CROSSFIRE: THE SCALES OF JUSTICE by John Hegenberger

1988. Eliot Cross is tired of the private detective game and thinking about his exit. His one-man shop, Cross Examinations, in Columbus, Ohio, is less than busy. His elderly mother and estranged father both died the prior month, and the bottle has become more comfort than it should be. His head hurts, too, since taking a knock the previous night after discovering a dead body at roadside. The body disappeared and the police are less than interested in Eliot’s story.

An old flame, Diane Davis, convinces Eliot to take one last job before shuttering the business. It is an industrial espionage case involving the theft of a high tech industrial scale developed by Ms. Davis’ employer Justice Scale Corporation. Eliot takes the job for no reason other than wanting to end his P. I. run with a win. The case, unsurprisingly, is more than it seems and by the end includes a few dead bodies and even circles back to Eliot’s disappearing roadside corpse.

Crossfire: The Scales of Justice is a nicely entertaining private eye novel. Its plot is complicated, interesting, and satisfyingly over-the-top—it includes a blackmail scheme threatening the 1988 Summer Olympics. It is written in a smoothly terse, almost ironic, first person. Eliot is self-deprecating, tough, and attracts women like a film star. The setting is nicely late-1980s, including vintage descriptions of Columbus, cars, and music. It is easy to read, more fun than any Tuesday night on television, and thoroughly enjoyable.    

   

Purchase a copy of Crossfire: The Scales of Justice at Amazon.

BACKSHOT: 1902 by Ed Gorman

Backshot: 1902 is the first of two related short novels. 1902 is written by Ed Gorman and Backshot: 2012 is written by Tom Piccirilli. The connection is familial. Marshal Royce, who appears in the later parts of 1902, is the grandfather of the protagonist in 2012. I haven’t read 2012 yet—my copy is still wending its way across the United States, last check put it in North Carolina—but 1902 is damn good.

Declan Parnell is a young, relatively harmless, man working in the finest restaurant in Granite Bend. He has two weaknesses, the tables in the local casinos, and Jancey. Jancey is the beautiful, manipulative, self-serving girlfriend of Declan’s boss. She gives Declan a taste whenever she wants her beau in a jealous huff. Declan’s other vice destroyed his relationship with his only real friend, a middle-aged woman named Burl, which makes him vulnerable to a supporting role in the robbery of a local judge. The robbery goes bad, and Declan’s prospects get bleaker when Marshal Royce, who is in town investigating the local Sheriff for corruption, starts sniffing around.

Backshot: 1902 is a marvelously executed western noir. Declan is likable, maddening in his foolishness, and hopelessly inadequate to Jancey’s powers—

“She was right. I didn’t know much about women and the little I did know scared the hell out of me.”

It is very much like an old Gold Medal crime novel—a man trapped in a situation far out of his control, his downfall brought by a beautiful woman, and his redemption in the arms of another. It is developed with Ed Gorman’s masterful colors of humanity. The most egregious, nasty villains are painted with the light brush of understanding, creating a moral ambiguity that is more horrifying than straight evil. It is an understated masterpiece, an apt description of many of Ed Gorman’s works, and well worth the price of admission.  

       

Purchase a copy of Backshot:1902 at Cemetery Dance.

EAST OF DESOLATION by Jack Higgins (Harry Patterson)

East of Desolation is the twenty-second novel published by Harry Patterson, and the first to appear under his most famous byline, Jack Higgins. It is also a pivotal title in his transition from midlist to bestselling writer. It was originally released in the U. K. as a hardcover by Hodder & Stoughton in 1968, and it was issued in the United States by Doubleday & Company; it was Mr. Patterson’s first U. S. appearance in hardcover.

Joe Martin is a British pilot flying an Otter Amphibian from the small town of Frederiksborg on the southwest coast of Greenland. The flying season is short and the climate cold, but the money is double what he can earn elsewhere and its lack of civilization suits him. He has summer contracts with several mining outfits, and a special deal flying provisions to an Ernest Hemingway-style actor hunting polar bears and everything else drawing breath. The actor is a washed up legend named Jack Desforge who authors, and perhaps believes, his own mythology.

Things get interesting when an insurance adjuster, Hans Vogel, arrives with the widow of a pilot whose crashed airplane was discovered on the ice-cap a year earlier. Vogel wants Joe to fly him to the wreckage to identify the pilot. The story, both Vogel’s and the widow’s, Sarah Kelso, doesn’t add up and Joe has an uneasy feeling about the whole thing.

East of Desolation marks Harry Patterson’s entrance to the top-tier of adventure writers—Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley, Hammond Innes. It is markedly better than its predecessors; its characters are richer with less caricature, the plot is larger with more doubt about its conclusion, and its setting is sturdy with a forbidding sense of isolation. It is first person narrative with a hint of the unreliable. Joe Martin knows more than he is sharing with either the reader or the other players. A characteristic shared by most of the cast—Desforge, Kelso, Vogel—which generates significant tension and unease.

Joe Martin is the most developed protagonist of Mr. Patterson’s early work. He is, like many of Mr. Patterson’s protagonists, a man who has fallen below his station, but he is also more; an alcoholic, divorced, and hiding. His relationship with women is more complex than the usual and there is a nicely executed romance between he and an actress friend of Jack Desforge. An early line nicely defines his feelings—

“I think it was General Grant who said: War is hell. He should have added that women are worse.”

The is plot complicated, there are more variables than Mr. Patterson’s earlier work, and a larger cast with believably suspicious motives. It is enhanced by the strong and forbidding setting of Greenland. The flying scenes, to a rank non-pilot, have the feel of reality and give the story a sense of high adventure. And everything works perfectly.

Thrift Shop Book Covers: "Judas Country"

Judas Country was published in the United Kingdom by Hodder & Stoughton as a hardcover in 1975. The edition that caught my eye was the Pan paperback edition published in 1977. The cover successfully portrays violence in an otherwise serene locale—the softly golden colors hint at sunset in a nicely rural, very Mediterranean, background shattered by a shot-up Beetle and a crouching man with a revolver. The artist: Harry Hants.

The opening paragraph:

“A few minutes ago the sky had been a place. Of clouds, winds, pressures, turbulence. Now, it was just the décor of a flashy Cyprus sunset. The propellers wound down and stopped with a brief, violent shudder, but I went on sitting there, running my hands over the still-unfamiliar avionics switches and trying to wriggle some of the stiffness out of my neck and shoulders. A small Ford van dashed up and stopped just in front.”

Judas Country is, like most of Mr. Lyall’s early work, centered around aviation and it is considered by many critics to be among his best novels.

BLAZE!: A SON OF THE GUN by Stephen Mertz

Blaze! is a newish adult western series created by Stephen Mertz and published by Rough Edges Press. It is “newish” because there are now nine in the series, and the first, Blaze!, was published all the way back in January 2015. It features the husband and wife bounty hunter team J. D.—don’t ever call him Jehoram Delfonso—and Kate Blaze. The ninth and most recent entry in the series is Blaze!: A Son of the Gun written by Stephen Mertz.

The Ludlow brothers are wanted men with a Pinkerton reward attached. J. D. and Kate track the three outlaws to a deserted Arizona ranch the men are using as a hideout. The capture turns quickly to violence and the bounty claim becomes dead, rather than alive. It happens fast, but not easily. J. D. is rescued from an ambush by a young man named Joe Bridge who is running, with a young woman, from his former employer and his girl’s stepfather; a trio of gunnies in their wake. J. D. and Kate help the couple escape with no expectation of anything other than collecting their bounty in nearby Whiskey Bend and riding on. But they get caught up in a shootout in the dusty town and things only worsen from there.

Blaze!: A Son of the Gun is pure pulp joy. It is something like a 1960’s television western mixed with an Ace Double. Its plot is simple, linear and well executed. There is action on nearly every page with absolutely no doubt about who the good guys are and the bad. There is a low level, one or two scenes, of less than PG-13 married sex, which is where the “adult” part plays in, and, if I were to make a wager, I would bet Kate is tougher than J. D. 

No Comment: "Nowhere to Run"

“Vigil half turned in his chair, raised a hand, and when the waiter arrived he ordered two more bottles of the mineral water. He smiled at David. He was not an ugly man until he smiled.”

—Ron Faust, Nowhere to Run. Turner Publishing Company, 2013 (© 1981). Page 57. Captain Vigil, a Mexican policeman, is questioning David Rhodes about the murder of a young woman.

Purchase a copy of Nowhere to Run at Amazon.

[No Comment is a series of posts featuring passages that caught my attention. It may be the idea, the texture, or the presence that grabbed my eye. There is no analysis provided, and it invariably is out of context.]

My Reviews Elsewhere: "The Plague of Thieves Affair"

My review of The Plague of Thieves Affair is live and available at Ed Gorman’s blog. The Plague of Thieves is an historical detective novel set in late-nineteenth century San Francisco, and has the flavor of a Sherlock Holmes tale—including a Sherlock impersonator—with two whodunit mysteries and grit enough to make it interesting.

Read the review.

Purchase a copy of The Plague of Thieves Affair at Amazon.

Now Available: "Truth Always Kills" by Rick Ollerman

Stark House Press’s latest original novel is now available in very attractive trade paperback and ebook versions. Its title is Truth Always Kills, and its author is Rick Ollerman. Rick is the king of the Introduction at Stark House—a vocation he has mastered—and his fiction is no less intriguing.

I was given the opportunity to write the Introduction for Truth Always Kills, which was daunting since there was little chance I could introduce Mr. Ollerman’s work as well as he introduces the work of others. I gave it my best go, but it pales in comparison to the novel. A novel that is half parts suspense and crime, and very good.

Truth Always Kills can be purchased directly from Stark House’s website, or at Amazon—here is the trade edition, and here is the ebook.

BREAKFAST AT WIMBLEDON by Jack M. Bickham

Breakfast at Wimbledon is the fourth novel featuring aging tennis pro Brad Smith. It was published in 1991 by Tor, and it has a certain nostalgia for me since it was the first Brad Smith, and Jack Bickham, novel I read back in the long ago. It is also pretty good, and represents Brad Smith’s transition from cold war to post-cold war hero.

Brad is uneasy when his old pal and CIA contact Collie Davis makes an unannounced appearance at his Bitterroot Valley Resort—

“Collie Davis did not make casual visits.”

—with good reason, as it turns out. Collie wants Brad to accept an invitation to play at Wimbledon. A legitimate terrorist threat has been identified, and it centers around a young Irish tennis star named Sean Cork. Brad’s job: play tennis, ingratiate himself with Sean Cork, and collect information. All very hands-off with no expected direct danger. Unsurprisingly, it is more complicated than it is supposed to be, and the danger is very real, and very personal, to Brad.

This is one of my favorite of the Brad Smith novels, and for more reasons than mere nostalgia. It brings something new to the series—terrorists rather than communists—without losing the atmosphere and tone of the previous novels. It helps that Brad’s Soviet nemesis Sylvester remains a key player, and it includes more tennis action than any of the novels since Tiebreaker, which is good since Mr. Bickham writes it so well. It is the longest, and includes the largest cast, of any of the novels. There is a drug crazy American tennis star playing doubles with Brad, an Irish entrepreneur millionaire with a taste for both money and tennis, the very naïve Sean Cork, and a bunch of terrorists that run the gamut in both sophistication and psychopathy.

The most interesting character is an MI5 agent named Clarence Tune. Tune is assigned to liaise with Brad, and keep him safe, which is telling on the perceived importance—or lack thereof—of Smith’s mission. Tune is not given high priority or sensitive assignments, and he is considered less an agent and more a liability by his peers. His character is summed early by Brad—

“Science has not told me so, but I think there must be some other substance excreted by people whose lives have been marked by failure. Such people emit a sour, acidic smell, the work of a few molecules, perhaps, and so primitive that it communicates on a psychic level I cannot understand.”

—if only partially accurate since Tune’s presence, and assistance, is essential to defeating the underlying terrorist plot. A plot that is not made clear until the final pages of the novel. The action is plausible, and the pacing is superb. It has the highest level of characterization of all the novels, and—despite an aged plot—is as readable today as it was 25 years ago. 

Mystery Scene Reviews

The latest issue of Mystery Scene Magazine—No. 142—is now available at newsstands everywhere. The issue is packed (as usual). It features an in-depth article about BBC’s Foyle’s War, an interview with Robert J. Randisi, and comprehensive look at the Library of America’s Women Crime Writers of the 1940s and 1950s.

Issue No. 142 also includes two book reviews I wrote. The titles: Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo) by C. Joseph Greaves, and Ivory by Tony Park. Tom & Lucky is an historically accurate look at the 1936 trial of Lucky Luciano, and Ivory is a scorching adventure thriller set in Southern Africa. The reviews are both available online at Mystery Scene’s website—click the titles in the previous sentence.

Mystery Scene is available at many newsstands, including Barnes & Noble, and available for order at MS’s website.

2015: The Year in Reading

2015 was a great year for reading in both quantity and quality. I finished 61 titles, and will likely finish one more—the forthcoming Out of the Blues by Trudy Nan Boyce—which is three short of last year’s mark. The majority of the titles were fiction, but the total includes a tolerable number of nonfiction works, too. The nonfiction tended towards history and true crime, which included a number of interesting titles including Night by Elie Wiesel and Mind Over Matter by Ranulph Fiennes.

I entered 2015 with my two ever recurring goals—1. Increase the number of “new” authors (in 2014 I read only eight authors new to me); and 2. Increase the number of female authors on my reading list. I successfully increased the number of new writers, and also managed to add a few—only three—female authors to my list (all are included in the “new to me” category).

I became acquainted with the work of ten authors in 2015: David Lippincott (Salt Mine), James W. Hall (Bones of Coral), Sandra Block (The Girl Without a Name), Rick Ollerman (Truth Always Kills), Trace Conger (The Shadow Broker), Andrew Coburn (The Babysitter), Tony Park (Ivory), Christine Matthews (Beating the Bushes), Carolyn Hart (High Stakes), and John Saul (Nathaniel). The best of the “new”—and it was actually published in 2015—was Park’s Ivory. The number of new authors, and female authors, was due, mostly, to writing reviews for Ed Gorman’s blog and Mystery Scene Magazine.  

As is my habit, I returned to old favorites many, many times. In fact, four authors accounted for 17 titles, which is approximately 28 percent of the total for 2015. I read five by Jack M. Bickham, and four each by Jack Higgins, Dean Koontz, and Ed Gorman.

Now all that is left is my top five favorite novels of—at least that I read in—2015. No rules, except no repeats. If I previously read it, it is not eligible for the top five. It was difficult to pare the list to five, and there were two or three that were cut from the list that I wish hadn’t been. With that said, my five favorite novels of 2015 are—

5. Ivory by Tony Park. Mr. Park is an Australian thriller writer who writes vividly about Africa. This one is set in Mozambique, South Africa, and the Indian Ocean. The protagonist is an ex-SAS officer turned pirate to finance the rehabilitation of his family’s hotel on the Island of Dreams. The pacing is fast, and the locales are exotic and it actually lives up to the term “thriller.”  

4. The King of Horror and Other Stories by Stephen Mertz. If the title didn’t give it away, this is a collection of short stories by crime and adventure writer extraordinaire Stephen Mertz. It includes all of Mr. Mertz’s short stories over the past several decades, and each is very entertaining. Read the Gravetapping review.

3.  Split Image by Ron Faust. This is an old school noirish treasure. It is dark, riveting, and curious; as much literature as commercial. It weaves an enticing mixture of Edgar Allan Poe—think “The Tell-Tale Heart”—Alfred Hitchcock, and a 1950’s Gold Medal novel. It is one of Mr. Faust’s finest novels. Read the Gravetapping review.   

2.  The Husband by Dean Koontz. This is a mesmerizing, well written, and extraordinarily entertaining thriller. It is smooth with the beat of poetry in its prose—not in a complicated manner, but rather the meter and rhythm. It opens in a rush, and keeps the steady pace from beginning to end without falling into the trap of overwrought doldrums or meaningless melodrama. Read the Gavetapping review.       

1. Snowbound by Richard S. Wheeler. This title won a Spur Award when it was published in 2010; an honor it surely deserved. It is the story of John C. Fremont’s ill-fated fourth expedition, which was ostensibly to find a railroad route across the Rocky Mountains at the 38^th Parallel between St. Louis and San Francisco. A fool’s dreams at best. It is a powerful novel of survival and calamity, and deserving of a much larger audience than it has so far reached. Read the Gravetapping review.

My Reviews Elsewhere: "The Sundown Speech"

My review of Loren D. Estleman’s most recent Amos Walker novel, The Sundown Speech, is live and online at Ed Gorman’s blog. The setting is post 9/11; twelve or so years ago. And, as Mr. Estleman explains in the Afterword, it is an expansion of a novella he wrote as a serial for the Ann Arbor News. It is also pretty terrific.

Read the review.

Purchase a copy of The Sundown Speech at Amazon.

Now Available: "Anything Goes" by Richard S. Wheeler

Richard Wheeler’s latest novel, Anything Goes, is now available in hardcover from Forge. It is Mr. Wheeler’s “first print novel…published in three years,” and it, like all of Forge’s Westerns, is handsomely designed.

Richard Wheeler’s fiction has won an astounding six Spur Awards and the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Western Writers of America. I have been a longtime fan of his work, and he, at least by email, is one of the kindest, polite, and knowledgeable people I have corresponded with. Earlier this year I conducted an interview with Mr. Wheeler—one I’m particularly proud of—you should read.

I am also planning to review Anything Goes in the next few weeks, but until then here is the publisher’s description—

“Anything Goes: the enchanting story of a vaudeville troupe that makes its way to Western mining towns, from renowned master of the Western novel, Richard S. Wheeler.

“The cowboys, gold miners, outlaws, gunmen, prostitutes, and marshals who populate the Wild West never see much big-city entertainment. Most towns are too wild and rowdy for entertainers to enter, let alone perform in. All that is about to change.

“August Beausoleil and his colleague, Charles Pomerantz, have taken the Beausoleil Brothers Follies to the remote mining towns of Montana, far from the powerful impresarios who own the talent and control the theaters on the big vaudeville circuits. Their cast includes a collection of has-beens and second-tier performers: Mary Mabel Markey, the shopworn singer now a little out of breath; Wayne Windsor, "The Profile," who favors his audiences with just one side of his face while needling them with acerbic dialogue; Harry the Juggler, who went from tossing teacups to tossing scimitars; Mrs. McGivers and her capuchin monkey band; and the Wildroot Sisters, born to show business and managed by a stage mother who drives August mad.

“Though the towns are starved for entertainment, the Follies struggles to fill seats as the show grinds from town to town. Just when the company is desperate for fresh talent, a mysterious young woman astonishes everyone with her exquisite voice.
“The Wild West will never be the same. They've seen comics, gorgeous singers, and scimitar-tossing jugglers. Now if the troupers can only make it back East . . . alive!”

Purchase a copy of Anything Goes at Amazon.

My Reviews Elsewhere: "High Stakes"

My review of Carolyn Hart’s enjoyable novel High Stakes is live and online at Ed Gorman’s blog. It is cold war romantic suspense with a nicely executed plot, likable characters, and a satisfying twist.

Read the review.

Purchase a copy of High Stakes at Amazon.

DEATH OF A CITIZEN by Donald Hamilton

Matt Helm is a solid citizen.  He is married with three children.  He makes a living writing popular novels (western’s mostly), and lives with his family in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  His picture perfect American dream is mangled when Tina, an operative he briefly worked with in Europe during World War II, walks through the front entrance of a cocktail party.  She passes an old signal to Matt—“I’ll get in touch with you later. Stand by”—and in an instant (and without much fuss) Matt’s idyllic existence shatters.

Death of a Citizen is the first (of 27) Matt Helm novels, and it is absolutely terrific.  In the opening sequence Helm is an everyman; likable and stable with a pretty wife and a family, but it only takes a few hours for his old habits to take over.  It starts with a dead woman in his writing room, and then a confrontation with Tina who, after some convincing from Matt, weaves a fantastic story about a Soviet agent hunting a nuclear scientist working for the Atomic Energy Commission at Los Alamos.

The action is convincing, the prose is smooth and cool—

“Suddenly I was feeling fine.  You can stay tense only so long.  I was over the hump.  I was driving ten miles out of the way, with a corpse in the bed of the truck, just to take a worthless alley cat home.”

And the plot is as tight and smooth as a guy wire.  There is more than the usual backstory about Helm’s World War II exploits, and post war life, but it is done without interrupting the forward momentum of the plot.  Even better, Mac—the leader of the “organization” Matt worked for, and is once again working for—makes an appearance in the field, and Helm’s doubt and operational rust give him an element of believability. 

Death of a Citizen is the first of the Matt Helm novels, but it is as convincing, urgent, and well written as any.  In a sense it is the primer.  It introduces Helm, the organization, and everything it is, which is essentially a kind of counter intelligence wet work squad.  It is the cold war on a small field.  The best part, the citizen who lost his life (from the title) is Helm himself, and what he gains is a certain freedom, his code name Eric, and an outlet for his violent nature.

Death of a Citizen was originally published by Gold Medal in 1960, and it was recently reissued as a paperback by Titan Books—purchase a copy at Amazon.

This is another reprint of a Matt Helm novel I enjoyed. It was originally posted March 30, 2014. I’ve been desperately busy the last several weeks, but there will be new content coming very soon.

Thrift Shop Book Covers: "The Mexico Run"

The Mexico Run was a paperback original published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1974, which is the very edition that caught my eye. The cover features a racing car—Jaguar, it appears—with a starred bullet hole in the windshield, billowing dust in its wake, a stone church in the background, and another car in pursuit. It is beautifully 1970’s Gold Medal. The artist: Unknown (to me).

The opening sentence:

“I picked up the XKE in San Francisco. It cost me twenty-six hundred dollars, and I bought it from an instructor at the University over at Berkley, who I figured had probably used it mostly for girl-bait on weekend trips down to the Monterey Peninsula.”

MURDERERS' ROW by Donald Hamilton



Murderers’ Row is the fifth Matt Helm novel.  It was originally published by Gold Medal in 1962, and it is the best of the ten or so Matt Helm titles I’ve read.  Helm is anxious for a long awaited vacation to visit a new lady friend in Texas when Mac calls him on assignment; Mac is the chief of the counter spy agency referred to as “the organization”.  He is directed to help an agent with her bone fides, and play her second chair, to infiltrate a Soviet ring that kidnapped an American scientist.  Her orders.  Extract the scientist, or close his eyes permanently.

Helm’s cover is a low level mob enforcer named Jimmy (the Lash) Petroni.  His mission: “plausibly,” and effectively beat up the female agent tasked with infiltrating the Soviet kidnap ring to buttress her cover as a breaking down alcoholic agent.  Helm reluctantly accepts the task, but everything goes wrong in short order.  The female agent dies at Helm’s hand.  Helm is arrested for murder by the local police, and Mac wants him back in Washington with no further action. 

Murderers’ Row is to thrillers as the 100 yard dash is to track and field; fast, hard, and entertaining as hell.  The opening sequences deftly alternate between Helm’s botched assignment and Mac’s orders.  The tone of the narrative in the opening scenes is clinical and professional; very much like a briefing of events without emotion or introspection.  When the female agent dies at his hands, he explains:

“It wasn’t the worst moment of my life.  After all, I’ve been responsible for the deaths of people I knew and liked: it happens in the business.”

But as the novel moves forward the narrative wobbles from the clinical to the personal.  Helm begins to doubt his motives and even, at least regarding the death of his fellow agent, his reality.   His concern: his “hand slipped” during the assault intentionally rather than accidently, which brings to mind a comment Mac made about the psychology of men who kill for a living —

“After a while…their judgment becomes impaired, since human life has ceased to have much value for them.”

Helm doesn’t spend more than a few passages worrying it, but he spends just enough time to give him credibility with the reader.  A credibility that removes him from the classless sociopath to a workman doing a dirty, nasty, but very necessary job. 

Murderers’ Row has everything the Matt Helm novels are known for—action, a vivid cast of characters, a tight and lean plot, and a touch of humor.  As an example of the humor, in the opening scenes Mac explains why Helm needs to perform the assault rather than a young agent previously assigned—

“Not one of them would kill a fly, I sometimes think, to save an entire nation from dying of yellow fever.”

Helm responds—“‘Yes, sir’….’Yellow fever isn’t carried by flies, sir.  It’s transmitted by mosquitoes.’”        

Mac—“‘Indeed?’...‘That’s very interesting.  I could have made it an order, but the young fool…’”

The best part, if you read closely Mr Hamilton always explains the title, which is usually far from intuitive.  In this case, “murderers’ row” is a euphemism for the organization’s headquarters in Washington, D. C.  

Murderers’ Row was recently republished in mass market by Titan Books.  Purchase a copy at Amazon.

This review originally went live November 22, 2013 and since there has been some talk about the Matt Helm novels on a few other blogs I decided it was a good time to kick some new life into this one.

Black Gat Books: Two New Titles

There are two new titles now available from the Stark House imprint Black Gat Books. If you’re not familiar with Black Gat, you’re in for a treat. It is a mass market line dedicated to reprinting great crime novels of the past. Stark House’s website identifies Black Gat’s mission statement— 

“This is a single-title line of books, uniformly priced at $9.99, offering additional reprint titles from past masters of mystery fiction. Each book will be numbered. Some will have new introductions, some will not.”

The two new titles available now are:

No. 4.  The Persian Cat by John Flagg. This is one of the earliest Gold Medal titles. It features agent Gil Denby, and is set in Tehran.

Publisher’s Description: “A post-World War II thriller set in Teheran featuring cynical agent Gil Denby. His mission: bring a beautiful traitor to justice. His odds: slim.”

No. 5.  Only the Wicked by Gary Phillips. This is an Ivan Monk mystery set in Los Angeles. 

Publisher’s Description: “The fourth Ivan Monk mystery, never before published in paperback. A tense Los Angeles thriller with roots in the Deep South.”

The Black Gat titles are available directly through the publisher, and most online bookstores. If you click on the titles above you will be whisked to the Amazon page for each.

Click here to see the first three books in the series.

No Comment: "The November Man"

“It must be the same as deprogramming a Jesus freak: The intellectual argument never counted because there was no intelligence involved.”

—Bill Granger, The November Man (There are No Spies). Grand Central Publishing PB, 2014 (© 1986). Page 157. Lydia Neumann speaking to Margot Kieker.

[No Comment is a series of posts featuring passages that caught my attention. It may be the idea, the texture, or the presence that grabbed my eye. There is no analysis provided, and it invariably is out of context]

Purchase a copy of The November Man at Amazon.

My Reviews Elsewhere: "Fate of the Union"

My review of Fate of the Union—the second Reeder and Rogers thriller—by Max Allan Collins and Matthew Clemens is live and online at Ed Gorman’s blog. FU—I couldn’t resist—is an entertaining, fast paced political thriller with a crowd of shady characters and a bunch of action.

Read the review.

Purchase a copy of Fate of the Union at Amazon.