In this only his fourth recorded case, Scotland Yard’s Inspector Alleyn is well enough known that the police force in a small town in New Zealand are familiar with both his investigative expertise and technique. When a death in a theatre occurs, a very suspicious one, the local force is more than willing to have Alleyn take a hand.
As it so happens, Alleyn is on a solo vacation when the death happened, and since he had met the various members of the repertoire company on the train the day before, he is also on the spot when a bottle of champagne comes falling down, killing the co-manager of the company, a pudgy man who was also the husband of the leading lady, whose birthday celebration it was.
Vintage in terms of wine, you see, not vintage in terms of paperbacks, say.
The questioning of all the players and crew takes all night and into the morning, with Alleyn lending an ear, and it makes for rather dull reading, there’s no getting around it. The alibis that are offered, however, serve to suggest that it would have been very difficult for any of them to have rigged the ropes and pulleys to cause the bottle to come crashing down when it did. Not only that, but someone was responsible afterward to put everything back in place — but who?
The first few chapters take place on the train into Middleton, and mysteries that take place on trains are always fun to read, but the best scenes come after the overnight questioning of all the suspects, at which point Alleyn is given a free hand to do some investigating on his own. Best is the scene in which he does a most unorthodox questioning of the troupe’s leading lady. He knows she is lying, but since he also believes her to be innocent, he thinks he knows why.
Just before the ending, there is also one giant red herring laid by Alleyn himself, to lull the killer into a sense of false security, perhaps, which serves to wrap a finely written detective novel — one not quite as cleverly plotted as one of Agatha Christie’s, but one with just a little bit more literary skill.
And, oh. One last thing. Ngaio Marsh loved the theatre, there’s no doubt about it. The ins and outs of production, the building itself, from top to bottom (in essence, they’re always the same), and the people in it. Definitely the people in it.
SPY GAME. Universal Pictures, 2001. Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Dillane, Larry Bryggman, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, David Hemmings. Director: Tony Scott.
One of my favorite subgenres of the spy film or novel is that of the grizzled old field agent (figuratively speaking) who’s approaching his last day on the job is approaching quickly, whether voluntarily or (in some cases) being shoved out the door in a quiet but efficient bum’s rush. This one’s the former, but it makes no difference. When a small crisis comes up, Matthew Muir (Robert Redford) gets quite a bit of satisfaction in knowing that he’s really still at the top of his game.
On his last day at the CIA, it helps that he still on contacts around the world who can give him a full warning that something has happened in China that he needs to know about, well before he’s called into a meeting with his superiors, men in suits all, with no particular expertise in the field.
What has happened is that one of Muir’s former proteges, a fellow named Bishop (Brad Pitt), has gotten himself captured trying to free another prisoner, and unless the US makes some concessions on an trade agreement still being negotiated, Bishop will be executed. Muir has only 24 hours to clean things up.
Much of the film is taken up by flashbacks to show how Muir developed Bishop as an agent, starting back in the Vietnam War. The relationship, while generally friendly, was also very often a prickly one, and of course it was a girl Bishop is attracted to that causes a serious rupture in their relationship. But in the present, Bishop has to somehow be rescued, and it is the wiles of Muir that are needed, while at the same time keeping the brass at the top off his back.
It’s a neat trick if he can do it, and it is Robert Redford who is perfect in the part of the visibly aging Muir, who shows us all that you should never count out older guys when it comes down to getting things done, and that experience matters too.
So as I say, this movie was a lot of fun to watch. Adding to the verisimilitude of a story taking place in wartorn Middle Eastern locale, much of the movie was filmed in Lebanon, with lots of well photographed action to go along with the tricks and chits that Muir is able to call in. I enjoyed this one.
DEADWOOD ’76. Fairway International, 1965. Arch Hall Jr, Jack Lester, LaDonna Cottier, Arch Hall Sr, Liz Renay and Robert Dix. Written by Arch Hall Sr and James Landis. Directed by James Landis.
EL TOPO. Producciones Panicas, 1970. Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky, and Mara Lorenzio. Written & directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
El Topo used to play on college campuses at Midnight, where crowds of young people in various stages of awareness tried to figure out the plot. It has something to do with (SPOILER ALERT!) a mythic gunfighter (played by the director) who rescues a damsel who then sets him three tasks.
He completes the tasks but loses his self-respect, the damsel and his life, whereupon his body is picked up by trolls and taken to their underground dwelling where, years later, he resurrects himself and frees the trolls from their oppressors after confronting the son he abandoned way back when the movie started.
Along the way there are references to Christ, Buddha, Zen, Catholicism, Socialism and Fellini, resulting in a film that’s very easy to get lost in.
Deadwood ’76 played a few dates in drive-ins in the south and grindhouses elsewhere, where kids and drunks threw popcorn and passed out while generally ignoring it. It has something to do with a young drifter (played by the director’s son) mistaken for Billy the Kid, who wanders into Deadwood and is pressured into a gunfight with Wild Bill Hickok.
Along the way, we get wild Indians, desperadoes, fancy women, silk-shirt gamblers, and beautiful young Indian maidens, all parading around in obvious stage make-up, reading meaningless lines with varying degrees of ineptitude — except for Robert (son of Richard) Dix, who’s really rather good as Hickok.
Drawing parallels would probably insult both filmmakers, but for some reason these disparate efforts struck me as brothers-under-the-celluloid, as if their creators had picked up whatever symbolism was handy and used it to make a movie. Jodorowsky was influenced by Dali, and Arch Hall by Buntline, but the effect is strangely similar: obvious actors patently playing out a disjointed story using memes and symbols that meant something to somebody once.
The true difference is that El Topo strives to be obscure where Deadwood ’76 begs to be forgotten. And I kind of liked them both.
JANA DeLEON – Louisiana Longshot. (Miss) Fortune Redding #1. CreateSpace, paperback, June 2012. Also available in other formats.
First Sentence: I stepped off the Learjet at the private airfield just before dawn.
When CIA agent Fortune Redding, assassinates the brother of a Middle Eastern arms distributor, ruining a perfectly good pair of Prada stiletto heels in the process, the result is a price on her head. To protect her, she is sent into hiding at the small-town Louisiana home of her Director’s niece, one Sandy Sue Morrow, a former beauty-pageant winner. What could go wrong when one is trying to fit in, solve a local murder, and stay undercover?
Now and then, one hits a reading slump and needs something light and fun to get moving again. This was it. It was a delightful surprise and a lesson that one is never too old to listen to one’s mother when they recommend a book to read.
DeLeon has a voice full of sass and sarcasm— “I stared down Main Street and grimaced. It was a cross between a Thomas Kinkade painting and a horror movie.” —and defines the protagonist. But beware, the neighbors, particularly Gertie and Ida Belle, who is president of the Sinful Ladies Society— “I looked outside and saw a crowd of gray-haired women bearing down on the restaurant. Sixteen of them, probably from the Jurassic period…” –aren’t what one expects either, which is so refreshing. In fact, none of the characters are, including Bones, the very old hound who is true to his name and finds the human bone initiating the murder investigation.
The author captures a small town perfectly. one in ehich everyone knows your business almost before you do. Her pragmatism about religion is delightful— “Religion was by and large constructed by men, and I had yet to find a man who was logical. Deconstructing religious rules would definitely be a journey into madness.” But it is also the south where food plays an important part— “‘Give me the Seven Deadly Sins.”‘ Eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, pan-fried potatoes, and pancakes. I could practically hear my arteries hardening.”
There are wonderful, laugh-out-loud moments, which is such a treat, especially when the scene isn’t silly, but clever and relatable. But there is also a wonderful moment of self-realization— “Good Lord. I was actually pretty. Like Mom.”
It’s not all light and fun, however. There is a murder to solve, and a handsome cop with questions to evade. There are good insightful observations and truisms— “Clearly, people were the biggest complication life threw at you.” –well-done information on Fortune’s past, and surprises and twists right through to the end.
Louisiana Longshot is a delightful book. DeLeon cleverly avoids a number of stereotypes. The characters are wonderful, the humor is perfect, not slapstick, and the twists are plentiful and well executed. It really is a well-done introduction to a series which should be fun to continue.
Rating: Very Good.
The Fortune Redding series —
Louisiana Longshot (2012)
Lethal Bayou Beauty (2013)
Swamp Sniper (2013)
Swamp Team 3 (2014)
Gator Bait (2015)
Soliders of Fortune (2015)
Hurricane Force (2015)
Fortune Hunter (2016)
Later Gator (2016)
Hook, Line and Blinker (2017)
Change of Fortune (2018) e
Reel of Fortune (2018)
DANIEL STASHOWER – Elephants in the Distance. Morrow, hardcover, 1989. Felony & Mayhem, trade paperback, 2007.
As far as fun, enjoyable reading goes, this one is the real McCoy (whoever McCoy was). Mysteries and magicians always go together, no matter what. And in this case, like good science fiction, “what” means that there’s one implausibility that must be believed, with the rest following like a foregone conclusion.
Paul Galliard’s father was also a magician, and he died on live television attempting bullet-catching trick. Now, 30 years later, Paul is going to re-create the feat, again on live TV. (Well, in the age of Geraldo, that’s may not be too hard to swallow after all.)
And, yes, there is a mystery involved. All of Paul’s father’s old friend’s have recently received warnings of some sort, and some of them have died, under mysterious circumstances. Clearly Paul does not know as uch as he should about his father’s death, and his attempts to learn more serve only to show him how much danger he is in.
The climax comes at page-turning intensity, even after you learn how the trick is done — and it’s disappointingly easy, just as anti-climactic in its way as the solution to a ripsnorting detective story often is — and sorry to say, this book’s no exception. Nevertheless, if you like magic in your mysteries, this book has a hatful to the brim.
(I’m not sure if Paul Galliard will become a continuing character. I’d like to read another of his adventures, but as you can imagine, as it usually works out, this first appearance is very personal; any ordinary case that might follow would be hard pressed to match the emotional level of this one.)
–Reprinted from Mystery*File #15, September 1989 (somewhat revised).
UPDATE: As it turned out, this was the only incident in Paul Galliard’s life that Stashower has decided to tell us about. See below:
BIBLIOGRAPHY (fiction only, as taken from Wikipedia’s page for Stashower) —
Stashower, Daniel (1985). The Adventure of the Ectoplasmic Man. William Morrow and Company.
Stashower, Daniel (1989). Elephants in the Distance. William Morrow.
Stashower, Daniel (1998). “A Deliberate Form of Frenzy”. In Foxwell, Elizabeth (ed.). Malice Domestic 7. Avon Books.
Stashower, Daniel (1999). The Dime Museum Murders: A Harry Houdini Mystery. Avon Books.
Stashower, Daniel (2000). The Floating Lady Murder: A Harry Houdini Mystery. Avon Books.
Stashower, Daniel (2001). The Houdini Specter: A Harry Houdini Mystery. Avon Books.
Greenberg, Martin H.; Lellenberg, Jon; Stashower, Daniel, eds. (2002). Murder in Baker Street: New Tales of Sherlock Holmes. Carroll & Graf.
Greenberg, Martin H.; Lellenberg, Jon; Stashower, Daniel, eds. (2002). Murder, My Dear Watson: New Tales of Sherlock Holmes. Carroll & Graf.
Greenberg, Martin H.; Lellenberg, Jon; Stashower, Daniel, eds. (2006). Ghosts in Baker Street: New Tales of Sherlock Holmes. Carroll & Graf.
Greenberg, Martin H.; Lellenberg, Jon; Stashower, Daniel, eds. (2009). Sherlock Holmes in America. Skyhorse Publishing.
Doyle, Arthur Conan (2011). Lellenberg, Jon; Stashower, Daniel; Foss, Rachel (eds.). The Narrative of John Smith. British Library.
GET MEAN. Italian-American, 1975. Tony Anthony (also wrote the story and produced), Lloyd Battista. Directed by Ferdinando Baldi. (Pther names of those involved are withheld to protect the innocent who were only collecting a paycheck and are otherwise blameless)
Bad is, of course relative (like your brother-in-law), but when it comes to movies there are different levels of true cinematic incompetence.
There is the most obvious kind of bad film, the low budget badly made and poorly acted film. Among the most famous of that breed are Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space, Robot Monster, and the hands down winnerManos: Hands of Fate. They wear their badness as a sort of badge of honor. We made a bad film, yes, but we would have made a better one if we had talent.
Then there is the “what went wrong†category, when big stars, directors, writers, and even bestselling books somehow get to the screen in a form audiences simply cannot believe turn out so bad. Otto Preminger late in his career seemed to specialize in these with Hurry Sundown and Rosebud, Michael Cimmino made cinematic bad movie history with Heaven’s Gate, millions of dollars and Laurence Olivier couldn’t save Inchon. A book by Alistair MacLean and a cast that included Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford, and Franco Nero could not save Force 10 From Navarone. The less said about adaptations of Harold Robbins’ The Adventurers and The Betsy the better, but even they couldn’t come close to the one with Pia Zadora. (I won’t even write the name, there may be curses involved and malign spirits, besides Ms Zadora’s acting).
But there is another kind of bad film, one so bad, so gonzo stupid and inept that it plays as if you were smoking something funny even when you see it cold sober. Get Mean is that kind of film.
We begin as a typical Spaghetti Western. Tony Anthony, our hero, is being dragged through the dirt by a galloping horse through some unnamed Southwestern canyon, and to add to the mystery he is being observed by a crystal ball sitting out in the middle of nowhere.
Let me be clear, Anthony, who starred in a number of Spaghetti Westerns, is largely to blame for this film. He not only stars, but he wrote the original story and produced the film. If there is anyone to blame it is him.
It’s only a shame the audience and not him who suffers the most from this fact.
Soon his exhausted horse wanders into a ghost town and promptly drops dead (and never have I seen a hammier performance by a horse). Anthony frees himself, and sees smoke rising in an abandoned building. He follows his nose and inside finds a group of Romany and an old seeress with the crystal ball we saw earlier. They offer him wine and food, and proceed to explain that he is expected.
They dump ten thousand in gold in front of him and produce the Princess Maria, who he is told he must escort to Spain where she can free her people from the barbarians.
Our Tony, however, has already been established as an untrustworthy mercenary type and bargains his fee up to $50,000 in gold, which they quickly agree to, when a Viking replete with furs, blonde beard, and horned helmet bursts in with three sailors dressed like escapees from Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore.
Having dispatched them we are shown a map as Tony and the Princess cross the United States and the Atlantic to Spain. We learn from the map also that there seems to be desert canyons in Minnesota on the shores of Lake Superior, because that’s where the animated map starts our journey.
So after a brief sojourn on the shore after they land in Spain we are in the Spanish desert (at least they actually have them there) resting and arguing because Tony is so rude to royalty and thinks she is full of hot air, when we hear many men and horses approaching.
A great battle is about to be fought between the evil Barbarians (still Vikings, but looking more like Attila’s huns) and the Princess’s allies — the Moorish army — which were driven out of Spain by El Cid around the eighth century, save for some incursions in the South and nice architectural touches.
The good Moors are soon wiped out thanks to the Barbarians secret weapon, Leonardo’s turret, with multiple cannons that can be rapidly fired, and Tony and the haughty princess are captured by the Barbarian chief, his Valkyrie bodyguard, and his two allies; a rather gay Prince dressed like Hamlet, and the hunchback Richard II. Yup folks, that Richard II, War of the Roses, nephews murdered in their cell, old twisted back himself.
My kingdom for a … but I’m getting ahead of the plot. That comes later.
For no real reason the Valkyries tie Tony up and hang him upside down from a pole. then they all ride off happily with the Princess to their castle. Sadly Tony Curtis in not present to say â€Yonda lies the castle of my fadda.†Come to think of it that was a much better film even with Tony’s accent.
Eventually more Romany types show up and rescue Tony and the wounded leader of the Moorish army. It seems as if it is up to Tony now to rescue the Princess and collect his money, so Tony, after a brief recovery, goes and gets himself captured by the Barbarians by offering his services.
The Chief and the Prince aren’t to sure of this, but Richard II never saw an ally he couldn’t betray and persuades them that Tony could be useful. After all, the Barbarians aren’t too smart and worship a live horse in gold plated armor known as the Stallion of Rodrigo since they live in El Cid’s castle, and it turns out are desperate to find the treasure of Rodrigo.
Tony proves to come in handy here and is sent on a mystical quest for the treasure, which involves a strange ceremony in what appears to be a Russian Orthodox church and a semi-mystical quest which ends with him being turned black (“Everywhere,†he assures us after checking his pants), and returning with no treasure but the Scorpion Necklace which curses the bearer to die.
At this point the Barbarian chief is tired of messing with him and has him trussed up like a pig and put on a spit over a slow fire. At least he’s white again. The Princess, seeing this, grabs a sword, duels Richard II, and is promptly killed when he throws a sword between her shoulder blades.
Well, that plot point wasn’t going anywhere fast, and now there is a treasure worth more than the reward for delivering the Princess to interest Tony — if he doesn’t cook too soon.
But the treacherous Prince has other things in mind and frees Tony, who turns the table on him and forces the Prince to swallow the Scorpion Necklace, which the Chief and Richard II have since learned is key to Rodrigo’s treasure.
Still hanging in there? If not I can hardly blame you.
The Prince is returned to the castle and force-fed until he returns the missing necklace while Tony invents some sort of four barreled hand held cannon and prepares to challenge the Barbarian horde, but before he can, the Valkyries confront him, and after briefly considering cutting off some important parts of his anatomy, instead decide to make use of them in a gang assault that Tony manages to elude and instead throw the Prince in as a very reluctant substitute.
There are by now so many things about this film to be offended by, it is hard to focus on just its use of stereotypes and casual prejudice.
The Prince survives without changing sides, and as Tony assaults the castle, is killed. Tony then puts scorpions down the Chief’s armor and has a chuckle or two as the Viking leader spends more time dying than the ham horse earlier in the film, but just about as boring.
Now only Richard II and Tony are left to face each other down in a gun fight. Tony’s Colt against Richard’s six barreled revolving cannon all as Richard recites the “My kingdom for a horse†speech from Shakespeare. This film is not kosher; ham is on the menu.
Unluckily for the viewer Tony wins that one and even finds Rodrigo’s treasure, then we are shown in animation him sailing back to America and riding into the screen, past another mysteriously placed crystal ball …
I’m am happy to say, though, that this one does not prove accurate in its predictions, and we never have to see Tony or this movie, or anything half as stupid again unless we smoke or ingest something we shouldn’t.
As bad films go, it is hard to rate this. Ken Russell would have thrown up his hands in despair. Ed Wood would have cried himself to sleep, the movie even has bisexual cross-dressing Valkyries. Andy Warhol would have shredded his soup cans.
Get Mean is not the worst movie ever made, but it bows to none as the stupidest most gonzo Western in history, and I include Terror in a Tiny Town in that mix.
If Tony Anthony gets dragged into your town behind my horse, my advice is to aim low and shoot first.
DONALD HAMILTON – Death of a Citizen. Matt Helm #1. Gold Medal #957, paperback original; 1st printing, January 1960. Reprinted by Gold Medal many times (*). Titan Books, paperback, 2013. Film: Plot elements of this book were included in The Silencers, 1966. otherwise loosely based on the Hamilton title of that name (with Dean Martin as Matt Helm).
I have read, or at least I think I have, that in the first draft of this first Matt Helm adventure, Hamilton did not intend it to be the first of the series, but at the suggestion of his editor, the book was rewritten so as to hint that more adventures were yet to come.
I don’t know if the story is true or not, but as far as more adventures are concerned, the hint is certainly there. I’m sure that any red-blooded male, after reading this first one back in 1960, would have to been faunching at the bit for the next one to come out. Luckily the wait wouldn’t have been long. Book number two, The Wrecking Crew, came out later that same year.
And 1960 was a year that (in my opinion) that Donald Hamilton was in the prime of his writing career. Death of a Citizen is as lean and mean as they come, and while Matt Helm is fairly rusty at the job when the book opens, by the end he’s back in the same hard-boiled mode of action as he must have been during the war (WWII).
Since then. though, he’s gotten married, has three kids, and a little bit of extra belly fat. He’s a writer now, and is pretty good with a camera. A comfortable life. Until the night of the Sante Fe cocktail party when Tina comes back into his life. Tina, whom he worked with during the war. Very closely, you could even say. And then the dead girl he finds in his bathtub. His current comfortable life is over in a flash.
Hence the title. Helm and Tina are back on the run together again, and it’s quite a ride. In the world of Matt Helm you can be certain of one things: that not everything is as it seems. He tells the story himself, as opinionated about everything in the world, major or minor, from the start. He does not care for women wearing pants, for example. I don’t believe that in followup books he ever let the reader forget that.
—
(*) Of the dozen or so copies of this book described on abe.books as being First Printings, I found it amusing to see that none of them are.
“Season of the Witch” was co-written and first recorded by singer-songwriter Donovan Leitch in 1966. Since then it’s been covered by dozens of other singers and bands, including most recently by Lana Del Rey and used as the theme song for Guillermo del Toro’s just released film Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark:
THE TAKE. Columbia Pictures, 1974. Billy Dee Williams, Eddie Albert, Vic Morrow, Frankie Avalon, Sorrell Booke, Tracy Reed, Albert Salmi, A Martinez. based on the novel Sir, You Bastard by G. F. Newman. Director: Robert Hartford-Davis.
Billy Dee Williams, who was rather young at the time, plays a San Francisco cop who comes down to Paloma, New Mexico, to help harried police chief Eddie Albert bring Vic Morrow to justice, as a local organized crime leader named Victor Manso, posing as a highly respected community leader.
There are some occasional good scenes in The Take, a lot of good professional actors having some solid roles to play, and a more than a sufficient amount of TV style action (vicious thuggery and endless car chase scenes). The problem is twofold: (1) Williams is cocky without being likeable, and (2) there’s no sense of continuity between the good parts, the several there are. The result, not surprisingly, is a listless, jumbled up mess. Watchable, but once seen, there’s no particular reason you’d ever want to sit through this again.
Allyn is the author of two novels about a Hispanic Detroit policeman, and numerous short stories. His “real” job is musician in a rock band. I’ve read one of his previous novels,Motown Underground, and had mixed reactions.
Michelle “Mitch” Mitchell is an underwater welder for oil rigs on the Texas Gold Coast, or at least she has been. Now she’s back in her hometown on the Northern Michigan coast of Lake Huron, straightening out the affairs of her estranged father who died in a recent auto accident, She’d intended to sell the saloon he owned and then go back to Texas, but questions keep arising about the way he died, and pieces of her old life keep bobbing to the surface — including the father of her child back in boarding school.
The previous Allyn book I read had some decent hard-boiled prose, but I never liked the characters enough to get involved in the story. With this one, I did. Mitchell is a tough, appealing heroine, and Allyn di d a good job with the supporting cast as well.
The prose was lean and direct, ad there was a good feel for the cold, hard country the story was set in. The novel won’t get nominated for any awards, but it was a good story, well told.
— Reprinted from Ah Sweet Mysteries #20, June-July 1995.
Bibliographic Update: The Detroit policean Barry was referring to in the first paragraph of this review was Lupe Garcia, who appeared in just the two novels he mentioned, Motown Underground being one of them. Icewater Mansionsw was the first of three cases tackled by Michelle Mitchell. I’ll list them below.
Allyn is much better known as a short story writer than as a novelist, with over 120 of them to his credit. From one online source: “[Allyn’s] first published story won the Robert L. Fish Award from Mystery Writers of America and subsequent critical response has been equally remarkable. He has won the coveted Edgar Allen Poe Award twice, (nine nominations) seven Derringer Awards for novellas, and the Ellery Queen Readers’ Award an unprecedented eleven times.”
The Michelle Mitchell series —
Icewater Mansions. St Martin’s, 1995.
Black Water. St. Martin’s, 1996.
A Dance in Deep Water. St. Martin’s, 1997.