The Crooked Circle (Too Many Murderers)

Before writing house-name adventure paperbacks in popular series titles including The Aquanauts, Nick Carter: Killmaster, John Eagle: Expeditor and Richard Blade, author Manning Lee Stokes (1911-1976) was already successful in a variety of genres. In 1951, Graphic Books published his paperback original crime novel titled The Crooked Circle, and the book was re-released by the same publisher as Too Many Murderers in 1955. The novel has found new life as a modern trade paperback from Oregon publisher Armchair Fiction.

Our narrator is a 40 year-old, rather unsuccessful ex-cop turned private eye named Steve Paget in fictional Steel City, USA (think Cleveland or Pittsburgh). Against all odds, Steve lands a new client, an eccentric rich guy named Jeff Torrance, who wants to pay Steve good money to have sex with Torrance’s pretty and long-legged wife. I won’t spoil the reason behind this indecent proposal, but after some in initial resistance, Steve agrees to the undercover seduction for a $100,000 fee. Business is business after all, and Mrs. Torrance is a tasty little dish.

Along the way, Steve gets beaten with a wrench and must contend with a dead body that could derail his future plans. Most of the action in the novel’s second half takes place on a remote estate where Steve is pretending to be a guest of the Torrance family looking for an opportunity to seduce the lady of the house and complete his mission. There are long stretches in the paperback where not much happens, and Steve fails to have enough charisma to fully carry the story devoid of any action.

Things pick up quite a bit as we near the climax and the double-crossing gamesmanship among the cast escalates. A murder plot is hatched that becomes a somewhat brilliant and cinematic set piece worth the wait. The Crooked Circle was a decent novel but nothing special until the satisfying ending. It’s interesting to read Stokes’ work before he became a go-to series-novel hired hand. If you can stand some uneven pacing at the paperback’s midsection, the reward at the end is pretty great.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Red Radford #01 - Black Legion

John Robb (1917-1993) was a British journalist and author of science fiction, westerns, gangster thrillers, and war stories who was born with the name Norman Robson but legally changed his name to his popular pseudonym. In 1960 and 1961, Robb authored three short adventure novels starring Interpol agent Red Radford that were originally published as small hardcovers (Hardy Boys style) in England, but these definitely aren’t children’s books.

“Black Legion” is the first Red Radford novel from 1960. The novel opens at a French Foreign Legion outpost in the Sahara desert. A half-dead Arab stumbles into the Legionaries with a story too outrageous to be true. He claims that a cadre of French soldiers came to his village, gunned down two men, and forced the rest into slavery. Later, the French began hearing more rumors of fighter jets overhead and heavy artillery weapons hidden among the rocks and chasms of the desert. Who are these rogue soldiers and what are their ties to the French Foreign Legion, if any?

British Special Agent Hugh “Red” Radford, assigned to Interpol in Paris, is given the assignment to travel to Africa, embed with the Foreign Legion, and investigate these reports of a rogue detachment of Legionnaires menacing villagers in the desert. Out of an abundance of caution, Radford adopts a cover as a British-born officer of the Legion on a map-making survey. The character of Radford reminded me of a combination of Edward Aaron’s Sam Durrell and Hollywood’s Indiana Jones with a pulp hero’s earnestness.

Once in the field, it becomes abundantly clear that the mysterious fighters holed up in the massive Sahara ravine plateau have advanced war-making firepower and murderous intent. Radford and a couple sidekicks - an American and a Frenchman - set out in a helicopter to find the truth. The adversaries he encounters are diabolical and compelling as all hell with a plot that can only be stopped by the bravery and ingenuity of a spy like Radford.

“Black Legion” is a fantastic combo of a spy adventure with a compelling mystery. The international fighting force of the French Foreign Legion provides an interesting culture within which our hero operates. The novel wastes no time before plunging Radford and the reader into the bloody action and intelligent intrigue. There are suicide missions, bloodthirsty, locust-eating Arabs, and graphic knife fights. Radford is a a great hero, and the author knows his way around exciting action sequences, literary combat and vivid chase scenes filled with daring adventure for pages upon pages. There are several scenes in the novel that beg to be filmed in a big screen adaptation, and I’m surprised no one has made that happen.

Ignore the vintage packaging that recalls children’s books of the same era. There’s no way this novel was written for kids - unless your teen has a particular interest in the bad-blood arising from the French occupation of Algeria. That said, you don’t really need to know anything about the region, the history, or the politics to enjoy the hell out of “Black Legion.” Western spies battling desert lunatics is a timeless storyline that transcends any particular conflict or era. I was overjoyed to read this pulp thrill-ride and can’t wait to read the other two books in the series.

Lou Largo #01 - All I Can Get

Before his untimely death at the age of 38 in 1960, William Ard was on a roll writing popular mystery fiction under his own name as well as the Buchanan westerns under the pseudonym Jonas Ward. Ard’s demise interrupted his Lou Largo series of hardboiled private eye novels, but the character lived on through later installments written by ghost writers Lawrence Block and John Jakes before they became famous. Ard’s first two Lou Largo novels are expensive collector’s items, but they have been reprinted in a single volume by Ramble House Books providing an affordable opportunity to enjoy the 1959 opening installment, All I Can Get.

Largo is a charming and wisecracking Manhattan private investigator with a difficult client: a wealthy media mogul named Milton Weston. Largo is hired to perform a background check on Mr. Weston’s new infatuation - a gold-digging chippy that he intends to make his eighth wife. The tycoon is thoroughly uninterested in hearing the truth about the party girl and refuses to pay Largo’s fee at a time when Largo’s reserve funds are running thin.

Ard begins the Lou Largo debut in a fun, lighthearted style that recalls the Carter Brown mysteries featuring over-the-top, wealthy eccentrics who Largo is forced to endure for business and economic reasons. And then things take a very clever turn. Nothing is as it seems in the opening act of this deceptively simple novel. Through a non-linear storyline with early-novel flashbacks and flash-forwards reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the reader is treated to the story behind the story, and we learn that Largo has a little deception in his heart as well regarding the girl. This early-plot twist catapults All I Can Get from a simple, lighthearted crime novel into something bordering on brilliant. And sexy. 

While never veering into pornography or graphic descriptions of lovemaking, All I Can Get was surprising explicit for a 1959 novel. I couldn’t imagine sex scenes like this in 1952 as the world apparently just wasn’t ready at that point. Seven years later, here we are. The sex scenes work because they have real context and help to explain the decisions the characters make throughout this well-crafted paperback.

As the story progresses, it becomes clear that the doomed romance between the millionaire and the sexpot is actually the subplot, not the main dish. The real story involves the Cuban syndicate based out of Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood and a newspaper rivalry in a nearby beach town. Lou Largo isn’t even present for a large part of the book’s second act. But sure enough, Ard weaves these threads into the early-novel story of Largo, Mr. Weston and his new fiancé. All of this leads to a genuinely exciting and violent conclusion.

This is a tough book to review because I don’t want to spoil anything for you. If you enjoy crime fiction and can appreciate truly exceptional writing in the genre, you’re bound to be pleased with All I Can Get. It’s as if Ard took a close look at the dumb-but-fun private-eye sub-genre (think Richard Prather’s Shell Scott books) and asked himself “How can I turn this formula on its ear, and make it something that transcends the genre?”

Ard writes in a style popularized by Ed McBain in his 87th Precinct series. Basically, it’s a third-person narration with doses of personality and commentary sprinkled into the action with the omniscient point of view. It makes for a fun read, and Ard’s humorous narrative quips are a delight. It gives the reader the sense that you’re in good hands with Ard as your tour guide on this twisty paperback ride.

The downside is that Ard is considered to be a “collectible” author by the types of people who buy vintage paperbacks, encase them in plastic, and never read a word. Thank heavens Ramble House has compiled the first two books in the series into a single trade paperback volume titled Calling Lou Largo, which you can purchase HERE. However you get your hands on a reading copy of All I Can Get, please do so. It’s something special.

Addendum

Lou Largo Series Order and True Authors:

1. All I Can Get (1959) by William Ard
2. Like Ice She Was (1960) by William Ard
3. Babe in the Woods (1960) by Lawrence Block
4. Make Mine Mavis (1961) by John Jakes
5. And So to Bed (1962) by John Jakes
6. Give Me This Woman (1962) by John Jakes

Wraiths of the Broken Land

S. Craig Zahler (born January 23, 1973, in Miami, Florida) is a multi-talented artist: a screenwriter, film director, composer, cinematographer, novelist, illustrator and heavy metal musician. After studying film at NYU, he built a career behind the camera and on the page. Zahler gained acclaim for hard‑bitten, violent dialogue‑driven films such as Bone Tomahawk (2015), Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017), and Dragged Across Concrete (2018), all of which he wrote, directed, and scored. Alongside his cinematic work, he’s penned several novels and graphic stories—his debut western, A Congregation of Jackals (2010), earned Spur and Peacemaker award nominations

2013’s Wraiths of the Broken Land stands as Zahler’s second western novel. It’s a relentless, genre-blending journey: half-pulp western and half-extreme horror. Beyond its popularity with readers, the novel drew Hollywood attention—20th Century Fox acquired film rights in 2016 for a film adaptation that has yet to happen.

It is 1902 and the book begins rather shockingly with an opium-addicted young woman named Yvette being held against her will as a forced prostitute in Mexico. The living conditions are grotesque, but resistance is futile due to her debilitating addiction. Soon thereafter, the reader meets her sister, Dolores, also an enslaved prostitute being held in a separate room by the same psycho Mexicans.

We then meet Nathaniel Stromler, age 26. He’s an erudite dandy of a gentleman in serious financial dire straits who has taken a job to ride along with the men of the Plugford family on a mission: recover the family daughters, Yvette and Dolores.

Nathanial is needed because he is bilingual and can pass for a gentleman john. He’s their ticket inside the kidnappers’ lair as a prospective client seeking to defile some captive white girls. The search for the sisters takes Nathanial and Team Plugford into the depths of Mexico from one promising lead to another in search of the brothel from Hell.

The scenes leading up to the rescue attempt are rather satisfying but the getaway’s immediate aftermath is less compelling. Pages upon pages of bickering among the Plugfords became tiresome as the novel’s secondary mystery of how the girls wound up as human sexual chattel is explored.

Things pick back up again with the backstory of the girls’ enslavement and a climactic confrontation between the opposing parties, but there was too much time on the road and scenes with characters waiting for something to happen.

To be clear, there’s plenty to enjoy about Wraiths of the Broken Land and Zahler is one of the great storytellers of our time. The problem is that this novel vastly pales in comparison to his other western, A Congregation of Jackals and his masterpiece crime novel, The Slanted Gutter. Those paperbacks spoiled me with their greatness while Wraiths was just good. If you’re trying to read them all (and I am), prioritize the other two first.

Get S. Craig Zahler books HERE.

Killing Cousins

Fletcher Flora (1914-1968) was born in Kansas and served in the U.S. Army during World War 2. After the war, he became a mystery writer while continuing to serve as an Education Advisor to the Army. The promise of sex in his novels is always front and center in the marketing, but his stories were never as graphic as the tawdry covers promised. Flora’s Killing Cousins was a 1960 hardcover later reprinted in 1961 as an Ace Double and several other times since then. It’s currently available as both an ebook and audiobook.

Willie is married to Howard, but she’s also the town slut in their affluent suburb of Kansas City. It seems that a sizable number of men in the town - certainly at their country club - have taken their turn with Willie over the years. One some level, Howard knows this is happening and chooses to look the other way like a good cuckold.

All this changes when Howard catches his wife servicing his brainy cousin, Quincy. Willie’s infidelity with a family member is a bridge too far, and Howard packs his bags to leave Willie once and for all. This leads to an altercation in which Willie shoots Howard dead with a pistol in their home. No spoilers here - this early-novel killing is disclosed in the opening pages.

Of course, this is just the novel’s setup. The heart of the story is how Willie deals with the dead body of her husband lying in her bedroom. She enlists the help of her lover Quincy to manage the disposal of his cousin’s corpse while planning the elaborate cover-up together.

Flora writes Killing Cousins in a breezy and darkly humorous style reminiscent of a good episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This tonal choice makes sense as the author sold dozens of stories to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and anthologies throughout his writing career. The focus is not on the horror of Willie’s infidelities and husband-killing but rather how she and Quincy navigate suburban norms and niceties in their attempt to get away with it.

I enjoyed the hell out of this short novel and you probably will too with three important caveats: First, all the characters are pretty reprehensible, so there’s no hero to really get behind. Second, it’s not an action-packed novel at all. It’s more like a chess match between the protagonists and the their obstacles. Lastly, this is a crime novel, not a mystery. There are twists and surprises along the way, but there’s nothing for the reader to solve. None of these issues detracted from my enjoyment of the book, but you should know what you’re getting. Recommended. 

Purchase a copy of this book HERE

Snapshot, 1988

I can remember a time, long ago, when you had to mention that author Joe Hill was Stephen King's son. No one knew who the Hell Joe Hill was. But, times have certainly changed, progressions made, and, despite that I just wrote about the King connection, it is no longer necessary. Joe Hill is a household name. He's created his own successful bibliography, his own creations – his own empire. 

Hill's novel NOS4A2 (2013) was a hit, prompting AMC to create a television series based on it. The same could be said for his novel Horns (2010), which was adapted into a film starring Harry Potter (or Daniel Radcliffe if you must). At the time of this writing, Black Phone has just disconnected from theaters, a film based on Hill's eponymous 2004 short-story. Hill excels in the graphic novel format as well, with popular series titles like Locke & Key (2008-2013), which was adapted into a series by Netflix, and Basketful of Heads, the first in a new DC imprint called Hill House Comics, shepherded by the author.

After reading Hill's novels Heart-Shaped Box (2007), NOS4A2 (2013), The Fireman (2016), and short-story collection 20th Century Ghosts (2005), I've developed a fondness for the author's writing style. After recently watching Black Phone, I went all-in on Joe Hill. I'm watching Locke and Key, downloaded a few of his comics, and just read the novella Snapshot, 1988, the subject of this review. It was originally published by the literary magazine Cemetery Dance, October 2016. It was later published as Snapshot in the collection Strange Weather (2017), along with three other novellas written by Hill. In 2016, Universal purchased the rights to the story for a future film release. 

The story is told in present day, first-person narrative by Mike Figleone. He's recounting for the reader the events that happened to him at the age of 13, way back in 1988. Michael is like the nerdy kid from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He's a complete whiz-kid, a future Silicon Valley heavyweight. His mother is a bestselling author that ran away to Africa, leaving just Mike and his Dad to fend for themselves.

One day, Mike escorts his senile senior neighbor Shelly back to her house. She complains to him that she's been plagued by a “Polaroid Man”. Of course, Shelly's husband, and Mike, know this statement is just connected to her dementia. But, Mike runs into the Polaroid Man at a gas station the same day. Through a wild series of events, Mike finds a man that can take your picture with a special kind of camera. But, each photograph taken erases parts of your memory. Maybe Shelly's on to something with this whole Polaroid Man paranoia. 

Snapshot, 1988 is a gem. It blends horror, fantasy and science-fiction into the perfect cocktail. The message on dementia and growing old wasn't lost, and, while not being preachy, reminds us of the true terror of big-tech and of future things to come. Mike is easily lovable and offers up some funny, candid commentary that's just right on the nose. It's easy to overdose on 80s nostalgia with so many movies, reboots and throwbacks saturating pop-culture. Thankfully, Hill doesn't overdo the era and offers just enough to keep the story from being indulgent. 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Snapshot, 1988 also features cameo appearances from Hill's other work, most notably Black Phone and Locke and Key. If you aren't aware of those creations, then these Easter Eggs will just roll on. Also, like his prior work, Hill connects to his Dad with a mention of the Stand by Me soundtrack, an obvious nod to King's novella The Body, which the movie was based on. 

Overall, there's nothing to dislike about Snapshot, 1988, and there's nothing left to elaborate on without spoiling the plot. Take my word for it, the novella is darn near perfect and highly, highly recommended. Take a shot. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Predator - Concrete Jungle

Nathan Archer was a pseudonym employed by science fiction and fantasy author Lawrence Watt-Evans for the publication of a 1995 media-tie in paperback, Predator: Concrete Jungle. The book was based on the 1989 Dark Horse Comics graphic novel with the same title by Mark Verheiden, which was based on the popular 20th Century Fox movie franchise.

The story is set in New York City during a severe August heat wave. Our heroes are two jaded NYPD homicide detectives named Rasche and Shaefer. The pair used to be narcotics officers, and they were transferred to the murder detail after some excessive force issues. If you’re a fan of fictional excessive force, this is the novel for you.

One night, a gang summit is ambushed and the cops make it to the tenement to find skinned gang-banger corpses hanging upside-down from the ceiling joists with their blood draining onto the floor below. It’s a grisly scene, and the cops fail to initially understand the severity of the threat. Of course, I knew who did it, but I had the benefit of seeing the cover of the paperback.

Rasche and Shaefer are stereotypical 80s movie cops at war with their own ignorant management hell-bent on covering up and minimizing the pending bloodbath to be unleashed on the city. The U.S. Army also gets into the containment and the denial act with all the ineptitude you’d expect from a genre story resting heavily on action movie tropes.

The upshot, as you know, is that Predator monsters from outer space are hunting humans in New York City armed with invisibility shields, energy cannons, pocket nukes, and deadly blades to filet their prey. Fans of the original Predator movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger will be pleased with some Easter eggs tying this novel directly to the inaugural film.

The writing is mostly satisfactory. The action scenes are vivid and bloody in a plot that moves at a fast clip over 300 big-font pages. The dialogue is embarrassingly bad, but never bad enough to give up on the paperback. If the concept behind this media tie-in paperback appeals to you on any level, I promise it won’t disappoint. Recommended. 

Get the book as part of a three-book omnibus HERE.

Kid Crimson #01 - Gunpowder Mountain

According to his bio, Jarret Keene is an assistant professor in the Department of English at UNLV where he teaches American literature and the graphic novel. His published books include Hammer of the Dogs, and the middle grade books Decade and Survive: The Attack on Pearl Harbor and Heroes of World War II: 25 True Stories of Unsung Heroes Who Fought for Freedom. His newest venture is a series of westerns starring a Nevada fighting man deemed Kid Crimson. The series debut sports the explosive title of Gunpowder Mountain.

Needless to say, I've read my fair share of action-adventure books. Occassionally I'll find one line in a book or novel that describes the intensity of both the story and the character. Keene places this literary gem in the middle of the pages:

"I'd never fought for my life outnumbered during an evening windstorm alongside a stone killer with only one good arm."

This quote from Kid Crimson speaks volumes and loosely summarizes one of the more harrowing scenes in the book. 

Keene introduces Crimson to readers by providing dark snippets of his childhood in Georgia. His father is described as a ruthless adversary (I'm anticipating an epic future showdown) that taught him that violence was the only language spoken. Due to Crimson's harsh upbringing, he now serves as a gun-for-hire in Virginia City, a westward mining town.  To know Crimson also means you know his colorful friends, the townspeople he is sworn to protect, and his lover.

First, the closest thing Crimson has to a real father is the town's undertaker, an older man named Grover. Crimson sleeps in Grover's storage shed and enjoys reading Homer's Iliad by the dim light of a kerosene lamp. His friend is a Native-American warrior named Snake. His lover is Poppy, a businesswoman who gently cures illness at an opium den (aptly titled Sure Cure) she owns and operates. Crimson is like a father to a young shoeshine boy named Ezra. Crimson's lifegoal is to save enough money so he can bring Poppy and Ezra to California to buy an orchard and peacefully grow fruit for the rest of his life. But, there's plenty of blood and bullets before that goal is reached. Crimson's Colt Army Model 1860 and a Sharps 50 will bring the pain.

The debut novel's central plot has the town preparing for the surprising arrival of President Lincoln. His appearance in town is to motivate the miners and community to work harder supplying more silver - more silver means more Union guns. While Lincoln will supply his own guard complete with U.S. Marshals, the town's premier businessman has hired Crimson to employ his own small task force to provide additional security on the street. This will hopefully extinguish any potential security breaches. Thankfully, Keene provides those security breaches to allow Crimson plenty of iron-fisted action. 

However, Gunpowder Mountain is stuffed with another exciting plot. Before Lincoln's arrival, another businessman has hired Crimson to be a stagecoach agent. But, this isn't any ordinary stagecoach. This is a hydrogen-generating inflation wagon that the man hopes to use with a giant balloon. In an interesting history lesson, it's explained that the balloon was a failed project by the Confederacy to enhance their spy intelligence. Their failure will now generate a lucrative entertainment industry by providing balloon rides to paying customers. But, as you can imagine, things don't go as planned and Crimson ends up teaming with a sadistic nemesis to retrieve the wagon from outlaws. 

As much as the term "action-packed" is strewn around, I have to utilize the term here as a valid description of the book.  It isn't the traditional western, but more of a Wild Wild West televison theme crossed with Ben Haas's Fargo. I believe that is the best approach considering the restraints and redundancy of the common 125-year old genre tropes. This series debut is one long action sequence from beginning to end. Whether Crimson is fighting drunks at the Bloody Nugget, firing off a unique bow-and-grappling hook weapon to retrieve a speeding wagon, or diffusing explosive devices set to topple a rugged mountain, Keene's combination of lovable characters and dastardly villains makes for a rip-roar reading experience. This one is highly recommended.

Get your copy HERE.

Paperback Warrior Primer - Edward S. Aarons

Author Edward S. Aarons is mostly associated with his long-running and successful series Assignment, starring a CIA agent named Sam Durell. However, Aarons was extremely prolific in the decades prior to his Assignment books. In today's Paperback Warrior Primer, we reveal who Edward S. Aarons is and delve into his remarkable literary career. 

Edward Sidney Aarons was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1916. He attended Columbia University and gained degrees in both literature and history. At the young age of 17, Aarons had his hands in writing short stories while also working through college as a newspaper reporter and a fisherman. This experience probably lends itself to his crime-noir novels, which typically feature reporters and/or fishing towns in the Northeast.

By the end of the 1930s, Aarons had three full-length novels written - Death in a Lighthouse (aka Cowl of Doom), Murder Money, (aka $1 Million in Corpses), and The Corpse Hangs High. These novels were published by Phoenix Press and authored under the name Edward Ronns. 

Like most of the mid-20th Century authors, Aarons served in WW2. He was part of the U.S. Navy between 1941-1945 and reached the rank of Chief Petty officer. During his military service, Aarons sold a lot of his short stories to the pulps. He was featured in the late 1930s and 1940s pulps like Thrilling Detective, Angel Detective, Detective Story Magazine, Complete Detective, etc. According to Crime Mystery and Gangster Fiction Magazine Index, I found 92 short stories listed from the 30s through the 50s under the name Edward Ronns. Needless to say, by the time Aarons was discharged from the Coast Guard in 1945 he transitioned smoothly into full-time writing. 

In 1947, his hardcover Terror in the Town was published. It was later reprinted in 1964, complete with a suspenseful, horror-styled cover. I had the opportunity to review it for the blog HERE. In 1947 and 1948, Aarons wrote two novels starring Jerry Benedict, a newspaper cartoonist who functions as a private-eye. The first one was called Lady, the Guy is Dead, which would also be printed as No Place to Live. The second book was called Gift of Death and I had the opportunity to review it HERE. Like Terror in the Town, Aarons used a distinct atmosphere with moonlit graves, dark cornfields and a weird menace styled-subplot involving a family curse. Also in 1948 Aarons saw his novel Nightmare published internationally. I also have a review of that novel HERE.

Up until 1950, each of Aarons' published novels listed his name as Edward Ronns. But, in 1950 he used the pseudonym of Paul Ayres to contribute to the Casey, Crime Photographer series created by George Harmon Coxe. The series installment was Dead Heat. In 1951, his novel The Net was published by Graphic and reviewed HERE. Most of the author's 1950s crime-noir novels were published by the top crime-fiction company at the time - Fawcett Gold Medal. They published stuff like Escape to Love, Passage to Terror, Come Back, My Love, The Sinners, Catspaw Ordeal, The Decoy and so forth. But at the same time, Aarons was also being published by Harlequin, Graphic and Avon. In 1950, he had five novels published, two in 1951, two in 1952, two in 1953, and then one more in 1954. 

It is remarkable to think that Edward S. Aarons had 20 novels published before he really struck gold. His career trajectory is very similar to John D. MacDonald. Aarons honed his craft in the pulps and wrote stand-alone novels until he was ready to launch a series character that carried him financially for the rest of his career. For Aarons, this was his Assignment series starring CIA operative Sam Durrell and published by Fawcet Gold Medal.

The first series installment is Assignment to Disaster, published in 1955. After the debut, the series ran for 48 installments through 1983. Each book in the Assignment is mostly a stand alone title - the original printings weren’t even numbered. The series hero, Sam Durrell, is a Cajun from Louisiana who left the swamps to attend Yale. It's there that he learned several foreign languages. Later, he served in WW2 in the OSS - which was the real-life precursor to the CIA. When readers first meet Sam in 1955, he’s an operative in the CIA’s espionage division.

Each novel is a single assignment for Sam. He needs to carry out each mission for the CIA, with his adversaries generally being the Soviets, the Chinese, or one of their client states. Many of the books provide the setting in the title: Assignment Bangkok, Assignment Peking, Assignment Budapest, etc. Others are named after the sexy vixens Sam encounters on his adventure: Assignment Helene, Assignment Madeline, Assignment Zorya, etc. Sam meets a lot of different people trying to get his mission off the ground, and they all join forces to succeed. Assignment is like a combination of Nick Carter: Killmaster and Matt Helm. Better than Killmaster, not as good as Helm. 

Edward S. Aarons wrote the first 42 Assigntment installments up until his death. His last book, Assignment Afghan Dragon, was released post-humously in 1976. Then, also in 1976, the 43rd installment, Assignment Sheeba, was released under the by-line of Will B. Aarons - the brother of  Edward. There were six Assignment books under the Will Aarons name released through 1983. There are two important things to know about the Will Aarons installments.

First, series fans generally agree that these books don't possess the same quality. Second, Will Aarons didn't author these books. He hired a ghost writer named Lawrence Hall to write them. This mystery was crowdsourced and solved on the Mystery File website, and you can read the sequence of edits to their article solving this authorship HERE.

But, aside from the Assignment installments, Edward Aarons was able to sprinkle in another 10 unrelated novels through 1962. Some of these were based on screenplays like Hell to Eternity, published in 1960 and reviewed HERE.

Edward Sidney Aarons died from a heart ailment in New Milford, Connecticut in 1975 at the young age of 58. His obituary in the NY Times stated that his Assignment books sold more than 23 million copies and were reprinted in 17 languages. Get his books HERE.

Jon Messmann: Vengeance is Mine

The following article appears in the Afterword of the Brash Books edition of the 1973 hard-hitting vigilante novel The Revenger. I wrote this to commemorate not only this series but also Messmann's long and lasting body of work. I hope you enjoy it. - Eric Compton

"Jon Messmann: Vengeance is Mine"

It's a human flaw, either well-conceived or spontaneous, and often is devoid of any real sense of right and wrong. This reactionary process, often spawned by grief and anger, makes it a swinging pendulum that authors can use to transform characters and enthrall readers. This reliable character arc can spur a story into a tumultuous second or third act. The thrills arise from the metamorphosis as the character changes and responds to some sort of emotionally jarring or horrific event.

The concept has remained a steady, consistent staple of literature dating back to ancient Greek tragedies of the 5th century BC. It consumes the third play of the Oresteia trilogy as Clytemnestra kills her husband Agamemnon for the sacrificial murder of their daughter. This sets off a chain of events in which Clytemnestra's remaining children plot to kill her to avenge the death of their father. A compelling, awe-inspiring cycle of violence as family matters turn to splatters.

William Shakespeare's longest play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is perhaps the epitome of revenge tales. Written between 1599 and 1601, the play's central theme is vengeance – served cold and calculated. Hamlet's dead father appears and explains that Claudius murdered him, thus fueling a desire for revenge. Thankfully, it became a rather complicated, emotional murder plot that propelled the play to eternal popularity.

Fast-forward to the 20th century's Western fiction and the classic revenge story becomes a familiar genre trope. Respected author Frank Gruber (1904-1969) codified the Western plots and includes revenge as one of seven basic plots. Gruber described the revenge story as the pursuit of a villain by an individual he wronged, but mentions that it also could involve elements of the classic mystery story. The protagonist's southern drawl can be heard to say something like, “you're the dirty rascal that shot my pa” or “the bastard had it coming.”

Two stellar Western novels exemplify the revenge plot. Charles Portis' 1968 novel True Grit centralizes vengeance as a 14 year old girl hunts her father's murderer with the aid of a rugged U.S. Marshall. The novel explores the price of revenge and the toll it takes on the avenger. It was adapted twice to film, the first time capturing an Academy Award for John Wayne's portrayal of Rooster Cogburn. Two years later, Clifton Adams won his second consecutive Spur Award for the gritty novel The Last Days of Wolf Garnett (published a year before his death). The plot is simplistic, but presented in an atmospheric, crime-noir way. A man is searching for his wife's killer, the despicable Wolf Garnett. But, he later learns that Garnett may already be dead and his opportunity for vengeance has been stolen. It's as dark as a mortuary drape and explores the seeded, deep longing for vengeance.

In men's action-adventure literature, the undisputed catalyst for the 1970s-1990s vigilante heyday is War Against the Mafia. It was authored by Don Pendleton and originally purchased by Bee Line, who then published the book in 1969 under a subsidiary called Pinnacle Books. In the novel, Sergeant Mack Bolan is serving as a U.S. Army sniper in the Vietnam War. With 97 confirmed kills, he earns the bleak moniker, The Executioner. Unlike the decades of vengeance tales before it, Pendleton incorporated a murder-suicide into the character arc. Bolan's sister and father became financially controlled by the Mafia. The stress and financial burdens provoked Bolan's father into killing his wife and daughter before committing suicide. Bolan learns of the deaths and flies home, never to return to the military. Instead, he becomes a one-man army to exact revenge on the Mob. In essence, it is the classic revenge story modernized.

Early editions of War Against the Mafia suggests the book was originally planned as a one-off. However, the sales solidified the idea that readers desired more of Mack Bolan's vengeance. Later printings would include the #1 to indicate that the book was a series debut. Don Pendleton authored another 36 installments before selling the series to Harlequin. Under their subsidiary, Gold Eagle, The Executioner became the most popular men's action-adventure series of all-time with an astonishing total of 464 installments through 2020.

Beginning in 1970, countless publishers wanted to create another Mack Bolan clone to capture the same success that Pinnacle was experiencing. The Executioner directly influenced countless novels, series titles and publisher demands for more revenge stories with a gritty, violent delivery. Like the pulps of the 1930s and 1940s, these titles needed a tragic origin story to propel the hero into action. Publishers, desperately wanting The Executioner readers and consumers to gravitate toward their titles, pitched their ideas and marketing designs to a revolving door of blue collar, working man authors. Along with the look and feel of a vigilante story, the publishers (including Pinnacle and Gold Eagle) created names for their heroes that sounded similar to the word “Executioner” - Butcher, Terminator, Avenger, Hawker, Dagger, Penetrator, Enforcer, Sharpshooter, Stryker, Ryker, Keller, Peacemaker, Liquidator, Inquisitor. Even Marvel Comics received permission from Pendleton to clone Bolan as The Punisher, one of their most consistently selling comic titles of the last 50 years. Obviously, the prerequisite for any proposed paperback warrior was that the title had to end in the letter R.

Or, in some cases begin and end with that letter. Like, The Revenger.

John Joseph Messmann created The Revenger series in 1973 for publisher Signet, then a division of New American Library. But, Messmann's path to vigilante fiction was the proverbial long and winding road. Born in 1920, Messmann began his artistic career by playing the violin, an extracurricular activity forced on him by his parents. By 1940, Messmann began writing for the up-and-coming comic industry, a period known as the Golden Age of Comic Books. His first gig was for Fawcett Comics, an early, successful comic book publisher of that era. His co-workers were a dream-team of comic book icons including Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, and Chic Stone. Messman wrote for a decade on titles like Captain Marvel Jr., Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Gabby Hayes, Don Winslow of the Navy, Tex Ritter, and Nyoka: The Jungle Girl. He even created a comic strip technique as an education program conducted for the United Nations Information Office.

In 1950, Messmann, now using Jon J. Messmann, co-created Carousel, an 8-page tabloid comics section in the Pittsburg Courier. This featured many of Messmann's ideas including secret agents, historical romance, sea adventure, private-eyes, jungle girls and even fairy tales. Carousel lasted five years and was distributed by New York's Smith-Mann Syndicate. Over time, Messmann was no longer content with the comic industry.

Beginning in the 1960s, Messmann’s transition into paperback, full-length novels began with Lyle Kenyon Engel’s star franchise, Nick Carter: Killmaster. Messmann’s first contribution was the series' 37th installment, 14 Seconds to Hell, published in 1968. The series, authored by a selection of ghost writers under the name Nick Carter, was a firm stepping stone for Messmann. The series paralleled the pulp industry in terms of campy, over-the-top secret-agent action. Messmann’s experience writing comics and comic strips made him a useful workhorse for Engel to rely upon. The author contributed 14 more installments through 1970 before departing the series.

Engel, pleased with Messmann’s production, paired him with another Killmaster author named George Snyder for a series called Hot Line in 1970. The series lasted only three installments with Messmann only contributing to the debut, Our Spacecraft is Missing!. Again, this allowed Messmann to develop a modern secret-agent, in this case a President’s Man type of hero named Fowler. Also in 1970, while writing Killmaster novels and Gothic romance titles (as Claudette Nicole), Messman wrote two books starring a vagabond hero named Logan. They were inspired by John D. MacDonald’s successful character Travis McGhee.

It was just a matter of time before publishing trends would align with Messmann’s literary strengths. His experience in spy-fiction, Gothics, and action-adventure is a product of that era. Genre fiction was consistently reliable for publishers and there were plenty of ideas, authors, and healthy competition. After The Executioner began to develop banner sales numbers for Pinnacle, it was only fitting that Messmann made his own vigilante footprint. In 1973, The Revenger was born.

It’s a mystery on who originally had the idea for Ben Martin, the former military veteran turned Mafia buster. It could be that Messmann had read Don Pendleton and wanted to try his hand or Signet simply approached Messmann’s agent about the story and needed an experienced writer to tell it. By 1973, Messmann had authored books for Award, Fawcett Gold Medal, Belmont-Tower, and Pyramid. He never played hard to get and had a knack for the business dating back 30 years at that point. With the key words “personal tragedy”, “vengeance”, “hero”, “violence”, “sex”, Messmann’s typewriter lit up with possibilities.

Like any 1970s traumatized hero, Messmann’s Ben Martin is a Vietnam veteran. When the series began, it was during the end of America’s involvement in Vietnam’s affairs. Saigon fell. The world moved on. American soldiers were left to rebuild their lives, overcome emotional distress, and become domesticated. Vietnam veterans became the dominant heroes of 1970s and 1980s men's action-adventure literature in the same way that 1950s and 1960s crime-noir was dependent on WW2 veterans. The buyers and readers that were consuming these books could easily identify with these heroes because they shared the same war experience. Arguably, these books served as a type of therapy. These characters, like Ben Martin, understood the “trial by fire” awakening, just like their readers.

When Messmann introduces Martin, he is an honest living, blue-collar family man who owns a grocery store. His nights of silently awaiting targets in a muddy rice paddy are over. But after the character arc, Messmann is transformed from shop owner back into the prowling warrior. By the book’s fiery finale, he’s either alive or dead. Messmann creates this stirring character arc that feeds off of a very personal tragedy. Like Pendleton’s Mack Bolan origin story, it isn’t a straight-up, traditional “you shot up my family” vendetta. In fact, the tragedy is an accident - caused by evil men - but still an accident. Whether anyone would have died otherwise is in the eye of the beholder. But, Martin’s life is deeply affected, and revenge is the only recourse. In these novels, revenge is always the only recourse. Thus, The Revenger rises.

By the end of the bloodshed, the supposed end of Martin’s war, readers are left to arrive at their own conclusions. Why? The Revenger wasn’t planned as a series. There’s nothing to indicate that Signet had any other plans for Messmann or Ben Martin. The paperback's spine, front and back covers and last pages are devoid of anything suggesting this is a series debut. But, it was. Only Signet and Messmann didn’t know it.

At the very least, the sales must have been satisfactory to warrant a sequel. By that point, five more novels became the new goal. Messmann crafted these novels through 1975 with titles that certainly resonate 1970s men’s action-adventure flare: Fire in the Streets (1974), Vendetta Contract (1974), Stiletto Signature (1974), City for Sale (1975), Promise for Death (1975). While revenge is mostly the catalyst for the first novel, Martin’s life continued to be plagued by violence. Each novel builds to a crescendo with revenge as a silent motivator. The protagonist responds with ample destruction in this profession of violence.

As you read and enjoy The Revenger series, a clear genre standout, take note of Messmann’s special treatment of Martin’s psyche. With an uncanny awareness, he delves into Martin’s warrior soul and deciphers dark emotions for the reader. In many ways, Martin could be the most complex vigilante in terms of repressed feelings and temperament. In the second installment, Martin becomes the vigilante, but he doesn’t really want that burden. He dreams of the life that once was, an existence robbed from him by events outside of his control. The old adage “when you look back, it will be what you’ve overcome” is a staple of Martin’s forward outlook, but it’s a reminder of the scars. In reality, Martin realizes that he’s the blood-craving vampire, only it’s revenge that fuels his existence. The emotion makes him alive and whole, ultimately the reason to rise and exist each day. After nights as a sniper in Vietnam, the ongoing war with the mob, and his transformation into a family man, Martin realizes he’s destined to right the wrongs and be the killer of evil. It was the one constant in his life.

Jon Messmann created another character in 1973 as well, Jefferson Boone: Handyman. It's another series standout featuring a U.S. State Department agent extinguishing international flare-ups that could adversely affect America and its allies. It has the same action-oriented intensity as The Revenger, complete with Boone getting laid...a lot. The sexual escapades of both Ben Martin and Jefferson Boone, as well as the Nick Carter series before that, led Messmann to what would ultimately become his meal ticket.

By 1978, adult Western fiction rose to prominence and was led by a series heavyweight in Lou Cameron's Longarm. The concept was simply to incorporate two to three graphic sex scenes into a traditional western paperback. The main character fights the bad guys and pleases the bad girls. Messmann, following the trend, created The Trailsman series in 1980 for Signet. Like Don Pendleton's The Executioner, Messmann birthed an iconic hero in Skye Fargo – lake blue eyes and bed mattress Olympian – and placed him in nearly 400 total installments. Of those, Messmann wrote nearly half up until his retirement in 1998, a testament to his storytelling skills and craftsmanship.

It was rumored that Messmann had never been to the western regions of the U.S., instead writing every Trailsman novel from the comfort of his Manhattan apartment. He would later die at the age of 84 in a New York nursing home in 2004.

New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg and his Brash Books imprint have been doing God’s work for years by reprinting and reintroducing classic novels by forgotten talented authors for modern audiences. Thankfully, Jon Messmann’s stellar body of work has been recognized and included in the publisher’s superb lineup of novels and collections. I can’t think of a more deserving author than Jon Messmann. I also feel that if he were alive today, he would already be writing a new series of heroic fiction for Goldberg and pitching character concepts for another.

The greats like Jon Messmann never ran out of ideas — they just ran out of time.

01/29/2022
Eric Compton
Paperback Warrior

Jon Messmann - Partial Bibliography

As Nick Carter:
Nick Carter: Killmaster #39 Carnival for Killing 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #43 The Amazon 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #44 The Sea Trap 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #45 Berlin 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #48 The Living Death 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #49 Operation Che Guevara 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #50 The Doomsday Formula 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #51 Operation Snake 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #52 The Casbah Killers 1969 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #53 The Arab Plague 1970 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #54 Red Rebellion 1970 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #55 The Executioners 1970 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #57 Mind Killers 1970 (Award Books)
Nick Carter: Killmaster #60 The Death Strain 1970 (Award Books)

Nick Carter: Killmaster #37 14 Seconds to Hell 1968 (Award Books)

As Claudette Nicole:
Bloodroots Manor 1970 (Fawcett Gold Medal)
The Mistress of Orion Hall 1970 (Fawcett Gold Medal)
House at Hawk's End 1971 (Fawcett Gold Medal)
Circle of Secrets 1972 (Fawcett Gold Medal)
The Dark Mill 1972 (Fawcett Gold Medal)
The Haunted Heart 1972 (Pyramid)
The Chinese Letter 1973 (Popular Library)
The Haunting of Drumroe 1973 (Fawcett Gold Medal)
When the Wind Cries 1976 (Pyramid)

As Pamela Windsor:
Forsaking All Others 1977 (Jove)
Rebel's Rapture 1979 (Jove)
At Passion's Tide 1980 (Jove)

Jefferson Boone: Handyman
The Moneta Papers 1973 (Pyramid)
The Game of Terror 1973 (Pyramid)
Murder Today, Money Tomorrow 1973 (Pyramid)
The Swiss Secret 1974 (Pyramid)
Ransom! 1975 (Pyramid)
The Inheritors 1975 (Pyramid)

Canyon 'O Grady series (as Jon Sharpe)
Dead Men's Trails 1989 (Signet)
Silver Slaughter 1989 (Signet)
Shadow Guns 1989 (Signet)

The Revenger:
The Revenger 1973 (Signet)
Fire in the Streets 1974 (Signet)
The Vendetta Contract 1974 (Signet)
The Stiletto Signature 1974 (Signet)
City for Sale 1975 (Signet)
A Promise for Death 1975 (Signet)

Hot Line (as Paul Richards):
Our Spacecraft is Missing! (with George Snyder) 1970 (Award Books)

Logan (as Alan Joseph):
Logan 1970 (Belmont)
Killers at Sea 1970 (Belmont)

Stand-Alone titles:
The Deadly Deep 1976 (New Amerian Librery)
Phone Call 1979 (Signet)
Jogger's Moon (aka To Kill a Jogger) 1980 (Penguin)
The Last Snow 1989 (Random House)
A Bullet for the Bride 1972 (Pyramid)

Non-Fiction:
Choosing a Pet 1973 Grosset & Dunlap

Comics:
Don Winslow of the Navy 1940-1951
Gabby Hayes 1940-1949
Human Torch 1943
Sub-Mariner 1943
Nyoka: The Jungle Girl #50 1945
Tex Ritter 1950

Captain Marvel Jr. 1940-1949

Pepperoni Hero #01 - Sandwiches Are Not My Business

The three-book Pepperoni Hero series debuted in 1975 and was probably the oddest named series in the men’s adventure genre. It’s hard to learn much about the author, Bill Kelly (Copyright: William Kelly), because there have been dozens of novelists with the same name over the past 50 years. The hard-to-acquire series is a running joke among collectors and fans of the genre, but I’ve never met anyone who has actually read one. I decided to take the plunge.

First, Pepperoni Hero is his real name. The first name is from a drunken father and the last name was historically truncated from Heropoulus by a Greek immigrant ancestor, yet his friends call him Pep or Pepper. The novel is a low-rent tribute (okay, rip-off) to John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. For example, McGee’ houseboat, “The Busted Flush,” is named after the poker hand that won him the boat. Pepper’s houseboat is called “Crap” because he won his boat in a dice game. On the book’s first page, Pep is in bed reading “John D. MacDonald’s latest Travis McGee satire,” and Pep drinks Plymouth Gin on the rocks, just like McGee. At times, its difficult to tell if this book is outright parody, fan fiction or just an earnest - but inferior- cover band.

Like McGee, Pep is a boat bum with the unusual twist that he’s doing it in Chicago while moored at Navy Pier Marina. He works as an adventurer for hire helping people who can’t enlist the help of the law for one reason or another. This 188-page paperback is one long flashback with Pep recounting his life story to the reader. Some of the stories he tells about his checkered past are very compelling, but I kept wondering when the novel was going to start. Then, all of a sudden, I realized that one of those old war stories was, in fact, the plot of the novel.

The plot deals with Pep helping an old Vietnam War buddy who wants Pep to use his superior poker skills to clean out his wealthy brother-in-law. The reason this is important involves a convoluted and rather stupid sibling rivalry and a dead man’s will with millions at stake. This turns into a murder plot with an impotent bad guy involved in sexual torture, homemade porno movies, and blackmail. Meanwhile, Pep gets laid a lot.

Kelly is actually a pretty good writer but his plotting is an abomination. He does seem to know his way around the neighborhoods and norms of Chicago. The action scenes are well-described, and Pep is a credible badass. The sex scenes, and there are many, are plenty graphic. Finally, the author gives Pep an eight-inch dong - consistent with the league minimum for numbered 1970s paperbacks.

Despite these mitigating factors, the bottom line is that no one in his right mind would ever recommend this mess of a novel to you for anything other than the novelty of the cover. By all means, buy it and display it proudly. But for heaven’s sake, please don’t read it. Only one of us should have to endure this mess of a paperback.

Purchase this book HERE

Raven #01 - Swordmistress of Chaos

As I cited in prior genre reviews here at Paperback Warrior, the 1970s was a fertile time for sword-and-sorcery to dominate pop-culture. The British publisher Corgi took advantage of the marketing explosion to offer a five-book series of genre titles called Raven. These aren't to be confused with the men's action-adventure series of espionage titles also called Raven, authored by Donald MacKenzie. Instead, these were bonafide sword-and-sorcery novels authored by Piccadilly Cowboy writer Angus Wells (Breed, Hawk) and horror and fantasy writer Robert Holdstock (Berserker, Night Hunter) using the pseudonym Richard Kirk. The first novel, Swordmistress of Chaos, was published by Corgi in 1978 with a cover by Chris Achilleos (Conan, Heavy Metal). Beginning in 1987, the series was published in the US by Ace using new covers by Luis Royo (Conan). 

Like the 1960s Conan paperbacks published by Lancer and edited by Lin Carter, the Raven books have a handy map at the front indicating a large body of water with two islands in the center, surrounded by places called The Frozen Peaks, The Lost Mountains, The Ice Wastes, The Lost Lands, etc. This sprawling kingdom is where the Raven novel takes place. In the far south is a tiny shoreline village called Lyland, lying in the Southern Kingdoms. It is here where the Raven origin story begins.

Su'an was a young girl when a large gang of Karhsaam slave-raiders invade her village. Her father is brutally tortured and killed and her mother is raped and murdered. Su'an is hauled off to a slave-pen that will be used for prostitutes in Karhsaam. These slave-raiders are led by a cruel warrior named Karl ir Donwayne. Thankfully, Su'an escapes her bonds one night and escapes the pen. As she's running across the tundra to flee her captors, she runs into a trap led by vicious snarling hounds. Just before she's re-captured, a band of outlaws led by a man called Spellbinder sweeps in to save her with the help of a large raven. Soon, Su'an is renamed Raven and told by the outlaw gang that she has a great destiny awaiting her. 

By page 40, Raven has spent over a year with Spellbinder and the outlaws perfecting her fighting skills. Her weapons of choice are sword, shield, and throwing stars that she keeps hooked to her belt. While she makes love to Spellbinder, readers quickly learn that Raven belongs to no man or woman. She is fiercely independent, making her character similar to that of Red Sonja. 

Over the course of this 170 page paperback, Raven's goal is to hunt down and kill Karl ir Donwayne. She discovers that he has joined forces with the Kraggs, the larger of the two islands sitting in the large body of water shown on the map. To get to him, the narrative takes Raven and Spellbinder on a ship to join a gang of Viking-esque raiders called Sea-Wolves. Raven has a sexual relationship with the Sea-Wolves leader, a cunning warrior named Gondar. Teaming with the Sea-Wolves, Raven must locate a sacred skull to gain access to Donwayne's location. The search for this skull makes up a large portion of the book's narrative, with the ragtag group journeying through a desert, navigating a harsh mountain pass, and ultimately fighting hideous Beastmen in a sweltering jungle. When the skull is found, the narrative switches to Raven and the group fighting the Kraggs. There is a side-story of a rival magician wanting revenge against Spellbinder as well as a number of one-on-one battles between Raven and various other combatants. 

Swordmistress of Chaos is an adult-oriented sword-and-sorcery novel that does feature some R-rated sex scenes. These are never as graphic as an adult-western like The Trailsman or Longarm, but still possesses some mature content. Raven not only has romantic encounters with Spellbinder and Gondar, but also two sessions with another female. While I've read that these Raven books are pure porn, nothing could be further from the truth. None of this is what I would consider particularly provocative. 

As a sword-and-sorcery novel, this Raven debut is chock-full of action and adventure complete with nautical exploration, sea battles, sword-fighting, magic wielding, political strife, and the obligatory revenge-plotting. While I think the last 20 pages were disappointing, the “big baddie boss-fight” was extremely rewarding and vividly violent. While the main story is wrapped up in this book, I'm anxious to discover what adventure is awaiting Raven and Spellbinder next. I'm all in on this series and you should be too. Recommended!

Buy a copy of this book HERE.