DEAD RECKONING by Sam Llewellyn

Sam Llewellyn is an author I discovered in the late 1980s as a teenager.  He wrote a series of suspense novels set in the British fishing village of Pulteney.  The novels all have sailing as a backdrop, and by my recollection none of them feature the same protagonist.

I recently reread Dead Reckoning, which is the first of the Pulteney sailing novels published in 1987.  It is narrated by Charlie Agutter.  Charlie is from an old Pulteney family, and he makes his living designing racing yachts.  The novel opens with Charlie receiving a summons to the village’s lifeboat.  A sailing yacht has been caught in The Teeth—a dangerous stretch of reef just off shore.  The stranded yacht was designed by Charlie, and is one of only two produced with a new light weight rudder, but even worse the dead sailor at its helm is his brother.

It appears the rudder failed and a heavy sea dragged Aesthete into the Teeth where its hull was cracked like an egg.  The accident hits Charlie hard.  He and his younger brother were close and his business is threatened with collapse due to the perceived failure of the new rudder.  Charlie is certain the rudder was sabotaged, but the saboteur is a step ahead and he can’t prove it.  The mystery is as much motive as whodunit.  Charlie isn’t sure why the rudder was tampered with, and if it was murder for its own sake—to kill his brother or the other man aboard the yacht—or an attempt to destroy him and his business by undermining the rudder design.

Dead Reckoning is a wonderful suspense-adventure mystery.  It was fairly (and correctly) compared to the work of Dick Francis by critics when it was released.  A slim line suspense mystery with a sport setting.  In this case yacht racing, but it is as much an adventure story as mystery, and it is seemingly influenced by the Alistair MacLean style adventure thriller.  It is heavy on description, setting (weather is always an adversary), action and suspense, and light on dialogue and whodunit ponderings.

Pulteney is a perfect setting for the story.  It is a boom town that was once a place where fishermen made their living from the sea, but it has been bought up by wealthy professionals and industrialists who use it as a place to moor yachts and brag about to their friends back in the city.  The rub between the old and new residents creates its own tension as Charlie works to solve the puzzle and catch the killer.  He walks a tenuous line between both old and new, and isn’t quite trusted by either. 

Everything works in Dead Reckoning, but what sets it apart from its peers is the seamless weaving of both the culture and sport of yacht racing.  The plot cannot be extricated from its background, and one without the other would be completely useless.  The setting is exotic and familiar at once, and the characters are smoothly realistic in shades of both likability and familiarity.   

Dead Reckoning was published more than 25 years ago, but it has held up remarkably well, and Sam Llewellyn is back on my list of favorite writers.

CAMP FORD by Johnny D. Boggs

Win MacNaughton is an aging—99 years old—former baseball player, umpire, and coach who is invited to attend the 1946 World Series by The Sporting News.  A reporter asks him how he thinks the two participating teams—Red Sox and Cardinals—compare to the best team he has ever seen.  Win doesn’t hesitate, and quickly names two teams.

“‘Easy’ I said. “Mr. Lincoln’s Hirelings and the Ford City Gallinippers. Played one game at Camp Ford, Texas.”

The reporter gave Win a confused look and walked away.  He didn’t mention either of the teams in the newspaper the next day, and Win MacNaughton spends the rest of Johnny D. Boggs’ Camp Ford explaining his answer.  He begins his story as a boy in Rhode Island where he is introduced to the game that shaped his life.  His move with his parents to Jacksboro, Texas, where his father gets involved with the anti-slavery movement and, when the Civil War breaks out, his parents take him back North where, in 1863 he joins the 3rd Rhode Island Cavalry.

It isn’t long before Win finds himself a prisoner of war at Camp Ford, Texas where life is hard, cruel, and, surprisingly, filled with baseball—even the Southerners are learning the game.

Camp Ford won the Spur Award for best novel in 2005, and it is the best Western novel I have read in a long time.  Mr. Boggs adroitly weaves two storylines—the aged Win MacNaughton watching the 1946 World Series in St. Louis, and Win MacNaughton as a boy growing up in a changing and violent time with the new game of baseball.  The prisoner of war scenes are harsh and realistic with vivid descriptions of the place, the characters, and, most importantly, the inner thoughts of MacNaughton as he tries to survive captivity.

The characters are richly created and populate the novel with a sincerity and richness often lacking in this genre, or any other.  The ideals of friendship, love, and hate are explored, and Mr Boggs leaves just enough ambiguity in the narrative to allow the reader to judge the actions of the characters.  The storyline is refreshing and original.  It has just the right mixture of baseball folklore and Civil War history to satisfy both readers of historical fiction, and anyone who enjoys the sport.  But more importantly Camp Ford is a wonderfully entertaining and downright enjoyable novel.

I enjoyed this novel enough when I originally read it that it was included in my top five novels that year.  Camp Ford is a novel you should make a point to read. 

This review was originally published in slightly different form at the long ago blog Saddlebums on December 16, 2007, but since it is the season of baseball, and the current World Series is being played by the Red Sox and Cardinals, I decided to dust it off and give it new life.  Camp Ford is currently available as an ebook.

The Heavenly Van Gogh

This image is of Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon).  It was taken by Hubble in 2002 when the star emitted a pulse of light or energy.  The Hubble website makes the comparison of this beautiful “light echo” to the work of Vincent Van Gogh.  The halo, or dust, is illuminated by the star, which is the red center. 

Its beautiful swirls and tidal-like movements are as vibrant as any space photograph I have ever seen.  It is something close to a magical and unbelievable view into a different time and place.  A place we can never see with our own retinas, but a place we can interpret and imagine from the lens of Hubble.  A place of imagination and opportunity.  A place for our hopes and amazements.  But more importantly a vision of the future and humanities march forward, which is summoned by our ability to capture such an image.     

The Hubble website description is here.

AT FIRST SIGHT by Stephen J. Cannell

Stephen J. Cannell’s fourteenth novel At First Sight received mixed reviews from the critics when it was released in 2008.  Publisher’s Weekly called it “disappointing,” and Booklist said it “might be his best novel yet.”  After reading it this past weekend I’m leaning more towards Booklist’s opinion than PW’s. 

Chick Best is a self-made millionaire.  He hit it big with an Amazon-type Internet company, but the good days are gone.  Now he is stuck with an expensive weight lifting wife, an angry drug addicted daughter, and selling his company for pennies on the dollar.  And worst, he is losing his credentials—the envy his wealth and possessions generates in others.  Suffice it to say Chick is a pathetically shallow man.

Chick and his family vacations in Maui each Christmas, and Chick’s dead end trajectory gets a lift when he spots the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.  The woman is soft in that feminine way and gorgeous, which is the complete opposite of his hard body wife who spends more time discussing abs, quads, workout programs, and scowling (at least at Chick) than anything else.   

He immediately formulates a plan to meet the woman (Paige Ellis), who is married to a likable old money school teacher who is more concerned with learning disabled children than wealth.  A mind set Chick finds confusing and annoying.  The two couples become friends during the week, and when the vacation is over Chick can’t get Paige Ellis out of his mind.  On a New York business trip he detours to the Ellis’s North Carolina home where he begins his plan to win Paige.

At First Sight is written in both first and third person.  There are three acts—the first is narrated by Chick alone, the second is narrated by both Chick in first person and Paige in third person, and the third is narrated by Paige in first person and Chick in third person.  The changing perspective creates tension and builds doubt between the reader and Chick.  Chick is a sympathetic narrator in the first act, but as the reader is exposed to additional information from outside it becomes clear Chick is less than trustworthy.

While Chick may be less than honest, his portions of the novel are pure gold.  He narrates with a snarky wit, which is funny in the first half of the novel, but as his true character is revealed it becomes ominous.  He turns out to be such a loathsome character I found myself uncomfortable with my original opinion of both him and his and wit; as though liking him in the early stages of the novel illuminated something unsavory about my own character.

At First Sight is pretty terrific.  It is a fast moving story, which is cleverly plotted and told with a flash bang style and wit.  There are moments Chick’s narrative is laugh out loud funny—particularly when he is describing his daughter, wife, and his wife’s trainer Mickey D:

“I let it happen, though, because I didn’t think in four days Evelyn would be able to turn Paige’s softness into the kind of anatomical gristle that she had struggled so hard to achieve for herself.”

At First Sight is the best of the handful of Stephen J. Cannell’s novels I have read, and it’s a shame he didn’t write fewer of his Shane Scully novels and more like this. 

A Feast of John Lange, Err...Michael Crichton

The best news in publishing, at least at my house, is Hard Case Crime is reissuing the eight novels Michael Crichton published between 1966 and 1972 as by John Lange.  The John Lange novels are superior adventure thrillers strong on plot and action, generally (but not always) set in exotic locations with everyman protagonists.  The majority of the titles have been out of print for decades and cost a small fortune on the secondary market, which is why I’ve read most instead of all. 

I spent the better part of my youth (and a good deal of my adulthood) trolling bookstores with a single goal: FIND A JOHN LANGE TITLE!  And I found most of them (and a bunch of Oliver Lange), but wow a few were elusive, which is about to change because all eight are going to be issued in fashionable trade paperbacks with terrific artwork by Hard Case.  The only problem; will I be able to stop looking for them?

The following is a listing of the John Lange titles in chronological order.  I included the cover art for both the new Hard Case Crime edition, and any other covers I know of (because I love old paperback cover art).

Odds On.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1966.  This is Crichton’s first published novel, and it is one of the titles I haven’t read.  The cover art is by Glen Orbik.      

   

Scratch One.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1967.  Scratch One is one of the weaker John Lange titles.  The cover art is by Glen Orbik.

 

Easy Go.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1968.  It was reissued by Bantam with the title The Last Tomb.  This is one of the better John Lange titles.  The cover art is by Glen Orbik.  Read the Gravetapping review.

 

Zero Cool.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1969.  This title was reissued by HCC in 2008 as a mass market paperback with cover art by Gregory Manchess.  The cover art will not change, but the book size will be increased to trade paperback.  Read the Gravetapping review.

 

The Venom Business.  Originally published as a hardcover in 1969 by World Publishing Company.  This is another of the titles I have yet to read.  The cover art is by Gregory Manchess.

 

Drug of Choice.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet.  Yet another title I haven’t read.  This was also issued under the title Overkill.  The cover art is by Gregory Manchess.

 

Grave Descend.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1970.  This title was short listed for the best paperback original Edgar Award.  This title was resissued by HCC in 2006 as a mass market paperback with cover art by Gregory Manchess.  The cover is the same, but the size changes to a trade paperback.

Binary.  Originally published as a hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf in 1972.  This title was translated into a television movie directed by Michael Crichton in 1972 titled “Pursuit”.  The novel is the best of the John Lange titles, but the film was somewhat disappointing.  The cover art is by Glen Orbik.  Read the Gravetapping review.

THE REMOVERS by Donald Hamilton

The Removers is the third novel to feature cold war spy, or more accurate, enforcer Matt Helm.  He is less spy and more enforcer because he acts as a counter intelligence wet work operative rather than an intelligence gatherer; or as Helm’s boss explains:

“If you were working for a criminal organization, you’d be enforcers.  Since you’re working for a sovereign nation, you can call yourselves… well, removers is a very good word.”

Matt Helm receives a cryptic note from his ex-wife seeking help.  She left Helm, and took their two small children with her, when his violent past found him.  She lives with her new husband on a ranch outside Reno, Nevada where a local hood is making subtle threats to Helm’s children.  Helm’s boss gives him permission to head west, but asks him to make contact with another agent working a case against a Soviet agent called Martel.

Not surprising, Helm’s personal business and the Soviet operation are one and the same.  The agent working the case is inexperienced and in short order Helm finds only he is standing between Martel, the safety of his children, and the Soviet plot. 

The Removers is a smooth and exciting novel.  There aren’t many surprises, mainly because similar plots have been rolling over and over since it was published fifty years ago, but its execution is pitch perfect.  It is constructed from the ground up—the early action and plotting is interesting enough to keep the reader fully invested, while still leaving room enough for additional tension, action, and suspense without becoming overblown, unbelievable, and tedious.

The characters also contribute to the success of the novel.  There are the expected characters, whose only role is to fulfill the plot, but there are also the unexpected.  There is the flash bang daughter of the hood who is something close to a Helm ally, his ex-wife who is both less and more than expected; less because Helm wants her to behave as an operative, and more because she really is a decent woman. 

The element which differentiates The Removers, and all of the Matt Helm novels, is the protagonist.  He is something other than.  Meaning he is an uneasy categorization; he isn’t sympathetic, and while he constantly plays the angles and never fully risks himself for another, he is far from amoral.  Which is something he would rather you didn’t know.  Although you should know this title, and all the other Matt Helm novels, are pretty damn terrific.

Titan Books is republishing the Matt Helm novels as attractive mass market paperbacks.  To date the first six novels in the series are back in print and two more are scheduled.  I hope there is enough success to get all 27 of the titles back in print because they represent the best the genre has to offer, now and then.

THE THOUSAND FACES OF NIGHT by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

The Thousand Faces of Night is the third novel published by Harry Patterson.  It was released as a hardcover by John Long in 1961.  It features a protagonist, Hugh Marlowe, which Mr Patterson later used as a pseudonym for three of his early novels published by Aberlard-Schuman.  The Marlowe moniker appeared on the non-Paul Chavasse novels published by Aberlard. 

Hugh Marlowe is a violent man.  He spent five years in prison for armed robbery, and while he never rolled on his cohorts, he also never shared the loot.  The novel opens with Marlowe’s release from Wandsworth, and waiting outside in the shadows is Mr Faulkner and two heavies.  Mr Faulkner’s crew abandoned Marlowe (and the take) when the robbery went bad, and now Faulkner wants the money.  Marlowe makes his escape, and with Faulkner’s heavies and the detective who investigated the robbery on his tail, decides to disappear until the heat burns low.

He finds a small town called Litton where he can hide.  He finds a job driving a truck for a small farmer who runs a cooperative, but he also finds trouble.  The farmer, a Portuguese immigrant named Papa Magellan, is being squeezed by a larger operator, and Marlowe can’t keep out of it. 

The Thousand Faces of Night is the weakest of Mr Patterson’s first three novels.  The plot is the simplest, and while Mr Patterson has never been accused of over developing his characters, the protagonist has very little flesh.  With this said, it is a quick, and exciting read.  Its plot is a 1980s television drama—think the A-Team, Incredible Hulk, etc.—where an outsider protagonist gets involved, and solves (at seemingly great personal risk), the problems of sympathetic strangers.

There are a few interesting elements in the novel, which are unlike much of Mr Patterson’s work.  There is a sex scene (not terribly detailed) between Marlowe and the antagonist’s niece.  Hugh Marlowe unwittingly gives his plan to save the Magellan farm to the antagonist, and he seemingly goes out of his way to hurt the Magellan’s daughter with both words and actions. 

The prose is stark.  The action is vintage Patterson (short, brutal, and believable), and the descriptions are simple and vivid—

“The hotel backed on to a maze of railway lines and he could see Paddington Station over to the left.  Beneath the window a pile of coke reared against the wall, and there was an engine getting up steam not far away.”

The Thousand Faces of Night is far from Harry Patterson’s best work, but it is an exciting adventure crime novel (more adventure than crime).  And what’s more, it added at least one word to my vocabulary—cosh, which is a weighted hand weapon much like a blackjack.  Now I just need to find the right conversation to use it.

THE HEIGHTS OF ZERVOS by Colin Forbes

Alistair MacLean has been a staple of my reading since middle school, and I have been a fan of his, and the adventure suspense genre he wrote, ever since.  I especially enjoy the work of the genre’s top writers: Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley, Gavin Lyall, and Jack Higgins.  While I think of those four writers as the genre’s first tier, there are a handful of writers who wrote a solid adventure story, but weren’t quite consistent enough to take the stage with the best.  One of those writers is Colin Forbes.

Mr Forbes, which is a pseudonym for Raymond Harold Sawkins, wrote more than 40 novels (most fit quite comfortably in the adventure suspense genre) and many, especially his earlier novels, are really very good.  I recently read the second novel Mr Sawkins published as by Colin Forbes, and really had a good time with it.  The title: The Heights of Zervos.

Macomber is a Scotsman who is working for British Intelligence in Rumania in 1941.  The novel opens in the early hours of a cold April morning.  Macomber is atop an oil tanker rail car, a German patrol is searching the rail yard, and the bomb he planted beneath the oil wagon has less than 10 minutes to detonation.  If Macomber moves he will be gun downed by the Germans and if he stays put he will be blown into pieces by his own bomb.

The Heights of Zervos opens with a bang, and while there is never much doubt of the story’s outcome, it maintains the suspense throughout, and, amazingly, the roll out of the story is surprising.  Macomber moves from the rail yard to a ferry between Turkey and Greece, and finally to Mount Zervos, and he does it all while dodging Germans and their bullets, impersonating an Abwehr officer, and racing a storm up Mount Zervos.

The power of the story is in its straight ahead mentality.  It moves forward with a strong pace, and the plot twists enough to keep it interesting.  Mr Forbes’ skill is in crafting a tale, which is expertly plotted with a setting developed enough to make the reader believe the action:

“It was the third night of April and Rumania was still gripped by winter, still showed no inkling of spring on the way, still lay numbed under the icy wind which flowed from the east, from the Russain steppes and Siberia beyond.”               

The elements are as much an antagonist as are the German soldiers—the snow and ice as Macomber approaches the summit of Mount Zervos represent more risk to him than the Germans.  There are a handful of scenes that actually caused me discomfort.  In one a British soldier is bound, feet and hands, in a dark cabin on the ferry between Turkey and Zervos, which caused an unsettling claustrophobia. 

The Heights of Zervos is something better than average in the genre.  It certainly has weaknesses—Macomber is a little too super and everything seems to work out a little too well—but the action and pace, setting and description, more than cover its flaws.  If you enjoy the genre you won’t mind this one at all.   

New HBO Drama: "True Detective"

“True Detective” is a new HBO crime drama starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrleson.  It was created by Nic Pizzolato, and it is schedule to hit the air in January 2014.  Click Here for the Hollywood Report article.

DEATH WAITS AT DAKINS STATION by Merle Constiner

I discovered the work of Merle Constiner a few years ago, and while I haven’t read much outside the westerns he wrote for Ace in the 1960s and 70s, he has become one of my favorite pulp western writers.  I recently read his fine novel Death Waits at Dakins Station, and in my estimation it is the best novel he wrote for Ace.

Brady Willet is a young out of work cow puncher.  The novel opens with Willet standing in the rain outside the only saloon in a small Montana town.  He was paid off his last job in Wyoming, and he is making his way north to Canada for the winter.  He is approached by a man in a doe skin shirt who offers him $10 to take a simple message to a Mr Lustrell at Dakins Station. 

The message: “Shaw can’t make it.”    

It seems a simple enough task, and since Willet has only 35 cents to his name he readily agrees.  Unfortunately when he arrives at the long abandoned Dakins Station the task isn’t simple at all, and Brady’s involvement with Mr Lustrell causes him more than a few problems.  Lustrell has money trouble, and someone is trying to acquire his Box L ranch.  The interested party isn’t interested in “no” and Lustrell is worried for his own safety and that of his daughter.

Death Waits at Dakins Station is as much a mystery as a western.  It features a plot that keeps the reader guessing—and in my case mostly guessing wrong—and there is an unexpected, and very rewarding, climactic twist.  I was reminded of Ed Gorman’s westerns; particularly the deft weaving of a mystery plot into the trappings of a traditional western.  Not to mention the humor, which is the primary element that raises the novel above the ordinary— 

“‘I can’t abide this room,’ said Lustrell.  ‘I wish I was in my bedroom.’

“‘I wish I was in the Lucky Dollar Poolroom in Yuma,’ said Willet. ‘The smell was cerveza, chili, and sweat’

“They ran out of talk.”

Death Waits at Dakins Station is a premium western.  It is short, running 110 pages in mass market, and it is one of the most skilfully executed westerns I’ve read.  The plot is perfectly designed to satisfy both a western and a mystery.  The prose is stark, dry, and instilled with humor.  There is the requisite action.  Willet is bushwacked, beaten, and even chain whipped.  And at its best, it displays nearly all of these attributes at once—

“This one, the man in the hairy chaps, had his riflebutt almost to his armpit to draw his bead when Willet blasted him.  He shot twice.  Hip-shooting riflemen didn’t worry Willet too much, bead-drawing riflemen sure as hell did.”  

The characters all perfectly match the story, but Mr Constiner adds a quirky oddness to most, including a foul smelling hide-buyer named Meacham, who, when Willet meets him, explains in humorous detail how to recognize a good hide.  This is a title you should find and read, with no worry of regret.  

Death Wait at Dakins Station was published as Ace Double No. 14195 in 1970 with Ransome’s Debt by Kyle Hollingshead.

CRY OF THE HUNTER by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

Cry of the Hunter is the second novel published by Harry Patterson.  It was released as a hardcover by John Long in 1960.  It is an interesting novel for a few reasons.  It is the first of Patterson’s novels to feature the Irish Republican Army, which is referred to as the Organization throughout, and the protagonist is familiar to the regular reader of Patterson’s work—Martin Fallon.  Mr Patterson used the Fallon moniker as a nom de plume for six of his early thrillers, and Martin Fallon, although a different Fallon, appeared in the 1973 novel A Prayer for the Dying.    

Martin Fallon is a legend in the Organization.  He joined the IRA at 17, and was the leader of the Ulster Organization at 22, and served nine years at the Dartmoor Prison before escaping to Ireland where he lives in the rural County Cavan.  Fallon earns a living writing nondescript thrillers, drinks too much, and is generally hiding from the world.  His comfortable, if not satisfying, life is interrupted when an old associate seeks him out with a special job. 

Patrick Rogan, leader of the Ulster Organization, has been arrested and he has sent out an ultimatum.  If he isn’t busted out before he reaches Belfast he will spill everything he knows about the Organization in exchange for a reduced sentence.  Rogan is not well liked, but he knows enough to set the IRA back years.  Fallon isn’t keen on getting back into the game, but he allows himself to be manipulated, and soon he is back in Northern Ireland on a mission to rescue Rogan.

Cry of the Hunter is the footprint for many of Mr Patterson’s later novels featuring Irish anti-heroes.  The protagonist is a man fallen far below his station; in this case Martin Fallon is a product of Queen’s University, and in the words of his favorite professor—“a fine man ruined and a good mind wasted.”  He is as much a man of ideas as he is of action.  He is an idealist who knows his actions are less than ideal, and the dialogue is that of the standard Harry Patterson Irish rogue—think Liam Devlin, and Sean Dillon.

The action doesn’t play out exactly as expected—the tension of the story is between Martin Fallon and Patrick Rogan rather than Martin Fallon and the Constabulary.  It is plotted with Mr Patterson’s deft hand, and the character of Martin Fallon is developed beyond just a simple cut out.  Fallon is a romantic who is afraid he has lost his nerve, and he also fears the Organization’s momentum.  The good men are being replaced by sociopathic hoods, which is exactly what Rogan is.

The prose is sharp, stark, seemingly simple, and at places almost lyrical—

“It was a fine morning with a clear sky and the sun was beginning to lift above the horizon.  He drove in silence for half an hour and then the girl spoke.”

Cry of the Hunter is plainly one of Harry Patterson’s first novels—it suffers from a naïve exuberance of ideas and mood—but it is a good example of a quick, exciting, and entertaining thriller.  The action scenes are well written—

“Fallon moved so quickly that Doolan didn’t stand a chance.  A fist caught him high on the right cheek and he stumbled, tripped over a loose rug and fell heavily to the floor.” 

And the mood is something shifting between brooding despondence—it rains for more than half of the novel—and naïve hope, but it does so with the slightest touch of humor—

“He started to walk faster.  It wouldn’t do to collapse in the street.  That would be stupid.”

—and a bushel of romantic ideas.  There are also a few terrific terms I wasn’t familiar with.  One example is referring to the police as “peelers,” which is a slang term derived from Sir Robert Peel’s surname; the founder of the Irish Constabulary.

Cry of the Hunter is worth reading on its own merits, but it is even more interesting (and possibly entertaining) as a study of Harry Patterson’s craft, and just how far it advanced from this novel to its younger siblings with similar plot structures (i. e. A Prayer for the Dying, and The Savage Day).

THE LAST TOMB by John Lange (Michael Crichton)

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Michael Crichton published eight thrillers under the pseudonym John Lange.  The Lange novels are something very different than the science fiction Michael Crichton became famous for writing.  They are thrillers more in the vein of Desmond Bagley, early Jack Higgins, and Gavin Lyall, and I like them much more than Crichton’s big bestsellers.

Harold Barnaby is an Egyptologist in an age when nothing new or interesting is happening in the field.  His specialty is hieroglyphics, and while translating a text he discovers a reference to the tomb of an obscure Pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings.  In earlier years Barnaby dreamed of the glory of discovering an Egyptian tomb, but now, at the age of 41, he is less interested in glory and more interested in wealth.  He approaches a freelance writer named Robert Pierce with an ambitious plan to loot the tomb, which he estimates to be worth, in 1968 dollars, $50 million.

The novel is written in third person, and is structured in three titled acts—The Plan, The Search, and The Last Tomb.  The scene titles are self-descriptive.  The Plan introduces the genesis of the idea, the plan, and the compilation of the team.  The team arrives in Egypt in the second act, and the third act is the resolution.

The Last Tomb is all story.  It opens with a flash, and it races from the first page to the last.  The setting is surprisingly rich, and provides, in stark prose, the sounds, smells, and sights of the land—

“The land was flat, desolate, windy; there was no vegetation, no sign of life.”

“The modern traveler’s first view of Egypt is appropriate: Cairo airport, set out in the flat, brown sand of the desert stretching away in silent heat for miles.  It is a landscape that communicates, quite distinctly, a sense of agelessness, unchanging, interminable.”

“The villages were all the same—mud huts, dusty streets, and date-palm trees, stately camels and barking, hungry dogs.”

The Last Tomb is a thriller as thrillers were meant to be.  It is quick, light, and entertaining as hell.  There isn’t the slightest bit of character development, but it is populated with an exotic group of characters.  There is the wealthy British nobleman financing the operation on a whim who travels with, at a minimum, two young ladies, there is the smuggler, and the thief.  It is exciting, and with just enough of a twist at the end to bring a smile.

The Last Tomb was published by Bantam in 1974.  It was originally published as Easy Go by Signet in 1968, and it is scheduled to be reissued as Easy Go by Hard Case Crime later this year.  It was Michael Crichton’s third published novel, and it is among the best, behind only Binary, of the John Lange titles.

The forthcoming Hard Case Crime edition, which will be published as Michael Crichton for the first time, has artwork strikingly similar to the old suspense novel Valley of the Assassins by Ian MacAlister.

SAD WIND FROM THE SEA by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

Sad Wind from the Sea is the first novel published by Harry Patterson.  It was released as a hardcover by John Long in 1959.  It was a difficult title to find in the United States until it was recently released as a print on demand trade paperback and ebook by Open Road Integrated Media.

Sad Wind is a familiar story to readers of Jack Higgins.  It has a similar plot to both the The Khufra Run, and The Keys of Hell, but while it is familiar, it is a very enjoyable read.  Mark Hagen is a fallen American naval officer who, with his boat Hurrier, makes a living smuggling, gun running, and illegally pearling.  When the novel opens Hagen is on the Portuguese Island of Macao; Hurrier was impounded by customs, and Hagen is down to his last few petakas without any way to get his boat back, or earn a living.

Hagen’s prospects change when he rescues a beautiful Indo-Chinese (think Vietnamese) girl from two attackers in a rough part of Macao.  The girl’s name is Rose Graham, and she tells Hagen she was meeting a friend about retrieving $250,000 of sunken gold when she was attacked.  Her father was smuggling the gold out of North Vietnam and his boat sank in the Kwai marshes.  Hagen quickly devises a plan to retrieve the gold, but it all hinges on getting is boat out impound, and finding a willing financier.

Sad Wind has all of the elements of a solid 1950s adventure novel.  It includes the requisite communist plot; in this case a Russian named Kossoff who wants the gold for himself, and his Chinese helpers.  There is an array of underworld characters including Charlie Beale, owner of a casino, and Clara Boydell, madam of the best “house” in Macao.  The plot is intricate, and the prose is pure Higgins—stark, tight, smooth, and surprisingly atmospheric. 

“When Hagen emerged from the gambling casino at the back of Charle Beale’s café he was drunk.  He heard the door click into place behind him and for a moment he stood swaying as the cold night air cut into his lungs.”    

There are also some really neat cultural references from the 1950s.  Hagen hands out a Benzedrine—an amphetamine better known as a bennie—to Rose and says, “[T]hey’re harmless.”  When they are deciding where to run with the gold Hagen says, “Not England—killed by taxes these days,” which foreshadows Mr Patterson’s hasty move to the Isle of Jersey when The Eagle Has Landed pushed his income into the millions.  There is also what appears to be an error in the text when Mark Hagen refers to Ireland as his childhood home, which is rather odd for an American—

“For a moment he shivered as he remembered stories he had heard as a child of fairy pools back home in Ireland…”

Sad Wind from the Sea is Harry Patterson’s earliest novel, but it is really very good.  And while it is familiar, and Mr Patterson does have a tendency to repeat himself, the familiarity didn’t take anything from the novel or my enjoyment of the story.  It is similar to some of the early Gold Medal adventure titles; specifically Wade Miller’s Devil May Care.  If you enjoy the old style adventure novels, or just Jack Higgins, you will have a good time with this title.

NEMESIS by Bill Pronzini

Nemesis is the 38^th novel—say that aloud and it sounds even more impressive—featuring Bill Pronzini’s Nameless Detective.  It is also an excellent entry in the series.  Jake Runyon, a long time operative of Nameless’s detective agency, takes an extortion job.  The client is a woman named Verity Daniels; Ms Daniels received a sizable inheritance from an uncle, and a crude caller is demanding $10,000 in exchange for keeping evidence of a felony from the police. 

Ms Daniels hires Jake to find the blackmailer, and she insists there is nothing in her past that would send her to jail.  Runyon finds it odd the client doesn’t want the police involved, but goes about his business in his usual competent and professional manner.  But when Ms Daniels fails to record two telephone calls from the extortionist, and then the blackmailer doesn’t turn up at the money drop, Jake’s suspicions are piqued.

Nemesis is a beautifully written and executed novel.  It is told in three distinct sections and voices; each is narrated by a different character with Nameless appearing, and taking over the action, in the third scene.  The mystery is a slow roll, and it is cleverly plotted (and paced) to keep the reader uneasy.  The reader knows something isn’t right about the set-up from early on, but it is difficult to guess exactly what Ms Daniels’ game is, and how it is going to play out.

The prose is Mr Pronzini’s usual; simply put, flawlessly smooth, and at times, almost beautiful—

“There was no way I was going to spend another day hanging and rattling in the city, going through motions, waiting for something to happen.”

The story is unusual, shockingly simple—a simplicity only a true artist can create—and highly entertaining.  In short, Nemesis may be the 38^th novel to feature Nameless, but it is anything but a tired and bland retread.  Instead it is an entry that makes the series seem new and alive, and I hope it isn’t the last.   

Purchase a copy on Amazon.