Hazel O’Connor is a British singer-songwriter and a sometimes actress. Breaking Glass, her first album, was released in 1980, and rose to #5 on the UK charts:

THE LAST TRAIN FROM MADRID. Paramount Pictures, 1937. Dorothy Lamour, Lew Ayres, Gilbert Roland, Karen Morley, Lionel Atwill, Helen Mack, Robert Cummings, Olympe Bradna, Anthony Quinn, Lee Bowman. Director: James P. Hogan.

   Finally the train. Close to an hour into a movie with a running time just under ninety minutes, the audience finally gets to see the titular train. That’s pretty much my first and greatest impression of this rather slow moving and melodramatic movie about a disparate group of people attempting to obtain passes for the last train out of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.

   There are a few subplots involving romance during wartime, and how a lifelong bond of friendship takes precedence over political affiliations. But overall, the film is a rather talky affair, all leading up to the final sequence in which some of the main characters finally do end up on a train for Valencia.

   What The Last Train from Madrid does have going for it is its exceptional cast. Gilbert Roland, in particular, is always a delight to see on screen. And, love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Lionel Atwill is a distinct presence in any movie that he appears in. (Although, Atwill as a Spanish Army officer? Not believable.)

   On the other hand, a young Anthony Quinn and an even younger looking Robert Cummings are quite convincing as Spanish soldiers.

   It’s just unfortunate that, with a cast like this, there isn’t enough action in this stagey production to keep the viewer particularly engaged throughout the proceedings.

GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD – Not Long for This World. Aaron Gunner #2. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1990. Penguin, paperback, 1991.

   In this, the second recorded case for L.A.-based private eye Aaron Gunner, he’s hired by the female defense attorney for a young South Central gang member accused of killing the black founder of the L. A. Peace Patrol — a mild-mannered man who had taken it upon himself to try to rein in gang-related violence in the city.

   It takes Gunner a while to decide to take the case, mostly because he doesn’t believe there is much redeeming value in the boy, but the conviction by his lawyer that he’s innocent eventually helps persuade him. It isn’t an easy case to investigate. All of the witnesses and other people he must ask questions of are either gangbangers themselves, or people intimidated by them.

   To my mind there might be more social significance to this tale if Gunner were a stronger character. Even once he’s taken the case, he’s never quite sure if he made the right choice, nor is he the kind of guy who’s always infallible. Not helping matters is that the story is told in what I’ve decided to call the “impersonal third person” mode. Every so often, Gunner is referred to only as “the investigator,” not a description designed to give the reader a lot of confidence in his abilities.

   I’m also not a fan of PI’s going to bed with the dead man’s widow while on the case. Which is a complicated one in many ways, but not in one essential way: I believe the real villain is discernible immediately, once he (or she) steps onto the stage.

   Overall, then: quite readable, but flawed.

      The Aaron Gunner series —

Fear of the Dark (1988)
Not Long for This World (1990)
You Can Die Trying (1993)
It’s Not a Pretty Sight (1996)
When Last Seen Alive (1997)
All the Lucky Ones Are Dead (1999)

MANLY WADE WELLMAN “Ever the Faith Endures.” First published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VI, edited by Gerald W. Page (Daw #297, paperback original; 1st printing, 1978). Collected in The Devil is Not Mocked and Other Warnings (Night Shade Books, hardcover, 2001).

   I love this type of atmospheric horror story. One in which a man goes in search of his roots in either the United Kingdom or New England and discovers some shocking family secret. That, or something far more sinister, ones in which a sense of slowly creeping dread permeates the entire story.

   Such is the case in Manly Wade Wellman’s “Ever the Faith Endures.” From the title, one might expect that the faith references would be Christianity. But let me assure you: that is far from the case. The faith that plays such an important role in the story is a pagan one. Specifically, the worship of the god Baal. The connection between that old god and the story’s protagonist becomes evident soon enough, particularly because his name is Wofford Belson. His original family name back in England was Belstone. As in Baal’s stone. You see where this might be going.

   Not only does the story tie in Wofford Belson’s quest to learn about his family’s distant past and to visit their original home back in England (Belson is an American), it also brings him face to face with a long distant cousin. She’s nice enough, and Belson takes an immediate liking to her. But she’s adamant that she can’t leave England and return to the States with him. You see, she’s been tasked with guarding something inside the Belstone estate. Something grotesquely evil. A being that could just as easily come straight from the imagination of one H. P. Lovecraft.

   Recommended.

RICK BOYER – Billingsgate Shoal. Doc Adams #1. Houghton Miff|in, hardcover, 1982. Warner Books, paperback, 1985; Fawcett, paperback, 1989.

   Rick Boyer won an Edgar for this, his first mystery novel — deserved recognition for a complex suspense novel set in coastal and suburban Massachusetts.

   Charles (“Doc”) Adams is a medical doctor turned oral surgeon. He is middle-aged, affluent, happily married, and intensely dissatisfied with his life. His depression and insomnia are symptoms of his mid-life crisis. The cure is worse than the disease, however, as Doc is thrown headlong into a very violent adventure. It starts with an early-morning sighting of a stranded fishing vessel on the title shoal, continues with the death of a young scuba diver who tries to check out the boat for Adams, and eventually escalates to a kill-or-die confrontation between Doc and the villains.

   Billingsgate Shoal has a little bit of everything for everybody. There is hidden treasure, political intrigue, and a murder mystery. There is even a good deal of gore for those who like their thrillers tough and bloody. But it is the believable and very personable voice of Boyer’s amateur sleuth that makes even the more outrageous elements of his plot come together in a way that seems realistic and truly suspenseful.

   Boyer’s second novel, The Penny Ferry (1984), a case focusing on present-day evidence of the guilt/innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, is proof that Boyer’s talents are substantial and that Doc Adams has staying power as series sleuth.

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

       The Doc Adams series —

Billingsgate Shoal (1982)
The Penny Ferry (1984)

The Daisy Ducks (1986)
Moscow Metal (1987)
The Whale’s Footprints (1988)

Gone to Earth (1990)
Yellow Bird (1991)
Pirate Trade (1994)
The Man Who Whispered (1998)

DEBORAH CROMBIE – All Shall Be Well. Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James #2. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1994. Paperback reprints: Berkley, 1995; Avon, 2004.

   I thought that Crombie’s first novel, last year’s A Share in Death [reviewed here ], was one of the better debuts of late; nothing compelling but a well-crafted and enjoyable book.

   Superintendent Duncan Kincaid has a home life, too, and it’s is about to intersect with his profession. The lady upstairs has been dying of cancer, and now he and her companion have found her dead. As she had previously hinted at suicide, an autopsy and inquest were necessary. She died of an overdose of morphine, and while most think it suicide, Kincaid thinks he knew the lady too well and doesn’t believe it.

   That leaves murder as the only alternative, so he and his trusty Sergeant, Gemma James, begin to investigate. Suspects include the companion (who is a major beneficiary of the will) and/or her avaricious lover, a weak and ne’er-do-well brother, and the visiting nurse.

   Once again I think the American Crombie has done a very good job of writing a British mystery. Her leads are likable and realistic, more so even than in the first book. The players in the mystery are also well done, believable and not stock. Crombie tells her story from shifting viewpoints in pleasant, unobtrusive prose, and paces it well.

   Her books haven’t the hard edge of, say, McGown or Fyfield, nor are they filled with the angst-ridden, unlikable people of Rendell or George, but they aren’t particularly cozy, either. They are well written examples of a traditional type, and I like them.

THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. Paramount Pictures, 1975. Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow, John Houseman, Addison Powell. Screenplay: Lorenzo Semple Jr. & David Rayfiel, based on the novel Six Days of the Condor, by James Grady. Director: Sydney Pollack.

   This is a movie that for some unaccountable reason I’ve missed seeing until now. I regret that. This is a good one. Robert Redford has played a good many roles over the years, but as Joseph Turner, a bookish low-grade employee of the CIA (code name Condor), he is without a doubt a character he was meant to play.

   Outwardly working for an obscure corner of the world called the American Literary Historical Society in downtown Manhattan, he ducks out the back way one rainy lunchtime to get sandwiches for everyone, only to return and find everyone shot and killed at their desks. What to do? Call his superior and ask to be called in, of course.

   This turns out to be more easily said than done. He quickly discovers that whoever was responsible for the slaughter at his normally stodgy workplace wants him dead as well — and he has no idea who that might be. Who can he trust? No one.

   Along the way he carjacks a young woman, Kathy Hale by name and a photographer by trade, at gunpoint. She is played by Faye Dunaway, perhaps one of a handful of actresses at the time who could manage not to be totally outshone om the screen by Redford’s boyishly handsome charisma. Kathy is naturally very reluctant to believe Turner’s story, but as in all movies like this, she gradually comes around.

   I loved the first half of this movie. When it comes to unraveling the secrets of the inner workings of the CIA, I was less enamored, but that like comparing an “A plus” to an “A,” and I am not grading on the curve.

   Cliff Robertson, as Turner’s immediate superior, gets to play Cliff Robertson, which he does very well, as usual. The standout performance in the second half is Max von Sydow, who plays a wonderfully cosmopolitan hitman who plays for whichever side is paying him at the time, at the same time giving young Turner an insider’s look at the world he was quite happily unaware of before.

   The film is beautifully photographed, the story holds together, and the performances are terrific. What more could you ask?

LESLEY EGAN – Motive in Shadow. Jesse Falkenstein #10. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1980. No US paperback edition.

   As a series character, lawyer Jesse Falkenstein has been around for quite a while. He’s not as well-known to mystery fans as Perry Mason, say, at least not yet, and he probably never will be, but the reason I find both their kinds of adventures so enjoyable is undoubtedly because their crime-solving activities both so closely parallel that of a good private eye (L.A. scene, of course.)

   Not for them the seat-numbing sort of drudgery that most legal work must actually be. Unlike the previously mentioned Mr. Mason, however, Falkenstein always seems to be doing his own legwork, and hardly ever does he have to show up n court at all.

   In this case he’s hired to contest a will, that of an old woman who’s disinheriting her own son from his own business. And this is where the legwork comes in. Uprooting the past — a 50-year-old diary proves most illuminating — coming up with blackmail — but for what crime or minor offense against person or state? — and recreating the laughter and sadness of people and secrets long since buried.

   As a mystery novel, this is a warmly nostalgic piece of writing, one surprisingly almost totally non-violent. As a puzzle in detection, here’s one that’s quite genuinely fascinating all the way through.

Bibliographic Notes:   There were in all twelve recorded adventures of Jesse Falkenstein. Lesley Egan was but one of Elizabeth Linington’s pen names, others being Anne Blaisdell, Egan O’Neill and Dell Shannon. Another series character who appeared under the Egan byline was Vic Varallo, described on one website as “a small-town cop who moves to Glendale, California.” Varallo appeared in thirteen novels, one a crossover case with Falkenstein.

Patented by Edison was released on vinyl in 1960:

Bass – Charlie Potter
Drums – Elvin Jones
Piano – Tommy Flanagan
Tenor Saxophone – Jimmy Forrest
Trumpet – Harry “Sweets” Edison

   According to the flyer I have beside me as I type this, the 38th annual gathering of the LA area paperback collectors convention was held today. This isn’t a con report per se, as Jon and I were there for only just over an hour this afternoon, and not very many of the photos I took with my phone turned out to be usable.

   But a couple did, and I thought I’d share them with you, along with a comment or two. The room was packed not only with dealers and their tables showing their wares, but at mid-afternoon the room was filled with would-be buyers, circulating the room, stooped over tables, and schmoozing with each other as they made the rounds one more time.

   My sense was that the show was perhaps double the size of the Manhattan-based shows that Gary Lovisi did for many years, up to a several years ago. A few tables had some pulps for sale, others had hardcovers or movie posters and other memorabilia, but the vast majority of the offerings were old paperbacks, all glossied up in crisp clear baggies. To me the prices asked were high. If I could get these prices, my basement, garage and storage areas would be emptied so fast it would make your head swim. Too bad all my collectibles are 3000 miles away, or I’d be sure to set up here next year.

   According to the flyer, over 60 authors and artists were set up to sign books and other items. While I was there, there may have been 20 or so sitting behind tables along one side of the room, and they all seemed pleased to be there.

   Nobody seemed to have name tags. I probably passed several people I know but have met only infrequently and didn’t recognize them. If you were there and didn’t see me, either, I apologize.

   I did talk to show organizer Tom Lesser for a short time. I haven’t been able to get to either a pulp or paperback show in quite a while, so it may have been a couple of years since I’ve seen him. If I’m not mistaken, he said they had over 500 people show up. I believe it. It was a big affair.

   Here’s a photo of Jonathan and my friend Paul Herman. Paul lives two towns over from me back in CT but he flew all the way to CA just to see us there. That’s Jon on the left.