Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Story Magazine, January 14, 1928

Those hombres look like there's fixin' to be a necktie party. I don't want to be the guest of honor at that one! This issue of WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, one of the most venerable of the Western pulps, features the first installment of a Max Brand serial, "Weakling of the Wild", which would be published by Dodd, Mead a few years later as the novel HUNTED RIDERS. I don't own this issue, but I do have a copy of the novel version and hope to get around to reading it one of these days. Also to be found in this issue are stories by Robert J. Horton (Walt Coburn's mentor and an author I really need to try), Frank Richardson Pierce (as Seth Ranger), Robert Ormond Case, Ray Humphreys, Harley P. Lathrop, and Roland Krebs (no idea if he's related to Maynard G.). The cover art on this issue is by Gayle Hoskins.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: No Wings on a Cop - Cleve F. Adams (and Robert Leslie Bellem)

Like SHADY LADY and CONTRABAND, NO WINGS ON A COP is another novel published under Cleve F. Adams’s name that was actually expanded by Robert Leslie Bellem from an Adams pulp story into a novel. Bellem and Adams were good friends, and I seem to recall reading that Bellem wrote those novels as a favor to Adams’s widow. Of course, I imagine Bellem got a cut of the money, too. If I’m wrong about any of that, I hope someone who knows more about the situation will correct me. Also, I’m not sure which Adams story served as the basis for this book. It might be “Clean Sweep”, from the August 24, 1940 issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, which, according to the Fictionmags Index, features police lieutenant John J. Shannon, the hero of NO WINGS ON A COP. If anyone knows for sure, again please let us know in the comments.

With that bit of background out of the way, how is NO WINGS ON A COP as a novel? Pretty darned good, that’s what it is. When the story opens, Lt. Shannon’s boss and good friend, Captain Grady, has already been murdered, and the killing has been pinned on gambler Floyd Duquesne, who evidently had been paying off Grady for protection. Shannon doesn’t believe that his friend was crooked, of course, and sets out to find the real killer. Almost as soon as he begins his investigation, though, somebody plants a bomb in his car. Shannon survives the explosion, but his left arm is broken, so for the rest of the book he’s going around with his arm in a cast and a sling, which proves pretty inconvenient at times but ultimately comes in handy on at least one occasion.

All the action in the book takes place in less than twenty-four hours, and it’s a whirlwind pace, as you might expect. Shannon clashes with the acting chief of police (the regular chief is out of town), gets kicked off the force, gets hit on the head and knocked out, trades banter with his girlfriend, who’s a beautiful model, has a couple of shootouts with hired killers, has a beautiful redheaded stripper try to seduce him, and runs up against an assortment of crooked cops, corrupt politicians, big-time gamblers, and dangerous hoodlums. It’s all great fun, with a complex plot that Shannon finally sorts out at the end. I’ve been reading this sort of hardboiled detective novel for more than forty years now and still get a big kick out of a good one, which NO WINGS ON A COP certainly is.

Bellem’s writing is as smooth and fast and enjoyable as ever, and knowing the background of the book’s authorship gives it an added level of humor. There’s a mention of a cab driver reading an issue of the DAN TURNER, HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE comic book, some of the characters sit around and drink Vat 69, Turner’s favorite hooch, and Bellem even writes himself into the book as a character, bank officer Robert B. Leslie: “The guy was a middle-aged man with slightly wavy hair, a thickening middle and a mustache of which he seemed inordinately vain.” Although Adams might have been responsible for some of that in the original story, I don’t know. He and Bellem were friends, after all.

NO WINGS ON A COP was originally published by Handi-Books in 1950 and later reprinted by Harlequin. As far as I know, it’s been out of print for more than fifty years now, and it ought to be a prime candidate for reprinting by one of the small presses. This is one of those books that sat on my shelves for years without me getting around to reading it, then was lost in the fire. I replaced it not long ago and decided that I’d better get it read. I’m glad I did. Highly recommended.

(This post appeared originally on April 16, 2010. Since that time, NO WINGS ON A COP still hasn't been reprinted. One of these days . . .)

A Middle of the Night Music Post: I'll Love You - Joe Sample

Man, this is really a restful, relaxing song. Just what I need on a night like this. 

Review: Rancho Bravo #1: Calhoon - Thorne Douglas (Ben Haas)

Last week I reran a review of a Ben Haas novel from some years back, and that put me in the mood to read another Western by him. For decades, I’ve been meaning to read his Rancho Bravo novels, a five-book series published by Fawcett in the Seventies under the pseudonym Thorne Douglas. I know an omen when I see one, so I dug out my copy of CALHOON, the first book in the series.

Lucius Calhoon comes to Texas right after the Civil War. A former Confederate cavalry captain, he’s lost the plantation he owned in South Carolina and also lost his right hand to torture he was subjected to in a Yankee prison camp. The man responsible for that torture was a young Union officer named Gordon Weymouth. Weymouth is supposed to be in Texas, at a town in the South Texas brush country along the Nueces River. Unlike many former Confederates, Calhoon doesn’t head for Texas to make a fresh start. He’s there for one reason and one reason only: to kill Gordon Weymouth.

And of course, things don’t work out that way. Calhoon rescues a former slave from a lynching attempt and befriends a flat broke rancher who has a big spread of chapparal and thousands of mostly wild longhorns. The rancher, Henry Gannon, is going to lose the ranch to the corrupt Reconstruction judge the Yankees have put in charge of the area, who just happens to be Gordon Weymouth’s father. Calhoon throws in with Gannon and the former slave, Elias Whitton, and decides to help them achieve their dream of driving Gannon’s cattle to West Texas and establishing a ranch there, in the middle of Comanche country, to be called Rancho Bravo. The local commander of the Yankee occupation forces, Captain Philip Killraine, is sympathetic to their cause, as is his beautiful sister Evelyn.

Unfortunately, that may not be enough to allow the partners to stand up to the political corruption and greed of the Weymouths, father and son, and the violence of the brutal Regulators who work for them.

CALHOON is a flat-out superb Western novel. Haas manipulates his plot skillfully, piling up trouble and more trouble on his heroes. Lucius Calhoon, as the protagonist of this book, comes in for the most character development, and he’s a fascinating individual, very demon-haunted and not even all that likable at times, but always sympathetic to the reader. The other characters are interesting, as well, including the villainous Weymouths. And of course, there’s plenty of the great action you’d expect in a Ben Haas novel. He was one of the best there ever was at writing both close combat (fistfights and knife fights) and epic, large-scale battles.

I galloped through this book and enjoyed every page of it. I think it’s one of the best Ben Haas novels I’ve ever read. And it’s really just the opening chapter in a much bigger tale. I suspect I’ll be reading the second book in the Rancho Bravo series very soon. CALHOON is available in an e-book edition from the fine folks at Piccadilly Publishing, and so are the rest of the books in the series.

Movies I've Missed Until Now: The Chaperone (2018)

We’re fans of the TV show DOWNTON ABBEY, so when we came across this DVD at the library that said, “From the writer and director of DOWNTON ABBEY”, we figured it might be worth watching. As it turns out, Julian Fellowes wrote the screenplay, but it’s based on a novel by Laura Moriarty. And while DOWNTON ABBEY is so very British, THE CHAPERONE is pure Americana.

This movie opens in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, as 16-year-old Louise Brooks is about to head off to New York to study at a famous dance studio. The thing is, she needs a chaperone to go with her. A local woman played by Elizabeth McGovern (Lady Grantham, Lord Grantham’s American-born wife on DOWNTON ABBEY) volunteers for the job. They head off to New York for various romances, scandals, and dramatic revelations that verge on the soap operatic. As a longtime fan of soap operas, that’s fine with me.

And I enjoyed this based-on-a-true-story drama, too. The pace is leisurely, and the tone is genteel for the most part, although some more sordid parts of life crop up every now and then. The acting and the production values are very good. I think the movie captures the time period quite well.

Although there’s a framing sequence set in the 1940s, the main story ends before Louise Brooks becomes a big star in silent movies and her career then falls apart for various reasons. It bothered me a little that there’s absolutely no mention in THE CHAPERONE that her final film was OVERLAND STAGE RAIDERS, one of the entries in the Three Mesquiteers series with John Wayne as Stony Brooke, Ray Corrigan as Tucson Smith, and Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin. It probably won’t come as a surprise to any of you that that’s actually the only Louise Brooks movie I’ve ever seen . . .

Review: Above the Fog - Erle Stanley Gardner (Flyers, February 1930)

I suspect I’ve been reading Erle Stanley Gardner longer than any other author. It would have been 1963 or ’64 when I checked out my first Gardner novel from the bookmobile. It was one of the Donald Lam/Bertha Cool series published under the pseudonym A.A. Fair, and the bookmobile clerk probably shouldn’t have let a ten-year-old check it out, but he knew I was already reading above my grade level, so to speak. And I’ve continued to read Gardner’s work, at least two or three books a year, sometimes more, ever since. I’ve never read anything by him that I didn’t enjoy, either.

That trend continues with “Above the Fog”, a novelette published in the February 1930 issue of the little-remembered aviation pulp FLYERS. Dave Flint is a pilot who flew in the Great War, but as the story opens on a foggy dawn, he’s working at the Oakland airport with a buddy from the war who laments that they don’t have any action or excitement in their lives anymore.

Then a beautiful woman comes flying out of the fog, accidentally drops her purse before she flies off again when she realizes she’s being pursued, and Dave sets out to track her down, return her bag, and help her with whatever trouble she’s in. This lands him in a day-long whirlwind of fistfights, shootouts, and high-flying dogfights as he attempts not only to locate the girl but also to solve a murder and find a missing millionaire.

Gardner never lets the pace slow down for more than a moment or two as he heaps trouble and danger on Dave Flint’s head. The characterization may not be very deep, but who cares? This novelette moves. And Dave is a likable and fairly smart guy. Gardner’s descriptions of flying and the weather achieve a sort of rough-hewn poetry in places. He was a great storyteller and a better writer than he often got credit for.

I enjoyed “Above the Fog”. It’s available to download as a PDF on the Age of Aces website, along with a lot of other great aviation pulp fiction. If you’re a Gardner fan, you’ll probably want to read this rarity.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: 10 Action Adventures, January 1939

10 ACTION ADVENTURES appeared for only one issue in 1939, despite this being listed as Volume 1, Number 3. The newsstands must have been just a little too crowded for it to find its audience, because it looks like a pretty good adventure pulp. The cover is by Norman Saunders, and inside are stories by E. Hoffmann Price (with his name misspelled on the cover), Arthur J. Burks, Carl Rathjen, Lurton Blassingame (Wyatt's brother and better remembered as a literary agent), William J. Langford, and house-names Paul Adams, Ralph Powers, Rexton Archer, Cliff Howe, and Clint Douglas. I have no idea who wrote the house-name stories, but Price is always a possibility. I wonder if Ace Magazines, the publisher, even intended for 10 ACTION ADVENTURES to continue past this one issue, or if it was some sort of clearing house to get rid of some inventory. Chances are we'll never know, but if anybody is aware of the circumstances, I'd love to hear about it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Wild West Weekly, July 18, 1936

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. The excellent cover by R.G. Harris illustrates a scene from the lead novelette by Walker A. Tompkins, “Tommy Rockford’s Coffin Clew”.

In this installment of Tompkins’ long-running series about the young railroad detective who carries a pair of gold-plated handcuffs, Rockford arrives in an isolated Arizona settlement on a stormy night in pursuit of a notorious train robber. However, when he gets there he discovers that his quarry has already been brought to justice, drilled in a gunfight with the local sheriff. Then the sheriff himself turns up dead, and Tommy has to solve his murder. This is one of those stories where the big plot twist is pretty obvious, but that doesn’t stop Tompkins from spinning it into a very entertaining yarn with his usual skill. I was a little disappointed in the last Tommy Rockford story I read, but not this one. It’s well-written, atmospheric, and suspenseful. Also, I didn’t figure out the “coffin clew” of the title, so that’s one final surprise Tompkins saves for the story’s last paragraph. Fine work in this one.

Hal Davenport wrote a lot of stories under the various WILD WEST WEEKLY house-names, including more than 20 novelettes in the Billy West and Circle J series as Cleve Endicott. His story in this issue, “Six-guns Say No”, is a stand-alone published under his own name. It’s a range war yarn as a young rancher fights to defend the waterhole on which his spread depends from a bunch of no-good crooks trying to steal it. This story is almost all action, and while there’s nothing in it we haven’t seen many, many times before, Davenport does a good job of storytelling and comes up with an entertaining tale.

Samuel H. Nickels also wrote prolifically under house-names for WILD WEST WEEKLY, but under his own name he authored almost 140 short stories about a pair of young Texas Rangers named “Hungry” Hawkins and “Rusty” Bolivar. In this issue’s Hungry and Rusty yarn, “Rangers’ Rescue”, our intrepid pair set out to find a rancher’s son who’s been kidnapped by outlaws. This is another tale that’s almost all action. This is the first Hungry and Rusty story I’ve read. I enjoyed it and found them a very likable pair of protagonists. Definitely wouldn’t mind reading more of these.

Guy L. Maynard was another regular house-name scribe but also wrote several popular series under his own name, the longest-running of which featured a character called Señor Red Mask. He wrote a dozen stories featuring a redheaded cowboy, trail driver, and adventurer known as Flame Burns. Some legendary historical Old West characters appeared in these as well, much like the Rio Kid series. In this issue’s novelette, “Death Riders of Dodge”, Flame is in Dodge City, having just delivered a herd of cattle he brought up the trail from Texas. He’s set upon by outlaws and robbed of the payoff for that herd, and the rest of the story concerns his efforts to get the money back and avenge the death of a friend in a shootout. He gets some help in this from none other than Calamity Jane, who bears only a passing resemblance to the historical Calamity Jane. There’s one mention of her nursing the sick during an epidemic, and other than that she’s strictly the fictional version that’s shown up in so many movies, TV shows, and novels. This is the first thing I’ve read by Maynard, as far as I know, and when I read it, I wasn’t very impressed by it. It seemed a little too simple and juvenile. It’s sticking with me more than I expected, though. I’ll have to read more by Maynard to form a worthwhile opinion of his work.

“King of Colts” is by Charles M. Martin, who sometimes wrote as Chuck Martin. It’s a vengeance yarn, as a young rancher sets out after the three outlaws responsible for the death of the grandfather who raised him. That’s all there is to it, but Martin writes in a terse style that I enjoy, and since he was an actual cowboy, like Walt Coburn, his work has a strong sense of authenticity. Also like Coburn, Martin wound up taking his own life by hanging, which is a shame. He was a pretty darned good writer.

There are some assorted features and one other piece of fiction in this issue, the novelette “Whizz Fargo Springs a Murder Trap” by George C. Henderson. This is one of six linked novelettes about Whizz Fargo that were fixed up into the novel WHIZZ FARGO, GUNFIGHTER. I happen to own a copy of that novel, so I skipped the story in this issue, preferring to read it in the novel version. Which I’ll get around to soon, I hope. I’ve read some stories by Henderson in the past and enjoyed them, as far as I recall.

Overall, this is a good but not great issue of WILD WEST WEEKLY. Tompkins’ Tommy Rockford story is definitely the highlight. The other stories are all perfectly readable and entertaining, but they didn’t really make a strong impression on me. Having said that, I’m glad I read it and believe it’s worth your time if you happen to own a copy of it.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Alaska Steel - John Benteen (Ben Haas)

This is the second volume in Ben Haas’s outstanding series about soldier of fortune Neal Fargo. It opens in Hollywood in 1914, where Fargo is working temporarily as an actor, of all things, playing a villain in a silent Western movie directed by Thomas Ince. Ince is the only real-life character to make an appearance in this novel; the hero of the picture is fictional, as is a beautiful actress Fargo meets.

Ince wants Fargo to continue making movies and claims that he can be a big star, but Fargo isn’t interested in make-believe. Having lived a life of adventure, he needs the real thing. So when the actress, Jane Deering, asks him to go to Alaska and find out what happened to her husband, who disappeared there several years earlier while prospecting for gold, Fargo agrees without hesitation. He’s less enthusiastic about the idea of Jane coming along with him to look for the missing man, but she convinces him.

Naturally, things don’t go well, and Fargo and Jane wind up in all sorts of danger in the gold fields of the untamed Yukon country. There are vigilantes, a mysterious killer, blizzards, and assorted mushing around on dog sleds and snowshoes. As usual, Haas spins his yarn in tough, hardboiled prose without a wasted word to be found. He’s one of the best pure action writers I’ve ever run across. This one shows a few signs of hurried writing, but the story sweeps along at such a swift pace I didn’t really care. ALASKA STEEL is a prime example of a short, gritty adventure novel, and like all of Ben Haas’s work that I’ve ever encountered, it’s well worth reading.

(This post originally appeared on April 23, 2010. In the years since then, ALASKA STEEL has been reprinted in an e-book edition by Piccadilly Publishing, along with the other Fargo books by Ben Haas. The whole series gets a very high recommendation from me, even though I actually haven't read all of them, even at this late date. I need to get on that. Also, the copy pictured in the scan is the one I read, and I can tell from the price sticker on it that it came from the Used Book Warehouse in Rockport, Texas, which still exists but is in a different building now since its original location was heavily damaged by Hurricane Harvey. I spent a lot of very pleasant hours browsing through the place and still miss it.)

Review: Cornered - Louis King

Louis King got his start in show business as an actor in silent films and then became a director, going on to direct almost a hundred movies and TV episodes. He specialized in Westerns and adventure pictures. I’m bound to have seen some of the TV Westerns he directed in the Fifties. He wrote one novel, the crime/suspense yarn CORNERED, which was published originally as half of an Ace Double in 1958 and has just been reprinted by Black Gat Books in paperback and e-book editions.

Steve Grogan is a cop, a detective who kept on working even after he married an heiress who died giving birth to their daughter and left him a wealthy man. Money doesn’t mean much to Grogan, though. He only cares about the law—and about that daughter, a three-year-old named Betsy.

So when Grogan is the only one who can testify against a shadowy mob boss and put the guy away for murder, he takes off with Betsy and goes into hiding when it becomes obvious that the mobster will try to strike at him through the little girl. He has a couple of friends helping him, another former cop and a woman who was a carnival sharpshooter. They lie low at a motel in some unnamed desert city—Las Vegas? Reno?—but the mobster has allies, too, and he’ll stop at nothing to track down Grogan and keep from testifying any way possible, including murder.

CORNERED is a good story with some clever twists along the way. Not jaw-dropping twists, maybe, but the sort that make you smile and nod your head in appreciation. Grogan is a well-developed protagonist with some actual depth, and his mobster nemesis is really creepy. The prose is pretty straight-ahead stuff, the sort of writing you’d expect from a no-nonsense movie director who would bring in his pictures on time and under budget, but it’s very effective storytelling.

I got caught up in this book and was really flipping the pages toward the end. CORNERED is a top-notch suspense novel and well worth reading.