Sun 9 Nov 2014
DAY KEENE – Flight by Night. Ace Double D-170, paperback original, 1956. Published back-to-back with Black Fire, by Lawrence Goldman, reviewed here.
This one starts out like gangbusters, more or less, but maybe you’ve heard this one before. A semi-seedy bush pilot specializing in taking bits of cargo here and there in short hops in and around Central and South America finds himself in prison and ready for execution — by firing squad — on the next day following, after the story begins.
But it seems that there is a tradition that is common in Latin American countries. Besides a visit from a local priest, there is a time set aside once a week for all prisoners to welcome female guests, who are allowed to spend an unobserved hour alone with the ones they love. Such a guest is the young and beautiful Conchita, a girl that Jim Bishop does not know and in fact has never seen before.
While unbuttoning her blouse, in case someone is really watching, Bishop learns that a plan is in motion, a costly one, to get him free. Why, and for what purpose, he does not know, but he is of course naturally willing to learn more.
There is a group of former citizens from Argentina, it seems, who have left behind a fortune in gold after the fall of Juan Perón, and who have chosen Bishop to help them get it back again.
Not all is what it seems, of course, as the plot unfolds, but it is disappointing to learn there are no really big twists along the way. Jim Bishop, on the run from a busted marriage, certainly finds romance again, as well as plenty of adventure in the pages that follow, but this relatively uninspired effort reads to me as a reject from Gold Medal, the publisher that in the 1950s Day Keene probably sent his better work to first.
November 9th, 2014 at 6:28 pm
For a very long article on Day Keene, starting with a good-sized installment of THE GOLD MEDAL CORNER, by Bill Crider, and concluding with what may be very close to a complete bibliography for him, follow the link below to the main Mystery*File website:
https://mysteryfile.com/GM_Keene/Keene.html
November 9th, 2014 at 10:06 pm
I should know the answer to my question already, but I’m throwing it out there anyway. Was Gold Medal the first place most of the writers would send in their M.S.to, and if a rejection notice was received, the next mailing would go to Ace then Graphic, then Lion, etc? I’ve read some very good Ace Double originals and also some real stinkers. Not so on G.M., quite a few bad Graphics. Lion for the most part are pretty good not counting the Goodis or Thompson titles, although Thompson OVERALL I think is not as good as Goodis. Just asking.
November 10th, 2014 at 9:19 am
Paul
I’m sure you’re right about Gold Medal being the number one market for crime fiction writers in the 1950s. I don’t remember the details, but there was something about how GM paid royalties that made selling a book to them very rewarding. And of course GM books sold very very well.
I’ll see if I can’t find where I read this, or I’ll ask around.
November 10th, 2014 at 1:15 pm
From the Wikipedia page for Fawcett Publications I found the following:
“Authors were attracted to Gold Medal because royalties were based on print runs rather than actual sales, and they received the entire royalty instead of a 50-50 split with a hardback publisher. Gold Medal paid a $2000 advance on an initial print run was for 200,000 copies. When a print run increased to 300,000, the advance was $3000.”
To read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawcett_Publications#Gold_Medal_Books
November 10th, 2014 at 7:11 pm
Gold Medal’s chief competitor in the paperback original business was Dell who published MacDonald and Williams as well, but Dell never quite caught hold despite Dell First Editions. Crest, another brand from Fawcett, published a number of originals as well.
Fawcett had long had a reputation as being author friendly.
One of the great stories about Gold Medal was editor Rona Jaffe telling how she elicited Mickey Spillane’s famous bestseller making blurb for John D. MacDonald’s THE DAMNED. I don’t know if it is entirely true, but it should be.