Best of Manhunt: Volume 2

In 2019, Stark House Press generated a commercial and critical hit with the release of The Best of Manhunt, an anthology of stories from the legendary 1950s crime fiction digest. Knowing a good thing when they see it, the reprint publisher has compiled a second volume of blood-on-the-knuckles tales from the popular magazine’s heyday for an August 2020 release.

By way of background, Manhunt began publishing in January 1953 capitalizing on the success of a new breed of hardboiled authors with Mickey Spillane leading the pack supported by muscular authors including Evan Hunter and David Goodis willing to make five cents per word for their stories. While the magazine’s run stretched into 1967, everyone knows that the publication largely lost its way by the mid-1960s. As such, the new anthology front-loads the content with stories primarily form the 1950s.

Before the stories, the reader is treated to a series of essays about Manhunt Magazine by scholars Peter Enfantino, Jon L. Breen, and Robert Turner followed by over 400 pages of twisted, violent short fiction. Anthology editor Jeff Vorzimmer intentionally sought out many “deep tracks” from the magazine’s history choosing many authors who never achieved paperback stardom. There’s a lot to enjoy in stories by John M. Sitan, Roy Carroll, and Glenn Canary who share the pages with heavy hitters including Bruno Fischer, Donald E. Westlake, and Erle Stanley Gardner.

Reviewing an anthology is always a challenging task - particularly in a literary buffet filled to the brim with this much quality. Here are some thoughts regarding a handful of noteworthy stories in the collection:

As I Lay Dead by Fletcher Flora (February 1953)

Fletcher Flora brings the reader a perverse and twisted little tale. Cousins Tony and Cindy work each other into a sexual lather while oiling each other’s skin on the man-made beach. Meanwhile, their wealthy, fat grandpa floats in the lake nearby. It occurs to the lusty twins that if something happened to grandpa, they’d be free - and financially-set - to run away to Acapulco together where the booze, sun and screwing never stops.

Flora’s novels are often tinged with a heavy dose of non-graphic sexuality, and “As I Lay Dead” amplifies that aspect of this writing. Murder, blackmail, and double-crosses are also on the menu making for a perfect story. Whatever you do, don’t skip this one. It’s everything that dark crime fiction should be. With over 160 published short stories to his name, I can’t help but think this might be his best magazine work.

Shakedown by Roy Carroll (April 1953)

Roy Carroll was a pseudonym for Robert Turner, a short story guy who started in the pulp magazines. His literary agent was Scott Merideth, who curated a lot of the talent that appeared in Manhunt. It was at Merideth’s urging that Turner shifted his style from over-the-top pulp writing to the gritty and realistic crime digest format.

“Shakedown” is narrated by Van who has just knocked up a chick at work and has no intention of doing the right thing by the poor girl. He comes up with the idea that she should bang their boss, pin the pregnancy on him, and be set for life as the old man’s wife.

As you can imagine, the plan goes very wrong when the boss doesn’t take kindly to being shaken down by a knocked-up employee in his typing pool. If you can handle some 1950s misogyny with your crime fiction, you’re going to enjoy this one just fine.

One More Mile to Go by F.J. Smith (June 1956)

I could find next to nothing about author F.J. Smith other than the fact that several of his stories appeared in various Alfred Hitchcock anthologies. “One More Mile to Go” is a rare third-person narration from the pages of Manhunt. A small-town Louisiana shopkeeper strangles his nagging wife in her sleep and needs to hide the body somewhere (a recurring theme in Manhunt).

Along the way to the body stash site, he’s pulled over by a state trooper, and the interaction feeds the tension of the situation. It’s a good, simple story. Nothing revelatory, but certainly not a waste of your time.

The Geniuses by Max Franklin (June 1957)

Richard Deming is the only author to appear twice in the anthology with one story under his own name and this one under his Max Franklin pseudonym. “The Geniuses” is about two teenage thrill-killers long before murderous youth was a regular occurrence in American life.

Bart and Edward are high-IQ college kids who find themselves to be social pariahs among their campus peers. A conversation about how one might craft the perfect murder takes a nefarious turn when they begin experimenting with these ideas on a classmate. It begins as an intellectual exercise and then becomes deadly real high-wire act. Under any name, Deming is a solid talent and was rightfully among the bedrock of the Manhunt talent pool.

Girl Friend by Mark Mallory (September 1957)

Mark Mallory was a pseudonym for Morris Hershman who did a lot of writing in the mid-20th Century in the science fiction, war and crime genres. He was also a regular contributor to Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.

“Girl Friend” is a diabolical little story told as an interrogation transcript of a 14 year-old girl accused of murder. As the story unfolds, the kid appears to be the daughter of a prostitute pressed into service herself. Her mom would command top dollar for the girl by telling the clients she was a twelve year-old virgin. As the nightmare narrative shifts into a murder confession, the brilliance of this nasty little story really takes shape. Despite the disturbing set-up, don’t skip this gem.

Midnight Caller by Wade Miller (January 1958)

Wade Miller was the popular collaboration of Robert Wade and Bill Miller that produced so many outstanding crime and adventure novels in the paperback original era. “Midnight Caller” is a short-short story - only two pages long - about a woman being menaced by a sexually-aggressive intruder in her bedroom. It’s a tense little story with a fun punch line at the end.

Paperback Warrior Verdict:

The Best of Manhunt 2 is another masterpiece of short fiction that will be an essential part of any hardboiled library. I’m hoping that it’s another monster success for Stark House to justify more volumes in the future. Highly recommended.

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The Book of the Phantom Bullet

Dan Turner: Hollywood Detective was the popular creation of Robert Leslie Bellem (1902-1968) for many of the 3000+ (not a typo) stories and novellas Bellem authored for the pulps before he wrote for TV shows including The Lone Ranger, Adventures of Superman, 77 Sunset Strip and Perry Mason. Many of the Dan Turner stories have been reprinted as affordable ebooks, including 17-page “The Book of the Phantom Bullet,” originally from the December 1945 issue of Hollywood Detective Magazine.

As the story opens, Turner is on the set of a Los Angeles soundstage during a big-budget movie production. The star is a hammy actor named Ben McBride, who is repeatedly filming a scene where two co-stars shoot him at the same time, followed by a dramatic fall down the stairs. The director is dissatisfied with each take, and McBride is growing impatient. In the actor’s final attempt, he mimics getting murdered - quite realistically - because someone actually shoots McBride dead.

This is a great story, but the mystery of who shot McBride – or rather who loaded a real bullet into one of the prop guns – is secondary to the reader’s enjoyment. The real star of the show is Turner’s first-person narrative vernacular and the joy you’ll experience from swimming in his hardboiled slang. Eyes are peepers. A gun is a roscoe. Fists are maulers. A mouth is a kisser. Women are frails. And so on and so forth. Turner’s jazzy bebop is so fun to read. Check this out: “A slug tunneled all the way through his think tank and he’s deader than minced clams.” Pure poetry.

Because this is a pulp mystery story, we know that the killing of McBride is not some unfortunate accident. Turner begins looking closely at the prop man and both of the actors who simultaneously fired their guns on camera for the scene. Turner works closely with the police to get to the bottom of the matter, despite a vexing sub-mystery involving a missing bullet. The final solution was logical and satisfying with bonus points for a bloody and violent climax. What more can you ask for?

It’s been a long time since I had this much fun reading a short story from the pulp era. “The Book of the Phantom Bullet” was my first Dan Turner: Hollywood Detective mystery but it won’t be my last. Highly recommended. 

Buy a copy of the book HERE.

Ki-Gor - King of the Jungle

Jungle Stories was published quarterly by Fiction House, a pulp division of Glen-Kel Publishing, from 1938 to 1954 – 58 total issues. These magazines each featured a lead novel starring a Tarzan clone named Ki-Gor. The house pseudonym for the stories was John Peter Drummond (except the first credited to real author John Murray Reynolds), but the actual authors were Dan Cushman, James McKimmey, Stanley Mullen, Robert Turner, and W. Scott Peacock. 

My introduction to this prolific jungle hero is “King of the Jungle”, the very first Ki-Gor story. It was originally published in the 1938 Winter issue of Jungle Stories and later collected in the omnibus Ki-Gor: The Complete Series Volume 1 by Altus Press. 

Pilot Helene Vaughn is flying across equatorial Africa when she loses her engine. The female pilot is quick to release all of her fuel in preparation for the treetop crash, thus avoiding a deadly explosion on impact. She awakens after the crash and begins a walk through the dense jungle foliage in hopes of finding anyone that can help her. When she's stopped by a jaguar, a six-foot bare-foot man with blue eyes and long hair comes to her rescue, fighting the jaguar and stabbing it to death with a steel knife. This is Helene's introduction to Ki-Gor, King of the Jungle.

The brawny hero takes Helene back to his cave and speaks some broken English with her. Later that night, the two fend off a vicious attack by the Wungubas, a fierce African tribe that have warred with Ki-Gor for years. When the two successfully survive the onslaught, Ki-Gor takes Helene to a small abandoned cabin. It is here that the hero's origin story is revealed through a diary entry and photograph.

Ki-Gor's real name is Robert. He was the son of John Kilgour, a missionary who came to this part of Africa in 1917. On a mildewed piece of notebook paper, Helene reads that Chief Kranta of the Wunguba tribe grew unfriendly with Kilgour's work in the region. On the diary page, Kilgour describes Kranta as "...there seems to be evil back of his beadlike eyes." Piecing this together with what Kil-Gor explains, it is revealed to readers and Helene that John was killed by the Wungubas around the time that Robert was seven or eight years old. Kil-Gor has survived in the jungle for over 20 years.

"King of the Jungle" has a fragmented narrative that doesn't allow a lot of character development or growth. But, it is the first story and I understand the series improves over time. I really enjoyed the story for what it was and found that Ki-Gor's relationship with Helene could spark some future interest. I also love this fiery feud with the Wunguba tribe and the hero's ability to use a special blend of mystical "powder" to provide dreamlike visions for Helene. This addition has an E. Hoffmann Price feel to the character. 

Obviously, there are a ton of Tarzan imitators. Just like there are tons of James Bond, Conan, Mike Hammer, and The Shadow imitators. The borrowed idea of a white man surviving the death of a parent in an exotic jungle doesn't steer me away. I enjoy a good jungle romp and these Ki-Gor stories certainly seem to provide that. If you love that type of presentation, then this is a mandatory read.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Best of Manhunt: Volume 3

The good people at Stark House Press have blessed us with another compilation of hardboiled crime stories from the pages of Manhunt Magazine, the premier digest for crime noir fiction in the 1950s and 1960s.

The introduction by scholars Jeff Vorzimmer and David Rachels tackles the literary mystery of the identity behind the house name of Roy Carroll, a pseudonym employed by the Manhunt editors when an author had more than one story in a single issue. The thought was that magazine readers desired a great diversity of names in the Table of Contents and would somehow feel ripped off if the same author appeared twice.

Several of the Roy Carroll stories in Manhunt are now known to be written by Robert Turner - but not all. The editors performed some investigative legwork worthy of Paperback Warrior to firmly-establish that the Roy Carroll story appearing in the November 1956 issue under the title “Death Wears a Grey Sweater” was, in fact, written by fan-favorite Gil Brewer for which Brewer was paid a tidy sum of $260.

With that mystery about a mystery solved, it’s only fair that we begin our tour of this anthology with the story itself.

Death Wears a Sweater by Gil Brewer writing as Roy Carroll (November 1956)

The story opens with the horrific death of an 11 year-old girl in a broad daylight hit-and-run while her father watches helplessly nearby. After verifying that his little girl is, in fact, dead, her dad — his name is Irv Walsh — goes bananas, hops in his car, and begins pursuing the hit-and-run driver. The confrontation with the car occupants goes poorly for Walsh, and his quest for quick justice is thwarted while his desire for revenge burns hot.

As vendetta stories go, this one is pretty dark, gruesome and sadistic. Brewer’s strongest works were his short stories and this one is no exception. It’s a tough and tension-filled read that packs the appropriate emotional punch.

Services Rendered by Jonathan Craig (May 1953)

Henry Callan is a crooked, hard-drinking police lieutenant investigating the murder of a florist. A suspect named Tommy is in custody, but refuses to talk. The dirty cop visits Tommy’s wife and makes her an offer of regular sex with Henry in exchange for Tommy’s freedom and avoidance of the electric chair.

This is the kind of dark and twisted story that made Manhunt great. Jonathan Craig (real name: Frank Smith) is always a reliably great writer, and this story is consistent with his hardboiled output. Don’t skip this one.

Throwback by Donald Hamilton (August 1953)

Donald Hamilton was the author of the esteemed Matt Helm spy series, but this short story predates his groundbreaking Death of a Citizen by nearly seven years. “Throwback” is an unusual story for both Hamilton and Manhunt as it is a post-apocalyptic story set shortly after the atomic destruction of the USA.

George Hardin and his wife are among the shambling survivors wandering among the smoldering ruins of a freshly-destroyed America. Hamilton’s writing is characteristically beautiful and descriptive. Unfortunately, a coherent plot never comes together, making this story perfectly skippable.

The Red Herring by Richard Deming (December 1962)

Richard Deming appears twice in this Manhunt compilation, and “The Red Herring” won the coin toss for the prestigious Paperback Warrior review. The story stars a Private Detective named Matt Gannon, who is engaged by a corporate CEO.

The company manufactures a radiation detector similar to a Gieger counter but way more sensitive. The company bought the technology from the inventor for a song, and now the creator is apparently sending threatening notes. Gannon is hired to make the case. As expected, Deming does a fine job with a compelling, if rather standard, PI mystery.

The Verdict

The brain-trust behind these Stark House Manhunt anthologies has another winner on their hands. I hope these collections never stop, and they expand to the other hardboiled magazines that popped up in the wake of Manhunt’s success. These short crime stories are an important part of American literary history and need to be preserved for modern audiences and future generations. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Back Alley Jungle

Leo Margulies (1900-1975) is a familiar name in the world of pulps, MAMs and digests. Originally from New York, he started as a researcher for 20th Century Fox before becoming the editor of Ned Pines' Standard Magazines. Along with magazines like Mike Shayne, Popular Detective and Thrilling Detective, Margulies also compiled and edited a number of anthology collections including Back Alley Jungle. This 1960 collection of short stories was initially published by Fawcett Gold Medal under the Crest brand name. Here’s some highlights:

Ed McBain (written under the name of Richard Marsten) is the author of the 1952 story entitled “Carrera’s Woman”. In it, a man named Jeff has been working the oil fields in Mexico. After many hard years, Jeff amassed $10,000 in savings. Before returning to America to start a new life he was robbed by a co-worker named Carrera and his girlfriend Linda. When the story starts, Jeff takes Linda hostage behind big rocks. Carrera is across the dry gulch firing futilely into the rocks hoping to kill Jeff and reclaim Linda. During the night, the three parties are at each other's throats with both sides taking potshots across the gap. But the story changes fast as Linda starts to seduce Jeff. Is this an escape strategy or is she sincere in her sexual advances? This is the ultimate question McBain is asking, and it's such a tempting one. I really liked this story and it's a key part of the collection. 

In Steve Frazee's 1953 "Graveyard Shift" story, the close narration focuses on a busy police dispatcher on a late night shift. When a woman holding a gun enters the police station, this lone dispatcher is ordered to place all of the city's patrol cars in one section of the city. The woman's motive becomes clear when the dispatcher locates the pattern - she's purposefully maneuvering the police away from the local casino. Involved in this complex case, it is up to the dispatcher to use code words so that officers redirect efforts to the casino. This is a really unique story that presents a rare, but deserving hero - the police dispatcher.

The longest and most enjoyable story is Richard Deming's 1955 short "The War". This starts with a woman named Janice entering the Rotunda Club, a posh casino owned by Clancy Ross. After a talk and a call upstairs, Clancy greets Janice in his office. In short, Janice is the widow of Clancy's old Army buddy from the Korean War. She explains to Clancy that her husband witnessed a mob slaying and was later gunned down by killers working for a syndicate kingpin named Lawson. During the exchange, the Mob framed Janice so that she would appear as a frustrated wife who shot her husband during a heated argument. After the arrest, the Mob posted bail for her in an effort to then kill her in a way that would resemble suicide. With no friends or allies, Janice fled to Clancy hoping he will keep her safe. This violent and explosive story features Clancy at odds with Lawson over the woman's safety. But is there some secret about her? Deming was a great storyteller and “The War” is absolutely awesome. I can't say enough good things about it.

Other authors appearing in this compilation are Jonathan Craig (Frank E. Smith), Dan Sontup, Mann Rubin, Charles Boeckman, Robert Turner and Don Stanford. There's an additional Ed McBain story titled "Clean Break" that's listed under the pseudonym Hunt Collins.

At 150-pages and 10 solid short-stories, Back Alley Jungle is an absolute joy to read and a fairly affordable used paperback considering the era and publisher. Highly recommended.

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Boy-Lover

Charles Boeckman (1920-2015), a celebrated jazz musician, authored short stories for the pulps and digests through the mid 20^th century. He also wrote paperbacks including mystery, western and suspense. In his autobiography, Pulp Jazz: The Charles Boeckman Story, Boeckman elaborates on the name Alex Carter, a pseudonym that he used to author a number of racy romance novels. In the book, he says he didn't want readers to connect these novels directly to him. He learned of Robert Turner, an author for the publisher Beacon, spending a night in jail for writing “pornography.” He didn't want to experience the same fate. It's a real shame that readers couldn't connect Boy-Lover to Boeckman considering its quality. It was published by Beacon in 1963 with a painted cover by Clement Micarelli.

Babs is in her late 20s, has a ravenous sexual appetite, and is mired in the suburbs with her tired, complacent husband Art. Instead of providing Babs hours of ecstasy, Art's idea of a good time is hosting tame neighborhood parties, discussing mechanical issues concerning  the couple's car, or just sleeping like a log. Babs is craving the sins of the flesh and has horny housewife eyes on a young mechanic named Jack.

Jack recently graduated high school and is now working at the local garage. When he delivers Bab's repaired car to her house, he is shocked to find her sunbathing in the nude while Art is at work. Babs slaps the seduction on thick as the experience increases from lemonade to dancing to bedroom antics as Jack loses his virginity to this gorgeous married woman in grand style. But, as you can imagine, Babs and Jack aren't fulfilled with just one encounter. Soon, they are sneaking out to do the nasty in abandoned parking lots, the closed mechanic's shop, and eventually into an apartment outside of town. It's here that Babs and Jack are shocked when their affair is revealed.

Boy-Lover isn't explicit by any stretch of the imagination. It's all PG-13 if it was released today. Boeckman's novel works exceptionally well as a character study – Jack as the inexperienced youth experiencing an accelerated maturity and Babs as the frustrated housewife that feels no purpose. The two need something from each other, but it isn't an emotional connection. Their responses to changes in their lives is met by sex – simply sex, nothing more and nothing less.

Boeckman takes readers through the rocky relationship that Jack and Babs feel. We feel Jack's frustration as a mechanic in a new town - the low wages, the impending poverty, the scorching cement – and sympathize. In many ways, this 1963 glimpse at the lower-class hasn't changed. It's timeless as these problems are eternal for generations of Americans. Jack contemplates the money left over on payday and has to decide if his last savings should be spent on a movie and popcorn. Alternatively, the upper middle-class Babs realizes what blue-collar money is worth. She is used to expensive cars, fine dining, and the ability to shop for high-quality wine and clothes. She faces a new awakening under Jack's small, but hard-earned, salary.

Boy-Lover is way better than it ever has a right to be. The cover is gorgeous, but it doesn't do the author or the publisher any real justice. This is just a fantastic novel that makes you feel a responsibility to the characters. On the last page I felt the impact of these two lovers and the impromptu life they led. I felt their emotional connection, their financial struggle, and the challenges they faced in an unconventional relationship. In a way, this is Boeckman's take on youth, the end of innocence, and the daunting threat of impending adulthood. I really enjoyed it and I think you will too. Recommended!

Rogue Cop

William P. McGivern (1918-1982) started his writing career authoring science fiction and fantasy stories for the pulps. By the time he turned to paperback novels, crime fiction became his preferred genre with a high water mark being his 1954 release, “Rogue Cop.” The book was adapted that same year into a well-regarded movie starring Robert Taylor and a pre-Psycho Janet Leigh.

The book’s protagonist is Detective Sergeant Mike Carmody, a police officer in the employ of his big-city police department (feels like Philadelphia to me) and the local mobster, Dan Beaumonte. Carmody has an idealistic kid brother named Eddie who is also a cop, but one who honors his oath of office and plays by the rules. As you can imagine, their relationship is distant and chilly due to the sizable gulf between their core values.

As the novel opens, Carmody has a real dilemma on his hands. His brother Eddie is preparing to testify against a low-level mobster working for Beaumonte, and the racketeer is nervous that the defendant is going to flip if convicted. Beaumonte enlists Carmody’s help to have Eddie keep his mouth shut...or else.

When Carmody explains the risks of testifying to Eddie, the Super-Catholic younger brother doesn’t want to hear it as he can’t be bought or swayed. Carmody is forced into quite a bit of soul-searching regarding his own reputation in the department as a dirty cop while devising a plan to placate his mob boss and keep Eddie alive. Carmody enlists Eddie’s girlfriend into his scheme to keep his brother safe using his own knowledge of the girl’s checkered past. 

This really is a fantastic novel. McGivern brings his A-game when it comes to creating tension and making Carmody’s redemption tale a roller-coaster ride of conflicting interests. The mobsters are menacing without being cartoonish, and the scenes of reckoning between the brothers are emotionally wrenching. McGivern had a real knack for propulsive plotting, and this story is tight as a drum. 

“Rogue Cop” is more than just a kick-ass tale of cops and crooks (although plenty of asses do get kicked). It’s also a story of a man fighting for his own redemption - both professionally and spiritually. There’s a lot going on in this short novel, and it’s way smarter than most genre paperbacks of that era.

I haven’t seen the movie adaptation because they always seem to be a letdown, but I may seek this one out. But you shouldn’t cheat yourself out of a great page-turner. If you’re looking for a fast-moving hardboiled crime story without an ounce of fat, please consider “Rogue Cop” to be essential reading. Highly recommended.

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Punk & Other Stories

Cleve Adams (1885-1949) was a hardboiled crime-fiction author for the pulp magazines whose premature death robbed him from seeing his work be rediscovered in the paperback era. Author and literary scholar Ben Boulden has resurrected four of Adams’ best novellas from 1937-1941 into a modern volume called Punk & Other Stories. I’ve heard good things about Adams’ writing, so I was excited to dive into the title story from the March 1938 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly.

“Punk” is narrated by Jerry, whose job is collecting coins from slot machines and pinball games located in disreputable taverns. Jerry has two childhood friends: Big Ed, a local hood who owns the machines Jerry services and Slats, an honest police detective.

About a month ago, Jerry murdered a guy who also used to work for Big Ed. The cops are looking for the dead guy and suspect foul play. There’s a lot going on in this novelette: a love triangle, political corruption, more murders, mutilation, a frame-up and lots of hardboiled, tough-guy patter.

Adams was a solid writer with an ear for dialogue, and his style never slips into parody (like, say, Robert Leslie Bellem’s Dan Turner: Hollywood Detective). Like a lot of pulp writing of the 1930s, the novella is over-plotted with way too much happening. To his credit, the author does a nice job keeping all the plates spinning. It’s also plenty violent and action-packed with a tidy ending.

I’m thankful that a forward-leaning editor put this collection together, and I intend to dip back into it in the future. For reference, the other novellas are:

“Default With Doom” (1937)
“Frame for a Lady” (1938)
“Forty Pains” (1941)

Buy a copy of the book HERE.