Deja Vu, Ron Lesser Style

A pair of covers across four decades by Ron Lesser. The Decoy, by Edward S. Aarons, Fawcett Gold Medal. Honey in His Mouth, by Lester Dent, Hard Case Crime. 

BROTHERS OF THE GUN by B. S. Dunn

Brothers of the Gun is an entertaining traditional western written by B. S. Dunn and published by Robert Hale’s Black Horse Western line. B. S. Dunn is a pseudonym for the prolific and very talented Australian scribe Brent Towns. 

A war is brewing in the Cottonwood Creek range between the largest cattle outfit, B-L connected ranch, and the incoming homesteaders. The B-L is owned by Buford Lance who first settled the area “at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo range,” decades earlier with nothing more than a dream and the determination to build an empire. He fought outlaws, Indians and anyone else who came wanting what he righteously believed to be his. 

Now, the homesteaders are coming in waves, fencing and planting the grasslands. To stop the interloping farmers, Buford hires two gunmen. The estranged brothers known as The Gun King, Lucas Kane, and The Prince, Jordan Kane. Lucas has the biggest reputation in the territory, and his younger brother, Jordan, has plans to unseat The King. When the brothers arrive, Lucas turns down Buford’s offer and rides away, but Jordan happily takes Lance’s money. A simple job, it seems, to run off a few dirt farmers, but when Lucas joins the homesteaders it becomes both more difficult and the opportunity Jordan has been waiting for.

Brothers of the Gun is as fast as it is entertaining. The action is brisk, and believable. A traditional range war western with a cast of both good and bad. Buford Lance is the angry, unscrupulous rancher with more money and power than sense. Jordan is a badman with seething rage and something more, while Lucas is a nice take on the moral gunfighter. It reads similar to many of the books packaged as Ace Doubles back in the day—a good thing—and it is both appealing and entertaining.

Mystery Scene: Issue No. 151

The latest issue of Mystery Scene Magazine—No. 151—is at a newsstand near you. As usual, it is packed. It features interviews with Attica Locke and Paul Cleave, a Jake Hinkson article about the Robert Mitchum film “Out of the Past” and many others.

It also features my short story review column, “Short & Sweet: Short Stories Considered.” Two of the four books / magazine covered are available at MS’s website. In the column I discuss:

Bibliomysteries, edited by Otto Penzler, collects 15 mystery tales featuring books and most are very surprising.

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July / August 2017, includes stories by James Lincoln Warren, Loren D. Estleman, and Susan Koefod. This is exclusive to the print magazine.

New Haven Noir, edited by Amy Bloom, is a tepid on noir, but long on good storytelling. It features terrific stories from Stephen L. Carter, and Chris Knopf.

Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, July / August 2017, features excellent stories from Steve Liskow, Robert Mageot, and O’Neil De Noux. This is exclusive to the print magazine.

It also includes two of my book reviews. The titles: Path Into Darkness by Lisa Alber, and Fast Falls the Night by Julia Keller. The book reviews are all available at MS’s website:

Path Into Darkness by Lisa Alber is a whodunit set in County Clare, Ireland.

Fast Falls the Night by Julia Keller is a slow paced procedural featuring dozens of heroin overdoses in a 24-hour period.

The reviews are available online at Mystery Scene’s website—click the titles above.

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

"Merrick" by Ben Boulden

My story “Merrick” is live and ready for consumption. It’s a 25-page action Western short story that I’m fond of, and one that I think most readers will enjoy. It is exclusive to Amazon Kindle; available to purchase for a measly $0.99, or, for the lucky readers with Kindle Unlimited, it can be borrowed for free.

If you read and enjoy “Merrick” please consider leaving a brief review at Amazon or Goodreads, or even better, tell your friends about it. Your enemies, too, if you have any.

Here is the description:

Merrick is hard, tough, and when he needs to be, mean as hell.

When Merrick is called in as a late-replacement for a payroll heist his first inclination is greed. His second is hesitation, since anyone who says a job will be easy is a liar, but this job has been planned by an old partner, Clarence Tilley, who has masterminded more than a few successful heists.

It’s a four man job with a payout worth $15,000 and Merrick’s share would keep him in whiskey and satin for a year. But it may also get him killed.

And if you've read this far, keep reading for an itty bitty preview. You can also get a preview at Amazon.

Sweat beaded on Merrick’s brow. 

Slow moving horses beat a tepid rhythm on the road above. A wagon squeaked, its wheels rumbling across dry clay and shale.

A man laughed. 

Another clicked his tongue at the laboring beasts before saying, “You should have seen it, me and Janie Frain as naked as God made us…”

Merrick drew a breath, held it. He listened to the sound his heart made. The Remington cool and steady in his right hand.

“…and in comes Janie’s—”

A crash and thud bounced on the road above as the armored wagon slammed into the four-foot rectangular trench dug for the purpose. The double tree hitch busted with an ear-shattering crack.

Merrick moved up the incline. His boots slippery on the shoulder’s pale rocks and paler dirt. The road’s flat surface a comfort beneath his Texas boots. The Remington raised to shoulder height, its barrel pointed at the rear of the wagon.

Click here to purchase the Kindle edition of “Merrick” on Amazon.

PROJECT JAEL by Aaron Fletcher

Aaron Fletcher is a writer I know nothing about. My internet searching determined he is an unknown quantity in the ether-sphere, too. I know his name is on the cover of the successful Outback historical series and he wrote a few suspense novels in the 1960s and 1970s, but otherwise…nothing.

Frank Keeler is a British MI-6 agent, cast in a broken mold of James Bond, with a history of getting the job done. Fresh on the heels of a successful mission in Cairo, Keeler is tasked with disposing of a Nazi plot to kill Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin at a secret summit set for Tehran in 1943. An assignment that is anything but easy since Keeler has to deal with the German spy apparatus, Abwehr, the Soviets, a German Brandenburg detachment led by a hate-filled and industrious Polish officer, and at least two beautiful women. One married, the other a former prisoner in a Russian gulag. It isn’t easy, but Keeler makes it look like another day at the office.

Project Jael is an enjoyable, overly long World War Two thriller, with a smoothly executed and easy to read style without many surprises or anything to raise it above the standard. An original paperback published by Leisure Books in 1985, it is a comfortable yarn that blends Jack Higgins’ The Eagle Has Landed and Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca without the originality of either. The Tehran setting is nicely rendered and the competitive nature of the intelligence services, especially between the British / American and the Soviets, is neatly detailed. An entertaining diversion, but not one that you should spend much effort seeking out.

Deja Vu, All Over Again

"It Happened Tomorrow" by Robert Bloch

I’m a sucker for two things: 1) apocalyptic stories; and 2) Robert Bloch. When I find something that marries both, a Robert Bloch written apocalyptic story, I drop everything and read it immediately. A situation I found earlier this week when I turned to the table of contents of an old anthology, Futures Unlimited, edited by Alden Norton, and saw the Robert Bloch novelette, “It Happened Tomorrow”.

Dick Sheldon’s morning started in the usual way. Daylight. His alarm’s tattooing brutality. But then things go bad. The alarm won’t stop its ringing until he smashes it to pieces. The lights in his apartment won’t turn off. His bathroom water tap is stuck on. The street car door won’t open, and then the entire car refuses to stop. As does the elevator in his office building. The world’s machines have gone mad. Everything is running, out-of-control, and their human creators are scared, looking for somewhere to hide.

“It Happened Tomorrow” is vintage science fiction. It has big ideas presented in a simple, entertaining package. Originally published in Super Science Stories in June 1951, it is as prescient today—think about the recent talk of artificial intelligence’s peril to humanity from such luminaries as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk—as when it first appeared. It’s as entertaining today, as it must have been seventy years ago, too. 

A small story about a big subject. It follows the human world’s destruction as it happens from the viewpoint of Dick Sheldon, in a single city over a short period of time. A top-notch example of both classic science fiction and Robert Bloch. A writer who is unjustly forgotten and whose work seems ripe for a revival.

Futures Unlimited was published by Pyramid books as a mass market paperback in June 1969. It features an impressive list of contributors, including A. Merrit, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Conan Doyle and others.

Thrift Shop Book Covers: "The Potsdam Bluff"

The Potsdam Bluff was published as a hardcover by Tor in 1991, but the edition that caught my eye is the mass market published in 1992 (also by Tor). The cover is a nice montage that fits its release era perfectly and reminds me a little of Pocket’s Jack Higgins novels with the two main characters pictured across a background of war and destruction. The artist: Don Gonzalez

The first sentence:

“The American news correspondents had been authorized to visit one of the fighter squadrons that were supposed to protect Moscow from Nazi bombers, which, as everybody knew, no longer represented any kind of threat to anybody anywhere, especially here in Russia.”

Jack D. Hunter made a career of the news business, working as a reporter and columnist, and wrote fifteen novels centered around World War Two and the spy game. His 1964 novel, The Blue Max, was made into the 1966 film starring George Peppard and James Mason, and directed by John Guillerman. His writing tends to be descriptive and detailed, but at times, can be bogged down by those same qualities.

CHAIN OF EVIDENCE by Garry Disher

Chain of Evidence is Australian crime writer Garry Disher’s fourth novel to feature Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry. A police procedural set in the rural, but booming Mornington Peninsula area south of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. A place where poverty and wealth live side-by-side and crime is as deadly and ugly as it is in any large city. 

While visiting his dying father in his childhood home in the dusty, hardscrabble South Australia town of Mawson’s Bluff, Challis unofficially investigates the mysterious disappearance of his sister’s husband, Gavin Hurst, from eight years earlier. Hurst is a man not readily missed by many of Mawson’s Bluff’s residents and his disappearance is truly a mystery. His truck abandoned at the desert’s edge, his body never found.

Back home at the Waterloo Station, Ellen Destry is filling in for Challis during his absence, a girl is kidnapped on her way home from school. She is found imprisoned in an uninhabited house. Abused by what Destry believes is a pedophile ring operating in the Peninsula. Her investigation hits roadblocks from within the police service and the only person she can trust is Hal Challis, more than 1,000 kilometers away.

Chain of Evidence is a powerful and disturbing procedural. The two major mysteries are intriguing and executed with the sure hand of an absolute professional. It is Ellen Destry’s coming out as an equal partner with Challis. The setting, both the Peninsula and Mawson’s Bluff, is rendered with a muted artistry and adds immeasurably to the novel’s power. There is nothing gory or exploitative about either storyline and Mr. Disher has a way of mixing character stereotypes to develop tension between the characters, the plot, and the reader. It may be the best book in the series. If you are new to Garry Disher, Chain of Evidence is a very good place to get acquainted.

A Trio of Mack Bolan

A few months ago I read the trilogy that killed Colonel John Phoenix and brought Mack Bolan back to the world. I had meant to write a detailed review when I read these, but time (a lack of it) conspired against me. The trilogy includes two Executioner novels, 62, Day of Mourning and 64, Dead Man Running, both written by Stephen Mertz and the Super Bolan title, Terminal Velocity written by Alan Bomack. Alan Bomack is a pseudonym and a snazzy anagram (with a little cheating) of Mack Bolan. The books were published between February and April 1984.

Day of Mourning is the best non-Don Pendleton Mack Bolan books I’ve read. It is a straight ahead thriller with a terse, hard-boiled style, matching the originals very well. It chronicles the murder of April Rose and a grave threat to Stony Man Farm.

The story continues with Terminal Velocity, which has the feeling of two separate novels smashed together. Its purpose in the story arc is to introduce Greb Strakhov, and the reason for Strakhov's grudge against Bolan. Its style is less hard-boiled than DOM, but in its own right an entertaining and very readable thriller. 

The trilogy finds its conclusion with Dead Man Running, which is a fine finale. It is a slight step down from DOM, but it admirably chronicles Mack’s journey from Colonel Phoenix back to Mack Bolan. All done while hunting the mole who gave up Stony Man to the Soviets and indirectly caused the death of April Rose.

These, especially the two written by Stephen Mertz, are really terrific action thrillers.

This review, in slightly different form, originally appeared on Gravetapping’s Facebook page. If you don’t follow Gravetapping on FB, you should, and here is the link.

Thrift Shop Books Covers: "The Rockford Files"

The Rockford Files returned to television in 1994 with a made-for-TV movie, I Still Love L.A. It switched networks, from NBC, which broadcast the original series from 1974 to 1980, to CBS. Another seven movies aired through 1999, and while they weren’t the original, they were pretty good. Even better the success of the movies encouraged Forge to release two original novels featuring the intrepid Jim Rockford, and written by the accomplished Stuart M. Kaminsky. 

The Green Bottle was published 1996 as a hardcover by Forge, but the edition that caught my eye is the 1999 paperback. It has the glitter and glow of all the beautiful people (very Hollywood) with the added bonus of a hotel in the background. The artist: Steve Chorney.

The first paragraph:

“It was raining in Santa Monica, a cold, driving, California winter rain, and I was crouched on the deck of a small but not inexpensive boat moored at the pier along with a few hundred other boats being tossed by the Pacific.”

Devil on My Doorstep was published as a hardcover by Forge in 1998, but the edition that caught my eye is the 2001 paperback. A wealthy enclave across a golden sea bordered with an oh so 1990s woman. The artist: Steve Chorney.  

The first paragraph:

“The sun was just about to come up and I was late. I must have hit the snooze button on the alarm clock without knowing it. I turned the on the Weather Channel and heated some of yesterday’s—or was it the day before’s—coffee in the microwave while I drank a glass of orange juice. The coffee was awful, but it was coffee.”

Mystery Scene Issue No. 150

The latest issue of Mystery Scene Magazine—No. 150—is at a newsstand near you. As usual, it is packed. It features an interview with Scott Turow, Michael Mallory’s terrific article “Raffles: The Anti-Sherlock Holmes” and many others.

It also features my short story review column, “Short & Sweet: Short Stories Considered.” All of the column reviews are currently available in the print edition and most are also available at MS’s website. In the column I discuss:

Nearly Nero, by Loren D. Estleman, is a collection of ten stories featuring Estleman’s endearing Nero Wolfe-like character Claudius Lyon.

MatchUp, edited by Lee Child, is an anthology produced by the Thriller Writers Association that pairs a female and male thriller writer for each story.

Dis Mem Ber and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense collects seven dark tales by Joyce Carol Oates.

The March / April, 2017 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, featuring a bevy of terrific stories from Pauline Simpson, Alan E. Foulds, and Chris Knopf.

It also includes four of my book reviews. The titles: The Silent Corner by Dean Koontz, The Substitute by Nicole Lundrigan, She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper, and The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes by Leonard Goldberg. The book reviews are all available at MS’s website:

The Silent Corner by Dean Koontz is the beginning of a new series and a return to the type of stories Mr. Koontz wrote in the 1990s.

The Substitute by Nicole Lundrigan is pleasantly surprising psychological thriller.

She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper is a first novel that roars on all cylinders. 

The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes by Leonard Goldberg is a new take on an old subject.

The reviews are available online at Mystery Scene’s website—click the titles above.

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

CHASE by Dean Koontz

I am a longtime fan of Dean Koontz’s writing.  I enjoy all of Mr Koontz’s work, but I have a particular fondness for the work he produced in the 1970s and 80s.  I love his big genre mixing thrillers like Lightning, Cold Fire, and Twilight Eyes and more recently I have gained an appreciation for his earlier straight suspense novels like Shattered, After the Last Race, and Dragonfly.

I recently reread a short suspense novel written as by K. R. Dwyer titled Chase.  Benjamin Chase is a used up Vietnam veteran who received the Medal of Honor for an act he wants to forget.  He lives alone in an attic apartment.  He drinks to drown out the voices of the dead, and he wants to be left alone to grieve and regret.  His world tumbles into chaos when he saves a young woman from murder, and the would-be killer—a man who calls himself “Judge”—begins calling Ben on the telephone.      

Chase is a dark and disturbing novel.  It was written in the Vietnam-era and is infused with hard cynicism.  Chase is simple.  He is alone, guilty, and ashamed.  His isolation is perpetuated by the near hero worship, and simple minded patriotism, of the townsfolk.  He has judged himself as less than, but as Judge pursues his verdict against Chase, he is forced to face both himself and his demons.

Chase is all story, which is to say plot with a snatch of something close to meaning.  It is short and sleek.  It takes only a few pages to move from the opening scene banquet to the action.  That is not to say it is plotted from action scene to action scene because it isn’t; there is a legitimate mystery, and the psychology of the protagonist is interesting in itself, and the slow escalation of isolation between Chase and the police, and Chase and society creates a tension all its own.  The prose is crisp and with a touch of melancholy—

“Maybe it was better to be without a woman than to die and leave behind one who grieved so briefly as this.”      

It opens as a straight forward suspense novel—how will Chase save himself from Judge—to something approaching a vigilante novel.  The climax is both surprising and horrifying; even disturbing.  Its suddenness and violence surprised as much on my second reading as it did the first.  Chase isn’t one of Dean Koontz’s big novels, and it may not appeal to most of his current readership, but it a fine example of high velocity classic suspense.  But that ending is a killer.    

Chase was originally published by Random House in hardcover in 1972.  It was reissued in Mr Koontz’s collection Strange Highways in 1995.  The reissued version was touched up before its release, but what was changed, other than the addition of a brief opening chapter setting the time and place of the story, I’m not sure.

This review originally went live December 16, 2013.

Thrift Shop Book Covers: "White Cargo"

White Cargo is one of Stuart Woods’ rare standalone novels. It was published by Simon & Schuster as a hardcover in 1988, but the edition that caught my eye is a mass market published by Avon in 1989. The cover hits a few of my “I have to read this” buttons: a dense, dangerous looking jungle, a single prop airplane crashing into said jungle, and vibrant and exciting colors. The artist: Unknown (to me, at least).

The opening paragraph:

“Wendell Catledge sat up and squinted at the smudge on the horizon. It should not have been a surprise, he thought, but it was. The boat slid smoothly along in the light wind, and even the slightest movement made it hard to focus on the shape, but it wasn’t a ship or an oil rig, and in the early morning light, it seemed to be pink. He pulled at his beard and ran a hand through his hair, which was a good six months overdue for cutting. Hell, it just might be, it just might be what he guessed it was.”

COLD HIT by Stephen J. Cannell

Cold Hit (2005) is Stephen J. Cannell’s fifth novel featuring LAPD Detective Shane Scully and the second I’ve read. The first title I read, On the Grind (2009), was disappointing in its lack of depth, character development and over-easy plotting, but Cold Hit is a top-notch police procedural that renders a fully-realized Shane Scully. A complex plot with more than one surprise, and an alluring Southern California setting.

Shane Scully and his partner Zack Farrell are the primary detectives on a series of killings targeting homeless men. After the victims are killed with a bullet to the head, their finger-tips are removed and a symbol is carved into their chests. With the case going nowhere—no suspects, witnesses, clues, or the victims’ identities uncovered—the LAPD’s brass are threatening to remove Scully as the primary detective and form a multi-agency task force to continue the investigation.

Cold Hit is a nicely developed, finely plotted, character driven procedural. It has a sense of the believable from the police investigation to Scully’s relationships with his partner—drowning in alcohol and divorce—and his family. He is likable, something of a maverick who struggles against authority, and tough without being super human. The investigation deepens into the realm of national security and there is an interesting discussion about the post-9/11 world’s enhanced federal law enforcement powers without the story losing its appeal or momentum. Even better, it made me want to read another Shane Scully novel.

Thrift Shop Book Covers: "Owls Don't Blink"

Owl’s Don’t Blink is the sixth mystery Erle Stanley Gardner published as by A.A. Fair and featuring private eyes Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Its original release was as a hardcover by William Morrow & Co. in 1942, but the edition that caught my eye is a mass market published by Dell in 1970. An old school photographic cover isn’t my usual bag, but something about this one works. The artist: Unknown (to me, at least).

The opening paragraph:

“I was awakened at three o’clock in the morning by the sound of a garbage-pail cover being kicked across the sidewalk. A moment later, a woman’s voice, harsh and shrill, shouted, ‘I am not going with you! Do you understand?’”

McGRAVE by Lee Goldberg

McGrave is a stylish, action-packed, and downright fun novella written by Lee Goldberg. The Afterword explains it “began as a television pilot” and the plotting, pacing and vivid cinematic prose give it an episodic television feel. A good thing in this case.

John McGrave is an LAPD detective whose knack for destruction has yielded the nifty nickname, “Tidal Wave.” After foiling the attempted robbery of a 3,000 year-old chamber pot, McGrave is fired from the force. His termination is for a culmination of events, but the final straw is a soon to be filed $20-million lawsuit by one of L.A.’s wealthiest residents. Without a job, or even any prospects for a job, McGrave takes the first flight to Berlin trailing the only would-be toilet robber to escape L.A.

McGrave is a sterling action yarn, at a perfect length, with a nicely rendered Berlin setting. The dialogue is witty, the characters fit nicely and play well together. John McGave is something like Lethal Weapons’ Detective Riggs (Mel Gibson) searching for, and finding, his Detective Murtaugh (Danny Glover) in a very unexpected locale mixed with a classic 1980s Stephen J. Cannell television series.

JIMI AFTER DARK by Stephen Mertz

Jimi After Dark is the second novel in what I think of as Stephen Mertz’s musical mystery series, which isn’t an accurate moniker since the books are as much about the time and place of the tales’ setting as they are about the music and musicians. The first, Hank & Muddy (2011), was set in the 1950s and featured Hank Williams and Muddy Waters. Jimi After Dark is a 1960s novel set in 1970 London, near the end of Jimi Hendrix’s too-short life. Its genesis, as Mr. Mertz explains in his Afterword, is Jimi’s mostly disbelieved kidnapping claim by armed thugs and his ultimate rescue by other armed men.

From the start, Jimi is in trouble, legal trouble with his former manager Mike Jeffrey and another, more violent, trouble with more than one unknown source that may, or may not be related to the Kray Brothers—the East End crime syndicate brothers in prison when the story begins—and the Central Intelligence Agency. Jimi calls on his old Army buddy, unnamed in the story and simply called Soldier, for help. Soldier is fresh from his second tour in Vietnam with a tendency towards violence and a strong sense of duty and loyalty, which acts as an effective literary foil for Jimi’s hippie and gangster filled world.  

Jimi After Dark is an action crime novel with nicely executed action scenes, a few twists, and big ideas: friendship, loyalty, betrayal—the unexpected betrayal of friends and lovers and the more expected betrayal from governments—duty, honor, and the relationship between music and culture. The 1960’s culture war is dissected, Jimi on one side and Soldier on the other, wrapped inside a well-told, exciting story with the cleanest, strongest prose in the business. Jimi After Dark is Stephen Mertz’s best novel, and it should be on everyone’s reading list.

Gran Gato and Me

The National Weather Service database claims it was hot in Salt Lake City on August 5, 2004. 96-degrees; cloudless blue sky. A summer evening no different than any other. The difference, and what I remember, is the stadium, crowd, smells—distinctive sweetness of kettle corn, franks, beer, sweat—and a once great player who found himself with a minor league contract, and a desire to get back to the big leagues.

The player’s appearance was widely advertised in the local media and the fans came to see him. They lined up along the first base side against the low concrete wall separating seats from field; hoping for a glimpse, a word, an autograph. It was the final month of a disappointing season for the home team. The Salt Lake Stingers were in the Pacific Coast League’s cellar, but its parent club, Anaheim Angels, were set for another division title and an October appearance. The player was Andrés Galarraga and the Angels signed him to add depth, experience, and flexibility to its roster.

Andrés had a reputation for an unflagging enthusiasm. His demeanor was as much his trademark as his distinctive white hair, towering home runs, and dazzling defensive play at first. His nickname was “Gran Gato”—Big Cat—earned for his agility and quickness. Time had eroded the skills his nickname spoke of, but the name was still his, and only his. He started his career in Montreal in 1985, and on a hot August evening in 2004 he was in Salt Lake City trying to get back. It hadn’t been easy, either.

In February 1999 Andrés was diagnosed with cancer—non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma—in his spine. The entire season was lost while he received treatment. Big Cat beat the disease, and came back strong in 2000, but the diagnosis made its mark. He said, in an interview with The Sporting News’ Jon Heyman:

“I felt like I’d be dying any time. The way everyone was looking at me, the way everyone knew.”

The cancer recurred in early-2004, and Big Cat beat it again, but he was without a team. In June he announced, in his hometown of Caracas, Venezuela, that he was ready to play. It was two long months before an offer was made. His first stop was Salt Lake City, and his desired destination Anaheim. He wanted two more major league home runs. He had 398 for his career, and 400 was an appealing benchmark. The clock was ticking. He was 43 with fading opportunity.

When the players began to appear on the field for pre-game warm ups a buzz of anticipation enveloped the crowd. The fans craned their necks as each player appeared on the field. A mellow roar built from scattered applause as Andrés came into view. His distinctive white hair shimmering in the thick evening light. The fans chanted, “Big Cat! Big Cat! Big Cat!” He stopped, looked at the fans, removed his cap.

Andrés was there to play baseball, but instead of continuing to the field to prepare for the game he went directly to the wall of fans. He stopped at the first in line, spoke a few words, and signed a ball. He steadily moved down the line, stopping at each person, speaking a few words, grinning, and signing a card, ball, or hat. I was there that night; waiting in line, anxious, and hopeful he would make it to my position, closer to the end than the beginning, before the players were called in for the National Anthem.

I had seen Andrés Galarraga once before. It was a spring game in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was playing for the Giants, and before the first pitch Andrés and Barry Bonds—along with Barry’s young son—wandered the edges of the ballpark; stopping frequently to talk, laugh, and interact with fans. Barry had an unfriendly reputation. The opposite of Andrés’, but on that overcast March afternoon everything was a smile and laugh. I didn’t participate in the dialogue, but instead watched with admiration.

In Salt Lake City my attitude was different. I came to see Andrés Galarraga; wish him luck, get an autograph, and be part of his comeback. I was nervous, my palms likely damp, when Andrés arrived at my position.

I handed him a clipboard, two cards attached, and a felt-tipped pen. I said, “Welcome back.”

Andrés looked up at me—with the help of the concrete floor I was a few inches taller—smiled his famous lopsided grin, said, “It’s good to be back.” He signed the cards, handed back the clipboard and pen.

It was a brief encounter. I wanted to talk to him. Tell him how much I admired his play, his courage, and his impending comeback. Maybe tell him I saw the grand slam he crushed in Miami in 1997, or his comeback home run on opening day in Atlanta in 2000, but I settled for “welcome back,” and “thank you.”  

The Stingers lost that night; outscored by the Omaha Royals, 6 – 1. I know because I looked it up. I don’t remember anything about the game, or Andrés’ performance. The box score is lost to me; seemingly unavailable online. I’m certain Andrés was the designated hitter, but how he played is a mystery. He spent all of August in a Stingers uniform, and he hit well— batting .304, with four home runs, and 19 RBI, in 111 plate appearances.

He played well enough to get a September call-up to Anaheim; it would be his last appearance in the Show, but his playing time was limited. Appearing in seven games with a meager ten at bats. He hit a single home run with the Angels, and never made it to 400. I hope it doesn’t bother him. He was a terrific player, and his appearance in Salt Lake City on that hot August night is one of my favorite baseball memories.

OVERFLOW by L. J. Martin

Overflow is the eighth novel in L. J. Martin’s The Repairman series featuring former Marine turned troubleshooter Mike Reardon. When a federal judge is killed on a public bus, destroyed by a deliberately set explosion during Las Vegas’ morning commute, the FBI’s first instinct is to blame it on terrorists, which seems accurate enough when an organization called Destroy Satan America claims credit. A Las Vegas casino owner, Alex Pointer, wants to hire Reardon and his pal, the very wealthy entrepreneur Pax Weatherwax, for a very special job:

“I want you to find, and kill slowly, with as much pain as you can stand to apply, whoever is responsible for the bus bombing.”    

Reardon isn’t a hitman and he doesn’t like to work where he lives, but with a few provisions, no cold blooded murder—for either he or Pax—and a big payday, he takes the job. It isn’t long before it becomes apparent the bus bombing is more complex than it appears, and even less time for the bullets to start flying.

Overflow is a blazingly fast novel. The action is relentless, the story exciting. A few nice descriptions of greater Las Vegas and a barrel of oddball characters give it color. Reardon and Pax have a symbiotic relationship similar to Robert B. Parker’s Spenser and Hawk, and, also like Parker’s characters, they spar good naturedly with clever and often humorous dialogue. Overflow fits somewhere between the thriller, private eye and men’s adventure subgenres, and while it is the eighth in the series it is a good place to introduce yourself to The Repairman.