Gravetapping

The Leo Guild Novels

2010-06-02T19:09:00.000-06:00

It has been twenty-three years since a slim novel published by M. Evans and Company introduced a half-broken former lawman turned bounty hunter named Leo Guild. He appeared in four titles. The first, Guild, appeared in 1987 and the last, Dark Trail, was published in 1990. Guild was Ed Gorman’s first published western, and it is different than much of what the genre has to offer, but it can still be planted, somewhat askew and off-balance, into the definition of a traditional western. There is a hero, a damsel, and villain.

Click HERE for the rest...

DRAGON GAMES by Stephen Mertz

2010-06-01T07:11:00.000-06:00

2008. Beijing, China. The world has descended on China for one of the most spectacular public relations campaigns in modern history. The Summer Olympics mark China’s celebration, and notice to the world, that it has arrived as a major world power, and it is of the utmost importance that nothing go wrong. A small group of private foreign security agents are hired to help protect the influx of both Western athletes and tourists.

The novel begins with the opening ceremonies in the behemoth stadium coined “the bird’s nest” with an unexpected and very violent operation involving both the private security firm and Chinese Special Forces. A group of what the Chinese believe to be terrorists are captured in the delivery access area of the stadium. It is a quick and violent operation that isn’t noticed by anyone, including the media, but leads the protagonist, Tag McCall, into a dark and dangerous mission that will cost him more than he can fathom.

Click HERE to read the rest...

A Moving Tide...

2010-05-29T17:25:00.000-06:00

This is the last post here at Gravetapping, but it is certainly not the last post I will make because there is a new blog where I will share my shameless rambles. A blog titled Dark City Underground. A blog that will feature the same eclectic content as Gravetapping.

Click HERE to go there now.

DARK MOUNTAIN by Richard Laymon

2010-04-12T17:11:00.001-06:00

Scott and Flash are old Air Force buddies. They served together in Vietnam, and while they have grown apart over the years since the war they are still friends. The two men decide it’s time to renew acquaintances and plan a joint backpacking trip into the backcountry of central California. It is a trip that both families are looking forward too, with the exception of the usual grousing from Scott’s teenage daughter Julie, and Flash’s twin girls. It doesn’t help Julie’s mood that Scott’s new girlfriend, Karen, is along.

The troupe sets off on a weeklong pack trip in good spirits. Their route is set, and the terrain is rugged and more than a little beautiful. The two older children—Julie and Flash’s teenage son Nick—take an instant liking to each other. The families congeal nicely, and Mr Laymon deftly creates their interpersonal discourse and squabbles with his usual light and charming touch. The dialogue and patter have the flair of both likability and believability.

The trip takes a downward turn when one the Flash’s twin girls sprains her ankle and the group has to make an unplanned stop for the day at an ugly treeless lake called Lower Mesquite. The park ranger told them to steer clear of the lake because there are several lakes with much more to offer. The group, however, makes the best of the unplanned stop and settles in for the night. Unfortunately their trip takes another unpleasant turn when Karen is brutally attacked in the short hours of the night.

Dark Mountain is an example of what Richard Laymon did well—its characters are likable, in that foreshadowed horror manner that keeps the audience a touch uneasy about getting too close because they know that the character will likely not make it to the end. The story is tight and controlled. It is dialogue rich, and the action is well placed to build both suspense and unease.

There are also glimpses of Laymon’s weaknesses, or, more aptly, his excesses. The dialogue is rich and, at times, humorous, but at moments it is overdone and annoying. The characters have a habit of over talking the situation and curbing its potential suspense. There are also brief, much more brief than usual, graphic sex scenes, including a rape scene, that tend to be less pivotal to the story and more ludicrous. Although the graphic sex has a teenage boy wholesomeness to it that only Richard Laymon could accomplish.

Dark Mountain is not in the top echelon of Richard Laymon’s work—The Traveling Vampire Show, In the Dark, Night in the Lonesome October—but it is a solid horror-suspense novel. It opens as the standard wilderness horror story, but Laymon takes it to unexpected places. It twists from the backwoods of California to the streets of Los Angeles. There is witchcraft, murder, violence, and even redemption. It is a novel that will appeal to fans of Richard Laymon, horror, particularly horror films, and even those with a taste for suspense.

Dark Mountain was originally published in the United States under the title Tread Softly as by Richard Kelly. It was published in 1987 and, under its original title, is nearly impossible to find. It was published in the United Kingdom with the title Dark Mountain, and has since been republished in the States, by Leisure, under the same title.

NECESSITY by Brian Garfield

2010-04-11T16:41:00.000-06:00

It has been nonstop busy at my house the past few months and yesterday as I was browsing the stacks of a used bookshop I found myself thinking about the terrific books I read in 2009, and there were many. I rediscovered the work of several classic suspense, crime, and western novelists. The best of the bunch was probably the work of Brian Garfield.He hasn't published a new work of fiction since the late-1980s, which is a shame since he really redefined the suspense novel with his novel Death Wish and then kept getting better and better. And then simply stopped writing, or at least publishing, fiction.

The following is a review of Brian Garfield's Necessity. It was the first of several Garfield novels I read last year, and when I think about it I can't help but smile. It is a terrific suspense novel with as much flair and style as you will find in the genre. It originally went live July 6, 2009.

It’s been several years since I’ve read a Brian Garfield novel—maybe Death Sentence in '04 or '05. I made amends recently and jumped into his 1984 novel Necessity and wondered how I waited so long.

“It’s the sixth day after the theft. She pulls off the Interstate in Tucson, a city she has never seen before. According to the atlas it is a county seat and the second largest city in Arizona—population half a million people.”

Matty LaCasse is a former model and now the wife of a wealthy New York construction magnate. She is the recent mother of a beautiful and healthy baby girl. She is on the run, alone, scared and hell-bent to get her daughter back.

Matty tracks across the American West, a briefcase full of cash with her and a plan; she needs a home away from her pursuers, but to do so she needs to become someone else. An entirely new person that no one from her old life will recognize or even associate with the person she was.

Necessity is an absolute firecracker. It opens with a white hot flash and never lets up—the action is tight and it is expertly used as a tool to ratchet the suspense from vague dread to outright terror. The characters are perfectly molded into dimensional people who are likable, terrifying and, most importantly, believable. The storyline is linear and sharp with enough false leads and psychology—mostly Matty’s—to keep the reader off balance and avidly turning the pages—which is all terrific, but Mr Garfield also flavors the story with technical information about creating new identities and, more importantly, erasing an original identity. He creates a world that is real and absorbing without slowing the story with too much detail and information.

The narrative is smooth and inviting. It is told in a matter-of-fact fashion, and with the seldom-used present tense—“She lets herself in and double-locks the door and slumps into the threadbare easy chair. Strength flows away as if a drainplug has been pulled.”

Necessity is an example of what a thriller should be--quick, hard, intense, and thrilling. It is a story that was published twenty-five years ago, but it still has a freshness and originality that makes it compelling and entertaining reading. In short, it is a novel that should not only be read, but that should be savored.

Tom Selleck on the New Rockford Files

2010-04-04T10:44:00.000-06:00

The Internet, at least the few sites I visit regularly, has been abuzz with the remake of the 1970's television series "The Rockford Files." I haven't read a positive spin about the new series remake yet. I was too young to remember "The Rockford Files" when it originally aired. Instead I was introduced as a teenager in the late-1980s in syndication, and then the eight or so television movies made in the 1990s.

Now Tom Selleck, who guest-starred in two episodes, weighs in about the difficultly of recreating the series without James Garner in a brief interview with Zap2It. In a sense it would be tantamount to remaking "Magnum, P.I." without Tom Selleck, a difficult chore at best.

Mr Selleck said, in part:

"They ought to cast Jim Garner," Selleck tells Zap2it. "I'm a little prejudiced because he was really a formative influence on me, even a mentor in so many ways, even though he probably wouldn't admit to it if he was aware of it.

"Dermot Mulroney seems like a fine actor in the work I've seen him do, and this has nothing to do with him -- but when you think of 'Rockford,' you don't remember 'that episode about the bank robbery,' you remember [Garner] making you laugh."

Click Here to read the rest of the article.

American Vampire Trailer

2010-03-27T10:35:00.001-06:00

Reading

2010-03-14T17:49:00.003-06:00

It has been shamefully quiet around here the past few months. The world--my world--has been a little tipsy-turvy, and not necessarily in a bad way. In fact it has been more good than bad, but I have been really busy. And reading is a form of relaxation that I constantly use as a source of calm. Unfortunately my time demands have made it difficult to write reviews recently, so here are a few titles that I have enjoyed over the past month or so without the benefit of a review.

I have been enjoying the work of the late-Robert Ludlum. I hadn't read any of his novels since the mid-1990s, but I picked up his first published novel The Scarlatti Inheritance and really enjoyed it. I also read, and liked, The Holcroft Covenant, although it would have benefited from a sharper pencil during the editing process. Ludlum's work is interesting because he has a very unique style, and while his writing can be verbose he keeps the story moving quickly with plots that are tricky without too man--what the hell!--twists.

I have also read several non-fiction titles, mostly history, both military and American history. A favorite was a little volume titled Inside the Green Berets. It takes a brief glimpse at the formation of Army Special Forces, the key personnel involved, and the major conflicts up through the early-1980s. The writer is Charles M. Simpson, III.

I also tend to listen to about one audiobook per week at work. My favorites have been full cast performances of David Morrell's spy thrillers The Brotherhood of the Rose and The Fraternity of the Stone. I have read both of these novels before, and the audio productions were very well done and captured my attention and imagination.

That's it for now, but I have a few reviews planned, and even an interview. Come back. I promise that I will.

Deja Vu

2010-02-28T11:07:00.005-07:00

I was cruising Dorchester's website looking at the new batch of Westerns being released in March, and was hit with a powerful sense of deja vu--see below.

It is a great cover.

The Ed Gorman title--Shoot First--is a terrific novel. It is out of print, but shouldn't be hard to find. It is one of my favorite Gorman Westerns.

I haven't read any of Cameron Judd's work, but I might start with this one. The description at the Dorchester website reads:

Deputy Luke Cable’s job has gotten a whole lot harder lately. He’s been acting marshal since Marshal Ben Keely left on a trip east—and disappeared. It’s up to Luke to keep the peace, and that’s hard to do since the arrival of the Outlaw Train, a traveling collection of curiosities, including the remains of notorious outlaws. But not all the outlaws in town are dead. Scar Nolan is very much alive. He came to town right after the train pulled in. He’s killed before and unless Luke can stop him he’s aiming to do it again aboard the...OUTLAW TRAIN

Dead Lines

2010-02-12T08:02:00.001-07:00

I stumbled across an interesting webzine a few days ago. It is called Dead Lines, and it features both fiction and non-fiction in the dark fantasy / suspense genres. It is new. The third issue is fresh on the ether, and it features stories by Jeff Strand, Tim Waggoner, Wrath James White, Gord Rollo, and W. D. Gagliani. A who's who of Leisure's latest lineup of horror authors.

There is also a rundown of the best horror novels of the decade: 2000 - 2009. It features 51 titles; I have read a whopping nine of them. Although the nine I have read I agree with. A few examples are, The Night Class by Tom Piccirilli, The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon, The Lost by Jack Ketchum, The Missing by Sarah Langan, three by Stephen King and two by Peter Straub. Its biggest weakness: It's just a list. Click Here to read it.

Dead Lines is worth a look. I haven't read all of the stories, but so far so good.

To visit click Here

Three Books

2010-02-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

It's winter here in the northern hemisphere, although the end is in sight, and that means there is plenty of dark and cold both. Which is a good mixture for reading. There are three new books out that I am a bit more than excited for.

The first is a new historical / biographical novel from Richard S. Wheeler titled Snowbound. It is an adventure / survival story of John C. Fremont. An adventurer who charted the Great Basin and the Great Salt Lake, an area that is very familiar and fond to me. Snowbound focuses on Fremont's fight for survival against the elements in a cold Colorado winter. This is on my reading list. No one writes a biographical Western novel better than Richard S. Wheeler. It is scheduled for release March 2, 2010.

The second is a short story collection from Robert J. Randisi titled The Guilt Edge. It contains fifteen of Randisi's short stories, and an introduction by Ed Gorman. Randisi is an underrated writer who has written just about everything, and he writes it all very well. His strongest work tends to be in the mystery / suspense genre, and his short work (all that I have read) is crisp, competent, and very entertaining. This one is currently available.

The third and final books is another collection. This one by Ed Gorman, and titled The End of It All. It contains 23 of Gorman's suspense stories, a genre and length that Gorman excels. If you have never read an Ed Gorman short story, of any type, you are in for a treat. He is one of the best writers of short fiction currently writing. This one is also available now.

Book Trailer: A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

2010-01-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

THE MASTER SNIPER by Stephen Hunter

2010-01-23T12:37:00.003-07:00

You may have noticed, or maybe not, that it has been overly quiet around here the past few weeks. It's been a busy first few weeks of the year, but everything seems to be calming down and we--my wife and I--are getting back into the natural rhythm of life so, with a little luck, I should be back to getting two or three posts up per week shortly. Until then, here is a review I wrote a few years ago for an older Stephen Hunter novel.

I’ve been in a thriller mood recently, but most of what the current crop of thriller writers puts out doesn’t do much for me. Their writing seems flat, uninteresting, and their plots are full of holes and so unbelievable that I usually can’t get through the first fifty pages. It doesn’t help that many of them are 500 pages long or more. That’s why I recently read an older novel written by a thriller writer who has never disappointed me. The novel: The Master Sniper. The writer: Stephen Hunter.

The Master Sniper is an early novel by Stephen Hunter; it was originally published in 1980. It is a thriller of the Second World War—a sub-genre I love—and it reminded me just a little of Jack Higgins’ bestselling The Eagle Has Landed.

Captain Leets is an officer with the Office of Strategic Services, a paper-pusher really, who specializes in Nazi firearms. He, as everyone else, is waiting out the war. It is January 1945, and the Nazis are against the ropes. They still have enough muscle to do some damage, but the end of the war is in sight, and no one wants to take too many chances, and Captain Leets is no different.

That all changes when a strange report crosses his desk: a small shipment of Stermgewehr-44s—an assault rifle that was produced and requisitioned in the thousands—was sent from the factory to a place called Anlage Elf. Leets isn’t sure why, but something bothers him about this shipment of rifles. It’s not just the number of rifles being shipped, but no one has heard of the requesting agency, and why would the Germans risk shipping such a small amount of rifles across the country when the war is lost?

This sets up a mystery that Captain Leets will struggle to solve throughout the rest of the novel. He will go against his superiors, participate in a parachute raid of an enemy camp, discover things about himself that he doesn't like, alienate friends, and slowly, ever so slowly discover what the Germans are up to.

The Master Sniper is a rewarding read. The prose is quick and spry, while the plot is rich enough to keep you guessing until shortly before the end. Mr. Hunter ratchets the tension and suspense perfectly, and the characters are enjoyable and likable—Mr. Hunter does an excellent job of creating a likable hero, while also creating a villain who doesn’t seem terribly bad until the novel begins to unwind, and then he is unmasked as a truly despicable and dangerous person.

Jack Bickham's ACE Double Novels

2010-01-17T17:20:00.001-07:00

This is the first post of a new series—a sorta series since it will be sporadic without any rules and, like everything, a little eclectic. The series will focus on the early novels of successful, and maybe not so successful, writers. This one will focus on the Ace Double novels of Jack M. Bickham.

Mr. Bickham died in 1997 of cancer, and he is best known as a teacher of writing. He wrote several successful, and still in print, how-to writing titles for Writer’s Digest and he also lectured in the journalism department at University of Oklahoma. His most successful novels, both stylistically and thematically, were his Brad Smith suspense novels. A series of six novels that featured an aging tennis pro and part time spy, which successfully paired the spy genre with the detective and suspense genres; published by TOR/Forge between 1989 and 1994. He also wrote the novel that Disney based it’s film Apple Dumpling Gang, and spent much of his early career writing westerns.

Jack Bickham wrote seven novels for Ace’s double line; six were westerns published under his own name, and one was a crime novel published as by John Miles. The westerns all featured a small-time rancher named Clayton Hartung. The novels are vintage pulp westerns—exciting, quick, and heavy on action. The novels were standard, but Bickham put his own stamp on each. The characters have a shadow more development, and the plots are deftly handled, as much like a suspense novel as a western.

The first novel in the series was published by Ace in 1958 and titled Gunman’s Gamble. It was paired with Roy Manning’s Draw and Die!; numbered D-308. This is, as far as I know, Bickham’s first published novel.

In 1959 the novel Feud Fury appeared. It was numbered D-384, and it also featured an abridged version of Louis Trimble’s Mountain Ambush.

The third novel published by Ace was Killer’s Paradise. It arrived in bookstores in 1959 and featured one of the better covers produced for a Bickham novel. It was paired with Rider of the Rincon by Rod Patterson and numbered D-442.

The fourth western to be released was The Useless Gun. It was numbered D-462, released in 1960 and paired with John A. Latham’s The Long Fuse. It is numbered D-462. I reviewed this title here.

The fifth western Bickham wrote for Ace was the 1961 novel Hangman’s Territory. It is paired with Harry Whittington’s The Searching Rider, and as such is one of the more difficult / expensive titles to obtain. It is numbered D-510. I have read that Jack Bickham’s long running series character Wildcat O’Shea first appeared in Hangman’s Territory under the name “Boom Boom O’Malley.”

The sixth, and final, Jack Bickham western Ace published was Gunmen Can’t Hide. It was released in 1961, numbered F-120, and paired with Come in Shooting by John Callahan.

The lone crime novel Ace published by Bickham was titled Dally with a Deadly Doll. It appeared in 1961 and numbered D-489. It was the fifth of the seven novels Ace published. It was paired with Robert Arthur’s Somebody’s Walking Over My Grave. It is less accomplished than the western novels, but nonetheless entertaining.

I read an interesting review (blurb really) by Jack Bickham in the Ace release of Clifton Adams' Reckless Men. It was written around 1962, but the context, as regards the health of the western genre, could have easily been written today. He writes: "It's called Reckless Men [Clifton Adams' novel] and it's a perfect answer for people who say (1) the Western is dead and/or (2) Westerns are all the same." I can say the same thing about these early Jack Bickham westerns; they continue to breath life into a genre that has been rumored dead for decades.

NIGHT CALLER by Daniel Ransom

2010-01-16T11:09:00.001-07:00

I recently read Ed Gorman's novel The Long Midnight (published as by Daniel Ransom) and was going to review it here, but James Reasoner beat me to the punch, and said pretty much what I wanted to say. Read it here. I have read a couple of Gorman's Ransom novels in the past few months; The Long Midnight and The Foresaken. The Long Midnight was terrific, and The Forsaken was entertaining.

Since I didn't want to re-write what Reasoner had already written I decided to dust off an old review of Ransom's Night Caller. A novel that I really enjoyed. It originally went live 21-Dec-07, and I'm still waiting for that television movie to come out. Here it is...

In the 1980s and 90s Ed Gorman wrote several novels under the pseudonym Daniel Ransom. The novels tended towards horror and science fiction—two of my favorite genres—but like everything Mr. Gorman writes there were heavy elements of both suspense and mystery; I should disclose that I haven’t read many of the Daniel Ransom novels, but the few I have read have been vintage Ed Gorman.

I recently read Night Caller by Daniel Ransom and I had a really good time with it. Sally Baines and her daughter Jamie are on vacation in the Midwest when their car breaks down on a rural stretch of highway. It isn’t long before a farmer gentleman rescues them with a ride into the nearest town: Haversham. He seems like a nice man, but he looks at Jamie strangely, and even more disconcerting, when they arrive in town Sally and Jamie see him eagerly pointing them out to another local. Their unease continues to mount when they are told their car won’t be ready until the following day. And things really begin to feel strange when they go to the local hotel—The Royal—looking for a room.

I’m not an expert—or even well read—when it comes to 80s horror, but Night Caller very much has an 80s feel about it. It’s small town horror with a twist of psycho, and maybe just a touch of Stephen King. The characters are amusing, especially a local doctor and a disgraced national television news reporter. The mother-daughter team of Sally and Jamie are central to the plotline, and they hold up well as the story unfolds. There is a large cast of local characters who keep the story fresh and Ed Gorman, as usual, adds more than a little mystery and suspense into the mix to keep it interesting.

Night Caller is, simply put, damn fun. It is a fast read—maybe 90 minutes of reading time—and fits the bill perfectly if you’re in the mood for light horror. And, if there are any producers out there, it would make a terrific television movie. Maybe something similar—in production values and theme—to one of those semi-campy Stephen King television movies of the 90s.

"Duel"

2010-01-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

Duel was an ABC movie of the week originally aired in November 1971. It was Steven Spielberg’s first crack at directing a movie, and he really delivered. It was filmed on location in thirteen days and the final product feels more like a feature film than a made-for-television movie. The camera work is impressive. There are several beautiful low-angle moving shots on the highway and an impressive freehand, documentary-style, scene shot in a truck stop.

The story is relatively simple—a salesman traveling a California highway passes a slow moving tanker truck. The driver of the tanker takes exception, and the rest of the story unfolds as the truck chases David Mann (the salesman) along the narrow two-lane highway. The driver of the truck is never revealed, which creates a sense of broad-based terror as the antagonist actually becomes the truck.

Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay, based on his novelette, and it is a taut and linear tale of a normal man trapped in a situation where only he can save himself. It is a little Alfred Hitchcock, and a whole lot Richard Matheson. The film is faithful to the novelette, but there are a few additional scenes and an extension of one—the truck stop scene was lengthened and improved over the story. Dennis Weaver—playing David Mann—creates an anxiety that is realistic; I saw a whole lot of myself in his reactions and behavior.

The original television version was released in a 90-minute time slot. The actual film clocked in at around 73-minutes, but it was lengthened to 90-minutes and released as a feature film in Europe. The current DVD is the 90-minute version, and my understanding is that Spielberg extended a couple scenes and added one. I haven’t seen the original version, but I really can’t imagine that it was any better than the longer theatrical version.

Duel is worth seeking out. The DVD is priced at around $10, and it is worth every penny. It also includes two lengthy interviews with Spielberg, and one with Richard Matheson. The original novelette should also be read. In fact, read it and then watch the film. It is available in two current editions: Duel: Terror Stories and Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Vol. 3.

The Move: Part 2

2009-12-26T11:23:00.002-07:00

Warning: It is going to be quiet around here for a few days. We are moving back to Salt Lake City, from the beautiful and oh so rural college town of Cedar City. My office gave me a leave of absence to finish my masters degree, which is now complete, and I have to be back at the office on 4-Jan-10. We are moving on Monday December 28, and we should be in our new place December 29. The summer of fun is over....

See you next week.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-25T11:28:00.001-07:00

It’s been a wonderful year for my wife and I, and the holiday season has been no different. We are having a quiet Christmas this year—we watched the first two episodes of Rose Red last night (we’ll finish it tonight) and today we are going to spend the afternoon in Zion National Park.

I hope your holiday is as wonderful. Thanks for reading.

BARBED WIRE by Elmer Kelton

2009-12-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

I have listened to few audio books. I never seem to have time; at work I tend to concentrate on work and lose the plot and action. In my car I tend to listen to, and curse at, traffic. But my wife gave me an MP3 a few days ago and it took me about two hours to download a book from the library, and I really enjoyed it.

The novel was a short western by Elmer Kelton. The title: Barbed Wire. It was originally published in 1957, and it has lost little of its impact over the fifty years since its first publication. It is a Texas range war story that is told, essentially, from the perspective of a fence builder—although it is told from several view points. The land is split between ranchers and dirt farmers; it is open range country, and the largest rancher—Captain Rinehart—wants it to stay that way.

The story unfolds as the Captain battles against the coming fences that will lock away the water, and cut the land into tiny rectangles of farms and ranches. It is the future; this separation of land that will allow herds to be bred exclusively, crops to be secured against the roaming cattle, and the protection and hoarding of water in a dry country. It is a future that terrifies the Captain enough that he is willing to let himself be mislead into action by his foreman.

Barbed Wire is an excellent western. It is only my second experience with the work of Elmer Kelton, the first was his novel Badger Boy, and I wasn’t disappointed. The plot is fairly generic, but its execution, characters and authenticity, mark it a few notches better than the norm. The prose is gritty and matches the western plot like a glove—

“It was a sorry way for a cowboy to make a living, Doug Monahan thought disgustedly. Bending his back over a rocky posthole, he plunged the heavy iron crowbar downward, hearing its angry ring and feeling the violent jar of it bruising the stubborn rock bottom. He rubbed sweat from his forehead into his sleeve and straightened his sore back, pausing to rest a moment and look around.”

The plot is executed with a tight linear momentum that takes the expected and makes it fresh and somehow new. The characters are tough and realistic, the action is paced with an equitable easiness—a pace that is far from melodramatic, but is exciting and seemingly authentic.

Ken Marks read Barbed Wire. His voice is mellow and southern, a perfect fit for the story. He is easy to understand and he brings the story vividly to life.

Short Film: The Ugly File

2009-12-19T13:49:00.003-07:00

A few months ago I mentioned a short film based on Ed Gorman's short story "The Ugly File". It is now available to watch on the Internet. It was directed by Mark Steensland (Peekers) and the screenplay was written by veteran horror novelist Rick Hautala. It was produced by another familiar name, Richard Chizmar.

It is a faithful adaptation, and really pretty good. The streaming quality isn't top-notch, but it will do.

RIDERS OF THE SHADOWLANDS by H. A. DeRosso

2009-12-17T13:51:00.002-07:00

I read another H. A. DeRosso collection edited by Bill Pronzini that I want to recommend. It is titled Riders of the Shadowlands; Five Star published it in 1999. It is similar to Under the Burning Sky in that it collects ten of DeRosso’s western-type stories—two were published by mystery magazines, although one of the stories is a strange kind of mystery—but the tales are less eclectic than the first collection, but no less entertaining, existential, or downright terrific.

The stories in this collection are also lightly edited—James Reasoner in a comment to my post about Under the Burning Sky said, “I compared a couple of the stories in the collection [Under the Burning Sky] to their original magazine appearances and found only a very few changes.” Pronzini also states that he only edited superfluous, and redundant words. I only mention the editing because of the recent Internet flare-up about the new Harlequin pulp editions that were edited for content—a situation that is far different than the editing in this volume.

My favorite stories included in this collection are both tales of the “shadowlands.” One is a short story and the other a novella. The novella is the title story, “Riders of the Shadowlands,” a fairly conventionally plotted rustler tale. Its ordinariness ends at the plot however. It is a violent story in a hellish setting with a hardboiled / noir attitude. It has more in common with the hardboiled crime written in the 1950s, but the western setting and attitudes are accurate and beautifully described in a hardbitten and stark prose. This story alone is worth the price of the book.

There is also a terrific mystery titled “Dark Purpose” that was originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine (April 1958) under the title “Kill the Killer.” It is a manhunt story set in the wilds of Northern Wisconsin. The wilderness is as much a character in this story as it is in DeRosso’s “shadowlands” tales. In fact it is as much a western as any of the stories included in the collection.

There are no duds in this collection. The stories were published between 1950 and 1962, and each one is an example of how talented and original DeRosso was as a writer. There were several times when I had to remind myself that the stories—particularly the “shadowlands” tales—were written and published in the 1950s. They are different from the era’s norm and it is probably due to that difference that they were not overly successful, but continue to live long past DeRosso’s death.

TICKET TO RIDE by Ed Gorman

2009-12-12T12:58:00.001-07:00

The eighth, and reportedly last, Sam McCain novel opens in 1965 at a Vietnam peace rally in Black River Falls, Iowa. The rally is held in the local Presbyterian Church and after 90 minutes of the same arguments—being spoken by different people—McCain is ready to leave the rally for the comforts of a double feature at the drive-in. But then as the newest local superstar, a pretty boy named Harrison Doran, is speaking a man takes the stage and asks to rebut the protestor’s arguments.

The man is not only the father of a casualty of war, his son died in Da Nang, but he is also a prominent and wealthy resident of Black River Falls. His name is Lou Bennett, and it doesn’t take long for boos to start and the scene to turn ugly. There is an altercation between Doran and Bennett, and then later that night Bennett is found dead. Harrison Doran is the likeliest suspect. McCain doesn’t like Doran, but he is enlisted to defend him, and it is a position that makes Sam less than popular amongst the mostly conservative population.

Ticket to Ride is a real treat. It features all of the regulars; the town’s pornographer, writer of sleaze, and McCain buddy Kenny Thibodeau, Judge Esme Anne Whitney, Jamie Newton—McCain’s guileless, but less than competent secretary—and the obnoxious and usually wrong police chief Clifford (Cliffie) Sykes, Jr. Mr Gorman perfectly captures the essence of small town America and he does it with a subtleness that never succumbs to cliché or stereotype. His characters are living, breathing people, who are never clearly good or bad—he shows their humanity in brief and poignant moments of vulnerability, weakness, and strength.

The plot is smooth and sharp; the prose is understated, readable and powerful—

“I wanted to say something smart, but his honesty surprised me. He was admitting that all the scorn hurt him. He had no right to tell me this, because, at least for the moment here, I had to feel bad about making fun of him all the time. Cliffie was supposed to be a cartoon. It pissed me off that he’d forced me to see him as a human being.”

The amazing achievement of Ticket to Ride is that it is written with a humor and innocent cynicism that allows the story a power of both place and time, and also a social commentary that is relevant for the story's Vietnam-era setting, as well as that of modern America. It is simple a brilliantly rendered private eye novel that is a wonderful addition to the series and the genre.

"Dance of the Dead"

2009-12-09T13:09:00.003-07:00

I watched a decent little horror film a few days ago called "Dance of the Dead." It is marketed as part of the Ghost House Underground; whatever that is. It is a clever and humorous look at the zombie tale. The violence is silly, rather than realistic, and the plot is built less for suspense and more for sheer fun and comedy. It is a decent quality independent / low-budget film.

"Dance of the Dead" was written by Joe Ballarini, and directed by Gregg Bishop.

Warning: The trailer is rated R.

IMDb page.

UNDER THE BURNING SUN by H. A. DeRosso

2009-12-07T11:58:00.003-07:00

I read an astonishingly good collection of stories by pulp writer H.A. DeRosso titled Under the Burning Sun. The collection contains twelve stories—two are novelettes. Ten of the stories are straight westerns, although generally far from traditional, and the other two are suspense with a western voice. It was compiled and edited by Bill Pronzini; in the introduction Pronzini writes that each of the stories, save one, was lightly edited “to eliminate superfluous and repetitive passages contained in the original magazine versions.”

This collection is essentially my first experience with DeRosso’s work and I was stunned by the power of his writing. It tended toward the unusual and bleak, the mythical and surreal, but it also vitalized the characters with a hard-bitten sadness and self-awareness that is rarely found in genre fiction. A major theme in the stories is one of hope, but it is hope that is never fulfilled. The characters—the protagonist—can see a better place and future, but can never quite get there.

The best story in the collection is a novelette titled “The Bounty Hunter.” It is what Bill Pronzini labels a “shadowlands” story—a surreal western that is more related to the bleak otherworlds of The Twilight Zone than a traditional western. It reminded me of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. The story is relatively simple. It follows the track of a bounty hunter named Spurr who kills an outlaw who, he is told later, may be his own son. It is a mythical story—from the beautifully surreal landscape to the internal demons that drive Spurr to search for the truth.

The other stories range from the more traditional “Hold-up”—the story of the father of a failing rancher who is forced to choose between his self-identified morality and both his, and his son’s, future—to the rich rendering of the final months of the Chiricahuas’ fight to stay off the reservation in “The Last Sleep.”

Under the Burning Sun is more than a collection of western stories. It is a sample of how good the genre story can be. The violence—and there is some—is realistic and vivid. It is examined with a neutrality that allows the reader to see its affects on the characters and story. The “shadowlands” tales—“The Bounty Hunter” and “Those Bloody Bells of Hell!”—are brilliant. The prose is written in a surreal form that depicts the landscape as a hellish nightmare where only monsters can exist. It is best related to a high quality comic book; something like Jonah Hex.

Under the Burning Sun is one of the best books I have read this year. It read like a train steaming through the vast deserts of the Southwest; desolate, beautiful and deadly. Bill Pronzini relates DeRosso’s style to the Black Mask school of hardboiled in general, and Cornell Woolrich’s work in particular.

Do yourself a favor and find a copy. You won’t regret it.

UPDATE. Here is a link to a .pdf file of DeRosso's "Hide-away," which appeared in Triple Detective in 1954. It isn't on the par of the stories included in Under the Burning Sun, but it is enjoyable.

And the Winner is...

2009-12-02T10:23:00.004-07:00

A winner was randomly chosen from the list of entrants to receive the ACE Double (G-638) The Action at Redstone Creek by Merle Constiner / A Time to Shoot It Out by Edwin Booth. Thanks to everyone who entered; there were enough that I may do another contest. Maybe. The winner is...Craig Clarke. Congratulations Craig. Also, you should check out Craig's terrific blog Somebody Dies where he reviews crime, western, and more.

Also related to the contest, I received several terrific recommendations for pulp western writers. Including:

Donald Hamilton, Marvin H. Albert (aka Al Conroy), Harry Whittington, H.A. DeRosso--I just started a story collection and so far I am blown away by the bleak power of his writing--T.T. Flynn, Peter Dawson, Luke Short, Clifton Adams, and Jack Slade.

Thanks to everyone!

"The View" by Brian Garfield

2009-11-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

I found an older issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine over the holiday weekend—July 1983—that contained a Brian Garfield story. It cost a princely two dollars; it didn’t take long to both purchase it and devour the Garfield story. Not long enough at all since the short stories of Brian Garfield are more difficult to find than one would think.

The story is titled “The View” and it is a California story—land developers, Hollywood actors, and deep muscle massage professionals. There is also a murder, a touch of adultery, a terrific view, and a condominium builder who wants to take it—the view—away.

Christopher works as a massage therapist, but his true ambition is as a screenwriter. He has several clients on a mountaintop overlooking the Los Angeles basin, and as the story opens he is at the front door of former film star Tom X. Todhunter—an 84 year-old veteran of both silent films and talkies. The old man doesn’t answer and when Christopher tries the knob it opens and he finds Todhunter looking forlornly out the large picture window at the back of his house.

It seems that his neighbor, also a client of Christopher’s, has purchased the surrounding properties with the intention to build a large condominium complex that will completely block Tom’s view. And he is less than excited about the prospect. He tells Tom that they need to stop it from happening, but damn if he knows how….

“The View” is pure fun. It is less mystery and more suspense. It is expertly plotted and written, just as one would expect from Mr Garfield, but there is also a touch of humor and poetic justice. The prose is understated and the story moves with a quick and light pace—it is made for reading, and it reads with a pleasant and expert smoothness. The characters are surprisingly well defined in short space, and the story is perfect for a lazy bedtime read.

“The View” is a professional and competent story and it begs the question; Why isn’t there a Brian Garfield collection available on the market. He is one of the defining writers of both suspense and western fiction from his generation and both his short work, and for the most part, his novels are largely forgotten. If anyone is listening, I will be the first in line to buy a Brian Garfield collection when it is published.

New Authors: 2009

2009-11-27T12:36:00.003-07:00

Last year I participated in a meme that asked for a list of all the writers I read for the first time. I really enjoyed it. This year there has been no such meme, but J. Kingston Pierce over at The Rap Sheet made a list and I thought I would follow his lead.

The list is in order of reading. I excluded all non-fiction. I have also included any additional titles I read by the author in 2009. I added ten new fiction writers to my personal “read” library—the exact number as I added in 2008. Five of the 10 are pulp writers and the other five are contemporary, although the novels were original published anywhere from the mid-1990’s to 2009.

Stephen J. Cannell
—On the Grind, February

Paul Harris
—The Secret Keeper, April

Jack Kilborn (aka J.A. Konrath)
—Afraid, May

W.L. Heath
—Violent Saturday, May

Stuart Kaminsky
—The Rockford Files: The Green Bottle, June
—The Rockford Files: Devils on My Doorstep, September

J.M. Flynn
—Deep Six, June

Robert Colby
—The Quaking Widow, July

Sid Jacobson
—Vlad the Impaler, October

Edmond Hamilton
—Fugitive of the Stars, October

Merle Constiner
—The Action at Redstone Creek, November
—Guns of Q Cross, November

Odds & Ends: Thanksgiving Style

2009-11-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

1. My wife and I are going to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in style—in Las Vegas, Mojave, and maybe, just maybe Baker, California. It is where all the truly beautiful people go for holidays. So needless to say it’s going to be a little quiet around here for a few days.

2. If you are of the mind there is an interesting essay on the Dorchester website written by Ed Gorman about his recent Leisure release Death Ground. He gives an idea of its origin and even discusses a review that compared it to a Spaghetti Western. Click Here

3. I’ve been reading pulp writer Merle Constiner recently and he really had a knack for writing witty and downright funny dialogue. I finished his novel Guns at Q Cross yesterday and the following line has rattled through my head more than once:

"He'd be more at home with a green buffalo hide, behind a pile of manure."

And don’t forget that I am giving away a copy of Constiner’s The Action at Redstone Creek. The deadline is November 30, 2009. Click Here

4. This is probably old news to most of you, but I discovered a fantastic website that has .pdf files of hundreds of old pulp stories. The stories include the full text—very clean and easy to read—as well as any illustrations that ran with the story. The site is PulpGen.com. If you haven’t been there, you should take a look around. Click Here

5. Happy Thanksgiving!

SLAMMER by Allan Guthrie

2009-11-23T08:00:00.001-07:00

Nick Glass is a rookie prison guard in a Scottish prison. He has been on the job six weeks with mixed results—the other guards mock and make trouble for him and the inmates don’t respect him. At home he has a five-year old daughter and a wife. His wife tends to drink too much, and is just on the backside of an affair. To say Nick has a little stress is an understatement.

To make things worse Nick is approached by one of the inmates and asked to mule drugs inside. The inmate gives him two choices: 1) make an easy buck; or 2) his little family gets hurt in a big way. Nick is in big trouble as he desperately tries to protect his family at home and his own life at work.

Slammer is the sort of novel that creeps up on you in about three pages. It starts hard and strong and never lets up. Glass is a regular guy caught in a nasty and impossible situation. He doesn’t belong in the prison. He is a nice guy, both weak and sincere. He, much like his name, is prone to fracture. And Guthrie makes sure Glass does just that.

The novel opens with Glass in the office of the prison psychiatrist. It is a mandatory visit and Nick is less than pleased to be there. The psychiatrist is an instrument Mr Guthrie uses to foreshadow and then define the undoing of Nick Glass. He is a skewed sentiment of sanity in a dark and insane world. A world that envelopes Nick and threatens to destroy him. And Nick is the perfect object—he is prone to fantasy, and as the novel progresses, he begins to mistake his fantasy for reality. It is a trip into hell. A trip the reader knows is coming with each progressive sentence, paragraph and page, but is helpless to stop.

Slammer is a wonderfully executed novel. It is reminiscent of Guthrie’s first novel Two-Way Split, but it is better and executed with a higher skill set. It is short, 263 pages, but it does not lack meaning or story. The prose is hardboiled, lean and smart. The dialogue is crisp, and the atmosphere is weighty and oppressive. It is a fine example of the new noir: a hopeless, distraught and shameless (in a good way) vision of human condition.

Book Giveaway

2009-11-20T10:38:00.005-07:00

This is a little different. I have been searching out novels by the pulp writer Merle Constiner, and in my enthusiasm I picked up two copies of his ACE Double The Action at Redstone Creek. And I want to give it away. It is numbered G-638, and it includes A Time to Shoot it Out (originally titled Renegade Guns) by Edwin Booth. The publication date is 1967.

If you are interested in adding this classic ACE Double to your collection send an email to zulu1611@yahoo.com with “Book Giveaway” in the subject line along with your name and the address you would like it shipped in the body of the email by Monday November 30 at 11:59pm MST. I will then select an entry at random, notify the winner and ship the book in early December.

I wrote a review for The Action at Redstone Creek a week or so ago; click Here to read it.

Also, I would love to hear about any old westerns you remember enjoying—titles or authors. Feel free to email me, or post a comment.

Note. The above scans are not of the actual book you will receive.

Jack Higgins

2009-11-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Jack Higgins has been entertaining me since I was twelve or thirteen. I started with his bestsellers and then fell—literally—into his earlier work when I found several old paperbacks at a library sale. The titles included In the Hour Before Midnight, The Keys of Hell, and East of Desolation. I can still remember finding that cache—each of the books were Fawcett Gold Medal’s from the 1970s. They had those terrifically tight and sexy covers from the era, and the stories. What can I say about the stories except they were/are the best adventure thrillers I have ever read.

I’m reading one of Higgins’ early titles now—The Iron Tiger—and as often happens I did a search for Mr Higgins and found an article that appeared in Reuters this past January. I learned a few things—the first, is that 2009 marks his fiftieth year as a professional writer, and that he was diagnosed several years ago with an illness that made writing impossible. There is also a short interview where he discusses The Eagle Has Landed; how it was received, how it changed his life, and how his original publisher didn’t want it.

A snippet:

“CANBERRA (Reuters) - Novelist Harry Patterson, better known as thriller writer Jack Higgins, celebrates 50 years of writing this year, counting his blessing.

“Patterson, 79, was diagnosed about eight years ago with essential tremor syndrome, a progressive neurological disease, that made him shake so much that about two years ago he found he could not pick up a pen and was about to give up writing.

“But while suffering a seizure friend's house, he fell and knocked his head, ending up in hospital -- and overnight his tremors disappeared, allowing him to write again.”

To read the rest go Here.

To read a little appreciation I wrote last year go Here.

Mystery v. Thriller

2009-11-17T12:07:00.003-07:00

This is an interesting (and very superficial) video interview with a few thriller writers about the difference between a thriller and a mystery. The writers each tend to define mystery as a traditional whodunit rather than a crime novel; although the lines between crime and thriller are heavily blurred. I tend to prefer modern crime and mystery novels to thrillers--modern thrillers tend to be too big and bombastic, and usually challenge my willful suspension of disbelief.

I do like the idea one of the authors had about mysteries (to paraphrase): they tend to be intellectually stimulating. He was speaking of the whodunit, but the major advantage of the crime novel is that it is a terrific vessel for social commentary, which is the element that draws me to it.

THE ACTION AT REDSTONE CREEK by Merle Constiner

2009-11-14T13:28:00.001-07:00

I have been reading an unusually high number of westerns recently, and older westerns at that. I continued the trend with an ACE Double—one-half of an ACE Double—published in 1967; The Action at Redstone Creek by Merle Constiner (G-638). Mr Constiner’s work was unfamiliar to me—it was recommended by Ed Gorman—and I found it unusually literate, if not a bit odd, for an old genre western.

Mark Townsend is a gladly out of work tracker, but as the novel opens he is sitting at an ax-cut table in his rustic home staring at his final three silver quarters. He isn’t overly worried, but he is realistic—he doesn’t care for money, but he knows there are necessities only coin money can buy. His money problems only last—a page or two—until a dandy walks into his home and offers him a job.

The dandy, a man named Joe Teague, wants him to find his son who disappeared on his way to an engineering job at a mine in Idaho. The pay: one hundred dollars. Townsend takes the job, but quickly realizes Teague was less than honest with him, and the job is much more dangerous and involved than simply tracking a man. In fact, it isn’t too far into the story that he runs into a pair of toughs who have ill intentions towards Teague directly and Townsend indirectly.

The Action at Redstone Creek is vintage ACE—it starts with a bang and hurriedly moves from one scene to the next. There are gunfights, intrigues, cattle rustling, dueling ranchers, and lonely frontier dwelling men. The difference, or what separates it from most of the other ACE westerns, is the writing. It is fresh with a witty sense of humor. The prose and dialogue—not to mention a few of the situations and character relationships—is sharp, realistic and, at times, damn funny:

“It was midafternoon. He was staring at the quarters, trying to think of them in terms of cornmeal and fat pork, but thinking mainly what nice conchos they’d make, when the man stooped down and came through the door.

“‘No offense meant,’ said the stranger, ‘but for a white man’s shack, this place has a sort of stink, a little like Indian smell.’

“‘Thank you,’ said Townsend. ‘Maybe some kindhearted Indian sometime will say as much for you.’”

The story doesn’t do the expected, and the characters are never typical—they dress and walk like the typical western character, but their actions, language, and responses tend to shy away from genre norms. An example is Townsend. He is far from the archetypal hero in both appearance and form. He is described as: “thirty-four, short, a little humped, big nosed, almost lizard eyed, and pretty ragged for the gaze of any white man.”

The Action at Redstone Creek is different, but its unusualness separates it from the herd. It is a story that will appeal to readers of traditional westerns, but its quirky nature will also appeal to others who are less inclined to read a western.

When I read Redstone Creek I did a little research on the author and I was saddened by what I learned. He died broke (the plight of many pulp writers) and alone. His life reminded me of Townsend's, particularly the opening scene when Townsend is staring at his final three quarters.

There is a detailed article at Pulp Rack about the life and work of Merle Constiner. It is titled "The Hunt for Merle Constiner" and written by Peter Ruber. Read the article, and then find one of Constiner's novels.

Trailer: The Killer Inside Me

2009-11-11T13:25:00.002-07:00

This is an extended trailer for the upcoming release of the The Killer Inside Me. It is based on the novel by Jim Thompson. It really looks good; a little violent, but good. It stars Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, and Jessica Alba. It was directed by Michael Winterbottom. It is coming in 2010.

WEAVEWORLD

2009-11-10T15:45:00.002-07:00

I have almost no experience with the work of Clive Barker. I have seen a few movies based on his stories, and know his name. And that is it. A few days ago I was thumbing through my wife’s bookshelf and pulled Barker’s Weaveworld down and read the first few pages. I was stunned; both the prose and deep current of meaning were beautiful.

I haven’t read Weaveworld yet—it is an intimidating 700 pages—but I have read the opening few paragraphs a dozen or more times over the past few days. It captures the essence of how story relates to society, and how the story becomes an extension of the society that tells it. But Mr Barker writes it so much better…

“Nothing ever begins.

“There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.

“The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that; though as the narrator’s voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making.

“Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys.

“Nothing is fixed. In and out a shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden among them is a filigree that will with time become a world.”

ISIS by Douglas Clegg

2009-11-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

I have been a fan of Douglas Clegg’s work for several years. I first discovered him through his novel The Infinite. A spooky and enchanting haunted house story, which turned out to be the third novel in the Harrow series. Harrow is an old estate in the Hudson Valley that has seen more than its share of evil. The books all feature Harrow, but they are each very different—each explores the haunted place from a different angle and time, and each is very, very good.

I recently read a new Douglas Clegg story that reminded me, just a little, of my first experience with his writing. It is a novella published in hardcover and fully illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne. The title: Isis.

Iris Villiers is a young girl—lonely and isolated—in the family estate. Her father is steadily away with his work, and her mother is ill with tonic and despair. Iris’s only joy is her brother Spence. The two wander the large estate and play. They create games and, based on a play they performed one summer, they take to calling each other Isis and Osiris. Their world is one of fortune, if a bit empty, until an accident changes Iris forever.

Isis is a haunting tale. It has the feel of a fairy-tale blackened with a supernatural yearning and loneliness. It chronicles the tenuous grasp humanity has on its destiny and how tightly we are held by the past. The prose is simple and wispy—it is the voice of a girl who never really had much, but who is desperate to keep the little she does have.

It is short—113 pages with a dozen or more black and white illustrations—but the meaning and intricacies of the story linger long after the book is closed. Isis is a genre story with teeth. It is literate, interesting, entertaining and very, very smooth. It is absolutely a pleasure to read.

Brad Anderson

2009-11-03T16:25:00.000-07:00

Brad Anderson is a director who has never really broken-out. He has made some terrific films, including the three below, but he seems to meander between feature film and television. His films, including some of his television, are pretty straight forward, but he always adds something fresh and new.

He is able to take an old idea (the ghost house in Session 9) and use the expectations of the genre against the audience. He never creates the usual, but rather he uses the usual in unexpected ways to fashion a very unusual and often powerful story.

If you haven't seen any of Brad Anderson's films, you should. The three below are all good, with Transsiberian being the best, and The Machinist at the weakest. I would also recommend his episode of Master of Horror. A clever hour long movie titled Sounds Like.

Transsiberian, 2008

The Machinist, 2004

Session 9, 2001

THE LAWBRINGERS by Brian Wynne Garfield

2009-11-01T12:49:00.001-07:00

The American western novel has a bad reputation. It is reputed to be ethnocentric, violent and, even worse, simple and inaccurate. The good guys are too good, and the bad guys are too bad. The natives are deemed to be one-dimensional cutouts and often misrepresented. The townsfolk—the common working class—are either portrayed as stupid or weak, or both.

In many cases this poor reputation is deserved—there have been some really, really bad westerns introduced on television, film and fiction. But there have also been some damn good westerns over the years—both past and present. To quote Theodore Sturgeon—he was defending SF, but the same rule applies to westerns—“ninety-percent of everything is crap.” It is the other 10% that separates a viable genre from a dead genre and the western is far from dead, whether we are talking about golden age stories or the modern novels that are published today.

An example of an older title—it was published by one of the more maligned houses, ACE, in 1962—that holds its own against the often valid arguments against westerns is Brian Garfield’s The Lawbringers. It is a traditional western from beginning to end. It is short, seemingly simple, and very much to the point, but it is also clever, intelligent, and subtly complex.

The Lawbringers is a biographical novel about the formation of the Arizona Rangers—a law enforcement agency created by the territorial Governor to combat the seemingly endless supply of toughs and criminals that haunted Arizona in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its focus is directed at the chief Ranger, one Burton “Cap” Mossman, but it is told in a less direct fashion than expected. It is a multi-perspective novel that never attempts to get into the head of Mossman. Instead he is painted and defined by the characters around him—some real, others created by Garfield—as a hard, stubborn and tough man.

The novel is dedicated to Burt Mossman—“a chivalrous gentleman, a lawman, and an Arizonan.” But it is far from a one-sided novel of adoration. It tackles the man’s complexity as well as his flaws. He is depicted as a hard man doing a hard job. His decisions are made with the citizens of Arizona in mind, but with a frightening lack of color. There are no gradient shades, but rather his view is strictly black and white, and more often than not, the end justifies the means. He wasn’t above lynching a man to make his point, and the Mexico-Arizona border was less a concrete end to his jurisdiction and more a line on a map that could be ignored and crossed at will.

Mossman is a man who withstood political pressures and did what he thought best, no matter the consequences. He typified the mythical western protagonist, but is portrayed by Mr Garfield as nothing more than a man—stubborn, sincere, and flawed. He had friends, enemies, and admirers, but still, he was a man who hid behind a wall of secrecy and loneliness. He was a man that fit into the demands of an era, but whose era passed quickly and without much fanfare.

The Lawbringers does all of the above while telling an exciting and tight story. It has its fair share of gunplay, but it is told with a peculiar heavy quality. It is packed with emotion and wonder; wonder at the basis and definition of right and wrong. It is a western with a conscience, but it isn't limited or judged by that conscience, rather it is simply expanded into the realm of believability. It is complex and wondrous. In short, it is very much part of that 10% that has allowed the western story to survive for more than a century.

Halloween

2009-10-30T14:50:00.004-06:00

A more astute cliché has never been uttered: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is as true in blogging as it is in the real world. I intended to write a post about the horror films I watched in October. I intended to write a review about a horror novel, or, at least, a short story. But I didn’t. In fact, I have nothing.

With one exception, and I hope you enjoy it. My wife and I discovered a little town—I use the word loosely—not far from the Utah-Nevada border when we first moved to Southern Utah. It appears to be an old railroad town that has nearly dried up and blown away. It is approximately one square block, with only a handful of the buildings occupied. The rest is a damn good example of a ghost town.

The town is called Modena, and it is located about nine miles east of the Nevada border—on the Utah side—on SR 56. It is a spooky place that is fitting for a Halloween journey; we visited again yesterday. It is the type of place where you can feel the history and decay flattened into a picture of broken dreams and heartache. It is desolate, lonely, and really, really cool.

Imagine coasting into town at dusk, a rattle in your engine and nothing for miles. Now imagine you hear a noise; see a flicker of movement; a baby cry; an old woman mumble. In the distance you can hear coyotes calling the night. The slither and rattle of snakes. The whimper of rodents.

Happy Halloween!

DEATH GROUND by Ed Gorman

2009-10-27T13:39:00.001-06:00

Another older review. I posted it about a year ago, but Leisure has just released Death Ground in a new edition. It should either be on bookstore shelves or on its way. It is a Western that anyone and everyone will enjoy. The cover art is terrific, and the novel is even better.

Leo Guild is an aging bounty hunter. He is a former lawman, father and husband, but that is all behind him. Now he rides alone. He is melancholy, intelligent and violent; when he needs to be. He also has a past that sticks with him. He killed a little girl. The courts forgave him, but he can’t find the heart to forgive himself.

Death Ground opens on the evening of Guild’s 54th birthday. In lonely celebration he makes a date at the local brothel with a young “straw-haired” girl. Things don’t go as expected with the girl and his birthday truly turns for the worse when he is summoned to the Sheriff’s office.

Two men are dead. One—Merle Rig—hired Guild as a bodyguard and the other—Kenny Tolliver—was technically Guild’s employee. He hired Kenny to protect Rig while he paid a visit to the "straw-haired" girl. As he looks at the cadavers on the heavy mortician’s tables he figures his job is gone and it is time to ride on, but first he pays a visit to Kenny’s mother. A scene that unsettles Guild and also piques his interest; Kenny’s mother knew Rig and Kenny palled around with a couple local deputies.

Leo Guild decides he can’t leave town until he figures who really killed the pair and why. He has a feeling it is not the violent mountain man being blamed by the Sheriff, but he doesn’t have many suspects. He doesn’t have anything but a hunch, really.

Death Ground isn’t a traditional Western. It, like all of Gorman’s Westerns, is a noir mystery wrapped in the trappings of the Old West. That is not to say that the historical element isn’t accurate or interesting, because it is. It is also central to the story, but an Ed Gorman Western is more of a historical mystery than anything else. A hardboiled historical mystery at that.

The prose is tough and tender in varying shades. It defines the story, action, and protagonist with a lean, smart and melancholy and literate style:

“Then he started digging snow up with both hands, and he covered them good, the two of them, and then he stood up and looked out on the unfurling white land. There was blue sky and a full yellow sun. Warmer now, there was even that kind of sweetness that comes on sunny winter days. It made him think of pretty women on ice skates, their cheeks touched perfect red by the cold, their eyes daring and blue.”

Leo Guild is an everyman. He is the man who does what needs to be done. He isn’t a hero, or a villain, but rather he is simply a man; a man who has seen much, done much, and lost much. Guild is an example of what makes Ed Gorman’s fiction so damn good: characters that are measured and three-dimensional; characters that act, feel and sound real. His male characters are strong and pitiful, lustful and scared, vain and dangerous, lonely and weak—generally all at the same time—and more importantly they are recognizable. And his female characters exhibit the same steady qualities. Neither wholly good nor bad, just human.

Death Ground is a Western that should have wide appeal. It will please the traditionalist with its rugged description of frontier life and the people who settled it. It will also introduce readers of hardboiled crime fiction to a new genre, but mostly it will please any reader who wants something tangible and meaningful mixed into a well-told, excellently plotted and immensely entertaining novel.

"Nightmare Gang" by Dean R. Koontz

2009-10-24T22:35:00.000-06:00

I found an old science fiction anthology at a thrift store a few weeks ago. It is titled Infinity One and it advertises itself as “a magazine of speculative fiction in book form.” It is a mass market published by Lancer in 1970. It has 18 stories, sixteen appear to be originals, and the story—or its author at any rate—that caught my attention was a nifty short titled “Nightmare Gang” by Dean R. Koontz.

The editorial introduction for Mr Koontz is also of note (to me at least)—“Dean R. Koontz is another of the younger generation of science fiction writers.”—because I have never lived (at least as a reader) in an era when Dean Koontz was considered anything but a veteran bestseller. But here, in this anthology, Koontz’s name doesn’t even make an appearance on the cover—front or back. How times change.

“Nightmare Gang” is something approaching dark fantasy. It is a motorcycle gang story with a dark twist told in first person narrative. It opens with a knife fight between the gang leader and a member who would like to be leader. It doesn’t last long, and the leadership hierarchy is left unchanged. The leader, a man simply called Louis—there are no last names—uses the fight as an “object lesson” to scare the other gang members into line.

Louis has other advantages over the bikers besides physical strength. He is the only one who knows who each of the members are; none of them have memories of anything before the gang. Their timeline begins and ends with their gang initiation. There have been members who wanted out, but strange and unexplainable (if not terrifying) things happened to stop them.

“Nightmare Gang” was an unexpected find. It is early Koontz, but it is really damn good. It is written in a simple and almost stark style. The cadence of language is crisp and tight. It is written more like a hardboiled suspense story than science fiction—

“Cottery was a knife man. He carried six of them laid flat and invisible against his lean body, and with these half dozen confidence boosters giving him adequate courage, he challenged Louis to a fight, for he envisioned himself as leader of the gang. It was over inside of two minutes. Louis moved faster than he had a right to.”

The plot is well conceived and it is capped with a perfect ending. Mr Koontz gives very little away, and gives it a twist and nudge at the end. I think he may even have winked. I do know I smiled. I also know I enjoyed the story a whole lot. It also made me wish for a more complete volume of Dean Koontz’s short stories. His Strange Highways collection is a start, but it isn’t nearly enough.

Halloween Reading

2009-10-22T14:27:00.003-06:00

This is a post that went live in October 2007. It is far from a complete list, but I still really like the novels and authors I chose to include. If I were to do it over I would also include a few other authors / books that have brought a nasty bit of entertaining fright and horror since I wrote this. A few—Cage of Night by Ed Gorman; Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson; Terminal by Brian Keene; and Afraid by Jack Kilborn.

Also, the numbering next to the authors name means absolutely nothing. It is simply a means to separate the authors into their own tidy category.

The end of October is in sight, and that means one thing: Halloween. Halloween is a favorite holiday of mine, and as it approaches I find myself filled with an unexplainable sense of excitement—it is the twelve year-old boy in me craving a past that no longer exists, but it is also more than that. It is the excitement of autumn—the days are shrinking, the shadows are lengthening, and nights are deepening. I love the cool crisp air, the idea of coming winter, but mostly the spooky chill that is Halloween.

So in honor of Halloween I’m going to list a few of my favorite horror writers—five to be exact. The only rule in this selection of authors is: there are no rules.

1. Jack Ketchum. The work of Jack Ketchum is truly frightening. He generally doesn’t employ the horror norms of demons, goblins, and poltergeists, but instead he creates truly frightening evil in the form of humanity. He shows us the worst elements that can exist in us all, and then unleashes it on the characters of his stories. If you haven’t tried Ketchum, do it soon.

My favorite Jack Ketchum novels are: The Girl Next Door, Off Season, Red, and his short story collection Peaceable Kingdom.

2. Richard Laymon. I discovered Richard Laymon in the autumn of 2000, and I quickly found and read every novel that was available in the United States for less than the price of a small automobile, which at the time was about sixteen of them. His work can be gross, violent, and very nearly pornographic in places, but somehow—especially in his better novels—he lightens it with humor, and adolescent innocence.

My favorite Laymon novels are: In the Dark, The Traveling Vampire Show, One Rainy Night, Night Show, Into the Fire, and Among the Missing.

3. Stephen King. This is a writer who truly needs no introduction, but I’m going to give him one anyway. Mr. King writes with a power that few modern writers have—he creates working class characters so real and vibrant that when he eases mysticism and fantasy into the stories it doesn’t feel forced or unreal. It is simply part of the story, and very believable.

My favorite King novels—specifically aimed at Halloween are: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The Stand, ‘Salem’s Lot, and his short story collection Skeleton Crew. I have never read a Stephen King novel I didn’t like, but the aforementioned titles are spooky enough for any Halloween.

4. Douglas Clegg. Mr. Clegg probably has more raw talent than any other horror writer currently producing mainstream horror. His voice is strong, clear, and very frightening. His work runs from chilling ghost stories to vampires, to the more cinematic and gory. I have yet to find a Clegg novel I didn’t like.

My favorite Douglas Clegg novels are: The Infinite, The Attraction, The Hour Before Dark, and Nightmare House.

5. Dean Koontz. Mr. Koontz is another writer who needs no introduction. His work is difficult to categorize because he is able to mix and match genre elements with ease. His early work was mainly in the science fiction genre, but he also wrote in the suspense, horror, romance, and mystery genres—now all of these genres can be found in his work. I especially enjoy his work from the 1980s, but I really haven’t found a Koontz book I didn’t enjoy.

My favorite Dean Koontz novels--with a Halloween twist--are: Lightning, Midnight, The Bad Place, Twilight Eyes, and The Face of Fear.

An additional word on Dean Koontz. I have read several Dean Koontz novels in 2009, and with each reading I gain more and more respect for his work. He is the master of the big suspense novel. His style and ability allows him to write a large and complex novel without losing the intimacy of a smaller voice novel. He truly is the voice of modern suspense and his work, at least parts of it, should survive his and my generation. At least I hope it does.

FUGITIVE OF THE STARS by Edmond Hamilton

2009-10-19T13:02:00.004-06:00

The name Edmond Hamilton is legendary in the science fiction genre. He originated, or at least popularized, the space opera style story, and he wrote several classic tales including the short story “The Man Who Evolved”. He was a stable writer for the pulp magazine Weird Tales where he published 79 stories between 1926 and 1948¹. He was one of the most popular writers of science fiction for decades, but since his death in 1977 his work has nearly been forgotten.

I recently read his novel Fugitive of the Stars—an ACE Double (M-111) published in 1965 with Kenneth Bulmer’s Land Beyond the Map. It is, according to isfdb.org, Mr Hamilton’s second to last published novel. It is a scant 116 pages, but it is pure adventure from the opening sentence to the final page.

Horne is the First Pilot for the Federation freighter Vega Queen. He is on a leisurely cruise to the distant Fringe Worlds—a place where the Federation’s influence is only sporadic and rumors of slave ships and abduction has caused a good deal of unrest and fear. When the Vega Queen reaches its second port stop at the small world of Skereth the second pilot and Horne find trouble. Horne makes it out okay, but his second isn’t so lucky, so with a new second pilot the Vega Queen continues its scheduled route through the Fringe.

Unfortunately the trip goes awry in a hurry. The Vega Queen is smashed apart in an asteroid belt. There are only eighteen survivors, and Horne is accused of drunken negligence. He knows he was drugged, but the investigation taps him as the responsible party. He isn’t satisfied with the verdict—he escapes the detention center in search of the second pilot and the truth behind the crash.

Fugitive of the Stars is pure pulp. It captures the essence of adventure and awe that was science fiction in the 1940s and 50s. The intended market was twelve year-old boys, and it hits square. The only problem, it was written and published in the 1960s; an era when science fiction was changing from its escapist adventure roots to a more serious form. An era that introduced writers like Philip K. Dick, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, and J.G. Ballard; Mr Hamilton was an old horse by then. His time and stories very probably viewed as archaic and trite by the genre elite.

But damn if it isn’t entertaining. The story is quick and competently written. The prose is smooth and clean, and surprisingly strong and attractive in places:

“To fall with a soundless scream through an empty chaos of contending forces, to be riven right out of your own dimensions and hurled quaking through alien continua…that was how it was, if you looked at it one way."

and

“The mountain was a skull and Horne walked within it, a micro-organism moving through the convoluted tunnels of the brain that filled its great domed hollowness.”

The bottom line: Fugitive of the Stars is entertaining. It is escapist and fun. It is competent—the prose, the plot, the characters—and very well designed. It is a novel that anyone who enjoys a quick and exciting story will enjoy. Don’t break the bank acquiring it, but if you run across a copy—buy it!

¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Hamilton

Four Elmore Leonard Trailers

2009-10-14T07:30:00.000-06:00

Elmore Leonard recently turned 84. 84! This guy has been around for a long time. He started out writing westerns and really made his mark--as far as sales go--in the crime genre. I tend to enjoy his earlier work better than his later work, which is not to say that his later work is bad. But his early stuff, including the westerns, is marvelous.

So here, for your viewing enjoyment, are trailers to four films based on Mr Leonard's early work...

1967. Hombre

1971. Valdez is Coming

1972. Joe Kidd

1974. Mr. Majestyck

VLAD THE IMPALER by Jacobson & Colon

2009-10-12T07:30:00.001-06:00

I don’t read many graphic novels. I enjoy the occasional Spider Man, and the odd post-apocalyptic series—The Walking Dead, although the dialogue has become depressingly poor at best, and a little Jonah Hex. But my fiction taste trends toward prose rather than graphic and I usually try to keep it that way for the simple reason that a novel lasts longer and costs less.

I received a graphic novel in the mail for review (it happens, why?, I don’t know) and I was pleasantly surprised—surprised that it was sent, and also surprised at how enjoyable it was. I opened it late this past Saturday and finished it in one sitting. I had intended to go through the first several pages, but the story captured me and I shuffled through the entire book—all 115 pages of it.

The title: Vlad the Impaler; written by Sid Jacobson and artwork created by Ernie Colon. It is a historical piece about Vlad Dracula. A fifteenth century prince of Wallachia—Southern Romania—known for his brutal and cruel reign; he was called “the Impaler” because of his propensity to impale his enemies and showcase the victims to the public.

Vlad Dracula’s modern legend is one that is much more literary than factual. His name was borrowed by Bram Stoker for his legendary vampire Dracula; probably a case of the man more evil than his literary counterpart. Vlad sat upon the throne of Wallachia no less than three times. As a boy he was a captive of the Ottoman Empire and as an adult his overriding concern was power.

Vlad the Impaler covers the terrain of Vlad’s life with a powerful simplicity. He is portrayed as a monster. The language is simple and the dialogue competent. The artwork runs from colorful and bold to dark and muted depending on the deeds of the characters.

Vlad Dracula is neither antagonist nor protagonist. He is simply the story, and the people around him—a faithful friend and advisor, a wife, a brother—serve as the humanity. He is a monster filled with rage, lust, hatred, and paranoia. A man with great boldness, but a man burdened with a lack of decency.

Vlad the Impaler is a disturbing yet intriguing story. It only grazes the man’s life, but it is startling. It tells a story of barbarity, love, faith, and betrayal. It is told with style, but it creates more questions than it answers. It is a story that will entertain, but also lead the reader into a deeper survey of a man whose name is known, but who—as a man—is mostly unknown.

TEKWAR by William Shatner

2009-10-10T22:32:00.005-06:00

I've been AWOL again most of this week, but I've been thinking about the Tek novels published as by William Shatner; "as by" because I'm pretty certain Ron Goulart did the actual writing.

I have four or five of these on a bookshelf and every few years I pull one down and really enjoy it. The novels have passed time well and still hold a level of interest--beyond mere sentimentality--and relevance. They are slick science fiction novels that entertain with quick prose and crime-style plots. A good time if you don't expect too much and want momentary escape from reality.

It’s amazing how quickly time passes—it goes faster and faster with each year. About fifteen years ago I made a discovery. It was a thin science fiction novel written by William Shatner titled Tekwar. This past week I picked it out of a box of old books I keep in my office, and gave it another try. I found I still liked it, despite the passing years and my changing taste in fiction. It was more than just a good read—it was a visit to my own past. A visit well worth the journey.

Tekwar is the story of convicted police officer Jake Cardigan—he was put in the “Freezer” for corruption and compromising a police investigation. He is an admitted tek addict—a virtual reality program that is addictive and illegal—but he was wrongly convicted, and now four years later he is reawakened and put to work for the Cosmos Detective Agency.

His assignment: Find Professor Kittridge and his daughter Beth who reportedly died in an accident in the insurgent held state of Chihuahua, Mexico. His four years in the “Freezer” have left him trying to make sense of his new world—his friends, their new alliances and a whole new breed of betrayal.

Tekwar reads very much like a noir private eye novel set in Twenty-second century Los Angeles. It is complete with evil women, hot androids, drug-dealing hoods and not so nice, or ethical, law enforcement types. The writing isn’t top notch, and Jake Cardigan has an annoying habit of talking to himself, but Tekwar is fun. The story is simple and flows well, while action scenes flash by with techno-violent ease. And in the end you find you not only like Jake Cardigan, but you like the entire world sketched across the pages of this novel.

There are nine Tek novels—all credited to William Shatner, but accompanied by rumors, probably true, they were ghost written by Ron Goulart. Shatner did cite the help of Goulart in the acknowledgements page of each novel, but there is a minor debate around the Internet about just how much of the work is Goulart’s. Did Shatner write any of them? Did he outline them and Goulart do the actual writing? Or did Shatner do anything other than lend his name as a marketing tool?

A Couple Movies

2009-10-06T17:15:00.002-06:00

The summer was a dismal movie season this year—mostly duds with a few “it was okay” movies. But the autumn has been a little better so far. We—my wife and I—have seen two movies that I am unabashedly recommending. The first is the Matt Damon film The Informant! It is the story of an ADM executive—during ADM’s notorious price fixing era—who acts as an FBI informant. The entire movie is a surprise and the less you know about it the better. Go see it.

We also saw Zombieland over the weekend and it really made us laugh. It is a zombie film with more than just a touch of humor. It is everything you want from a Zombie/horror movie—suspenseful, humorous, and damn fun.

The Informant!

Zombieland

"A Killer in the Dark" by Robert Edmond Alter

2009-10-01T14:28:00.000-06:00

It has been too long since I have posted an original review, but here, finally, today, I have one. The story is older—published in 1963—and the author is new to me: Robert Edmond Alter. Alter died young. He was born in 1925 and died in 1966. He wrote two Gold Medal novels that were reprinted by Black Lizard in the 1980s (Carny Kill and Swamp Sister) and a myriad of short stories.

I read his short story “Killer in the Dark”—Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, August 1963—and while it has its share of flaws, it is nevertheless entertaining and enjoyable. I read it in Alfred Hitchcock’s Grave Business anthology.

Peter Dawson has a daughter and a wife. He is enjoying a warm summer evening when a neighbor interrupts him. Her son glimpsed a Diamondback rattlesnake scuttle into Pete’s basement through a broken windowpane.

Pete is dubious, but he decides he better take a look. Unfortunately nothing quite goes right—his daughter and her friend are in the basement playing the monster game, the basement light is burned out, and the flashlight doesn’t have batteries. And it gets much worse before the story ends.

“A Killer in the Dark” is a dark suspense story with a chilling and downright frightening premise—an angry rattlesnake lurking in the basement with two young girls who are not only unaware of the danger, but oblivious even to its potential. Mr Alter masterfully creates suspense by measuring sharp and harrowing setbacks to the protagonist, but, unfortunately, he goes a little too far with the climax. The scene quickly loses its fear and dread and crosses that thin line into silliness.

With that said, I enjoyed "A Killer in the Dark," blemishes and all. The prose is tight and simple. The story is dark and fear inducing. It is a professional tale that is entertaining and fun. It is horror with a chill and a laugh; in other words, it is escapist fiction of the first order.

Short Film: Lovecraft's Pillow

2009-09-30T09:49:00.001-06:00

This is an interesting short film directed by Mark Steensland and written by Rick Hautala. It is credited to an idea from Stephen King. The pair--Steensland and Hautala--have collaborated on several short films including Peekers, and The Ugly File. Peekers is a terrific short, and I am anxiously awaiting the Internet release of The Ugly File. It is currently making the film festival rounds.

The Ugly File is based on a masterful short story by Ed Gorman and it would make a terrific film. It's too bad Masters of Horror didn't produce it.

Anyway...here is Lovecraft's Pillow.

Daniel Keyes - A New Novel?

2009-09-28T15:00:00.003-06:00

I made an interesting discovery last night while I was cruising the Internet. Daniel Keyes—the guy who wrote the classic science fiction story “Flowers for Algernon”—has a new novel titled The Asylum Prophecies. It is currently available at the online retailers and is likely in stock, or will be shortly, at most bookstores.

My only experience with the work of Daniel Keyes is “Algernon.” A story I read as a teenager, and a story that resulted in two heavy feelings: 1) awe at its simplicity and success; and 2) angst at the unfairness of everything.

A little about “Flowers for Algernon.” It was originally written as a novella length story in 1959—it won the Hugo Award that same year. It was then expanded to novel length—a short novel to be sure—in 1966 for which it won the Nebula Award. It is a truly wonderful story / novel.

It—“Flowers for Algernon”—is the only Daniel Keyes I have ever seen at a bookstore or library, and when I realized the Daniel Keyes on the cover of a new Leisure Book was the Daniel Keyes I had a moment of: This guy is still alive? He is still writing? On further investigation I discovered that, while he isn’t prolific, he has published other fiction and non-fiction. I just haven’t noticed it before now.

The new Keyes’ novel has an interesting concept, albeit a little strange. The description over at Leisure’s website reads:

“Raven began the day in an asylum, a disturbed young woman with multiple personalities recovering from another suicide attempt. But now she holds a secret that could save thousands of innocent lives. Buried deep in her splintered subconscious are details of an impending terrorist attack against the United States—details that her kidnappers cannot let her reveal. As Raven summons all her strength to fight her captors, an American agent races across the globe to rescue her and find the key that will unlock her trapped memories before it’s too late.”

I don’t know if it is any good, but I do think it is worth a try; if for no other reason than “Flowers for Algernon” was so good. It is the Daniel Keyes; the guy who wrote “Flowers for Algernon” and literally blew my fifteen-year-old mind.

Something a Little Different

2009-09-27T10:07:00.002-06:00

I just finished one of the busiest weeks of my life. The good news: it was very productive and even better, it is over. The bad news: I neglected Gravetapping more than a little. I have a post that will be going live early this week--Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

This post however is about my wife. She is an artist--an illustrator, graphic designer and fine artist. She has a showing of her water colors at a local gallery. The theme: desert wildflowers. The work has a flair of simplistic beauty that captures the essence of the wildflower. And while I am more than a little biased I think it is damn good.

The above is an image of one of the paintings that is in the show. If you have any interest, or just want to stop by and take a look, it is at the Blue Sage Gallery in Cedar City, Utah. The address is:

94 West Center Street
Cedar City, Utah

It opened a few weeks ago, and it will run through October 9, 2009.

You can get a sampling of the pieces in the show by visiting my wife's blog Here.

"The Shadows, Kith and Kin" by Joe R. Lansdale

2009-09-17T14:38:00.003-06:00

I meant to have a post about Donald Hamilton and Westerns today, but it didn't quite happen. It will appear next week right here, but until then here is a review I wrote for a brilliant short story written by Joe R. Lansdale.

Joe R. Lansdale has near legendary status in the horror world—he has won an astonishing six Bram Stoker Awards and the British Fantasy Award. Three of his stories have been translated to the screen—the wonderful Bubba Ho-Tep, and Incident On and Off a Mountain Road for the Showtime series Masters of Horror, and The Job. He has published an impressive amount of short stories and he is also an acclaimed mystery writer.

Which makes me even more embarrassed that I haven’t read much of Lansdale’s work. I actually own a few of his novels including his most recent release Lost Echoes, but they haven’t arrived at the top of my to-be-read pile. So when I came across his short story “The Shadows, Kith and Kin” in the 2006 Edition of Horror: The Best of the Year I decided I better read it. And I’m glad I did.

“The Shadows, Kith and Kin” is the story of a lonely man. He is unemployed, married to a woman who no longer loves him, and even worse, lives with his in-laws. He sleeps during the day while his wife is at work, and at night he sits out on the porch and watches the shadows—shadows that he begins to associate himself with. To tell any more of the plot will spoil the story.

“The Shadows, Kith and Kin” is told in first person. The narrative is seamless. The pace is near perfect, and the prose is, at times, beautiful. One passage was particularly haunting:

Lying in bed later that night I held up my hand and found that what intrigued me most were not the fingers, but the darkness between them. It was a thin darkness, made weak by light, but it was darkness and it seemed more a part of me than the flesh.

The story builds slowly. The first half is dark, haunting, and surreal. Then Lansdale changes gears and swiftly takes the story to a place I wasn’t expecting. The narrative moves from introspective to explosive—the main character, while not changed intrinsically is forced into an action that changes his world.

“The Shadows, Kith and Kin” is a story that packs a wallop. It is what horror should be: meaningful, haunting, scary, and damn fun. It’s impact lasts well beyond the final page, and if this is an example of Joe R. Lansdale’s short stories, I need to read more of them.

“The Shadows, Kith and Kin” was originally published in the anthology Outsiders edited by Nancy Holder and Nancy Kilpatrick; it also appeared in Horror: The Best of the Year 2006 Edition edited by John Betancourt and Sean Wallace; it is also in Joe R. Lansdale’s most recent collection Shadows, Kith and Kin published by Subterranean Press in 2007.

In the Shadow of The Lost Symbol

2009-09-15T12:36:00.007-06:00

The only thing worse than a blockbuster movie directed by Roland Emmerich is a blockbuster novel written by Dan Brown. Or is it the other way round? Well either way you look at it--mean-spirited comments aside--it calls for a little good news, which I have and will get to shortly.

As most of you know today (September 15, 2009) is the release date of Dan Brown's gigantic new novel The Lost Symbol. A novel that is probably good news for the industry, from the publisher to the seller, but just ho-hum news for many readers. Me included.

The good news? Today also marks the release of the fourth novel in Robert J. Randisi's The Rat Pack series featuring Sand's pit-boss Eddie G. The title: You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Kills You. It features all the regulars: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr, along with Marilyn Monroe, who needs Eddie G's help with a potential stalker.

Publisher's Weekly gave it a terrific review: "Randisi clothes a factual skeleton of information about his famous characters with an artful tapestry of vivid imagination."

And, if it is anything like the previous three, it is very definitely worth the price of admission. I reviewed the second novel (Luck Be a Lady, Don't Die) in 2008. Click Here to read it.

PWA Shamus Banquet News

2009-09-13T21:32:00.003-06:00

I received an email from Bob Randisi over the weekend with news about the upcoming Shamus Award Banquet...

We're getting the same two questions from people about the PWA Shamus Banquet at the Slippery Noodle blues bar in Indianapolis, Fri. Oct. 16, 6:30 to 9:00: Are tickets still available? and Can I come if I'm not a writer?

We have managed to INCREASE our seating at the banquet, so tickets will be on sale until OCT. 1. And ANYONE can come--writers, agents, editors and FANS. Tickets are $50. Email Bob Randisi at RRandisi@aol.com for details on how to get your tickets. It is STILL a ticketed event, with no entry without one.

DRAGONFLY by John Farris

2009-09-10T07:30:00.001-06:00

John Farris is best known for his work in the horror genre—The Fury, All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By, Son of the Endless Night, etc.—but his body of work is much more varied and broad. His career began at the height of the pulp era and he wrote several very good examples, including Baby Moll, and Harrison High.

It was, however, the horror genre where he truly differentiated his work—he wrote with a keen eye towards culture and mythology. He was an observer and chronicler as much as anything. And he still is.

His work has changed and expanded over the years; from his early pulp-style crime novels, to his horror, to his more recent suspense, and finally to his current batch of hybrid suspense / supernatural novels. No matter where Mr Farris’ work is categorized you can always count on three things: wit, suspense, and more than a touch of humanity.

I recently read a John Farris’ novel titled Dragonfly. It was published in 1995. It is a large-scale suspense novel with a booming plot, flashy and developed characters, and enough twists to make its 500 pages pass far too quickly. It is a version of the Dean Koontz thriller, except where Koontz tends to populate his novels with working class characters Dragonfly is a hothouse of Southern aristocracy in all its contemptible glory.

Dr Joe Bryce is a conman. He makes his living swindling wealthy women of their treasure. His last job had a few loose ends and it didn’t turn out exactly how Joe had hoped. He has a mind to retire, but the dust jacket photograph of a beautiful and bestselling author haunts him until he decides for one more con. The only problem: Nothing is as he expects it.

The plot is so well rendered and designed that the less a reader knows about it, the more enjoyable it will be. The writing is pure in subtle and unobtrusive tones—it is deceivingly simple with a Southern, almost gothic, lilt:

“Joe awoke at the crack of dawn in the beach house, disoriented after a night of heavy sleep, wondering for a few moments just where he was and what he was up to.”

The characters are full-bodied, living, breathing people. Joe is a scoundrel that is not only likable, but, as the novel gains ground, begins a trembling, sorrowful journey of redemption. He is a flawed man in a flawed and harsh world. The setting is beautifully captured by Mr Farris in a muted eloquence—simple and direct with language that is permeated with intelligence and wit.

Dragonfly is one of the best novels I have read in 2009. It is a sound piece of literature with a muscular plot and a humanity that is startling. It is a true masterpiece of suspense. It may remind me of the Dean Koontz thriller, but Dragonfly is all John Farris.

A Quintet of Donald E. Westlake Trailers

2009-09-08T19:09:00.001-06:00

1967. Point Blank. A film based on The Hunter--a Parker novel--published as by Richard Stark.

1968. The Split. This is another Parker film, this one is based on the novel The Seventh.

1972. The Hot Rock. This is a Dortmunder adaptation.

1974. Bank Shot.

1999. Payback. This is another adaptation of The Hunter.

Question: Why does Hollywood think it is necessary to change Parker's name every time out?

GHOST WALK by Brian Keene

2009-09-04T07:30:00.000-06:00

I have a love-hate relationship with the work of Brian Keene. A few of his novels have absolutely captured me—Terminal—and a few others have been abysmal disappointments—Ghoul. So I always approach a Keene novel with a certain excited wariness because I know I will either really enjoy it or want to throw it at the wall before the final page.

I read one of Brian Keene’s recent releases—Ghost Walk, published in 2008—and I really had a good experience with it. It was a typical supernatural horror story with interesting and likable characters. In a word: fun.

Ken Ripple is a widower. His wife died of cancer two years before the novel opens and he is in the final process of designing and building a haunted woods tour for Halloween. The proceeds to be donated to a cancer research charity. The only problem, other than the usual problems of getting any enterprise in motion, is that a hunter unwittingly releases a demon in the woods next to the Ken’s attraction.

Ghost Walk is an easy and unassuming horror novel. It is easy to read and it has an understated and effective atmosphere of both excitement and dread. The demon is portrayed well as a background piece that isn’t developed much beyond the dark shadow in the closet, which makes it effective as a bogeyman-style villain.

The characters are tightly controlled and adeptly fashioned to the plot. They range from Ken, to a local freelance writer, to possessed teenagers and even an Amish outcast with the ability of astral projection. The plot is the usual—there are no real surprises—but Mr Keene is able to amplify the story with his toned down prose style and interesting vision of horror, which is a terrific mixture of the supernatural, comedy, and a vibrant small-scale low budget horror film.

There are also several unique elements in the novel. The Amish outcast mentioned above is a wonderful character that adds both originality and wonder to the tale. There is also the description of the joys and misery—and just plain poverty—of a freelance writer’s life. Something Keene probably knows all to well.

Ghost Walk is perfect for a quick and spirited foray into the supernatural for both the horror enthusiast and the occasional visitor. It is a simple diversion and pure fun. It passes too quickly and leaves the reader the reader pondering if the next Brian Keene novel will be just as entertaining.

A Slow Down and a Retool

2009-09-02T10:16:00.004-06:00

A quick post to let everyone know that Gravetapping is going to slow down a little over the next few weeks. It's not going to stop, but there will be fewer posts. If everything remains constant it will drop from its current rate of three posts per week to two posts.

The reason? I'm busy. A good sort of busy, but busy none the less.

I also plan to retool a little. While there will be fewer posts, my hope is that the quality of the posts will rise. My plans (very tentative at the moment) are to focus on reviews, coming book releases, and films and television; particularly cinema that was written-by or based on the work of novel and short story writers from any and all eras and genres.

I'm also thinking about starting a regular interview section. The plan, again very tentative, one quality and in depth interview every other month or so. I haven't contacted any writers yet, but if I can get the time and interest I would love to do some interviews.

If you are interested in an interview please send an email to: zulu1611@yahoo.com. Also, it may be several weeks from the time of request to the actual interview because I will want to familiarize myself with the work of the interviewee.

Until next time, keep reading.

"The Bandit" by Loren D. Estleman

2009-08-31T07:30:00.001-06:00

A note up front. I wrote this piece, read it, and then debated for some time about actually posting it. As you can see I decided to go with it. The subject matter, "The Bandit" by Loren Estleman, is really terrific. You should find a copy and read it. As for the wistful philosophy, it is all my own, and while it sounds more like a sophomoric argument in a community college literature paper, and less like something truly deep and meaningful, don't hold that against the story or its author.

There is one constant in human history. Change. There are times when change seems terribly distant, and others when change is so near and terrifying we try to ignore and hope it doesn’t last. It always does last however, and the only thing that will take its place is more change, and that expected change never moves us back to where we were. Sometimes it seems like we step back, but we never really do—it is always forward, although not always for the better, and only sometimes for the worse.

The Western story is a glimpse at that change—the moving from the old to the new, and then further past still. It is a window to the past. A vision of what was. The technology of an era gone by—the freight wagon was the high technology of its day, and without it we never would have devised such a thing as the freight train or the modern semi-tractor trailer rig, or even the airplane. There is a progression that is natural and scary as hell that is defined by one word: time. It moves forward with an unflinching eye and we either stay with it, or we are unmercifully left behind.

I recently read a short story that reminded me of change and its unrelenting march forward. It is a Western story written by one of the best writers the genre has produced: Loren D. Estleman. It was published in 1986 and won the Golden Spur Award for best short story. Its title: “The Bandit”.

It is the chronicle of an outlaw who was incarcerated in 1878—the pinnacle of the post Civil War mythologized Western outlaw era. He spent the prime years of his life in a penitentiary only to be released 29 years later at the age of 60.The automobile was replacing the horse and wagon as the major mode of transportation, and the American economy was moving from its old agrarian self into the industrial age—and still it changes today as we move into the so-called post industrial age.

The old man is in awe at his first glimpse at an automobile—“He watched it go by towing a plume of dust and blue smoke and said, ‘Oldsmobile.’” He kept up with modern life and technology through magazines and newspapers, but there is nothing like the real thing, and when he is released he finds the world a changed place. He doesn’t know if the train station is still in the same place, and he doesn’t know exactly how he will live in this world—a world to which he really no longer belongs.

The irony of the story is that it is his past—the past—that gives him currency in this new place. It is his stories and wisdom that allow him a position. Very much as it is our own pasts—both our personal past as well as the cultural past—that give us a future. We depend on the past to define ourselves, and in that definition and experience we create both today and tomorrow.

“The Bandit” is a wonderful tale that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. It can be read as both a genre piece and a deeply affecting literary story. The difference between the two is probably no more than semantic, but this story should appeal to anyone who enjoys a story as a story and also to those who need to grapple with deep meaning and nuance. A line that is nearly impossible to walk, but a line that Loren Estleman often approaches and straddles in his Western fiction.

The Trailers of JAWS

2009-08-28T09:04:00.002-06:00

Jaws; 1975

Jaws 2; 1978

Jaws 3D; 1983

Jaws: The Revenge; 1987

Cruel Jaws; 1995

CALL ME HAZARD by Frank Wynne

2009-08-26T07:30:00.002-06:00

It has been a summer of great older stuff at my house, and one of the fascinations I have developed is the work of Brian Garfield. I read a handful of his novels and reviewed two—Necessity and Fear in a Handful of Dust. My latest Garfield experience is a Western he wrote for the ACE Double line titled Call Me Hazard. It was published as by Frank Wynne in 1966 (M-138 w/ The Rincon Trap by Dean Owen), and while it isn’t the top of his work it is pretty damn good.

Jason Hazard is a hard case. He isn’t a bad man, nor is he the type who looks for trouble, but nonetheless he is hard, silent, and (when he needs to be) violent. He is also a mystery—the people around him respect and admire him, but Hazard always holds back. When he left his successful mine, and the town of Stinking Springs, Arizona, he didn’t tell many why. He just left and there were a few who took exception to his absence.

Hazard is back in Stinking Springs, but he doesn’t find a warm welcome. There is a new mine owner in town. A man named Vic Olsen who has a long history with Jason—it goes back to their teenage years—and his major ambition in life is ruining Jason’s. The other major mine owners in town are all having trouble too. The place seems jinxed. There have been an abundance of cave-ins and payroll robberies, and most of the owners are contemplating selling out and moving on.

The foreman of the largest operation has gone missing and the local law—a tiny man named Owney Nash, who is owned by the new player—thinks Hazard did it. Hazard hasn’t seen the foreman since he left years earlier, but as he walks into Stinking Springs all hell breaks loose and he will need the few friends he has left in town to survive.

Call Me Hazard is an early example of Garfield’s work. His trademarks are all there—the tight and controlled suspense, the crisp dialogue and competent and literate writing—but it isn’t as sharp or developed as his later work. It is possible that it is underdeveloped because it is one-half of an ACE Double. The story is larger than the space allowed. The plot is tricky and Garfield does well at packing it in to 126 pages, but it would have worked better with more room and run time.

With that said, Call Me Hazard is really entertaining. It is a traditional Western with everything from hired guns, to nefariously beautiful women, and cold-blooded murder. It even has a few humorous names, of which Hazard and Stinking Springs are only two. The lead is a stolid and quiet man who isn’t a hired gun or even a loner. He left Stinking Springs for a reason and everyone who knows why he left is more than glad to see him back.

There is one particular scene—the first major showdown between the protagonist and the villain—that is as suspenseful as any scene in a successful suspense novel, which is Brian Garfield’s calling card. His work, no matter the genre, is plotted to ratchet the suspense from scene-to-scene and Call Me Hazard is no different. It is early and a little too short, but it is all entertainment and a fine example of how good—even at the age of 27—Brian Garfield is.

Masters of Horror: "Sounds Like"

2009-08-24T07:30:00.002-06:00

I ran out of time over the weekend and was unable to get anything written for the blog, but I found this review I wrote and posted December 2007. I have a love-hate relationship with the Showtime series Masters of Horror. It is a rocky and uneven series--or was, since I think it is gone now. A few of the episodes are terrific while others are nearly unwatchable.

"Sounds Like" is one of the good episodes. I've watched it again since I wrote this review and it was just as entertaining and fun as it was the first time. The quiet scenes are the most interesting. They remind me how loud we are as a species. We drown our thoughts with racket and noise--music, television and our own voices--to keep a certain amount of sanity against our vast and uncontrollable environment. It is a great piece of television, and Brad Anderson has added another terrific film to his body of work: Transsiberian.

I watched an episode of Masters of Horror—a Showtime anthology series—a few weeks ago that has stayed with me. The title: “Sounds Like.” It was directed and written by Brad Anderson—he also directed the 2001 horror film Session 9; a film that really scared me, and absolutely terrified my girlfriend. His work since has mostly consisted of television episodes; he directed an episode of The Shield, Surface, and two episodes of HBO’s overrated series The Wire.

“Sounds Like” is a quiet film—it tells the story of Larry Pierce, a manager at a customer service call center who, at the death of his son, develops hypersensitive hearing. He can hear whispered conversations across crowded rooms; small sounds that we all ignore—dripping water facets, the clinking of glassware, nervous fingers playing on cloth and tables. He can literally hear everything, and at first it doesn’t bother him, but as the film progresses Larry becomes more and more isolated from the world. He is more an observer of his surroundings than a participant, and the crushing noise of humanity quickly threatens his sanity.

“Sounds Like” is a terrific film that drips with melancholy, isolation, rage, and a forbidding loneliness that exists in us all. Chris Bauer, who plays Larry, is perfect for the role. He exudes tired desperation. The sadness of the character seemingly haunts the screen, and as the film moves toward its climax the audience can’t help but feel a mixture of empathy and horror at what the man becomes.

Brad Anderson has created an atmospheric film that not only tells a great story, but also says something about society, loss, and the human condition. "Sounds Like" is the best episode of the very uneven Masters of Horror series, and very much worth the price of rental.

Philip K. Dick a Gnostic?

2009-08-21T13:08:00.003-06:00

A few days ago I came across a magazine article about the work of Philip K. Dick. The article was in a Catholic Magazine—a rather good magazine—called Commonweal (May 4, 2007). The title of the article “The Real Gnostic Gospel: The Fiction of Philip K. Dick” by John Garvey. It compared Dick’s work—particularly his later work—with the Gnostic gospels. A subject I am less than literate with, but interesting and thought provoking nonetheless since I have always viewed Dick’s paranoia—the ideal that there is much more than meets the eye—as less a support for organized religion and more an indictment of everything organized, including religion.

While it isn’t my intent to discover any new truth or argue with the author of the article I do want to examine the idea—rather shallowly I assure you—for no other reason than to figure out how Dick’s body of work can be used as an apologist piece for organized religion—and more importantly see if there is anyone around who knows enough about the early Christian texts, mythologies and dogmas to intelligently compare and contrast the two.

Firstly, a simple definition of the term gnostic: to know. It is derived from the Greek and has the direct opposite meaning of agnostic, or without knowledge. The Gnostic gospels are defined by the The Gnostic Society Library as:

Among early followers of Christ it appears there were groups who delineated themselves from the greater household of the Church by claiming not simply a belief in Christ and his message, but a "special witness" or revelatory experience of the divine. It was this experience or gnosis that set the true follower of Christ apart, so they asserted.

A key idea in Garvey’s article is when he compares Dick’s work with both the Gnostic texts and the more modern view that religion uncovers the hidden truths about both human nature and God—or god, depending on ones personal pantheon.

They key paragraph:

The animating idea behind Dick’s fiction—hardly original in itself—is that things are not as they seem. This is, of course, a major part of any religious insight—and as an Episcopalian, Dick understood this. Walker Percy’s essay, “The Message in the Bottle,” for example, describes an island (this could be the beginning of a sci-fi plot) where everything is pleasant. Life seems good for all its inhabitants; then someone walking along a beach finds a bottle with the message, “Don’t despair, help is on the way.” This is what the Christian gospel says to a complacent, obtuse world, and it is not unlike one of Dick’s plots.

Garvey goes on to compare this Christian enlightenment of humanity to Dick’s work—“the world is depicted as not merely asleep, but deliberately deceived. Any remedy or salvation will therefore have to include a battle against powers that not only seem insane, but are evil.”

My view of Dick’s work is that everything organized should be approached with suspicion because there is something deeper and much more nefarious than it first appears. The truth is hidden and the seeker of that truth—the protagonist—must risk both his easy vision of reality along with his personal safety. I tend to disagree with the author’s view that Dick is a weaver of Christian tales and an apologist for organized religion. Rather, his work is one that should be measured as something dangerous—to standard and unenlightened thought—and counter to the status quo of government, industry and religion.

I should note that I absolutely agree with the idea of Philip K. Dick as a gnostic writer; at least as far as the genuine definition of the word is concerned because his work (most if not all) dealt with a protagonist moving from a state of no knowledge to that of knowledge. Moving from agnostic to gnostic, if you will.

What do you think?

Film Festival: Leigh Brackett

2009-08-19T07:30:00.000-06:00

I'm going to change the format of these posts a little. Rather than featuring a television series episode or film I'm going to concentrate on a particular author. This week is a look at the screen life of science fiction and mystery novelist Leigh Brackett.

Bill Pronzini, in his anthology Hardboiled, called Brackett "one of the top hardboiled writers of all time." Her first novel was published in 1944. It was a Raymond Chandler-type mystery titled No Good from a Corpse. It was well received and, according to the Thrilling Detective website, it is this novel that impressed director Howard Hawks and won her the job of writing the screenplay for The Big Sleep with William Faulkner.

Leigh Brackett was a versatile writer. She is best known for her work in the science fiction genre. She wrote the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back. It was her final work and the film was released two years after her death. One of Brackett's best known science fiction novels was also her first: The Nemisis from Terra. It was originally published in Startling Stories in 1944 and has since been published in book form by the ACE Double line in 1961 (F-123 with Robert Silverberg's Collision Course) and the short lived TOR Double line in 1989 (#8 with Edmond Hamilton's Battle for the Stars).

Brackett also wrote in the Western genre. She was credited as co-writer for the screenplay of both Rio Bravo and Rio Lobo--she also wrote a novelization based on the screenplay--as well as several other Western films. She wrote one Western novel, Follow the Free Wind, in 1963 that won her the Golden Spur Award.

Leigh Brackett was an exceptional storyteller from the golden age of the paperback. She straddled the line between Hollywood and prose and did it all startling well.

Her IMDb page.

Television -- Full Episodes

Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Death of a Cop (Season 1, episode 32; original air date May 24, 1963)

The Hulu page.

Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Terror at Northfield (Season 2, episode 3; original air date October 11, 1963)

The Hulu page.

The Rockford Files: The Four Pound Brick (Season 1, episode 21; original air date February 21, 1975)

The Hulu page.

Feature Film Trailers

The Big Sleep, 1946

Rio Bravo, 1959

Hatari!, 1962

El Dorado, 1966

Rio Lobo, 1970

The Long Goodbye, 1973

The Empire Strikes Back, 1980

FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF DUST by Brian Garfield

2009-08-17T07:30:00.001-06:00

I read a Brian Garfield novel a little better than a month ago. I was going to review it originally, then I got lazy or busy or something, and it never happened. But the problem—the story, the characters, and the action won’t leave me alone. It visits me in small segments; something the characters said, a twist of the plot, the setting, the lonely desperation. Everything comes in small vivid flashes at moments when I should be sleeping, working, or generally concentrating on something else. So here, finally, is a little something about it.

The title: Fear in a Handful of Dust as by John Ives. It was originally published in 1979.

Calvin Duggai is a veteran of the Vietnam War. He is Navajo and was raised traditionally on the reservation. He has been in a mental institution for the criminally insane for seven months. The institution is a place worse than hell for Duggai. It is squalled, harsh, and pungent with the rancidness of human decay and rot—

“He hears the slap of the bolt and the male nurse’s footsteps pocking away down the corridor; he hears the squeak of springs, the rustle of bedclothes along the ward. He hears Joley’s fear-of-darkness whimpering and someone’s catarrhal snort and the empty bitter cough of an inmate’s laughter.”

Duggai was transferred to the asylum from prison. He was convicted of murder. He stranded five men in the Mojave Desert to die solemn and harsh deaths after an argument. He was sent to prison and then declared insane by four psychiatrists, including a man named MacKenzie. A man half Navajo, but raised far from the reservation and culture. A man who is very different from Calvin Duggai. Duggai blames the psychiatrists for his hellish imprisonment in the asylum and when he escapes he has only one thing on his mind. Vengeance.

Fear in a Handful of Dust is a modern Western. The setting is the New Mexico / Arizona deserts, but it is more than just the setting that makes it a Western. It is the attitude and atmosphere—humanity and nature. A battle between two men (Duggai and MacKenzie), both from the same place, but with very different attitudes—one has spent his life escaping his roots and the other embraced them.

It is a small-scale story, an adventure more than a thriller, as the protagonist—MacKenzie—must save only himself and his three companions. But the group represents more than just itself—it represents society in its many complex and conflicting mannerisms. There is love, hate, responsibility, jealousy and envy. It is an adventure story with many of the elements that make a Western a Western—the lonely protagonist with the skills and drive to save society; a society that he only marginally belongs to, and a society that can never quite fully accept his presence.

Fear in a Handful of Dust is brilliant. Everything works. The action. The pacing. The plot. The prose; elegantly simple. The dialogue. The characterization. It all works to a stunningly violent and meaningful climax. If your only exposure to the work of Brian Garfield are the Death Wish films, read this novel and be blown away.

It really should still be in print.

Fear in a Handful of Dust was made into a low budget film titled Fleshburn. It was released in 1984 and directed by George Gage. It was written by George and Beth Gage and starred Steve Kanaly, Karen Carlson, and Sonny Landham.

Random: Summer / Books / Shamus

2009-08-14T14:15:00.001-06:00

1. It’s been a great summer so far. As most of you know we—my wife and I—moved to a small city in Southern Utah. I’m attending graduate school. There are five National Parks within an hour of our front door, including Zion, Bryce, and a beautiful National Monument called Cedar Breaks. It is a beautiful and rich location. The people are friendly, the scenery is vivid, harsh at times, and alive. Below is a photograph of Bryce National Park.

We’ve explored several new bookshops and thrift stores in the area and, wow, what a take. Okay, some bragging follows. I found a terrific little bookshop in St. George—it has a wonderful selection of old paperbacks at reasonable prices. And I have availed myself to a few. Some of the highlights—ACE D-129 The Dangling Carrot by Day Keene with Silenced Witness by Norman C. Rosenthal; ACE F-111 The Girl from Las Vegas by J.M. Flynn with To Have and to Kill by Robert Martin along with several Western titles and even a science fiction title or two.

I also picked up three Robert Colby novels—one an ACE Double—The Quaking Widow—that I reviewed last week—and the other two: Make Mine Vengeance (Avon, 1959) and Run for the Money (Avon, 1960).

Okay, enough bragging.

2. There are a few novels coming out over the next few months that I’m really looking forward to. The bulk are mystery / crime novels, but there is also a Western or two, a horror, and a someothers that I’m pretty sure I will enjoy and I bet you may too.

August 25. Flesh by Richard Laymon. This is a reprint of an older Laymon title—are there any other kind these days?—that has potential. It has been a difficult title to find here the United States and it’s one that I really want to try.

September 1. Baby Shark’s Jugglers at the Border by Robert Fate. I read the last Baby Shark novel—High Plains Redemption—and really enjoyed it.

September 15. You’re Nobody Until Somebody Kills You by Robert J. Randisi. This is Randisi’s fourth novel featuring the Rat Pack and Eddie G. The Rat Pack is a series I have really enjoyed. In fact, it is Randisi’s best work since his brilliant Arch series. It is purported to be the “Marilyn Monroe” book. I can’t wait.

September 29. Gallows by Robert J. Randisi. This is, I believe, an original Western and it features Lancaster, who—again unconfirmed—has been in two earlier Randisi novels.

October 1. Between the Dark and the Daylight and 27 More of the Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year. Whew, now that’s a title. This is the Gorman and Greenberg annual “best of” collection. A collection that look forward to every year. The title story, by Tom Piccirilli, is terrific and I assume the rest are just as good.

November 15. Ticket to Ride by Ed Gorman. This novel features Ed’s Sam McCain character—a part time private eye and lawyer in the small Iowa town of Black River Falls in the 1960s. The McCain novels are near the top of my P.I. and I’m excited that there is another scheduled for release.

Hmmm…the list is getting long. I’ll leave it here for now.

3. I received a nice email from Robert J. Randisi with details about the Shamus Awards ceremony.

“The PWA Shamus Award Banquet will be held Friday, Oct. 16, from 6:30-9:00 at The Slippery Noodle, the most popular blues bar in Indianapolis. Good food, great music, and the Shamus Awards. Tickets are $50 and are available now. Reserve your place asap as seating is limited. Email Bob Randisi at RRandisi@aol.com with your home address and an invitation will be sent to you."

Film Festival Episode Two: "Ride the Nightmare"

2009-08-12T07:30:00.000-06:00

It has already been a week since I posted the initial sorta-kinda film festival featuring television and film written by, or based on the work of, paperback era writers. The first issue was an episode of the The Alfred Hitchcock Hour titled "Annabel" written by Robert Bloch.

This week I found another episode of AHH titled "Ride the Nightmare". It is based on a brilliant paperback original written by Richard Matheson with a screenplay adapted by Matheson. The translation from novel to film isn't entirely successful--the run time is a little short and a key character was removed--but it is still entertaining.

"Ride the Nightmare" originally aired November 29, 1962. It was the eleventh episode of season one. It was directed by Bernard Girard--an active television writer and director from the 1950s to the 70s--and starred Hugh O'Brian and Gena Rowlands.

To go directly to the Hulu page click Here.

There was also a film adaptation of Ride the Nightmare. It starred Charles Bronson, James Mason--with an unbelievably awful Southern accent--Liv Ullman, and Jill Ireland. It was released in the United States in 1974 and directed by Terrence Young.

It is available on YouTube, or by clicking Here.

THE QUAKING WIDOW by Robert Colby

2009-08-10T07:30:00.001-06:00

“A man can get into a lot of trouble if he’s lonely. If he’s just lonely enough and has time on his hands. That’s a combination made for trouble.”

Burt Keating is from New York—just outside Buffalo—where he manages a small loan branch. He is mid-thirties with a beautiful wife and very comfortable life. That changes when his wife leaves on an icy night for some butter, and a few blocks from their house she is crushed between a Buick and a tree. Burt can’t seem to function anymore. He sells the house, takes a leave of absence from his job and purchases a new car—

“I wanted to flee to a new world and I knew that short of some South Pacific island, southern Florida was as close as you could come. After a few restless days in Miami, I took an apartment on the beach at Ft. Lauderdale some twenty miles away. It was a place called the Tropic Moon Apartments.”

Unfortunately the miles and warmer clime can’t set Burt’s mind right. The only thing that has any meaning is the memory of his dead wife and the life they had, but that is over and there is nothing he can do to change it. Then he meets Alicia Shafton. A woman who seems as lost and lonely as Burt, but she has a secret. Her husband, a gambler and shyster, died and left a lockbox with a note attached. It instructed her to sell the box to a man named Ralph Emory for $200,000. The only problem: Everything goes wrong and Burt can’t help but get involved.

The Quaking Widow is the first work by Robert Colby I have read and it won’t be the last. It hit a note with me—the story, setting, characters—that many works of fiction don’t. It opened with a blast—an immediate and drastic change for a protagonist with an uncertain future—and cruised forward into ever increasing peril. The characters were the expected: sleek, beautiful, mysterious, and good and bad in varying measures.

The setting is drawn marvelously. As I read, I mourned the Florida that was. The pre-Disneyland and Miami Vice Florida that was one part hillbilly and other parts chic, wealthy and dangerous. A Florida that a person can get lost in. The same Florida that was painted in the novels of John D. MacDonald with his vivid and beautiful flashes of prose.

The plotline is the expected—the dangerous and unknown femme, murder, a wildcard nympho and mysterious opponents that will stop at nothing to get the prize. In this case the box and its contents. I guessed the major plot turns before they were revealed, but it didn’t bother me because the story, while plot-driven, is textured with enough humanity to keep it more than interesting. The pacing didn't hurt either. It is perfectly developed with a well balanced mixture of action and suspense, with a dash of romance and mystery. The prose is hardboiled and, at times, clever and rich:

“She turned around and walked briskly across the room, her high, firm buttocks waving an insolent goodbye.”

The Quaking Widow is worth tracking down. It is fifty-three years old, but it is more than just nostalgia. Heck, I wasn't even on the radar when it was written. Instead it is a fine example of a linear and well-told tale that is both entertaining and exciting.

It was published by ACE (D-195) in 1956, and coupled with Owen Dudley’s The Deep End.

"Top of the World" by Bill Crider

2009-08-07T07:30:00.002-06:00

This is becoming a trend—a short story for Friday morning. This time it is a more recent story. A story published in 2002 and written by Bill Crider. The title: “Top of the World”. It originally appeared in the anthology Flesh & Blood: Dark Desires. I read it in The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, Vol. 4.

The date is never clarified, but the story takes place in a dusty town in 1950s or 60s Texas. The protagonist is a mechanic with dreams—he wants his own shop and maybe even a dealership. But to make his dreams he needs money. Enter Sam Cobb, a middle-aged man who robs banks less for the money and more for the act robbing.

One early summer day Sam finds the protagonist—a young guy who is never assigned a name—in the small-time shop where he works. Sam has a job planned and he needs a driver. It is a situation the mechanic is used to, but there is something new this time. Sam has gone in with a woman and it makes the young man nervous; at least until he meets her.

Her name is Vicky. She is older, but beautiful with red hair and a wildcat style and insatiable appetite for men. The mechanic and Vicky hit it off after that first heist and then start a regular thing. Sam warns him off, but the youngster doesn’t listen. To give more would ruin the story, but damn is it a swift and twisted little plot.

“Top of the World” is a throwback. It has the feel, pacing, and style of a 1950s noir story. It very easily could have come off the typewriter of a pulp era writer, but it is all Bill Crider. It is a sort of black widow story twisted sideways and then turned upside down and shaken.

The prose is smooth and dusty with a pinch of melancholy:

“He shook his head again. He didn’t look mad, just kind of sick, or maybe just sad, and he turned and left the garage, settling his hat down carefully on his head.”

The narrative is first person, but it is executed in a manner that both the reader and narrator are emotionally distanced from the story. It loses a sense of rushed suspense, and is replaced by a bittersweet melancholy of lost past. It somehow feels old and new all at once.

“Top of the World” is the real deal. It is literate, beautiful and dark. It showcases Crider’s broad range as a writer—it is nothing like his Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels—and more than that, it is entertaining.

You can read "Top of the World" by clicking Here.

Film Festival Episode One: "Annabel"

2009-08-05T07:30:00.006-06:00

The Internet is an amazing place. It is a spider web of interesting (and uninteresting) information and cool stuff. It is especially brilliant when it comes to entertainment. I discovered the old television series The Alfred Hitchcock Hour a few weeks ago when I went on a hunt for Richard Matheson films--Matheson wrote two episodes and both are online!

Which got me thinking about all the fabulous writers of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s--a period when writers could seemingly mix-and-match a career of both film and fiction. I went on a hunt and I was impressed with what I found. I also decided I would share some of the better episodes and films here at Gravetapping.

A sort of online film festival of television and film written-by, or based on the work, of popular paperback writers of this era. A few of the writers on the horizon: John D. MacDonald, Richard Matheson, Henry Slesar, Charles Beaumont, William F. Nolan, Cornell Woolrich, David Goodis, Leigh Brackett and many, many more.

The first installment is from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. It is an episode written by Robert Bloch and based on a Patricia Highsmith novel. The title: "Annabel". It is the seventh episode of season one, and it originally aired November 1, 1962. It stars an amazingly young Dean Stockwell and it was directed by Paul Henreid--a television director who actively worked from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think if you are so included.

A technical note: There are five commercials, four that you must watch; the fifth is at the end, well after all the action is over. A few of the commercials are placed a little awkwardly. To watch the episode full-screen hover the cursor over the screen and click the small rectangular box in the top-right corner.

GUILD by Ed Gorman

2009-08-03T07:46:00.005-06:00

Guild is Ed Gorman’s first Western. It was published in 1987, and reissued by Leisure Books this past April. The protagonist is a former lawman turned bounty hunter with a past—one terrible incident—that haunts him. He shot and killed a young girl and can’t forgive himself. He now resides on society’s fringes and survives by his wit and strength.

The novel opens with Guild dragging a bounty into the town of Danton. The man’s name is Maloney and he is friendly and likable. He is so likable he convinces Guild to purchase a bucket of beer to share before they hit the Sheriff’s office and jail. Once Maloney has been safely turned over and Guild has the chit in his pocket he decides to find a place to stay. He chooses a boarding house in town where he meets an angry young man that has a much larger affect on Guild’s life than expected.

Shortly thereafter, the young man is charged with a bank heist and his partner—a beautiful young woman that Guild becomes very protective of—drags Guild into the fray. It turns out Danton isn’t the town it seems to be on the surface. The law is crooked, and the town's founding family will do anything to keep their power and wealth. And Guild quickly finds the center of everything.

The Leo Guild novels are my favorite Ed Gorman Westerns—the protagonist is a dark and melancholy figure who is equal parts brawn and brain. He is a tough and violent man, but he is also self-aware. He understands human nature and while his view of the world is dark, his cynicism is never quite proven out and the blackness is never allowed to overtake him. He always finds something to admire about humanity, whether it is the beauty of a sincere woman or the hard fought integrity of a man taking the correct action no matter the consequences.

Guild, like all of Mr Gorman’s Westerns, is a hybrid—it is as much hardboiled noir as it is Western. The mystery is the centerpiece of the story, and the setting—the old West atmosphere and its dusty and wild towns—are the playground where it takes place. The true power of this novel is the sturdy portrait Mr Gorman paints of the past. He creates believable characters that behave very much as our own generation—they are tired, scared, lonely, naïve, brutal, horny, indifferent, kind and courageous; sometimes all at once. Which is most likely exactly how our ancestors behaved.

Guild is a damn fine example of a modern Western. It is hardboiled, tough, and entertaining. It will appeal to readers of both traditional Westerns and crime.

UPDATE. Leisure is reissuing all four of the Leo Guild novels. The next to be released is Death Ground, which was originally published in 1988. It is scheduled to hit bookstores October 27, 2009, and the cover art is pretty great. I read Death Ground last year and loved it. I also reviewed it here.

"In a Small Motel" by John D. MacDonald

2009-07-31T07:40:00.001-06:00

This week I have another short story to talk about from the nifty anthology American Pulp; an anthology that every reader of hardboiled mystery should own because it simply rocks. The story: “In a Small Motel” by John D. MacDonald. It was originally published in the July 1956 issue of Justice.

Ginny Mallory is a widow. She owns a small motor-in motel on a major highway in South Georgia. The summer heat is still strong in the waning days of October, and she is tired from a long summer season. The story opens with Ginny fighting an uncooperative rollaway bed. The guests are not cordial and treat her less like an equal and more like the hired help.

As the evening progresses Ginny’s motel begins to fill-up and we are introduced to the four secondary players in the story—Ginny’s dead husband Scott, a full-time motel resident named Johnny Benton, a strange motel guest who insists on parking his car behind the motel, and a would-be suitor named Don Ferris.

The story revolves around Ginny—a single and lonely woman trying to operate a business in 1950s America. Ferris wants to marry Ginny, but he admits it is not entirely because he loves her; Benton is a friend, but he seemingly has a dark underside that may surprise both Ginny and the reader; a guest that is the catalyst for a long and frightening night; and a dead husband whose long shadow is cast across Ginny’s life like a long heavy rain.

“In a Small Motel” is an accomplished and full-bodied story—the characters each have their own subtle and convincing motives. The setting is brilliantly realized. The climate is described with short visual blasts:

“Thick October heat lay heavily over South Georgia. Though she walked briskly, she felt as if all the heat of the long summer just past had turned the marrow of her bones to soft stubborn lead.”

And Ginny is perfectly cast as a strong and resilient woman in a quandary—she doesn’t know whether to go forward or back. The memory of her husband is a prison. A prison she does not want to escape, and the motel is its literal translation.

“In a Small Motel” is a character study cast within the confines of a rich and textured crime story. The characters—the way they act, talk, and shift from one desire and fear to another—control the story and plot. It is, however, a tightly woven story that MacDonald never loses control of; everything is in place and works perfectly on the reader. The suspense is pure and it ratchets tighter and tighter as the story plays out.

There are more than a few surprises and the writing is so fresh and alive—even after 54 years—that the reader can nearly smell the autumn Georgia air, hear the cars on the highway, smell the exhaust, and feel the empty and hard fear that escalates from a nervous vibration to a deep and harrowing roar.

The Films of Michael Crichton

2009-07-29T07:34:00.001-06:00

Michael Crichton directed seven films; six were major feature releases and one, the first titled Pursuit, was a television movie. I was able to find five of the seven trailers on YouTube, and I also found a scene of Crichton's final film. Unfortunately I was unable to find anything from his first.

1973. Westworld

1978. Coma

1979. The Great Train Robbery

1981. Looker

1984. Runaway

1989. Physical Evidence ; the trailer wasn't available, but this nifty little scene was.

BINARY by John Lange

2009-07-27T07:39:00.002-06:00

Michael Crichton was an immensely talented man. His creative work spanned five decades. His first novel, Odds On, was published as a paperback original in 1966 and his final novel—left partially completed at his death—is scheduled for release in 2010. He also wrote and directed films for both Hollywood and television, including Westworld, Coma, Twister and ER.

In the late-1960s and early-1970s Mr Crichton wrote eight slim thrillers under the pseudonym John Lange. The novels were published between 1966 and 1972, and each was competent, exciting and different. Two of these early “John Lange” novels were recently republished by Hard Case Crime and can easily be found, but the other six are more difficult and can fetch princely sums on the secondary market.

I recently read Binary for the second time and I was absolutely blown away. It is different from the two titles HCC republished, in that it is not a straight forward suspense adventure novel, but rather a kind of rare hybrid suspense high-tech whodunit. It harkens more to the fiction Crichton became famous for—The Andromeda Strain, et al—as it contains a flavor of science and technology; explained in simple and easily understood terminology without ever letting the pace slacken or the mystery suffer.

John Graves is a long-time investigator for the Intelligence Division of the State Department. He began his career in the foreign branch of Intelligence, but he has since been transferred to the domestic side—a change he does not approve of, or much enjoy. He stays with the agency less out of loyalty and enjoyment than trajectory. He does it simply because that is what he does.

On the night of August 22, 1972 seven armed men rob a U.S. Army train with a deadly chemical agent aboard; they make-off with ½-ton of the ZV agent. It is a deadly chemical that is without equal in its potency and practicality to cause death. The State Department has information that the chemical is going to be used in an attack on the Republican National Convention at San Diego.

A wealthy Howard Hughes-type—John Wright—is the suspect and John Graves is the lead investigator. The two men—hero and villain—spar in an unconventional manner. It is more of a chess match than a hardboiled investigation as each man tries to outwit the other move by move. There are more than a few intentionally placed red herrings, and Graves must decipher the riddle, and outthink his opponent or more than one million people will die.

Binary was the last novel Michael Crichton wrote as by John Lange and it is a perfect ending for the nom de plume. It is a quick and fast-paced novel. The action takes place over a 12-hour period and it snakes from meeting rooms to the warm August streets of San Diego. It is a strange mixture of a whodunit puzzle, and Crichton parcels out the clues as the novel moves along, with a hard-nosed American suspense novel.

The prose is simple and effective—“In a corner of the bedroom draped over a chair was a sports coat. He found a ticket for the noon plane to Acapulco in the pocket. A first-class ticket, one-way.” It feels almost invisible and never once gets in the way of the story and action.

The setting is easily shaped into a believable place—Crichton alternately praises and whips—mostly whips—California. It is a young and irresponsible place that is too hot and lacks any sort of class.

“The Westgate Plaza was one of the three greatest hotels in the world, if you believed Esquire magazine. If you didn’t, it was a pretentious modern dump decorated with a lot of phony statuary in the lobby and downstairs lounge.”

The dialogue is well shaped and the characters are molded perfectly into the story—there is the villain’s beautiful but dumb girlfriend, and Graves is forced to deal with a micro-managing and very dull supervisor. His team is competent, but not so much that you would notice.

The ending isn't a surprise, as far as the action is concerned, but the manner in which it plays out is very much a shock. In the end, it is the mystery, or the puzzle portion of the climax, that makes Binary work. And it works very, very well.

A NOTE. Binary was published in 1972 and it was made into a television movie that was directed by Michael Crichton titled Pursuit. The screenplay was written by Robert Dozier. It starred Ben Gazzara, and E.G. Marshall. It aired, according to IMDB, December 12, 1972.

"Terrorists" by Stephen Marlowe

2009-07-23T07:42:00.000-06:00

I recently read a short story by the late Stephen Marlowe titled “Terrorists”. It was published in the January 1956 issue of Accused; I read it in the 1997 anthology American Pulp. It is a hardboiled private eye story—

—Chester Drum is a Washington D.C. private detective, and on a late and warm August night as he walks past his office he notices a light inside. He makes a routine check with the elevator operator who tells him the cleaning staff should be done. Drum then takes the elevator to his floor and quietly approaches his office; inside he finds a cleaning woman with a very cold war tale.

Her son is involved with a Puerto Rican youth group and they plan to assassinate the Secretary of State. The group is concerned with an independent Puerto Rico, but the mother tells Drum the boys are being used by a socialite Red—a communist—who cares nothing for Puerto Rico or the youth group, but is using them to further her own cause; the embarrassment of the United States and the advancement of Soviet-style communism—

—The story is swift and, as expected from Marlowe, exciting. The plotline is sleek and straight and there really aren’t any surprises to a twenty-first century reader. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good story, because it is a terrific story, but rather it means it is a story of its time. A small capsule filled with the popular fear and turmoil of the 1950s.

The plot can easily be traced to two events that occurred in 1950. The era of extreme paranoia brought on by McCarthy with his wild accusations of communist spies everywhere, and the failed assassination attempt on President Truman by three Puerto Rican terrorists.

I make this point not to weaken “Terrorists,” but rather to make the point that fiction, including popular fiction, is a mirror of the culture that creates it. Go into any used bookstore or library and take a novel from the shelf and you will find a nugget of truth about the time and place it was written; not the whole truth, but rather an image that represents the truth and atmosphere of the era—the fiction of the 1950s was saturated with communism and paranoia, just as the fiction of the 1980s was ripe with greed, drugs and Vietnam.

“Terrorists” is a brilliant example of both entertainment and place. When it is read it grabs the reader by the ear and jerks him into a past that only exists in memory and archive; it is a capsule that helps the reader understand from where he came and, hopefully, where he can go or, at least, avoid returning. It also allows the reader to understand how little civilization has changed over the past fifty; the enemies have changed (maybe), but the fear is very much alive.

And it does it all in a brilliantly entertaining fashion. Can it get any better? Maybe it can, because Chester Drum can be found plying his trade in no less than 20 novels.

Dean Koontz Interview with Tom Snyder

2009-07-22T07:26:00.000-06:00

There is a 1996 interview with Dean Koontz over at YouTube--I've loaded it below--from the old, much lamented, Tom Snyder show. It feels less like an interview and more like a conversation, which is what separates the hacks from true interviewers. It is humorous, fun and extremely entertaining. Dean talks about his move to Las Vegas, his book Santa's Twin, a cruise, and even, briefly, The Book of Counted Sorrows. A title that any Dean Koontz reader knows very well.

The interview runs about twenty minutes and is very much worth a watch.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

THE USELESS GUN by Jack M. Bickham

2009-07-20T07:33:00.002-06:00

You wouldn’t know it from reading my blog—except for one lone post—but I’m a huge Jack M. Bickham fan. I first discovered his work when I read his fourth Brad Smith novel—Breakfast at Wimbledon—back in the mid-1990s and I have been reading his work ever since. I recently read an ACE Double Western titled The Useless Gun. It was paired with The Long Fuse by John H. Latham, and published in 1960. It is the fourth (of five) Western novels Bickham wrote for ACE, and it’s really pretty good.

Clayton Hartung is young and married. He is partner in a small ranch with his best friend—John Campbell—located just outside the small town of Barkerville, Texas. His life is just coming together after a rough childhood. He was an orphan and there is a hint of violence in his past, but that is all behind him until four hired gunmen come to town. It doesn’t take long for the four strangers to make their presence known: they gun down a Barkerville hardman in the hotel, and quickly thereafter dispatch the Marshal.

The Barkerville locals are scared and they look to Clay to make a stand against the men, which he does, and does alone. His partner has a game leg and the other townspeople have problems of their own. It’s too dangerous and they have families to think of after all. However, Clay is surprised by what he finds in the gang—something personal and unexpected, and the revelation changes everything.

The Useless Gun is the expected: competent action scenes, a tight and linear plot that is more familiar than unfamiliar, and crisp and plentiful dialogue. What elevates it above the ordinary is a narrow vain of emotion Mr Bickham expertly mines throughout the narrative. There is a particularly powerful lynching scene that has a drastic and deep impact on both the protagonist and reader alike. There is also the tragic sense of duty and betrayal that haunts Clay throughout.

The Useless Gun is a terrific example of the old ACE Western line—it is short, to the point, and very exciting. It has the feel of an episode of an old television series, less the bad color and strangely cool backdrops. The major plot twist is given away on the packaging—“My Brother, The Outlaw!”—although it really doesn’t diminish the entertainment value of the story. Mr Bickham’s work is a treasure chest of terrific fiction and this novel is a perfect example.

A NOTE. Jack M. Bickham wrote in multiple genres: suspense, mystery, Western, thrillers and science fiction. His work was translated into two films: The Apple Dumpling Gang, and Baker's Hawk. ACE published six of his early novels, including five Westerns--Gunman's Gamble (D-358; 1958), Feud Fury (D-384; 1959), Killer's Paradise (D-442; 1960), The Useless Gun (D-462; 1960), and Hangman's Territory (D-510; 1961)--and one mystery: Dally with a Deadly Doll (D-489; 1961) as by John Miles.

HONOR AMONG THEIVES by Warren Murphy

2009-07-17T07:06:00.000-06:00

Warren Murphy is a master of the quick, witty, and action-filled novel. He co-created the bestselling The Destroyer series, and in the 1980s and 90s wrote several bigger novels including his 1992 Honor Among Thieves.

Lieutenant Rostov is a Moscow narcotics cop; the Communist government has barely settled into dust when organized crime begins to make a play for the drug market. The problem, no one believes there is a mafia working the system—no one except Rostov and his team.

Rostov requests help from the American government. He needs someone who has experience with the American mafia to consult and, more importantly, prove that organized crime is expanding into the former Soviet Union. What he gets is a former mafia wise guy turned state’s witness named Kamen who is more than a little antsy to get back in the game.

Honor Among Thieves is a 1990s thriller from beginning to end. It involves three of my favorite subjects—in novel form of course—the Soviet Union, drugs (specifically cocaine) and the mafia. The prose is fluid and easy, there is a serious amount of dialogue, and the action is quick and believable.

The characters are the expected, at least from Mr Murphy, in that they are well-rounded, in the manner of a thriller, with an abundance of wit, humor and, at times, over-the-top interpersonal relationships. There are several interconnecting story lines that tie together rather nicely and more than enough intrigue to keep the pages interesting.

The most unique aspect of the novel—at least looking back with 20-20 vision—is that the Russian mafia was still in shadow and needed to be fully revealed and proven. A naive thought (the cultures, rather than the author) with the impressive growth that the Russian crime syndicates have made since the fall of Soviet communism, both domestically and internationally.

Honor Among Thieves is an entertaining blast from the past. It is a fun read that reminded me of my comfortable and warm youth. It has lost a few steps since it was published, but it is very much worth keeping an eye open for in your favorite used bookshop or thrift store. But, heck, all of Murphy's novels are worth a look.

Visions of The Twilight Zone

2009-07-15T08:41:00.003-06:00

I really enjoy the old television series The Twilight Zone, and to a lesser extent the two television series that it spawned. It has been so long since I saw the movie version that I can't really remember it. I was probably ten or eleven when I saw it.

Here are a few different intros for the original and the 1980s series--I couldn't find the series that aired on UPN in 2002--and the trailer for the film. I trusted the people who uploaded the intros as far as the season it went with, but as I viewed them, each did feel right for the season it posted.

Enjoy.

The original The Twilight Zone pilot intro--notice it is absent Rod Serling as narrator.

Season 1

Season 2

The intro for season 3, I think.

This is a re-done intro for the later seasons of The Twilight Zone, but it is faithful to the original, except the graphics are sharper.

Twilight Zone: The Movie circa 1983

The second edition of The Twilight Zone circa 1985

THE FATE OF KATHERINE CARR by Thomas H. Cook

2009-07-14T17:28:00.005-06:00

George Gates was a travel writer, but since his young son was murdered he no longer has a taste for the road or the stories he once wrote. Now he works for the local newspaper and writes human-interest stories about local events and personalities.

His life changes when George meets a retired cop at his local pub that worked an unsolved disappearance of a young poet in 1987. The young woman—Katherine Carr—disappeared without a trace, but she left behind a story about a woman being stalked, a story with a main character who shared her name, and very possibly her fate.

The story powerfully resonates with George, and for the first time in years he is interested in something beyond booze and memories. He also meets a young girl with the premature aging disease progeria who seems to have an insight into Katherine’s disappearance as well as an understanding of George and his dead son.

The Fate of Katherine Carr is an uneven novel; at times it feels powerful and strident, while at other moments it feels contrived and forced. The prose is wispy and haunting—

“The story came to me by way of Arlo McBride, a man whose eyes seemed oddly shattered.”

The characters are rich and fully developed, but the story tends to meander from its forward momentum and balances precariously on atmosphere and dread—the dread of loneliness, failure and betrayal. This plodding works well for much of the novel, but in the end it feels too heavy and opaque to be completely successful.

ACE Double Western Titles of Brian Garfield

2009-07-13T06:56:00.003-06:00

I've been getting back into the work of Brian Garfield over the past few weeks and I'm amazed at how broad his body of work is; amazed and happy, because it means I have bunches of great reading ahead. Garfield is best known for his suspense novels and Westerns, particularly his later Westerns--those written in the 1970s. But he wrote a bunch of Westerns for the ACE Double line in the 1960s. The first was published in 1961, which, if my math is correct, made him 21 or 22 years old when it hit print.

He wrote twelve Westerns (at least that is the number of titles I can find) that were published by ACE in the 1960s and 1970s under four different names--Brian Garfield, Brian Wynne Garfield, Brian Wynne, and Frank Wynne. The titles are listed below. Most of the titles were also republished in the 1970s by ACE.

F-106 Justice at Spanish Flat (abridged) by Brian Garfield w/ The Gun from Nowhere by Tom West (1961)

F-144 Massacre Basin as by Frank Wynne w/ The Badge Shooters by Clement Hardin (1962)

F-200 The Big Snow as by Frank Wynne w/Triggering Texan by Tom West (1963)

F-260 Trail Drive by Brian Garfield w/ Trouble at Gunsight by Louis Trimble (1964)

F-276 Mr. Sixgun as by Brian Wynne w/ The Wolf Slayer by William E. Vance (1964)

M-114 Lynch Law Canyon as by Frank Wynne w/ Stampede on Farway Pass by Stephen Payne (1965)

M-128 The Night it Rained Bullets as by Brian Wynne w/ Nemesis of Circle A by Reese Sullivan (1965)

M-138 Call Me Hazard as by Frank Wynne w/ The Rincon Trap by Dean Owens (1966)

G-587 The Wolf Pack as by Frank Wynne w/ Gunfight at Laramie by Lee Hoffman (1966)

G-610 The Lusty Breed as by Frank Wynne w/ The Siege at Gunhammer by John L. Shelley (1967)

G-668 Badge for a Bad Man as by Brian Wynne w/ Devil's Butte by Ray Hogan (1967)

48885 Gunslick Territory as by Brian Wynne w/ Loner with a Gun by John Callahan (1973) It has come to my attention that Brian Garfield didn't write Gunslick Territory, but rather it was written by Dean Own. Apparently it was written after Garfield left ACE and the Jeremy Six series behind him. He sued ACE and won. However, according the Mystery File website, there were at least two printings of the novel.

If anyone knows of additional ACE titles written by Mr Garfield, please either shoot me an email, or post it as a comment.

BAD APPLE by Richard S. Wheeler

2009-07-10T07:03:00.002-06:00

Richard Wheeler is an award winning Western writer; he has won an astounding five Spur Awards and the Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement. His work ranges from the traditional—although with a style and grace all is his own—to large and impressive historical novels. His recent output has mainly been in his widely celebrated Barnaby Skye series: a series that features a sturdy and accurate portrayal of the early European exploration of the American West.

Mr Wheeler is a writer that any reader of the American West should read, and a writer whose work, especially over the past several years, has been pigeonholed—as has much of the Western genre—into an old fashioned ideal of what makes a Western: bad guys with guns and loner heroes ranging across the badlands. A type of story that has appeal to many—myself included—but unfortunately puts off many would-be readers. And Mr Wheeler’s work would do well along side of such writers as Larry McMurtry, A.B. Guthrie, Win Blevins, and others who have escaped the tag of genre fiction.

His latest novel, Bad Apple, is an example of a different kind of Western—it is a modern story in the high country of Montana. It is a private eye story with all of the trappings: murder, suspicion, a beautiful and willing secretary, cheating wives, suspects who have something to hide, and a client whose actions are more than strange.

Cletus Parr is a Livestock Broker and occasional private detective. He specializes in livestock protection and made a splash a few years earlier when he broke-up a large and successful rustling operation. He is a bit of a dandy. He wears creased jeans and gaudy pearly-buttoned shirts: “he pulled on his best $62 Larry Mahan western shirt, cream colored with cerise roses and curly black stems rioting all over it.” He is the type of guy most of us try to avoid—a little obnoxious and a user—but he is also pretty good at what he does and worth a laugh from time-to-time.

The novel opens with Cletus wakened by the ringing telephone. It is his answering service. Bad Apple, maybe the best cutting horse ever, has been gunned down in his pen out at Rex Patee’s ranch. Patee wants Cletus out to investigate immediately, and Parr is more than willing because he foresees a sizable fee in his future. The list of suspects is long—Bad Apple has dominated the cutting horse world for years and there are more than a few owners and trainers who would love to see the last of him.

Cletus immediately suspects Patee, but he goes ahead and develops an overly complicated plan to finger the shooter. Cletus is all show and he promises more than he can deliver, but it sure impresses his client that he seemingly has all the angles covered. He then starts seeking out the local suspects, and there are more than a few, in a slick and fast-talker sorta way. He doesn’t get very far and as the novel progresses his suspect list shortens, but so does the patience of his client.

Bad Apple is a surprising story. It is pure mystery—a whodunit with enough charisma and American-style action to keep it fresh and exciting—with a logical conclusion and an interesting and original angle. It showcases a world, that of world-class cutting horses, that I knew nothing about in an accessible and extremely interesting and entertaining manner.

The protagonist is an interesting and good-natured parody of the hardboiled detective. He is more bravado than substance, but Mr Wheeler develops him in such a manner that what he lacks in skill, he makes up for in persistence and humor. His secretary is a light and whining version of Mike Hammer’s Velda, and he has a relationship with a cop that is reminiscent of Rockford’s relationship with Sergeant Becker: rocky, but in the end pleasant.

The mystery is handled well and the murderer isn’t revealed until the final scene. There are enough false leads and suspicion to keep the reader off balance and anxious about flipping the pages. Bad Apple is a change-up from Wheeler’s usual production, but it is definitely worth a look.

Four Brian Garfield Trailers

2009-07-08T07:00:00.000-06:00

I went over to YouTube hoping to find a trailer for the film version of Brian Garfield's Hopscotch. Unfortunately I came up empty, but I did find trailers for a few other Garfield adaptations.

The most widely known is Death Wish, a film that spawned four sequels and epitomizes the 1980s vigilante film. Although it--the original or any of its sequels--didn't capture the essence or greatness of the novel. In fact, I've read that Mr Garfield didn't like the film much, but it is probably the project he is best known for. And I have to admit I like Charles Bronson.

Alas. Here they are...it should also be noted that Death Wish is being remade by Sylvester Stallone with an expected release date of 2010.

1974. Death Wish

1987. The Stepfather

2007. Death Sentence

2009. The Stepfather

NECESSITY by Brian Garfield

2009-07-06T07:02:00.003-06:00

It’s been several years since I’ve read a Brian Garfield novel—maybe Death Sentence in '04 or '05. I made amends recently and jumped into his 1984 novel Necessity and wondered how I waited so long.

—which is all terrific, but Mr Garfield also flavors the story with technical information about creating new identities and, more importantly, erasing an original identity. He creates a world that is real and absorbing without slowing the story with too much detail and information.

ACE Covers of Robert Bloch

2009-07-01T17:39:00.001-06:00

There is a terrific little bookstore in the closest major metropolis--I live in a town of about 27,000 people, and love it!--that has a pretty decent selection of old paperbacks, including a bunch of ACE Double mysteries.

Anyway, it's gotten me excited about the old ACE line, particularly the mysteries. So in my enthusiasm here are the cover scans of the Robert Bloch novels--two novels and one short story collection actually--published by ACE.

It's worth noting that many are of the opinion that the ACE crime line is inferior to many of its contemporaries, which is probably true, but if Robert Bloch's name is on the book; buy it!

Spiderweb was published in 1954

Shooting Star was published in 1958.

Terror in the Night was the second book published with Shooting Star in 1958.

Robert Bloch is best known as a horror writer, but in his early career he wrote some terrific crime novels, including the titles above. His work is tight, thrilling, vivid, and very fun. Hard Case Crime republished Spiderweb and Shooting Star in a double format a few years ago--pick it up, it's very much worth the $7.99. Now if HCC would republish Terror in the Night with, say, a collection of David Goodis short stories; or maybe John D. shorts.

"Kitty Litter" by Richard Laymon

2009-06-29T06:30:00.001-06:00

I have probably written this before, but I discovered the work of Richard Laymon in the autumn of 2001—I purchased the Leisure release of his novel In the Dark and then went on a spending / reading spree of his work, both in and out of print, over the next few years. I read everything I could get my hands on for several years, but over the past few I haven’t read much Laymon. It’s not that I don’t still enjoy his work when I read it, but rather it is probably that my cyclical appetite for horror is close to the “off” position.

Fortunately I read a Richard Laymon short story over the weekend; a 12-page delight from an unexpected source—the Cat Crimes 2 anthology edited by Martin Greenberg and Ed Gorman. The title: “Kitty Litter”.

“Kitty Litter” is vintage Richard Laymon, with a few minor exceptions—there is no sex and not much violence. It is, however, possessed with all of the adolescent charm, sharp dialogue and twisty—at times wonderfully unbelievable—plotline. And characters that feel like old friends recalled fondly over the passage of time.

Mr Bishop is taking a leisurely afternoon read at the side of his backyard pool when Monica—the neighborhood bully and snob—demands one of the kittens Bishop has been trying to give away for weeks. Monica is a cute girl, but an eccentric monster: “She belonged to the odd tribe that refers to itself in the third person.” To say she demands a kitten isn’t quite strong enough—she literally threatens Bishop that he better give her a kitten and now.

There really shouldn’t be a problem since Bishop wants to get rid of the kittens, and they are reaching the equivalent of their teenage years—the years when they cease being cute and cuddly kittens and become somewhat less endearing and approachable. Unfortunately, there is a problem. Monica doesn’t choose one of the kittens. Instead, she wants to take Bishop’s undersized momma cat; a cat that Bishop has a long, and somewhat strange, history with.

“Kitty Litter” has all of the elements that make Richard Laymon a pleasure to read—see above. It also has the benefit of being an understated and humorous horror story. The characters feel and act like people we know—or in Monica’s case, people we wish we didn’t know—and the ending is sublime justice. Not to mention a smile and laugh.

If you’re one of the many who think Laymon is too brutal or gruesome to read, try “Kitty Litter”. It will probably surprise you. And if you’re one of Mr Laymon’s regular readers, you’ll like it too. I guarantee it.

A NOTE American publishers largely ignored Richard Laymon’s work until the late 1990s when Leisure began to publish both new and older novels in mass market. A good deal of his novels are currently in print, but his short stories, of which there are many, have not been collected in affordable editions, which is a shame. I hope—heck, I challenge—Leisure Books to release a collection or two of Laymon’s short stories. I’ll be the first in line with cash in hand.

THE MIDNIGHT ROOM by Ed Gorman

2009-06-24T06:30:00.001-06:00

Cindy Baines is a cute girl. She is the daughter of less than accomplished parents—her mother is a drinker, and her dad is a fundamentalist whack. They live in a trailer on the wrong side of town, but despite everything she seems to have a bright future. She is intelligent, beautiful, and very well liked. Unfortunately she is also the target of a demented serial killer.

When Cindy disappears the community is in near panic; Cindy isn’t the first girl to disappear and everyone is afraid she won’t be the last. There is a heavy load of pressure placed on the police department—particularly its small detective bureau—to find the girl and stop the killer. The detectives assigned to the case all have their own problems. Two of them are former lovers, and the third drinks too much and is a little crazy.

The Midnight Room isn’t a typical serial killer novel. The killer is revealed early in the story—the second chapter—and its focus is less on the killer and more on the drama that plays between the detectives, their work, and their families. It’s important to stress that it isn’t a drama. It’s very much in the crime noir form and Mr Gorman uses the tropes and expectations to develop the dark, sharp and poignant struggle of good and evil that rages in his characters, just as it rages in us all.

The characters are varied and well created—none are completely good and none are completely bad. Two of the detectives are brothers—Steve and Michael Scanlon. The older is their father’s favorite, but he has never been quite right. He wants everything fast and easy, while the younger is the more dependable, but underappreciated, son and detective. The story whirls around the two in a frenzy of misfortune, bad choices, and plain bad luck.

There is also a street tough ex-con named Leo Rice who is out for revenge. Steve Scanlon killed his brother while on the beat a few years back and now Leo wants his pound. Rice is the perfect street tough. He is hard, violent and stupid, all in one pure mixture. Add to that the serial killer, an aging father, a tough female detective and a missing girl who are all starkly vivid in Gorman’s deceptively simple prose, and you have a story that is vibrant and true.

The Midnight Room is a terrific lean and hard crime thriller. Its roots are deep in the hardboiled and noir genres, but it is nothing less than original. The characters and its dark vision of an unfair world raise it well beyond the expected, and in the end it’s the very bitter dark that offers redemption for both the characters and the reader.

Gravetapping

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Dead Lines

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Trailer: The Killer Inside Me

WEAVEWORLD

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In the Shadow of The Lost Symbol

PWA Shamus Banquet News

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A Slow Down and a Retool

"The Bandit" by Loren D. Estleman

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Masters of Horror: "Sounds Like"

Philip K. Dick a Gnostic?

Film Festival: Leigh Brackett

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Random: Summer / Books / Shamus

Film Festival Episode Two: "Ride the Nightmare"

THE QUAKING WIDOW by Robert Colby

"Top of the World" by Bill Crider

Film Festival Episode One: "Annabel"

GUILD by Ed Gorman

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The Films of Michael Crichton

BINARY by John Lange

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Dean Koontz Interview with Tom Snyder

THE USELESS GUN by Jack M. Bickham

HONOR AMONG THEIVES by Warren Murphy