Mon 6 Aug 2012
From The Satan Sleuth #2: The Werewolf Walks Tonight by MICHAEL AVALLONE. Warner Paperback Library, paperback original, December 1974.
… a wet suit, the dark, rubberized costume particular to scuba divers, frogmen, and anyone engaged in the pursuit of aquamarine adventure. (Page 39)
Philip St. George had not come to Fletcherville unprepared and half cocked. (Page 43)
… the cheap gold lettering on the cover which proclaimed it as the New Testament, St. James Version. (Page 45)
Besides being Fletcherville’ s only and most successful banker … (Page 48)
There was devils walking in the world, all right. (Page 55)
Dean Williams’s Good Book, the St. James version … (Page 78)
It was in all the ancient papers, the only known weapon against a lycanthrophobe– (Page 80)
There was no saliva in her mouth for she had yet to have any water. Her tongue was a dead lizard in her gullet. (Pages 83-84)
Dawson was bound to put two and two together and get a positive four. If he got five, well, forget that, too. (Page 97)
No one who saw him could not help feeling sorry for the stranger… (Page 103)
On his feet, dark canvas sneakers loomed, the track model. (Page 107)
His face was expressionless, his mind perfectly and unwaveringly resolute. He had licked up the scent of the Fletcherville Demon at last. Once and for all. Forever. The moment was electrifyingly tense. There was a high, sharp keen to the atmosphere, as if the rhythms of the spheres of the universe were blending in a moment of truth. (Page 119)
Nausea climbed upward from her stomach, joined the horror in her brain, fusing electrically, exploding once more in a final burst of stupefying terror. (Page 127)
When the thing snarled, a snarl compounded of rage and pain, and dropped back, releasing its savage hold on his own shoulders, the sound was something joyful to Philip St. George. Like a bugle sounding a cavalry charge or the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah. Not even the mammoth grizzly bear of the North can stand up to a frontal assault on his small testicles. (Page 140)
August 7th, 2012 at 6:17 am
LOVED IT!
August 7th, 2012 at 8:40 am
Avo was a genius at this sort of thing.
August 7th, 2012 at 11:33 am
Want more? I found some winners when I was reading his loopiest Edwina Noone book, The Craghold Creatures.
August 7th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
The Craghold Creatures is not to be missed by any Avallone fan: author Mark Dane (an old Avo pen-name). who is also known as The Fastest Typewriter in the East, and his family visit Craghold where a horror movie is being filmed. Av doesn’t even try to disguise that HE (Avallone) is the hero, and the film allusions and Avalloneisms rain hot and heavy. A seldom-mentioned Avo gem of absurdity.
August 7th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
I had a fairly complete collection of Avallone books once (I’d forgotten about The Satan Sleuth series) and sold the entire set to someone who was writing an essay about him for a reference book, probably the American mystery writers volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography. (I think it remains unpublished.) I think he paid me $300 and I’ve never regretted the sale.
I used to see Avallone at Pulpcon and talked with him on the phone a few times.
August 7th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
I’m only guessing, but I don’t think either Beagle (publisher of the Craghold books) or Warner (who did the Satan Sleuth books) had much of a budget for either series, in terms of editorial staff etc.
I think that Mike was left on his own for both series, and what we’re finding so enjoyable today is what came straight from his typewriter.
August 7th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Absolutely hilarious, but also oddly poetic. The mangled metaphors and puzzling descriptions feel like someone thinking out loud. My favourite has to be the final quote….after all, who CAN stand up to a frontal assault on their small testicles?
August 7th, 2012 at 2:04 pm
I’ll repeat the link that’s in the first line of the post itself:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=5817
It’ll take you to Walker Martin’s article about his long friendship with Mike. As Randy referred to in passing, Mike attended as many Pulpcon’s as he could before he died, which is where I saw him most often too.
At the end of Walker’s article, there’s a list of most if not all of Mike’s mystery fiction in book form. Mike’s writing style may not be for everyone, but for those of us who love it, we certainly do!
August 7th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Bradstreet
Hilarious but oddly poetic. You’ve nailed it!
August 7th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
A Grade A, certified Zombie Depot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ROFL !
Simply SUPER !
The Doc
August 7th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Steve in Comment #8 provides a link to the post about my friendship with Mike Avallone. He was more of a joker than the Joker in Batman. At our get togethers he would keep us amused with a steady stream of wisecracks, funny stories, jokes, and quotes from old movies. He loved baseball, movies and the pulps and I guess that’s why we were friends because my whole life seems to revolve around these subjects.
He actually talked to his friends using Avalloneisms like the examples that Steve quotes. Mike was a larger than life character and I was lucky to know him.
August 8th, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Those gems made my morning! If malapropisms were an Olympic event, Avallone’s collection of medals would make Michael Phelps look like a whelk.
Mike
August 8th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
I’d have paid serious money to hear Avallone commentate at an Olympic games… “And here are the American ladies Beach Volleyball team, their hips beautifully arched, their breasts like proud flags waving triumphantly. And they’re moving forward with the speed of big apes…”