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BOB McKNIGHT – Secret Sinners. Merit 355, paperback original; 1st printing, June 1960. Or, perhaps as an alternate title, The Case of Cocky Robin. No kidding. Attorney Arch Behan is hired by Cocky’s sister, to locate him after he turns up missing. Just as in The Bikini Bombshell (reviewed here), the story takes place in Florida, and involves gun-running to Castro’s rebels. And lots of naked, willing women. This is a story for red-blooded males, that is for sure. The swamp girl who wants Arch to…
AVRAM DAVIDSON – The Island Under the Earth. Ace SF Special; paperback original. 1st printing, 1969. Cover art: Leo Dillon & Diane Dillon. Although published as an ACE SF Special, this is pure fantasy, living legend stuff, with centaurs, gnomes, harpies, and humans, all inhabiting some kind of counter-Earth, which may somehow justify the SF part of the label. I didn’t finish the book, I have to confess, quitting after page 120, at which point new characters were being introduced and with no…
EARL W. EMERSON – Nervous Laughter. PI Thomas Black #3. Avon, paperback original; 1st printing, January 1986. PI Thomas Black is in danger of falling in love with his client in this case, a woman whose husband is accused of killing a young girl he was sleeping with, then shooting himself. The nervous laughter in the title is hers (see page 86). Emerson has s smooth, readable writing style that starts the book off well, but the story is all on the surface. Black takes a lot of physical abuse in…
ARTHUR C. CLARKE “Out of the Sun.” First published in If, February 1958. Collected in The Other Side of the Sky (Harcourt, Brace & Co., hardcover, 1958). Reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF, edited by Mike Ashley (among several other anthologies). This is the lead story in the latter book, and it’s a good one (both the story and the anthology). It’s told by a research scientist studying the sun from the ideal vantage point of the planet Mercury. Although he is not the only person on…
Reviewed by Tony Baer: VICTOR HEADLEY – Yardie. The X Press, UK, hardcover, 1992. Pan Books, UK. paperback, 1993, 2018. Atlantic Monthly Press, US, hardcover, 1992. D. is a mid-level coke dealer in Kingston, Jamaica. His outfit sends him to London with a British passport and a couple bags of coke. He’s met by the London contacts at the airport and they head for a house to complete the deal. D.’s job is to hand over the coke, get the money, hang out for a bit, and fly home with the dough. But…
Codes and Ciphers by Robert C. S. Adey. Originally published in The Mystery Lover’s Newsletter, 1969. Vol II No. 6, pp. 10/11: Like so many other things, Mr. Edgar Allan Poe started it all, though this time the illustrious forerunner was not the much-cited “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, but instead that equally fine quintessence of its form, “The Gold-Bug.” Published in 1843 and yet, today, still as readable as ever, it is the first detective story where the major detection was not that of a…
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Marcia Muller EDITH PIÑERO GREEN – Rotten Apples. Dearborn V. Pinch #1. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1977. Berkley, paperback, 1982. Dearborn V. Pinch is described by one of Ms. Green’s publishers as “the world’s oldest and cleverest detective.” At well over seventy, the former at least may be true. Pinch, a charming and enterprising old gentleman who still has a sharp eye for the ladies, receives a visit from old flame Antoinette Ormach, who reveals her long-standing…
Back to the Wells, Part 6: The Food of the Gods by Matthew R. Bradley Paul Lehr’s vivid 1967 painting to illustrate H.G. Wells’s The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904) is the least representational of his quintet for my beloved Berkley Highland editions. In muted earth tones, it depicts rocky hills and a plain occupied by tiny crowds of people and several giant eggs, plus a huge, newly hatched chick; the largest is in the foreground, with a crack through which what appears to be a…
JOHN FARR – The Deadly Combo. Ace Double D-301, paperback original; 1st printing, 1959. Published back-to-back with Murder Isn’t Funny, by J. Harvey Bond (reviewed here). Mac Stewart us only a cop in a prowl car, but when the body of Dandy Mullens is found, the captain gives Mac the freedom he needs to bring the killer in. Dandy was a great musician, once upon a time, and Mac was a friend, even when the other man fell upon hard times. The first half of this story has a beat, the beat of the…
PHILIP K. DICK – Galactic Pot-Healer. Berkley X1705, paperback original; 1st printing, June 1969. Cover art: Sandy Kossin. Reprinted a number of times. Joe Farnwright, pot-healer, living a spider’s existence in a garish, nightmarish world on Earth, afraid of failure, lacking in self-knowledge, is hired by Glimmung, of Plawman’s Planet, to help in the raiding of the ancient cathedral Holdscalla. Glimmung corresponds to Faust, never satisfied, willing to sacrifice himself to learn the extent of…
J. HARVEY BOND – Murder Isn’t Funny. Mike Lanson #3. Ace Double D-301, paperback original, 1959. Published back-to-back with The Deadly Combo, by John Farr (to be reviewed here on this blog soon). J. Harvey Bond was the pen name of Russ Winterbotham (1904-1971), who was probably better known as a writer of science fiction, both novels and short stories, starting as far back as 1935 and “The Star That Would Not Behave” as R. R. Winterbotham in the August issue of Astounding SF for that year. All…
BADMAN’S TERRITORY. RKO Radio Pictures, 1946. Randolph Scott, Ann Richards, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes, Ray Collins, Chief Thundercloud, Lawrence Tierney, Tom Tyler, Steve Brodie, Isabel Jewell. Director: Tim Whelan. Back in the late 1800s, or so, as the narrator of this film tells us, the Oklahoma panhandle was a land of without law, where gangs of gunslingers congregated and ruled the towns they lived in. Enter Randolph Scott, a lawman in search of his brother, facing every outlaw in the West. I…
C. P. DONNEL, JR. “The Fourth Degree.” Duc Rennie #2, First appeared in Black Mask, February 1941. Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December 1953. I don’t know very much about C, P. Donnel, Jr., the teller of this tale, nor his hero Doc Rennie. I believe in fact that this is my first time reading anything by the author. In a post on his Pulpflakes blog, Sai Shankar tells us that Donnel (1906-1977) was “a crime reporter on the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot for a decade before switching to…
VENTURE SCIENCE FICTION – August 1969. Editor: Edward L. Ferman. Cover art: Bert Tanner. Overall rating: **** JULIUS FAST “The League of Grey-Eyed Women.” Novel. Published separately later by Lippincott (hardcover, 1970) and Pyramid (paperback, 1971). This is science fiction, with a subject of top interest in research today – namely the study of the formation of life, chromosomes, RNA, DNA and so on. Searching for a cure for his cancer, Jack Freeman seeks out a doctor at McGill University, but…
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Newell Dunlap RUSSELL H. GREENAN – The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton. Random House, hardcover, 1973. Fawcett Crest, paperback, 1973, Bantam, paperback, 1988. Algernon Pendleton hears voices from unexpected sources — from philodendrons, for example. But his favorite voice source is Eulalia. a Worcester porcelain pitcher, and it is only with Eulalia that he carries on long conversations. In fact, this is pretty much the essence of Algernon’s existence — chatting…
JOHN GREGORY BETANCOURT “Pit and the Princess.” First appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, December 2014, Not reprinted or collected. Peter (Pit) Geller is what;s called a fixer, and he works primarily for a mob boss in Philadelphia. One distinguishing feature is that he has a photographic memory, but while it’s mentioned a couple of times, it really doesn’t come into play in this case, which involves his being sent to Vegas to look for his boss’s niece who has gone missing. The case…
TED KOSMATKA “The Art of Alchemy.” First appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 2008. Reprinted in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three, edited by Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade Books, 2009) and The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2009 Edition, edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books, 2010). There is a recurring th4eme to a certain number of similar stories, perhaps not as many as there used to be, in which an inventor of an improved means of propelling…
WILLIAM F. NOLAN & GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON: Logan’s Run. The Dial Press, hardcover, 1967. Dell, paperback; 1st printing thus, March 1969. Bantam, paperback, 1976. Film: 1976, wih Michael York, Jenny Agutter. TV series: CBS, September 16, 1977, to February 6, 1978. In the year 2116, youth has taken over the Earth. The maximum age allowed in 21, with death mandatory after that date, enforced by the Sandman police force. Logan is a Sandman, and his problems begin just as he is turning 21. There are…
H. C, BAILEY “The Superfluous Clues.” Reggie Fortune. First published (?) in Mr. Fortune’s Practice (Methuen, UK, hardcover, 1923), as “The Young Doctor.” Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March 1954. H. C. Bailey is an author I sampled long ago – perhaps 50 or 60 years long past – and decided at the time that his work was not for me. I no longer remember why, but I held to the vow until I postedan old fanzine review of Call Mr. Fortune, and the short discussion of the merits of Mt.…
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Marcia Muller ANNA KATHARINE GREEN – The Leavenworth Case. Dover, softcover, 1981. (Reprint of the 1878 hardcover edition.) This is a cornerstone novel of the mystery genre — the nineteenth-century American best seller that brought the detective novel into the public eye and raised it to hitherto unknown .. “respectable” status. First published in 1878, it is the best known of Green’s more than thirty novels and is thought by many critics to set the pattern for…
REVIEWED BY WILLIAM F. DEECK: H. C. BAILEY – Call Mr. Fortune. Methuen, UK, hardcover, 1920; Dutton, US, hardcover, 1921. Remploy, UK, hardcover reprint, 1979. Many other reprint editions currently exist. This is the first collection of Reginald Fortune short stories and, if the problems I had getting a copy are any indication, the scarcest one. Six stories are in this volume, and they range in quality from very good to excellent. There are, I might add, no bad or even poor Fortune short…
SMARTEST GIRL IN TOWN. RKO Radio Pictures, 1936. Gene Raymond, Ann Sothern, Helen Broderick. Director: Joseph Santley. Ann Sothern plays a fashion model who wants to marry money. Gene Raymond is a millionaire pretending to be male model so he can get to know her, but so that she won’t know he’s rich and take him for his money. He falls in love with her anyway, and … Um. I guess the plot doesn’t make any sense. It did while I was watching it, or at least I thought it did, and I enjoyed every…
TOP DETECTIVE ANNUAL, 1952. (Volume 1, Number 3.) Editor: David X. Manners, Cover art: Samuel Cherry. Overall rating: ** HAROLD HELFER “The Cell.” Listed as a short story, it is more a short [two page] documentary of a man’s strange punishment for his sex crimes. (4) STEWART STERLING “The Glass Guillotine.” Novella. Gil Vine. Originally published in Thrilling Detective, November 1940. Former FBI agent Gil Vine intervenes in a political kidnapping on the eve of the nominating convention. Mostly…
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Bill Pronzini ALAN GREEN – What a Body! Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1949. Dell, paperback, 1951. The dust jacket blurb calls this first mystery “the funniest, risibility-ticklingest book … since Wodehouse.” It isn’t that good, but it does have its moments — so many of them, in fact, that What a Body! was voted a Best First Novel Edgar. It is not only comical in the droll, barbed fashion of the Forties, but has an “impossible crime” plot of the sort that John Dickson…
ARTHUR PORGES “Her Last Bow.” Stately Homes #1. First appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, February 1957, Collected in Three Porges Parodies and a Pastiche, edited by Michael H. Kean (Magico, 1988) and in The Adventures of Stately Homes and Sherman Horn: Being the Compleat Sherlockian Writings of Arthur Porges, edited by Richard Sims (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, trade paperback, 2008). Arthur Porges’s Wikipedia page begins thusly: “Arthur Porges (20 August 1915 – 12 May 2006) was…
