Paperback Warrior - Conversations

Welcome to my newest collaboration with Nick at The Book Graveyard. On this episode, we continue our "Guide to Gothics" discussions by reviewing a 1976 paperback by William Ross titled Phantom Wedding. In this analysis, we discuss William Ross's career, his contributions to the vampire-themed Dark Shadows series, and how he stacks up in terms of other gothic paperback writers. You can stream the video version of this episode HERE or stream the audio on any podcasting platform or below:

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

Keller #01 - Hitman

Lawrence Block began a series of hitman novels in 1998 with Hit Man, the first of six books featuring John Keller, a lonely assassin living in New York. Along with the books (all titles containing the word “Hit”), there are a number of short stories and novellas featuring the character.

In Hit Man, Block presents Keller in a unique episodic formula. Each chapter is a new assignment for the character, taking him to American cities and small towns, hunting his prey for a mysterious boss in White Plains, New York. Each chapter can theoretically be a stand-alone short story, as these narratives aren't immediately relevant to each other. However, in order, the reader can sort of grow with Keller as he embarks on a short-lived relationship with a young woman, acquires a dog, shops for real estate, and invests in a stamp-collecting hobby.

The chapters aren't explicitly violent, with most of the killing scenes being very abbreviated or occurring off-page. The setup places the character in the moment, living in the target's peripheral in the days and hours leading up to the execution. Sometimes Keller befriends the target while speculating on the best ways to knock him or her off. In other chapters, Keller methodically plans a surprise hit or becomes involved emotionally with the target's friend or family. It's all a ruse to get the guard down, but that's the real charm of these stories. It is the ability for Keller to nonchalantly go about the killing business.

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments throughout Hit Man, including Keller calling his home's answering machine to talk with his dog. Another time, he confesses his childhood to a shrink who he must kill. Block adds in some social commentary fitting to Keller's surroundings, allowing readers to live vicariously through this unusual profession of judgment and execution. I also appreciated Block poking a bit of fun at the pulp-paperback market, especially the western formula.

Hit Man is funny, smart, and entertaining. You need to read this book. Get it HERE.

Heller with a Gun

Heller with a Gun was just Louis L'Amour's 11th novel. It was originally published in April 1955 by Fawcett Gold Medal (#478) with a cover by Walter Baumhofer. It was reprinted again by Gold Medal in 1958 (#728) with the same cover art, and then the publisher reprinted a 1960 edition with a movie cover to pair with the simultaneous film adaptation, Heller in Pink Tights. The book has been reprinted countless times through the years, but my favorite might be Ron Lesser's 1966 painted cover featuring Steve Holland (Gold Medal #k1731). 

Oddly, there is no one named Heller in the novel. My guess is that the book may have been titled “Hell with a Gun”, and the publisher changed the title at the last minute. It isn't clear to me, and I was unable to locate an answer online. Instead of a hero named Heller, readers are introduced to a quiet, fast-draw Civil War veteran named King Mabry. After the war, Mabry attempted to find an honest living with a rope and saddle. However, due to his quick hands and steady aim, his skill set became attractive to ranchers defending their brand from rustlers. Mabry doesn't want the gun life, but his reputation leads him into more and more trouble. 

As the book begins, readers meet Mabry in the dead of winter. The frosty snow is piled high, and the frigid temperature is 40 below. Mabry is on the move to deliver cash back to a rancher. Yet, from some off-page history, an assassin is lying in wait to shoot Mabry down. None of that history is important as Mabry shoots the assassin and then carries him to an outpost to lie up and heal. 

At the outpost, Mabry collides with the novel's central plot. A traveling entertainment troupe that needs passage to Wyoming. The problem lies in unfamiliar trails, the intense weather, and the fact that the group includes three women – this is the 1800s and women are considered fragile. The group's leader, Tom Healy, hires a bad man named Barker (every Barker in westerns is a villain) to lead them on this perilous journey. The problem is that Barker and a couple of his companions plan to lead the group into the wilderness to be robbed. That's where Mabry comes in. He stealthily follows the group, anticipating Barker's plan.

This is an odd L'Amour book. The novel's first half is impressive, mostly with the survival yarn aspect of the plot – dead of winter, snowfall, wilderness, and the impending heist. There are a number of side stories introduced that enhance the isolation. One is Barker's hired assassin hunting Mabry, an enticing side quest that ends too quickly. Another is the trio of women fortified in the wagon while shooting at Barker and his men. This is a home invasion sort of trope that was just thrilling. However, just when things are cooking, the second half descends into this strange love story as Mabry pines over one of the traveling actresses, a bland character named Janice. There is also a younger woman named Dodie who is equally pining for Mabry. This romantic angle is the basis of the film adaptation.

The novel's third act is brimming over with lightning-fast action that becomes cinematic in presentation. Sioux renegade warriors are attacking Mabry and Healy, the inevitable showdown between Mabry and Barker, and a cat-and-mouse chase through the forest and wilderness hideaway. If L'Amour could have spruced up the book's second half, then Heller with a Gun would be a bona fide classic. Somehow, he just slipped up in the middle, which pushes this western a little further down on the author's must-read list. 

Get Heller with a Gun HERE.

Dark Shadows #04 - The Mystery of Collinwood

William Ross, using the name Marilyn Ross, authored 33 paperbacks that serve as television tie-ins to the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows. Although the novels feature many of the same characters as the show, Ross's universe and continuity are much different. Living in Canada, Ross didn't have access to the show or scripts, so he used his own imagination and loose production notes to create his version of Dark Shadows. While the atmosphere and aura of Collinsport exist, these novels should be viewed as separate property.

I've mostly enjoyed the three series installments I've read, but fatigue may be setting in. Ross's fourth entry, The Mystery of Collinwood, arrived via Paperback Library in 1968. The book has been republished since then in modern trade and as an audiobook. 

In this novel, Victoria Winters and her employers, Roger and Elizabeth, are greeted by a new guest who has arrived at the family's enormous mansion. The man calls himself Professor Mark Veno, and he introduces his daughter, Linda, to Victoria. Oddly, Victoria discovers that Veno is actually Roger and Elizabeth's brother Mark Collins, a sort of estranged brother who still has ownership in the family estate. He arrives every few years and makes himself at home despite the family's reluctance to accept his vaudeville lifestyle. Victoria accepts Linda's friendship, yet becomes weary of the girl's longing to marry Ernest. In prior novels, Victoria and Ernest have developed a loving relationship that is strained by Ernest's travel schedule. He is a musician in Europe and remains absent from Victoria's life the majority of the time. However, in Europe, Ernest and Linda have become fond of each other. 

Mark Collins introduces Victoria to an old seaside legend concerning the Phantom Mariner, an avenging dead sailor that returns to the mansion searching for his lost love (or something). Victoria soon finds herself afraid of this Phantom Mariner after nearly dying in various accidents around the house. That is where this book dies. It may also be where my respect for Ross as a writer declines. 

Ross authored over 350 novels and nearly 600 short stories. I've read a lot of them and have typically always enjoyed his writing. However, I've read rumblings online that Ross copied entire sections of his own books and repurposed them in other novels. I've often kept an eye out for recycling and may have found an example of this. 

In Ross's 1966 novel Phantom Manor (the title coincidentally similar to “Phantom Mariner”), there's a chapter where the main character is nearly killed in the mansion's wine cellar by a figure she can't identify. In this novel, Victoria experiences the same thing in the wine cellar – an attack by a figure she can't identify. But wait...there's more! 

This entire scene happens to Victoria in the first Dark Shadows book, an attack in the cellar. Coincidentally, that novel was published the same year that Phantom Manor was published - 1966. He's effectively used the same scene in at least three books. To add lime juice to the wound, Ross doesn't even acknowledge that Victoria was attacked in the wine cellar previously. He just sends her down there in this book as if the whole thing is completely safe. If she had been attacked by an unseen assailant in the wine cellar before, why would she go there again? It is senseless.

Ross uses all of the familiar tropes in this book that he uses in all of the Dark Shadows books thus far. You can trade out the Phantom Mariner for a dead lover (Dark Shadows #1), a dead woman who jumped from a cliff (Dark Shadows #2), or another dead lover (Dark Shadows #3). You can trade the Phantom Mariner for a rumored ghost haunting in Secret of Mallet Castle, a suspicious, deadly husband in Dark of the Moon, or the hooded, weird neighbor in Dark Legend. All of these books feature the vulnerable beauty being attacked through 180 pages by a mythical villain haunting the house and family. 

The question I ask myself is, why continue to read these books? Why read Ross? I honestly don't have an answer other than I just enjoy finding myself in a large rural mansion for a few hours. The winding stairways, the endless halls, and the multitude of mysterious rooms and basements are pure escapism. I realize Ross is a hack and made a living rewriting the same book. Many of these gothic suspense and romance writers did the same thing. But, there's just something about that mansion, isn't there?

The Mystery of Collinwood may be the worst of the Dark Shadows books so far. The plot is recycled nonsense with the obligatory costume ball, mysterious guests, and Victoria's bafflement at who could be attacking her. To add insult to injury, Roger and Elizabeth still question Victoria's sanity even after all of these attacks have proven to be a legitimate killer in the house. One would think they would just take her word for it. 

One or two more books to get through before the vampire arrives. I'll be tired and worn out by the time he pops the fangs and gets to business.

Get The Mystery of Collinwood HERE

Exiles

Andrew Pyper (1968-2025) received a B.A. And M.A. in English Literature from McGill University and earned a law degree from the University of Toronto. Instead of pursuing a career as an attorney, Pyper became a full-time novelist, writing 15 novels including, The Demonologist, a 2013 novel that won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel. As Mason Coile, Pyper wrote two darker science-fiction titles, William (2024) and Exiles (2025), the latter of which he wrote while battling terminal cancer. Pyper passed away on January 3rd, less than four months after Exiles release date. 

As Coile, Pyper took on a type of gritty, horror-related storyteller role, evident in his cutting-edge AI haunted house novel William. While Exiles isn't a sequel to the book, it still serves as a sort of literary sibling. Both books contain plots in which everyday people are trapped in structures with an evolved homicidal AI. Granted, there are a lot of AI-related films and movies, so the plot isn't necessarily innovative or unique. But Pyper could write well, and his prose is easy to devour, making Exiles a book I was really looking forward to. Be careful what you wish for. 

Exiles stars three astronauts – Blake, Kang, and protagonist Dana – on mankind's first landing on Mars. Their trip, seven months in hibernation aboard a spaceship, is closely monitored by millions of personnel to achieve success. Before the three arrive, a grandiose mission was launched with an assemblage of rovers and worker bots building  Citadel, a cross-shaped facility where the three astronauts will live while preparing humans for future missions to the red planet. The mission is for these three to land their pod, make a short journey to the facility, meet the trio of worker bots, and begin a two-to-three year study and preparation event. However, these sorts of things never go as planned in survival horror.

After a roller coaster landing, the three make it to Citadel and discover two worker bots that have begun to achieve a type of false humanity. These bots have assigned themselves genders, express emotional feelings, and seemingly want to return to Earth. The astronauts are equally shocked and perplexed by the bots' ability (or inability) to become “human”. But the bots, who call themselves Shay and Wes, are also afraid of what is outside the facility. Their description of an alien creature is terrifying to the crew. But, as things get weird – and then weirder – it seems as though the third worker bot might be a homicidal maniac, a crazed machine called Alex. This plot device transforms Exiles into a locked-room mystery set aboard this space facility. 

While this story sounds great, Pyper's characters are irritating. These three were picked as the best of the best, the ultimate representation of Earth transported to Mars. Yet they behave in obnoxious ways, curse every piece of dialogue, and behave like teenagers despite their stellar technical education. Dana is the worst of the trio, and unfortunately the reader rides in her mind and experiences her conscious thoughts. Pyper tries to make the book more dynamic by revealing pieces of Dana's childhood and a mystery involving her mother, but it just never worked for me. Also, the whole concept doesn't provide any answers to the AI problem, just more examples of machined intelligence gone wild. Lots of media positions the problem, but I need author commentary on how to fix the problem (besides crushing the mad robot in a pit). 

Exiles is an okay novel that could have been something special. Instead, poor characters, a bland second act, and the isolation all combine to make the novel one long snooze fest. Your mileage may vary, proceed at your own risk.

Get the book HERE.

Cry for the Strangers

There is a scene near the end of Cry for the Strangers in which John Saul describes his book perfectly. One character is saying to the other, “And I'll tell you something else – I don't think he's ever going to make sense out of this mess. I'm not sure there is any sense.” Interestingly enough, the characters seem to be having a discussion about their creator, John Saul himself. They are accurate in their assessment. Nothing in this book makes any sense because I'm positive the author himself has no idea what the book is about. 

Cry for the Strangers may be John Saul's most notable book. It was published in 1979 by Dell, reached bestseller status with the rest of his bibliography, and was adapted into a CBS movie-of-the-week starring Patrick Duffy and Brian Keith. It's a familiar formula for Saul, the one where the town's outsiders stumble upon a wicked secret preserved for generations. Small town horror is easy genre fodder as it creates an introduction to the town through the eyes of its newest resident. The readers can simultaneously experience the welcome along with the main character. Both are new in town, making it an easy story to delve into. Saul used this plot device for over three decades of horror superstardom. But the problem is, he fails to actually disclose the town's deep, dark secret. Instead, he meanders around it for 418 pages – the exact length of the book – leaving more questions than answers.

The book focuses on the newest two couples that have temporarily moved to Clark's Harbor, a New England-styled town on the California coast. For Brad and Elaine, it is a chance for both of them to pursue their personal goals, which include Brad's book about the body's bio-rhythms. For Rebecca and Glenn, the opportunity to raise their children on the rocky beach while establishing an art store. However, Clark's Harbor doesn't like strangers. Their leader, Police Chief Waylin, is dead set against any newcomers taking up residence in the town. But, despite warnings and threats of physical violence, both couples feel that Clark's Harbor is a place worth fighting for. Saul never bothers to explain what's so special about the town beyond sand and ocean.

Through 418 painful pages, readers experience moving, building store shelves, cooking, cleaning, and other daily routines that pad the page. The horror, if there is any, consists of a man drowning, a woman found hanged to death, a shipwreck, and a main character's death by broken neck. Beyond that...nothing. There's no real explanation for any of it other than some poppycock about storms and bio-rhythm that causes one resident to become homicidal. Nothing else is ever explained. Instead, the author just rests on writing pages upon pages of pointless dialogue and a recycling of the book's main chapter sparks – the two kids running on the beach at night and their parents asking where they are.

Cry for the Strangers is Hall of Shame material. The only crying is the after-effect of reading this boring pile of nonsense and realizing you've lost 12 hours of reading time. Stay away, for God's sake, just stay away from this clutter.

Spenser #04 - Promised Land

The fourth Spenser novel, Promised Land, was a real turning point in the series. The book, authored by Robert B. Parker, was published in 1976 by Houghton Mifflin in hardcover and in 1978 as a paperback by Dell. The novel won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1977, one of two that Parker would earn over his career (the other being a Grand Master in 2002). However, despite those lofty achievements, the book is probably best remembered as “the one where Hawk appears”. Or, maybe, the one where Susan tells Spenser, “I love you”. 

The book begins with Spenser relocating his private-eye office from a disreputable part of Boston to a more renowned section of the city. Susan is there helping him spruce up the place when a potential client walks in, a real estate developer from Cape Cod named Harvey. He wants to hire Spenser ($100 a day plus expenses) to track down his wife, a woman named Pamela, that has skipped out on him and their kids. Spenser needs a new client and takes the case. But it won't be an easy one.

When Spenser arrives at Harvey's home he is surprised to find an old acquaintance there named Hawk. Spenser explains that he and Hawk both spent time in the boxing circuit. While they aren't friends, they have known of each other for decades. Spenser also knows Hawk works as a lethal enforcer and that he could be working for a local loan shark named King Powers. When Spenser presses Harvey on clues to where his wife might be, he also indulges in a few questions about Harvey's relationship with Hawk. Spenser feels that Harvey is in deep debt with Powers, and Hawk was at the family home roughing him up to get the repayment. That's part of the core mystery of Promised Land and it also ties into the book's fitting title. 

Parker is such a fluid and descriptive writer. I could read about what Spenser is eating, driving, reading, and cooking, and it doesn't even have to involve a mystery. That is how great Parker's style is: his breezy ability to just write life's circumstances and somehow magically make it interesting. His prose is conversational and allows readers to live within the detective's mind – often solving the crime or simply planning the next meal. Regardless, it is compelling enough to keep flipping the pages, a craft lost on so many authors that are jagged and meddlesome with their wordcraft.

Spenser's case involves gun running, nefarious women, mean men, and other underbelly criminal enterprises that keep Promised Land on the right path as a glorious crime-fiction novel. However, Parker has a lot to say about marriage in the book. That's the central concept, the one that underlines every character and situation. Harvey and Pamela's marriage is in a state of crisis, but there's also a delicious awakening of Susan that drives home her ability to love Spenser – the dangerous hero with a gun. Parker's commentary is on enduring love, budding romance, and the life cycle of raising a home and a family. It's a surprising and unexpected thing to find in a crime-fiction novel – the art of love, the ability to grow and sustain in a relationship, and the inevitable burnout when finance and stress scar marriage.

Promised Land is really something special. Pick up a copy HERE.

The Housemaid

Freida McFadden (a pseudonym for a medical doctor) is a prolific, sharp-eyed writer with a gift for pacing and psychological pressure. Her most successful novel is The Housemaid from 2022, a lean domestic thriller that reads like it was engineered for a single sitting. It’s no surprise the novel has already crossed over into pop-culture territory with a successful film adaptation.

What McFadden understands—deeply—is that the best suspense doesn’t come from explosions or elaborate conspiracies. It comes from people, trapped in close quarters, making bad decisions for understandable reasons. A pretty female ex-con is hired by a snobby, dysfunctional Long Island family to be a live-in housekeeper. The Man of the House is handsome and charming, and you know where this is headed…or do you?

The domestic sexual tension recalled a gender-swapped Orrie Hitt, the mid-century paperback master who specialized in fatal attraction crime stories replete with class anxiety, and characters who think they’re in control right up until they aren’t. Something is amiss in this household with the charming dad, his bitchy wife, and their bratty kid. You’ll never guess what’s actually occurring.

The first-person prose is clean, unshowy, and ruthlessly efficient exactly what you want in a suspense novel. The story moves forward with the confidence of a writer who knows she has you with chapter-ending cliffhangers and a major curve-ball twist that makes you rethink everything you’ve read thus far.

The Housemaid is the kind of book that sneaks up on you, smiles politely, and then refuses to let go. It’s hard to put down, and you’ll burn a lot of calories deciding which characters to like or hate. The novel walks a tightrope between psychological dread and page-turning fun, never tipping into pretension or camp. It’s smart without being smug, dark without being cruel, and relentlessly readable. Like the best mass-market suspense of the past, it respects the reader’s intelligence while still delivering the goods.

Bottom line: The Housemaid is a modern paperback thriller with vintage instincts—fast, sharp, and unsettling in all the right ways. Fans of classic psychological noir, especially readers who appreciate the domestic menace and sexual tension found in Orrie Hitt’s work, will feel right at home here.

And if you finish the last page wanting more, you’re in luck: the story continues in two sequels, expanding the world McFadden so efficiently sets in motion.

Get the book HERE.

Conan - Conan and the Spider God

L. Sprague de Camp collaborated with Lin Carter and Bjorn Nybert to author several Conan stories. However, he only attempted one solo Conan effort, the 1980 Bantam paperback Conan and the Spider God. The novel was also published in hardcover in 1984 by Robert Hale, and reprinted twice by Ace, once in 1989 and again in 1991. Tor also published the book as a hardcover and paperback, and collected it as part of Sagas of Conan in 2004. The novel was adapted into comic form in Savage Sword of Conan #207-210 in 1993.

In the book's first few chapters, Conan is on the fugitive trail after slaying a fellow officer in the Turanian military - over a girl, of course. His quest to flee his pursuers places him on wacky adventures that essentially just fill paperback pages until de Camp settles on an actual plot. In these pages, Conan fights a swamp cat, rescues an old lady from a burning stake, and meets a blind man who utters some prophetic nonsense. The most interesting of these side quests is Conan's night with mysterious Zamorian merchants. It is in their camp that Conan discovers the men have captured King Yildiz's favorite wife, although at the time, he thinks she is just a mysterious female traveler. 

Eventually, Conan arrives in Yezud and is still being pursued by Turanian guards. It is here that the book settles into a long, boring narrative as the titular hero becomes a blacksmith, romances a woman named Rubadeh, and learns that the town's priests are divided, one half serving the King and the others serving a spider god named Zath. Conan is intrigued by the division and learns that Zath is really a giant statue of a spider, complete with gemstones representing the deity's eyes. Conan also learns that King Yildiz's wife is being held captive in a tower there guarded by a tiger. His quest is to continue infiltrating the city's political and military circumference, steal the gemstones, rescue the wife, and ride into peace and tranquility with the love of his life Rubadeh.

Obviously, there are only two real reasons to read or own de Camp's critically-panned pile of trash – Bob Larkin's Bantam paperback cover and the idea that Conan fights a large spider. Beyond those two things, the book is completely worthless (as much as it pains me to call a book disposable). This isn't Robert E. Howard's Conan. It isn't even a worthy Marvel interpretation that dominates the Tor paperback line. Instead, de Camp is making up his own version of Conan, one that cries, pines for love, debates becoming married, and is submissive to authority. This is a mere shell of Howard's nihilistic pulp hero. 

If his sympathetic and deranged take on Conan's character isn't insulting enough, de Camp even borrows entire scenes from Howard's work. In the setup to the book's finale, Conan provides spoiled meat to the tiger prowling around the base of the tower. Once the tiger “dies”, Conan scales the tower, gets the wife, and comes down only to be surprised that the tiger isn't dead. He kills it with his sword and continues on. This is from The Tower of the Elephant, in which Conan's ally Taurus blows magic lotus dust on a lion prowling the base of a tower. Conan eventually comes down from the tower and is surprised to find there is another lion there that he must kill with his sword. Same thing. The book is riddled with this stuff.

Conan and the Spider God is a boring, uninspired novel that rests securely in the basement of Conan literature. It can't possibly get any worse than this, thus earning my not-so-coveted ranking as a Hall of Shame member.

To the Dark Tower

It has taken me about six years to revisit Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994). My last experience with him, 1970s Monster From Out of Time, was unpleasant despite Frank Frazetta's promising paperback cover. Long is probably best remembered as a Lovecraft Circle member, sitting alongside other contemporary Weird Tales contributors like Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, and Robert E. Howard. As part of Nick Anderson's Book Graveyard YouTube show, The Guide to Gothics, I teamed up with the host and Liminal Spaces show host Chris to discuss Long's gothic paperback, To the Dark Tower (watch HERE). It was published in 1969 by both Lancer and Magnum using Long's pseudonym of Lyda Belknap Long. Humorously, the author adds at the beginning of the book, “To the untiring help and teachings of my husband, Frank Belknap Long.” I see what you did there.

The book stars a woman named Joan, an architect who recently encountered a dark supernatural force in the Pyrenees mountains. At least she thinks she did, and her life has been plagued with visions and nightmares since then. Her lover, Dr. Allen, has invited her to his rural Kentucky home so she can talk with mental health professionals about her experiences. Joan is appreciative of the gesture, but mainly just wants to get laid.

Before Joan's introduction, Long features a young disabled man named Willie witnessing some secret meeting of witches. He later finds a voodoo doll showing Joan's face before he is murdered. Two travelers in the area experience car trouble and make their way through the forest, and discover more crazy shenanigans. When they report their account to the local police, they are killed and buried in the woods. 

To the Dark Tower then shapes up to be a wild folk horror novel where the locals all worship the Devil and kill outsiders. Remember, this is just two years after Rosemary's Baby and the start of Satanic Panic. Books like Thomas Tryon's The Other and Harvest Home were around the corner, along with William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. At least that was the idea, I think, disguised as a much safer gothic-romance or suspense book by the publisher. Unfortunately, as good as the setup is, Long fails to deliver a quality novel.

After a great beginning, Long delivers 40-50 pages of dialogue (in one room!) as the sheriff, Dr. Allen, and Joan all discuss various topics surrounding her experience in the forest, Europe, and meeting Dr. Allen's sister Helen. This is a long-winded, painful literary exercise that made me consider finishing the book, abandoning it, or simply skipping this ridiculous page padding. I skipped whole pages of this nonsense, only to find the end was nothing short of abysmal. In the finale, the author has characters reiterate what I had already read. This is a rookie mistake, not something a veteran author should be making.

To the Dark Tower is an unpleasant mess that could had the makeup of being a folk horror cornerstone. Proceed with caution; don't get this book. If you have to own it, at least throw a few cents my way by getting it HERE.

The Mystery of Sebastian Island

Oklahoma native Margaret Goff Clark (1913-2003) authored over 200 short stories, 35 one-act plays, and 24 novels, including fiction and biographies. She received her education at State Teachers College in Buffalo, New York, and then became a school teacher for five years. Her first book, The Mystery of Seneca Hill, was published in 1961, kick-starting a productive writing career focused on juvenile and young adult fiction. I love a good story, no matter the age group, genre, or ingredients. I picked up her 168-page young adult novel, The Mystery of Sebastian Island, published by Dodd, Meade, & Company in 1976.

The book's protagonist is Dena, a teenager who lives on Sebastian Island, a rural island off the coast of Maine. Eight years earlier, Dena's father died in a boating accident while fishing for lobsters. Dena spends most of her life on the island, but lives on the coast at a boarding school during the winter. As the book begins, Dena is returning home after a school break. She's anxious to see her mother, but still hasn't adjusted to her mother's new husband, a man named Paul.

Dena's return to the island involves a mystery plaguing the residents. Boats are missing, lobster traps are vanishing, and strangers have been spotted (everyone knows everyone here). There's a mystery involving Paul's charting of ships, his whereabouts during the day, and his relationship with the strangers on the island. Dena experiences a home-invasion attempt, which propels her further into the mystery.

Surprisingly, The Mystery of Sebastian Island evolves into a crime fiction novel as Dena, with her best friend, discovers heroin traffickers using the island as a shipping and receiving center. There's very little in the way of violence or gunplay, but there is a sense of adventure and escapism when the story elevates into a nautical fiction finale. The story's most engaging aspect is the character of Paul and whether Dena's mother has married a criminal or an undercover agent. 

The Mystery of Sebastian Island was a fun hour of escapism, and Clark injects a lot of atmosphere and life into these islanders. I enjoyed the book, but keep your expectations in check. Get it HERE. 

The Crash

Freida McFadden (a pseudonym whose real name is undisclosed) is one of the most prolific thriller writers working today. A practicing physician by trade, she’s built a second career cranking out short, high-concept psychological suspense novels at a pace that would make most writers collapse from exhaustion. Her books live at the intersection of airport paperbacks and late-night Kindle binges with short chapters, unreliable narrators, and twists engineered to hit like a slap across the face. 2025’s The Crash is squarely in that wheelhouse.

The setup is deceptively simple. Pregnant 23 year-old Tegan’s life veers violently off course after a snowy car crash leaves her injured, vulnerable, and dependent on the kindness of an odd couple who brings her home to care for her shattered ankle until the blizzard blows over. Tegan quickly comes to the creeping realization that something isn’t right with the strange couple.

If the premise feels familiar, that’s because The Crash openly invites comparison to Stephen King’s Misery. Like King’s classic, this novel weaponizes confinement and dependency. The horror doesn’t come from monsters or gore but rather a power imbalance. McFadden mirrors King’s slow tightening of the screws, where every small kindness feels suspect and every gesture might carry a hidden cost. The Crash is more streamlined and modern as if it were filtered through TikTok-era pacing.

Where McFadden truly shines is momentum. The book is hard to put down. Its the kind of thriller that tricks you into saying “one more chapter” until you realize it’s 2 a.m. The psychological manipulation is effective, the clues are planted just subtly enough, and the central situation is genuinely unsettling. You feel Tegan’s helplessness, which is exactly the point.

The ending is likely to divide audiences. Without spoiling anything, the final act leans heavily into revealing mandatory plot twists that not every reader will find it fully satisfying creating a conclusion that felt more engineered than inevitable. The landing doesn’t quite match the elegance of the buildup.

Still, The Crash is a solid entry in McFadden’s catalog and a strong recommendation for fans of fast, claustrophobic psychological thrillers. If you like your suspense sharp, efficient, and designed to be devoured in a single sitting, this one absolutely delivers even if the final note doesn’t resonate as cleanly as the outstanding set-up.

Get the book HERE 

Nick Carter: Killmaster #06 - Saigon

In terms of the early Nick Carter: Killmaster novels, I enjoyed the debut, Run, Spy, Run, and the series's third installment, Checkmate in Rio. The combination of Michael Avallone and Valerie Moolman proved to be a winning formula, although I suspect Avallone had more to do with Checkmate in Rio. The two are listed as co-authors of the sixth series entry, Saigon, published in 1964. Whatever the ratio the two writers shared, they managed to create one of the worst books I've ever covered here at Paperback Warrior.

The novel takes place during Vietnam's Civil War, shortly after the French have been pushed out of the country. Madame Claire La Farge's peaceful existence in Northern Vietnam is under consistent threats from the Communist regime. Claire's sprawling farm plantation provides food and labor for the local villagers, which is one of the few reasons the bad guys have left her alone. There's a backstory in the opening pages regarding Claire's husband, a French Intelligence agent who was killed eight years ago. Claire spends most of her days sunbathing in the nude and...well, that's about it. 

A messenger arrives at Claire's house and immediately succumbs to his injuries at the hands of some merciless torturer. He provides Claire a list, and the book kicks into low gear from there. 

The first half of the book is dedicated to a girl named Toni. She's hooked on heroin and has sex with her dealer. The dealer is a Communist agent who's thrilled to give injections of both varieties to Toni. Yet, he's really working to obtain details about Toni's father, Dupre, a French Intelligence agent. Does any of this tie to the list provided to Claire from the dead guy? Probably, but I stopped caring after these endless pages of “giving her his maleness”. 

Nick Carter eventually gets involved by answering an advertisement in the classified pages. Seriously. He's on loan to the South Vietnamese government, posing as a medical doctor in a nearby village. He's bored one morning and reads a newspaper and sees an intriguing classified ad. He goes to follow up, and it just so happens that it was a secret message sent by Claire in hopes of reaching one of her husband's former French co-workers. Sure, AXE eventually corresponds with Nick and advises him to go to Claire's house, but Nick had already beaten this branch of American Intelligence by reading the newspaper. 

The second half of the book is Toni and her dealer doing the nasty, but mostly involves Nick bedding down Toni's friend Michelle and also pining over what Claire may look like once he journeys through the jungle to find her house. Nick's quest isn't the list, upending communism and providing war efforts. Nope. He needs to get laid by a woman he's never met (or saw).

I've read some bad Michael Avallone novels, so he's not completely off the hook here. I suspect that Valerie Moolman is to blame for this word stockpile of pointless, badly written trash. The characters behave poorly, there's very little action, and the novel really should have been a sleaze book with no association to the Nick Carter series (although consensus says the series is ripe with poor entries). I hated this book. I despise this book. I have a scanned copy taking up a meager 7MB of space and I want to remove all traces of it from my computer. Hall of Shame, welcome Saigon. 

Paperback Warrior - Conversations

In this episode, I'm talking with Nick from The Book Graveyard and Chris from Liminal Spaces about a 1969 paperback titled To the Dark Tower by Weird Tales author Frank Belknap Long. Is the book an early representative of folk horror? Is it a standard gothic romance paperback? What are the ties to Lovecraft's cosmic horror? We have the answers in this newest episode of the Guide to Gothics series.

Stream the podcast below, on any streaming platform, or watch the collaboration on video HERE.

Listen to "Conversations - The Book Graveyard & Liminal Spaces" on Spreaker.

Underground Airlines

Ben Winters (b. 1976) is a New York Times bestselling author who won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his 2012 novel The Last Policeman. The book was the first in a trilogy of pre-apocalyptic detective novels. My first experience with the writer is Underground Airlines, a 2016 novel published by Mulholland Books.

The novel is set in an alternate history of the United States, one in which the American Civil War never happened. The book's opening page shows the map of states, some of which are free and some that aren't – meaning slave labor is still legal. These states, which are mostly America's upper East Coast, as well as the “Hard Four”, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and California, use forced labor (mostly black) to manufacture goods, for farming, and for household servitude. 

The book's protagonist is Victor, a black undercover agent who works as a U.S. Marshall. His main duty is to hunt escaped slaves and bring them to justice. He's good at it and possesses a stellar resume of apprehensions. However, there's an inner turmoil within Victor that builds throughout the narrative. 

Victor was a slave himself. Throughout the novel, readers are fed pieces of Victor's backstory that reveal his life as a slave, his eventual escape to a free state, and his apprehension by authorities. The feds offered Victor official, legal freedom in exchange for his career as a slave-hunting cop. It is the proverbial “sell the Devil your soul” dish dressed and served deliciously by the author. 

Underground Airlines focuses on Victor's trail to find an escaped slave, a plot that weaves in and out of slave and free states in a compelling mix of unique takes on history and a contemporary look at forced labor in our current society (you're probably wearing clothes stitched by a slave as you read this). I think Winter's novel is a hard look at forced labor and the intricacies of protecting big business and their pockets. It reminded me of classics like Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and how that book's main character, Guy Montag, begins to question the system and plots ways (with assistance) to upend the immoral fabric of the government. 

You can get this unique, entertaining novel HERE.

Babysitter's Nightmares #04 - A Killer in the House

There were a number of middle school horror and thriller paperbacks in the 1980s and 1990s. I' 've reviewed a few of them here on PW, and created videos discussing these novels. I discovered a series recently that was new to me, Babysitter's Nightmares. This was a short-lived, four-book series of stand-alone thrillers published by HarperPaperbacks, the young adult division of HarperCollins, in 1995. My experience comes by way of A Killer in the House, the series' last installment, authored by J.H. Carroll. 

Sue is a high school student earning extra income by babysitting the Andersons' young son. One night, she stumbles on an envelope left under the typewriter of Mr. Anderson. Inside, she discovers a check being paid to a person identified as R. Stoud for $125K. This fat check leads Sue into a search for who Mr. Anderson really is and what led to his wealth. 

Partnering with her friend Lydia and friend Brett, Sue begins an investigation that leads to some really dark places. Apparently, Mrs. Anderson may have killed her prior husband, stolen his money, and set up a new identity. Is she a black widow preying on rich men? Is Mr. Anderson the next victim?

A Killer in the House isn't the novel I thought it would be. I was prepared for a home-invasion setup with some sadistic psychopath breaking in on a babysitter's shift. Maybe something like the film Black Christmas, playing up the killer in the house title. Remember “the calls are coming from inside the house”? Instead, this short novel is a crime-fiction endeavor with the lead researching the suspect's former employer, a trip to the library for archived press clippings, a discussion at a New York Mets game, and other low-tension affairs. 

While the finale produced some gunfire, fisticuffs, and a few surprises, the book is generally going to attract fans of Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys. It's a fun crime story with a central mystery and the obligatory self-discovery as the protagonist finds herself through the clues chase.

Get the book HERE.

The Wolf in the Clouds

Ron Faust (1936-2011) worked in the newspaper industry in Key West, Colorado Springs, and San Diego. He elected to play professional baseball in the 1950s, but left the sport after just 25 games and two seasons. His first published novel was Snowkill, published in 1970. He authored 14 more books before his passing, most of which are high adventure novels that incorporate skiing, mountain climbing, and philosophy. His intense thriller The Wolf in the Clouds is an avalanche-themed survival novel that also features a deranged psychopath. The book was originally published as a hardcover by Bobbs-Merrill Company in 1977 and in paperback by Popular Library the same year. 

Jack is a family man with a wife and two young children. He works for the U.S. Forestry Service and specializes in avalanche prevention and recovery. As the book begins, Jack's co-worker Frank arrives at Jack's house and explains that their assignment is to retrieve three college kids who have vacationed in a secluded, faraway cabin near the top of fictitious Mt. Wolf. As the two leave the house, Jack's wife begs him to consider moving his job to a different area of expertise or a safer geographical area. 

En route to the base of the mountain, Jack discovers Frank has brought a rifle for the rescue mission. In a philosophical debate that permeates throughout the novel, Jack argues that the gun is not the answer. He questions Frank's intentions and explains that the homicidal maniac was once a friend and co-worker. It's explained that the maniac is Ralph, a quiet man who befriended Jack a year or two earlier on the job. Ralph even rescued Jack during an avalanche, so the two share a bond. Yet, Jack understands Ralph's psychotic tendencies. The killer murdered his landlord and shot several skiers before running from fugitives into the icy wilderness. He's a mass shooter on the run, which is ultimately Frank's defense in bringing a rifle for the rescue. Smart guy.

Eventually, Jack and Frank reach the mountaintop and meet with the three college kids. Ralph arrives as well, and all Hell breaks loose. People are shot and killed, Ralph takes the cabin and captures Jack and two college kids. The novel's second half is a high-tension cat-and-mouse affair as Jack talks with Ralph to de-escalate the situation. Yet without a gun, Jack realizes his efforts are useless and likely to cost him his life. No one is getting out of the cabin without a struggle.

The Wolf in the Clouds is an excellent thriller that incorporates philosophy and high adventure. Jack is aloof and weak, the opposite of a paperback warrior. The idea of combatting violence without violence sounds great in theory, but spells disaster for these college kids and Jack. Despite Jack's efforts to talk to Ralph, the maniac ultimately descends into some really dark places fueled by sexual frustration, psychotic fantasies, and a deep desire to kill people to liberate their Earthly bodies for a space trip. Ralph is the cult leader without a cult, Jack is the white-hatted hero without a gun. Faust blends all of these into a fascinating novel that piqued my interest in his bibliography. Recommended. Get his books HERE.

Mean Business on North Ganson Street

S. Craig Zahler is a terrific independent screenwriter and an accomplished novelist. His 2014 violent crime novel, Mean Business on North Ganson Street, was to be adapted into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx, but it seems the film project never happened.

Our hero is Jules Bettinger, age 50. He’s a tough and cynical black police detective in Arizona. For largely political reasons involving an unfortunate civilian death, he’s fired from his position on the force. His chief made some calls and landed him a job as a police detective in a rustbelt city called Victory, Missouri. The town is a cesspool of rapes, abductions and murders. They could use a seasoned detective.

Victory is a shithole among shitholes resembling Sin City from the Frank Miller comic books. Dangerous thugs wielding pipes are everywhere. The “Welcome to Victory” sign at the city limits is smeared with excrement greeting visitors with miles of dilapidated tenements and dead pigeons adorning every street.

Bettinger’s first case in Victory is a murder-rape (in that order) on Ganston Street, and the book starts looking like a normal police procedural. Not so fast! Zahler’s plotting takes two abrupt turns becoming an investigation into police corruption, then a violent serial killer manhunt.

Ganston Street’s characters are vivid and morally-ambiguous. Characters that stand on virtue are dragged into the muck when a case becomes personal. As a lead character, Bettinger is super-smart and capable. But the real star of the novel is the dungheap town of Victory. Zahler pours it on thick making Victory far-and-away the most putrid city in America — making Gary, Indiana look like Downtown Disney.

To enjoy a Zahler book, you need to be comfortable with an extreme amount of graphic violence. A rotting pigeon is shoved down the throat of a non-compliant subject. Brain matter splatters against the ceiling in an office suicide. All of this is in service if the plot and never gratuitous, but you need to make peace with these sequences as a reader. Some of the descriptions were hard to read.

The mysteries of the novel are all neatly resolved by the end with characters having gone to hell and back to bring these matters to a close. Mean Business on Ganson Street isn’t Zahler’s masterpiece (that would be The Slanted Gutter), but it’s a damn-fine xxxtreme police procedural mystery-crime-corruption-vendetta novel that will keep you glued to the pages. 

Get the book HERE.

The Turn of the Screw

Henry James (1843-1916) authored a number of celebrated works, like The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, and The Ambassadors. However, his reputation is mostly synonymous with the ghost story The Turn of the Screw. The work was originally published in Collier's Weekly in 1898, then reprinted in numerous formats as part of The Two Magics collection, The Aspern Papers, and stand-alone editions by a variety of publishers. Maintaining the novella's relevancy are the endless adaptations. There have been at least seven film adaptations, ten television series productions, numerous stage performances, and a radio play. I read and enjoyed the book when I was much younger. As part of my collaboration with Nick Anderson at The Book Graveyard, I agreed to revisit the novella for a discussion on gothic paperbacks. 

The basis of the novella is told in first-person perspective from an unnamed narrator. She is the newly hired governess for a boy and a girl living in a large country house in Essex, England. While ages are never provided, I guess that Miles is around 14-16 years of age. He was attending boarding school and has been dismissed for the summer. Later, it is disclosed through a letter that Miles has been permanently kicked out of the school for some undisclosed act. Flora is Miles' younger sister. Based on clues in the novel, I speculate she is around 4-5 years of age. 

Through the narrative, the governess learns that two of her predecessors mysteriously died. While outside on the front lawn, the governess looks up to see a strange man inside the house walking along the tower. Later, the governess sees a malevolent woman dressed in black standing near the children. These appearances continue throughout the narrative, leading readers to question the narrator's mental state. In the narrator's defense, the children behave as if they see these two people as well. Later, the governess describes the people to Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper, and she confirms that these two entities could be the prior “dead” predecessors that tutored the children. 

The Turn of the Screw is a difficult novella to read. The prose and language are Victorian, creating abrasion for readers (i.e. “presumable sequestration”). The most straightforward scenes are described in abstract details that blur the actual events. There is too much anonymity to allow readers to connect to these characters, a strangeness that constructs and seals too many details. I conclude that James purposefully wrote the work in a vague way to create an air of mystery in the whole text. Either this presentation will work for you or it won't. The first time I read the novella, I was intrigued and overly enthusiastic about it. This time, I found the writing tedious and the pace sluggish.

While there are terrifying moments, the way they are described isn't captivating or revealing. Perhaps at the time of publication, this had more of an impact, but in 2025, the horror is tepid at best. I think I'm more moved by the general idea of the novella and the inspiration it provided for gothic paperbacks and films (The Others, The Woman in Black come to mind). There's no questioning the work's positive impact on modern thrillers and horror, and for that reason, I'm appreciative of James' contribution to the genre. You owe it to yourself to read the novella and come to your own conclusions.

Get a version you like HERE.

X-Files - The Calusari

Garth Nix was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He was a sales rep and publicist before becoming a senior editor at HarperCollins. He later became a literary agent for Curtis Brown Pty Ltd before becoming a full-time author. He created and wrote the fantasy series Old Kingdom, consisting of six novels, as well as young-adult fantasy titles like The Seventh Tower, The Keys to the Kingdom, and two series co-written with Sean Williams, Have Sword, Will Travel and Troubletwisters. 

Nix kicked off the young adult line of X-Files novelizations in 1997 with the first installment, The Calusari, published by Scholastic. There were 16 of these books from 1997 through 2000, all of which were written by different authors and adapted from the television show episodes. “The Calusari” was the show's twenty-first episode of the second season, originally airing April 14, 1995. 

I always enjoyed the show's monster-of-the-week episodes the most. While I love X-Files, I found the through-story arc with alien invasion and cover-ups way too convoluted. These unconnected, stand-alone episodes are really where the show shines, and this episode is one of the most frightening of the franchise. 

The book, at 116 pages, features an exorcist sort of take on a child's death. In the opener (pre-theme music), Maggie and her husband Steve are at a small amusement park in Virginia. They have their two small sons with them, Teddy and Charlie. In a freak occurrence, Teddy is struck by a train while pursuing a balloon that appears to be floating against the wind. The X-Files become involved after evidence shows the balloon's trajectory and the possibility of a ghost that led Teddy to his death.

Mulder and Scully become involved in the investigation, which takes some unusual turns with Romanian customs, Charlie's bizarre grandmother, Maggie's unwillingness to succumb to the family's odd traditions, and marital woes in the wake of Teddy's death. There is a disturbing plot element introduced that suggests Charlie's dead twin may be an evil force bent on destroying the family. The Calusari emerge as the family's mysterious religious sect pitted against evil.

Novelizations are tricky. One of the most alluring aspects of these novels is the possibility of introducing a different perspective, more depth to certain film or episode scenes, different takes on the source material, or something else. The Calusari doesn't offer much to supplement the episode. This is nearly word-for-word a transcription of the episode, with a few perspective pieces coming from the train driver and Maggie's relationship with her mother-in-law. Aside from that, this is literally an episode on paper. It was brisk, enjoyable, and I don't regret reading it. But it adds nothing to the episode.

Get The Calusari HERE.