NICK CARTER (*) – The Doomsday Formula. Award A420X, paperback original; 1st printing, 1969.

   You can chalk this one up to curiosity – mine. After reading the last two more recently published books (**), I was wondering if they were really as bad as I thought they were, compared to the same sort of thing being written twenty years ago, or if I was just in a bad mood, or what. Answer: they are.

   Nick Carter goes to Hawaii in this one, trying to prevent the destruction of the 50th state in a huge volcanic explosion. The resulting adventure is fast-moving, with lots of holes in the plot, which is absolutely unbelievable. The difference, believe it or not, is that Nick is likable. (***)

(*) Or in this case, Jon Messmann.

(**) Mission Bay Murder, by Philip Carlton Williams, and The Last Private Eye, by John Birkett. (See Comment #1.)

(***) Or competent. Not too much to ask.

NOEL LOOMIS – Have Gun, Will Travel. Dell First Edition B-156, paperback original; 1at printing, 1960. Cover art by Robert Stanley.

   Not a real winner, but it inspired me to make a pipe.

   Noel Loomis was a well-regarded Western historian, and he wrote several scripts for the television show, so he was a natural for this paperback tie-in. And he gives it the dollop of polish one expects from a writer of his caliber, but that’s not always a good thing.

   The plot involves Paladin’s involvement with a notorious lady of the theatre, the search for a missing newspaper editor, Mexican revolutionaries and the near-legendary outlaw Three-Fingered Phil.

   Freed of the time and budget constraints of network television, Loomis lets his hero and himself ramble, from San Francisco to Santa Fe, down into Mexico and up into the mountains, with every leg and limb of the journey described in detail. Oh, it never gets monotonous, it just gets, well… long!

   And perhaps it’s no fault of Loomis’ that he never really evokes the forceful personality Richard Boone brought to his characterization, though he lards the dialogue with allusions to Shakespeare. He just misses the laconic personality and repressed rage essential to the character of Paladin, and it leaves a gaping whole in the book that Robert Stanley’s excellent cover can’t quite fill.

   That said, there are enough fist-fights, knife-fights and gun-fights to keep the reader awake, and Loomis puts the action across reasonably well. Maybe it’s me, I just couldn’t get excited over this.

   But it did prompt me to make a pipe out of a tree branch and trim from an old cap pistol!

THOMAS B. DEWEY – A Sad Song Singing. Mac #10. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1963. Pocket, paperback, 1965. Carroll & Graf, paperback, 1984.

   A Sad Song Singing is Mac’s finest case and Dewey’s masterwork. This reviewer considers it one of the ten best private-eye novels ever written — not because of its plot, which is relatively simple and straightforward, but because of its emotional depth and impact and its superb depiction of what it was like to grow up in the early 1960s.

   It is the only mystery novel to employ as its background the short-lived hootenanny craze of that period (hootenannies being, for those of you who might have forgotten or are too young to remember, large gatherings at which folk singers entertained with audience participation).

   In fact, one can’t imagine any kind of novel more vividly or poignantly evoking that type of festival or the life-styles of its young performers.

   Crescentia Fanio, twenty years old and a budding singer, hires Mac to find her missing boyfriend, Richie Darden, himself an itinerant but already well-established singer of folk songs. But it isn’t just a simple case of boy losing interest in girl and leaving her behind; Cress is convinced that not only is Richie’s life in danger, but so is her own.

   If Mac has any doubts that her fears are genuine, he quickly loses them with the appearance of two toughs who are unmistakably hunting Darden — and a mysterious suitcase he had with him when he vanished. A combination of flight, chase, and personal odyssey leads Mac and Cress from Chicago into rural Illinois and Indiana, from the world of coffeehouses and hootenannies to an isolated farm near the small agricultural community of Fairmont, Indiana — and finally to tragedy and, for Cress, rebirth.

   There is plenty of action and suspense, but as in most of Dewey’s novels — and even more so here — the emphasis is on mood and characterization. The father-daughter relationship between Mac and Cress is what gives the novel its emotional power: The last page is the kind of stuff that could put a tear in the eye of Mike Hammer. In all respects, A Sad Song Singing is a virtuoso performance.

   Mac appears in a total of sixteen novels, beginning with Draw the Curtain Close (1947). The others are likewise first-rate, the most notable among them being The Mean Streets (1954), the novel in which Mac — and Dewey — realized his full potential (thus making the title, a phrase from Chandler’s essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” doubly appropriate); The Brave, Bad Girls (1956), The Case of the Chased and the Unchaste (1959), Don’t Cry for Long (1964), Portrait of a Dead Heiress (1965), and The King Killers ( 1968).

   Dewey also wrote four minor mysteries featuring a small-town hotel owner named Singer Batts, the best of which are probably As Good as Dead (1946) and Handle with Fear ( 1951 ). Of his non-series suspense novels, two arc first-rate:

   How Hard to Kill (1961), a chiller about an ex-cop’s hunt for the murderer of his wife; and the paperback original A Season for Violence (1966), which is concerned with corruption, murder, and rape in a small California town.

         ———
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.

   Take a look at this. I promise you the movie isn’t nearly as enthralling as the trailer makes it out to be, but it is nonetheless a fun time. Bring your suspension of belief. A lot of it!

BERLIN AFFAIR. NBC / Universal TV, 02 November 1970. Darren McGavin, Fritz Weaver, Brian Kelly, Claude Dauphin, Pascale Petit, Christian Roberts, Darren Nesbit, Kathie Browne. Teleplay by Peter Pendulik &  E. Jack Neuman, basef on a story by Eliot West. Directed by David Lowell Rich. Currently streaming on YouTube (see below),

   Surprisingly good international intrigue pilot for a series that never developed, Berlin Affair features Darren McGavin as Peter Killian, a manhunter for InfoCon Geneva, a sort of INTERPOL=like organization that hunts down people for their clients. Here he is summoned to InfoCon’s lavish headquarters in Geneva for his latest assignment by his boss Mallicent (Fritz Weaver in a sly performance — and incidentally a great name for his character) whose understanding of who and what Killian is makes their relationship testy (“…my very best manhunter, in spite of everything you really do like that don’t you?”).

   It seems a courier has been found washed ashore, murdered with nothing but an empty watch on his wrist. The courier was travelling with Paul Strand (Brian Kelly), and old friend of Killian’s, and now the police want to question Strand, and InfoCon has been hired by a mysterious plastics firm called StetinFlex to find Strand.

   Strand saved Killian’s life once, and fed up with Mallicent’s high handed ways, McGavin resigns, but he heads for Berlin to try and contact his old friend and incidentally check out StetinFlex. He succeeds in both, StetinFlex proves to be a front for some criminal outfit operated by one Languin (Claude Dauphin) and his two henchmen Christian Roberts and Darren Nesbit ,who drug Killian and are going to kill him until he evades them.

   Killian has found Strand too, and when he goes to meet him Strand too tries to kill him leaving him for dead.

   â€œYou don’t belong to anyone Peter. You get sick and you die — alone.”

   Now Killian wants revenge and to know what was in the empty watch the courier was wearing that so many men would kill for. Strand turns out to have a girl. Wendy Romer (Pascale Petit) so it is back to Berlin to see if she leads to Strand, but things get complicated when Killian discovers Wendy is the secretary to Languin at his art gallery. Even more complicated, Killian is falling for Wendy who is tied into Strand’s plans to sell Languin what he stole from the watch case.

   Attractive Berlin location shooting open this one up quite a bit and McGavin’s mix of charm and intensity are perfect for Killian, a complex man who fights against Mallicent’s all too perfect insight into his nature and motivation.

   Dauphin has little to do, and Kelly is, as usual, mostly adequate as the charming Strand, while Petit is attractive certainly, but no earth shaker. That leaves most of the work to McGavin playing off Weaver in their scenes together and some decent thuggery by the reliable Darren Nesbit. A solid script (similar to, but not a copy of the plot of Funeral in Berlin) that ties the various twists and mysteries up neatly, good direction, and better cinematography than usual, plus a downbeat ending opening up room for a series to develop round it all out.

   McGavin is the primary attraction here, with Weaver’s appearances a welcome bit of spice. There is decent action here and there, a good teleplay, and good direction, but it’s mostly McGavin’s film and you’ll enjoy it or not based on your tolerance or admiration for his performances. Here he gets to stretch a little, playing a more complex and fully developed hero than usual.

   McGavin’s real life wife Kathie Browne shows up in what would likely have been a recurring role as Mallicent’s personal Moneypenny. It’s little more than a walk on, but nice to see them together.

   Nicely done little film, which is McGavin’s to make or break, but for my money he makes it well worth catching.
   

ROBERT B. PARKER – Thin Air. Spenser #22. G.P. Putnam’s sons, hardcover, 1994. Berkley, paperback, April 1996. Reprinted many times. TV Movie: 2000, with Joe Mantegna as Spenser.

   One impolite way of describing this book is to say it isn’t the air that’s thin, but the plot, which if it were a song, it would consist of only one note: Sgt. Frank Belson is a cop and a good friend of Spenser’s and his wife Lisa is missing. Belson’s wife, that is. Spenser is not married, of course, but he does have Susan, and between them they own a dog named Pearl.

   Let’s back to Lisa. Spenser agrees to start looking for her. He may be able to look in places where Belson may have difficulty, and when the latter is shot three times and seriously injured, Spenser takes the job a lot more seriously. He does mot believe much in the idea of coincidence.

   And he is right. Lisa has been kidnapped by a former lover, a Latino gang lord who has taken her captive and who believes he can win her back.

   I am not telling you anything I should not be telling you. Parker tells the story from two perspectives, in alternating chapters: Spenser’s, as he tries to find her, and Lisa’s (in italics), as a prisoner.

   With all of any inherent mystery gone, it is up to Spenser to be clever, witty and charming enough to keep the pages turning. I’d say he does, but I know many friends who are not Spenser fans, and if you are one of them, you are free to disagree. I could say more about the story, but going back and reading what I’ve said before, I think I’ve already said the gist of it. From here on, you’re on your own.

TED WHITE – Phoenix Prime. Qanar #1. Lancer 73-476, paperback original; 1st printing, 1966. Cover art by Frank Frazetta.

   Max Quest awakes one morning with new paranormal powers. Hi plans for using them for the benefit of mankind are interrupted by the attacks of Others with the same powers. Unable to defeat him directly, they turn to his girl friend Fran and send her to the alternate world of Qanar.

   Max follows her rather than submit to being reduced to their level. After lengthy adventures, Max finds Fran and is able to return with her to defeat the Others, who have stunted their powers by failing to use them properly.

   The first fifty pages, as Max learns of his powers, with a detailed view of present-day New York City, are the most interesting, the most realistic. While certainly well done, the imaginative world of Qanar lacks the perception Ted White utilizes to describe the familiar.

   On page 162, the theory that man has lost his place in the system of nature conflicts with the idea that man can transcend his animalistic background. Must it be that man must take an additional evolutionary step to improve himself?

Rating: ****

      The Qanar series —

1. Phoenix Prime (1966)
2. The Sorceress of Qar (1966)
3. Star Wolf! (1971)

  HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL “The Vigil.” CBS, 16 September 1961 (Season 5, Episode 1). Richard Boone, Kam Tong. Gunest cast: Mary Fickett, George Kennedy, Dan Stafford. Teleplay: Shimon Wincelberg. Director: Andrew V. McLaglen. Current;y streaming on YouTube (see below),

   There is both very little to this story, and yet there is also quite a lot, and although nothing very surprising happens, it ends up in quite satisfying fashion, Contradictions? This adventure of the western PI-for-hire who calls himself Paladin is full of them.

   He is hired by an idealistic nurse straight out of nursing school to help her travel to a community desperately in need of medical assistance, but they have already turned down her offer of help. They want a doctor. They do not want a nurse, not a female one.

   She is going anyway.

   Not only is she idealistic she is hopelessly naive. (Perhaps they are the same thing.)

   Perhaps only a day or two into their journey, they encounter a campsite where they find two men having just finished burying a third under a pile of rocks. Paladin is suspicious, but the young nurse is willing to take their story at face value: that the dead man died from an arrow in the back during an Indian attack. Paladin sees the dead man’s shirt. No hole in the back. He was killed at noon and in the heat, he wasn’t wearing the shirt, he is told. It’s now late in the evening, Paladin responds. What took you so long to bury him? Let’s uncover the body, he suggests.

   Events ensue – Paladin is a gunfighter by trade, after all — and by the end of this 30-minute episode, the young lady nurse has learned a valuable lesson about life. Neatly done, although if you are so inclined, one might have to admit, perhaps a little too obviously so.

FRIDAY THE 13th, PART VI:  JASON LIVES (1986). Paramount Pictures, 1986. Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Kerry Noonan, Renee Jones), Tom Fridley, C.J. Graham (Jason). Written and directed by Tom McLoughlin.

   Earlier this week, my father and I had  the opportunity to attend a special screening of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. Which to some people probably doesn’t sound like much; after all, it was just another installment in the gruesome long-running slasher franchise which exploited suburban fears and terrors. Those people couldn’t be more wrong.

   Directed by Tom McLaughlin, in photo to the left, this entry in the Jason series is a clever, fun, and dare I say – meta – film that provides an equal amount of scares and self-referential laughs. With a Gothic vibe (the movie was filmed in semi-rural Georgia), Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is, in many ways, an updated 1930s Universal Horror film. Here, Jason isn’t just a crazed man with a hockey mask; he’s a supernatural entity brought back from the dead. And it’s up to the person who resurrected him to put him back where he belongs; namely, dead in the infamous Crystal Lake.

   What made this viewing at the American Cinematique in Los Feliz CA particularly special was seeing director Tom McLaughlin introduce not only the film, but a large number of cast members, many of whom shared their experiences working on the project. [See photo below.] One thing that struck me was how he mentioned that he had no idea (and I certainly believe him) that, some 37 years later, people would be gathering en masse for a sold out screening of his sole entry into the franchise.

   
   Many consider this to be the best of the series, including all of the  fans watching it one more timein a sold-out theater,  It’s difficult to disagree.

Bonus: The soundtrack by Alice Cooper  gives the film some rebellious theatrical vibes that stay with you long after the lights come back on.

BENJAMIN APPEL – Brain Guy. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1934. Lion #39, paperback, 1950. Lion Library #151, paperback, 1957. Also published as The Enforcer (Belmont Tower, paperback, 1972). Stark House Press, softcover, 2005 (two-in-one edition with Plunder).

   The first in a trilogy (Brain Guy, The Power-House, and The Dark Stain) about the rise of a mob boss (Bill Trent) from Hell’s Kitchen.

   We start with Bill as a rent collector for a real estate agent. There’s a wink and a nod for the tenants with speakeasies and brothels, but you better not get caught by the cops. If you do, the agent will play dumb, blame it on the collector, and can them on the spot. Which happens to Bill.

   Now Bill is broke in the Depression, like everybody else. But he’s not like everybody else. He’s not gonna beg. He’s not gonna starve. He fancies he’s a Brain Guy. A guy with schemes.

   So he sells his schemes to one of the mobsters he used to collect the rent from. The scheme is this: Bill collected rent from all the stores in the neighborhood: the dress store, the meat store, the cheese store, the speaks. He knows when they’ve got their dough on hand. He knows just when to hit them.

   So that’s how he gets his start. Robbing all the tenants he used to rent collect.

   He hooks up with some muscle, takes a whore for his moll, and kills his way to the top.

   What’s a bit unique about the story is that we see all the self-doubt of Bill Trent. He nearly fails many times. He nearly gives up. He’s just playing by ear and he has no idea what he’s doing. He is fully conscious that all mob bosses are employees at will, their time is grossly indeterminate, and the termination notice is terminal. He’s just a guy filling a role: Brain Guy. And he’ll keep it til he gets knocked off by the next one. And so on.

   The story is nothing new, really. But it’s a well-done, credible, three dimensional picture of how a pretty ordinary guy becomes a monster. Never a monster in his mind. But in his actions. Always just doing what thinks he has to do to survive.

   There’s a nice quote on the cover from the New York Times saying it’s “written with the cold, corroding passion of one who has seen through the heart of human poverty and degradation and had all the softness and sham burned away.” Which seems to me as good a definition as any of hard-boiled prose. What was happening in the Poisonville’s of America during prohibition and the depression produced pockets of desperation. And desperation speaks with concision.

   When death is imminent, you don’t tend to use a lot of pretty adverbs and adjectives. You cut to the chase. Bullshit has a way of disappearing down the mouth of a gun. In Fight Club, there’s a scene where Tyler Durden holds up a convenience store cashier:

   Heidegger talks of ‘being towards death’ — that only the constant thought of mortality keeps us authentic. Keeps us from collapsing into the idiot wind of idle chatter. Adorno says ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. But my favorite formulation of the hard-boiled manner comes from The Misfit in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find: “She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

   So there you have it. The book feels real. With hard-boiled patter. The better to think with. The better to speak with. The better to be authentic in the life you live.