardcover in 1928 and adapted into a film in 1929.

Niles authored the book after interviewing an unnamed French prisoner, named “Michael” in the book, that was serving a sentence at the notorious Bagne de Cayenne, referred to as “Devil's Island”, in French Guiana. In flashback scenes, readers learn of Michael's servitude to a Russian Prince and his descent into criminality, leading to a temporary prison sentence in France before being sentenced to seven years of hard labor on the island. 

When the book begins, Michael is jovial about the trip, looking forward to the passage by boat to the island and seeing a new land full of possibilities. He makes friends with another inmate named Felix and the two converse about their pasts and the opportunities that lie ahead on this new island of imprisonment. Despite the horrific aura of Devil's Island, Michael is in a blissful state of denial. He never seems to fully grip his real undertaking here.

As the book expands into the cumbersome chores of prison life, Michael becomes a type of prison courier that works in the village. At night he's behind bars in the less restrictive dormitory portion of the facility, and by day he socializes and gathers gossip that he later trades for various  goods in the prison. Eventually Michael develops a relationship with a warden's wife in town and makes a few escape attempts to no avail.

Condemned to Devil's Island isn't a men's action-adventure prison break novel. Instead, this is simply a character study in the form of a tepid melodrama about Michael's hopes and desires behind prison walls. In fairness, I barely finished the book and found myself skipping entire sections of pointless deliberation between characters over tedious things. This book was a sluggish bore and I can't recommend it to anyone. If you want a more inspiring prison-break adventure try Henri Charriere's Papillon (1969), Peter McCurtin's Escape from Devil's Island (1971), or Rene Belbenoit's Dry Guillotine (1938).

Time to Kill

Ted Stratton was a pulp author who wrote a 1953 Popular Library paperback called Time to Kill published under the pseudonym of Terry Spain. It’s basically an entertaining Mike Hammer ripoff, and it was recently reprinted by Cutting Edge Books.

Mack Berry is a hardboiled private eye assigned to collect intel on a local mobster named Dominic Parente. The racketeer’s organization sold marijuana to a teen girl who (of course) progressed immediately to heroin, overdosed and died. The dead girl’s dad hired Mack to do the gumshoe work to dismantle Parente’s dope operations in this rural New Jersey county.

Among the way, Mack encounters an array of hoodlums, crooked cops and two-timing dames who are itching to bang the PI. Mack also knows how to crack some skulls, and the fight scenes are vividly executed in his one man war against the mafia. Time to Kill is fast-moving, bruising, sincere, and unapologetically thrilling.

1953 was a year when Mickey Spillane could drop a Mike Hammer novel and outsell the Bible, and every aspiring pulp writer was trying to bottle the same mix of bruised masculinity and righteous mayhem. Taken in that context, Stratton’s pastiche is right on the money.

If you like novels where the hero saves the day but pays for it physically and emotionally, this is your kind of book. Just don’t expect a masterpiece. Get it HERE. 

The Outlaw Breed

William Byron Mowery (1899-1957) was one of the most prolific writers of early adventure pulp stories, amassing a robust catalog of nearly 400 short stories. He earned degrees from both Ohio State University and the University of Illinois and taught English at the University of Texas. His “north woods” stories can be found in magazines like Argosy, Adventure, Ace-High, and Blue Book. Several of his novels and stories were adapted into films like The Mysterious Pilot and Heart of the North. Cutting Edge Books has made a concentrated effort to feature Mowery's novels in new digital and physical formats, including his 1936 novel Outlaw Breed. The book is available in a stand-alone edition as well as a bonus novel in the publisher's unique digital collection, Canadian Westerns: Four Full Novels. 

In Outlaw Breed, Noel, a former Inspector of the Canadian Mounted Police, becomes embroiled in a murder mystery that reaches into the dense, rugged landscape of Canada's Manitoba region. When a young man named Jimmy is shot to death at Noel's apartment, the former policeman begins an investigation into the murder. Noel's torn between his former allegiance to Canada's law-enforcement authorities, specifically his ex-boss, and his stand-alone determination to chase his own form of justice for Jimmy.

When Noel flies into the rural areas of the Canadian interior, he is immediately assaulted by a gang of hired men. Eventually, Noel finds solace and cooperation from his least likely ally, a sharpshooting woman named Alice who has a close tie to Jimmy. The two combine their resources and track down the heart of the mystery, gold deposits on land owned by a tribe of Indigenous people. 

Mowery's effective use of a pandemic affecting this tribe, and the chaotic pursuit of hired guns trailing both Noel and Alice, make for a plot propulsive narrative that captures some of modern western's most inspiring tropes – a hardened hero, majestic locales, and a rich storytelling experience that showcases culture and tradition among the land's inhabitants. Outlaw Breed is top-notch! Get the book HERE.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 125

In this energetic year-end episode, Eric looks back at a wildly productive 2025 for Paperback Warrior — packed with reviews, interviews, collaborations, and behind-the-scenes adventures. He shares big milestones, surprising personal updates, and a rapid-fire countdown of his Top 10 Reads of the Year (spoiler-free!). Eric also teases exciting projects coming in 2026, including new partnerships, publishing work, and podcast appearances. It’s a fast, fun celebration of a landmark year and a perfect jumping-on point for listeners old and new. Stream the episode below or any podcasting platform. You can also download HERE and watch on YouTube HERE.

Listen to "Episode 125: Top Reads of 2025" on Spreaker.