THE NIGHT STALKER “The Zombie.” ABC, 20 September 1974 (Season 1, Episode 2). 60m. Darren McGavin (Carl Kolchak), Simon Oakland (Tony Vincenzo). Created by Jeff Rice. Teleplay: Zekial Marko and David Chase. Director: Alex Grasshoff.

    There’s a lot of fun to be had in “The Zombie.” The second episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, “The Zombie” combines chills and frights with off-beat humor and further establishes the template for the series as a whole.

    Here, intrepid reporter/supernatural investigator Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) uncovers an occult connection to an ongoing mob war. As it turns out, one of the men recently killed by the Chicago mob was a Haitian man whose aunt dabbled in voodoo. So, it comes as no surprise to Kolchak that the culprit behind the revenge killings of mob members was not a living and breathing human after all; it was – you guessed it – a zombie. The very man long thought dead.

    Aired at a time when blaxploitation was all the rage, the episode showcases the rivalry and partnership between Chicago’s Italian and Black gangs. Portraying one of the Black gang members is no other than Antonio Fargas, who would later become widely known to television audiences as restaurant owner and informant Huggy Bear on Starsky & Hutch. Also look for character actor and comedian J. Pat O’Malley, who I remember from a particularly poignant episode of Three’s Company, as an undertaker whose main concern seems to be whether his union will approve of what’s transpiring all around him.

    There’s an amusingly effective subplot involving Kolchak and his editor Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland). Turns out Vincenzo wants Kolchak to show a head honcho’s niece from New York the ropes of journalism. Little does she know that it will involve seeing the mangled corpses of mob enforcers lying in the street. You can stream the full episode here.

(1) Per Fine Ounce by Peter Vollmer. Lume Books, paperback, 2020. Also available as a Kindle edition. Based on an unpublished James Bond novel by Geoffrey Jenkins.

(2) The Killing Zone by Jim Hatfield. Charter Books, paperback, 1985.

   What these two books have in common, other than a certain rarity, is that both are unofficial James Bond pastiches not fully approved by the Ian Fleming estate, and among the more interesting ephemera related to that ongoing phenomena that is James Bond 007.

   First we have Per Fine Ounce, which is based on an unpublished authorized James Bond novel by South African author Geoffrey Jenkins.

   Following the death of Ian Fleming and the publication of Fleming’s last completed novel The Man With the Golden Gun, Jenkins, author of Grue of Ice, and River of Diamonds, was approached in 1966 to write a James Bond novel suggested by Fleming’s own plans to write another Bond set in South Africa (Diamonds Are Forever opens and closes in South Africa and Fleming also wrote the non-fiction The Diamond Smugglers).

   Instead the Kingsley Amis Colonel Sun as by Robert Markham was the first Bond pastiche.

   The book was written by Jenkins, rejected with no reason given (I suspect the complex politics of a book set in South Africa under Apartheid scared off the Fleming estate as much as anything), and thought lost. Eventually it was discovered the manuscript still existed, but the Fleming estate had no interest in it being published.

   This is the point when Peter Vollmer, a South African writer in the Wilbur Smith tradition, approached Jenkins’ son with the idea of writing a version of the original novel featuring not James Bond, but a version of Jenkins’ own series character, Geoffrey Peace (Twist of Sand, Hunter Killer).

   That said, the Geoffrey Peace in this book has almost nothing to do with the character in Jenkins’ books. This is very much a Bond imitation in all ways and sadly a pretty pale one at that. It’s the failure of Peace to evolve into anything more than a mediocre Bond or Peace imitation that is the biggest problem. He is, to paraphrase Fleming, neither six of one or a half dozen of the other.

   That and some bizarre choices like having Peace go on about y-front underwear like Matt Helm on women in pants don’t help. Peace whining about y-fronts is not Bond’s shaken not stirred or preference for sleeveless blue Sea Island cotton shirts.

   I’m not sure what Vollmer thought he was doing there.

   Vollmer has written some fine books on his own, but despite his claims of enthusiasm, there isn’t much here. England, eager to keep its close ties to South Africa secret, sends Peace on a mission summed up pretty well in the second chapter.

   A good enough set up, and I don’t want to mislead, the book is not bad, it just isn’t worth all the buildup and wait.

   Peace is neither James Bond nor the much darker Jenkins character, and the result is a rather wan sixties style spy thriller that at its best is not up to many of the better contemporary Bond imitations (James Leasor, Andrew York, Philip McCutchan, George B. Mair, and James Mayo all did it better and certainly Amis, John Gardner, Anthony Horowitz, and Raymond Benson did it better).

   The stolen bullion leads to a more complicated plot about South Africa and Israel collaborating on a nuclear bomb, and both extreme right and left factors involved in the plot with a megalomaniac named Van Rhym involved in seizing the South African gold reserves and embroiling the whole continent in nuclear conflagration.

   There is also a heroine named Cherry Boxx.

   Sigh.

   Probably no book could ever come up to the expectation of a lost novel by a popular writer lost since 1966, so Vollmer deserves credit for a thankless task done as well as it probably could have been done.

   That said, and despite some good action, the whole thing doesn’t add up to much.

   If Per Fine Ounce doesn’t add up to much, it as least makes sense. Just how The Killing Joke ever got published without being shut down by the Fleming estate is a mystery.

   The Killing Joke was published as a paperback original in the United States in the 1980’s. It is copyrighted by both Hatfield and the Fleming estate, but how it was written and published and why are both mysteries.

   The inside copy explains the plot better than I could:

   Just in passing, the ninja is named Chen.

   Just saying.

   We open with James Bond’s longtime friend and M’s second in command Bill Tanner being murdered in Mexico. James Bond we discover is retired and living in Jamaica.

   … the elite Double-0 section – which meant being licensed to kill in the line of duty – was being abolished… So Commander James Bond, Agent 007 of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, resigned and relocated to the Caribbean.

   Of course Bond comes out of retirement at M’s behest to avenge his friend and is drawn into a bloody and violent saga. The book isn’t bad. It is no way Fleming or the least Flemingesque, but it is a decent sub-Bondian spy novel with someone called James Bond who at times almost seems to be Bond without Fleming’s sophistication and wit (sorely missing in the Vollmer book too).

   And then … SPOILER ALERT!

   James Bond dies.

   Dead.

   No resurrection, no trick.

   Bond is dead.

   And the Fleming estate somehow is fine with it, or at least didn’t drag the author and publisher into court.

   This one is a bit harder to find than Per Fine Ounce, but there is a free PDF you can download if you search for it and want to read it and not overpay for the hard to find paperback.

   The Killing Zone remains a mystery to me. Just how Hatfield came to write it, much less got it published is an enigma. Just what anyone involved was thinking is mystery enough. Neither book comes anywhere near being even remotely like Fleming (or Jenkins), and yet either is a decent read on its own if nothing special.

   But even by the standards of pastiche these two are oddities. I suppose the only real response to either of them is surprise they exist.

   I won’t even go into the Donald Westlake James Bond novel published a year or two ago revised without Bond. That one at least makes sense.

JAMES H. COBB “The Sound of Justice.” Kevin Pulaski #2. Novelette. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 2005. Probably never reprinted.

   The Kevin Pulaski of the present is a retired veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but when he was in high school, back in Indiana in 1949, that he would grow up to be a lawman was the furthest thing from his mind. He was, in fact, a hod-rodder of the first magnitude, and a JD? His reply, “Man, I was there when they first came out.”

   That he had an off-and-on relationship with the local authorities at the time doesn’t matter when a good buddy is accused of stealing a small fortune of jewelry from his girl friend’s father’s store. Kevin goes the preliminary trial on his own initiative, and part of the evidence he provides is… Well, this small excerpt should explain:

   â€œI […turned] to face the judge’s desk. “I’m what you call establishing precedent. You see, Your Honor, every hot rod ever built has a kind of fingerprint. Something about it that is totally different from any other car in the world, the sound of its engine.”

   He demonstrates and his friend goes free. The story is cleanly told and not once pretentious. Even though I was never part of the hot rod culture in high school, I was fully aware of it, and I enjoyed this brief trip back in time.
   

      The Kevin Pulaski series —

Road Bomb (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Mar/Apr 2004
The Sound of Justice (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 2005
Framed (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine June 2006
Over the Edge (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 2007
Body and Fender (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 2008
Desert and Swamp (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Mar/Apr 2009

   and previously:

West on 66. Minotaur, hardcover, October 1999, and taking place in Pulaski’s days as a LA lawman.

RICHARD LAYMAN & JULIE RIVETT, Editors – Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett. Counterpoint, hardcover, 2001; paperback, 2002.

   Speaking of Dashiell Hammett, he came a cropper again more recently, this time a victim of the Bloated Times we live in. With Adventure Books coming out at over 400 pages, movies routinely over two-and-a-half-hours long, and Comic Books that take a whole year to tell a story, I guess it had to happen to even the champion of lean, terse writing, and the latest evidence of this mindless pursuit of Bigness is Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett, “edited” – and I use the word contemptuously — by Richard Layman and Julie Rivett.

   A few numbers back, I praised Raymond Chandler Speaking, and the virtues of that compact little gem shine all the more brightly next to the sullen morass of Selected/Hammett. Layman and Rivett seem totally incapable of winnowing the Meaningful from the trivia that constitutes most correspondence, and as a result we get over 600 pages (!) of Who went to what party, How much Life Insurance should we buy, Will the Heat Spell ever break, and — Oh God I can’t go on with it.

   The reader who wades through this swamp must combine a fanatical devotion to Hammett with a total lack of discrimination and the patience of Sisyphus. Stay away.

GENE THOMPSON – Murder Mystery. Dade Cooley #1. Random House, hardcover, 1980. Ballantine, paperback, 1981.

   You have to agree – it’s a great title for a detective story. And for that it’s such an obvious one, would you believe that a quick check in Hubin’s Bibliography of Crime Fiction would show that it’s the first time it’s ever been used?

   That, plus the simple elegance of the cover – white on black with a small insert showing the front of a shiny Rolls Royce, splattered with blood – would suggest a reading treat of a highly elite nature about to unfold before us. The story. however, is a disappointment. It just doesn’t measure up to our expectations. (Well, it didn’t mine.)

   It tries. While obviously there are very few mean streets in Malibu, we are nearly persuaded that what lies behind the doors of some southern California mansions may be insidiously meaner. Doing the honors as the detective in the case is society lawyer Dade Cooley, who is persuaded by the daughter of a client that her mother’s fatal accident with her car was in truth no accident at all.

   Well, of course it wasn’t. And by actual count, at one point the list of possible suspects has reached at least twelve. This is a lot of people to keep close tabs on, and fear I lost track of some of them from time to time.

   The plot is complex, confusing, and slow-moving. It hinges at length on a bit of precarious time-tabling that does manage to get the murderer and the victim together at the same time, but that is all it does.

   As a detective, Cooley is literate and intelligent enough for the job, but he seems far too fond of himself and his wit for me to think of him as likable. Thompson may or may not be making him into a series character – this is apparently his first murder mystery – but if he is, I’m afraid he’s off to a toe-stubbing start.

Rating: C minus
   

POSTSCRIPT: There is something else that troubles me about this book, and maybe I should mention it. One of Thompson’s other characters, not Cooley, is said to have been a poet, and a few of his lines are quoted to prove it. I have no quarrel at all with that, of course, but at the end of the book Thompson reveals in a brief acknowledgment that the work in question actually came from the pen of real-life poet Gerard Hanley Hopkins. Even if it was reprinted with permission, I don’t know about you, but I’m inclined to think that if this is meant to be some sort of new literary technique, it’s one we can do without just as quickly.

The Dade Cooley series —

Murder Mystery. Random House 1980.
Nobody Cared for Kate. Random House 1983.
A Cup of Death. Random House 1988

UPDATE: I wasn’t able to do this then, long before Google was even conceived of, but this is now, and what I’ve been able to discover is that Gene Thompson was a fairly prolific writer for quite a number of television series. A few that you may have heard of are: Bob Newhart, Here’s Lucy, Harry O, Ellery Queen, Cannon, Quincy, and Columbo. (This list is far from complete.)

RAYMOND J. HEALY & J. FRANCIS McCOMAS, Editors – Famous Science-Fiction Stories: Adventures in Time And Space. The Modern Library G-31; hardcover, 1957, xvi + 997 pages. First published as Adventures in Time in Space, Random House, hardcover, 1946. Bantam F3102, paperback, 1966, as Adventures in Time and Space (contains only 8 stories). Ballantine, paperback, 1975, also as Adventures in Time and Space.

   Thirty-three stories first published in the years 1934-1945, mostly from Astounding, plus two articles not reviewed below. Although these were originally chosen as “classics” in 1946, as a whole they have not aged well. That [I have rated] only a third as above average demonstrated this quite adequately.

   The emphasis, as pointed out in the [book’s] introduction, is on science rather than fiction, and often it is only the obviously creative imagination of the author that saves an indifferently written story from disaster, Style is also important… Overall rating: 2½ stars.

NOTE: I read and reviewed all 33 stories. On this biog, I will post my comments in groups of three spread out over the next few months. This is Part One.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN “Requiem.” A ‘Future History’ story. A softly sentimental story of a rocket pioneer’s first and only trip to the moon. Excellent is spite of an obvious plot. (5)

Update: Also part of Heinlein’s D. D. Harriman (“The Man Who Sold the Moon”) series. First published in Astounding SF, January 1940. First reprinted in this anthology. Collected in The Man Who Sold the Moon (Shasta, hardcover, 1950) and The Past Through Tomorrow (Putnam, hardcover, 1967).

DON A. STUART “Forgetfulness.” Novelette. Poetic story of the ultimate destiny of man – advanced, but unable to remember the steps of progress. The point is good, but the story does not seem to convey it well. (2)

Update: Don A. Stuart was the pen name of long time Astounding SF editor, John W. Campbell. First published in that magazine, June 1937. First collected in this anthology, then several times later, including Cities of Wonder, edited by Damon Knight (Doubleday, hardcover, 1966).

LESTER del REY “Nerves.” Novella. An atomic-power plant goes out of control, endangering the lives of all in the surrounding countryside. No doubt very exciting when it first appeared, the story no longer provides much punch. The characters are almost stereotypes today, especially the doctor-father image and his young assistant, who desires to become an atomic physicist. (2½)

Update: First published in Astounding SF, September 1942. First reprinted in this anthology. First collected in …And Some Were Human (Prime Press, hardcover, 1948). Expanded upon and published as a separate novel by Ballantine (paperback, 1956), with a slightly revised version appearing in its sixth printing, 1976.

   
TO BE CONTINUED…

   Just in case you were wondering how David Handler’s story “The Happy Couple” I reviewed here a couple of days ago ended, I have decided on a way to tell you, but only if you want to be told. Please read comment #1.

RAW DEAL. De Laurentiis Entertainment, 1986. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathryn Harrold, Sam Wanamaker, Paul Shenar, Robert Davi, Ed Lauter, Darren McGavin, Joe Regalbuto, Steven Hill. Director: John Irvin. Available on DVD and Blu-Ray. Currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

   I know this is almost certainly an outlier opinion, but here it is: Raw Deal is actually a pretty good action movie. Although it was a box office disappointment and generally scoffed at by critics, this Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle has been unfairly maligned. One would almost say that the movie itself got a raw deal. And that it now deserves critical reappraisal.

   Years ago, Mark Kaminski (Schwarzenegger) was an FBI Agent living in New York with a bright future ahead of him. All that changed when ambitious prosecutor Marvin Baxter (Joe Regalbuto), upon seeing how badly Kaminski roughed up a child abuse suspect, gave Kaminski a choice: resign or be prosecuted. Kaminski chose the former and ended up in exile, working as a small-town sheriff where one of his biggest collars is that of a local thief impersonating a motorcycle cop.

   Enter FBI Agent Harry Shannon (Darren McGavin). He’s angry and grieving. His son, also an agent, was murdered in cold blood while working witness protection. Shannon knows that somewhere in law enforcement there is a leak, one that cost his dear son his life. He gives Kaminski an offer: work undercover, infiltrate the Chicago mob, and find out who is leaking vital information about the witness protection program. It would all be off the books, of course. No one other than he would know about it.

   It is, of course, a completely familiar plot line. One that has been used time and again. But this doesn’t stop Raw Deal from being good trashy fun. The fact that movie refuses to take itself too seriously works to its benefit. The Untouchables (1987), also a Chicago mob movie, this is not.

   What also makes the movie worth a look is the great character actor talent on display. Steven Hill, decades after he departed Mission: Impossible, is a most welcome screen presence. He portrays Martin Lamanski, a synagogue-attending Jewish gangster in a fierce rivalry with Italian mob boss Luigi Patrovita (Sam Wanamaker). Both men seem to be having a lot – and I do mean a lot – of fun with their roles. To me, this counts for a lot.

   Also look for Robert Davi, known for portraying both cops and heavies, in a supporting role as a mob enforcer. Ed Lauter, who appeared in many 1970s action films, portrays a tough nosed Chicago cop. Both actors add grit and substance to the proceedings and satisfactorily counterbalance the inevitably goofy Schwarzenegger moments.

   I think a lot of attention has been given to the final sequence, which admittedly, is excessively violent. It’s something you’d associate more with a 1970s Italian poliziotteschi than with Hollywood moviemaking. But then again this was a Dino De Laurentiis production. Make of that what you will.
   

DAVID HANDLER “The Happy Couple.” Novelette. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 2005. Not known to have been reprinted.

   David Handler is best known for his hardcover mysteries, most of which fall into either of two series: his Stewart Hoag and Lulu mysteries (of which there are twelve), or his Berger and Mitry tales (of which there are eleven). “The Happy Couple” is therefore a rarity: it’s one of only a small handful of short stories he’s written, and it’s a standalone.

   The narrator is Tim Ferris, as he tells a story that took place thirty years earlier when he was struggling young newspaper reporter in Manhattan. The first line gives a small hint of what is to come: “This is the ugliest show business story that I know.”

   Enamored of the Broadway stage, and superstar actress Barbara Darrow in particular, Ferris is thrilled beyond belief when he is offered an interview with her and her husband, the equally famous actor Anthony Beck. What he does not realize he is walking into is a love triangle between the two of them and Leigh Grayson, a young accomplished actress who is in a lesser role in the current play all three are in.

   Ferris himself finds himself strongly attracted to the latter, which does not please Ms Darrow and the games she loves to play. Not only does he find himself drawn into them as well, but so does the reader. You can simply feel the sexual tension growing, punctuated by Beck finding Darrow sitting naked in Ferris’s lap, an unwanted event by the latter, and totally surprised by it.

   The ending? Totally horrific. I won’t say more, but it is one that Ferris had to wait thirty years before he could tell it. This one’s a chiller.

DANA STABENOW – No Fixed Line. PI Kate Shugak #22. Head of Zeus, hardcover, January 2020; paperback, February 2021. Setting: Contemporary Alaska.

First Sentence: Anna was a warm, heavy weight against his side, her eyes closed, her breathing deep, her tears drying in faint silvery streaks on her cheeks.

   Matt Grosdidier and Laurel Meganack are spending New Year’s’ Eve at Kate Shugak’s cabin bolt hole at Canyon Hot Springs. Their romantic interlude is interrupted by the sound of an engine, and the crash of a plane. What they didn’t expect to find was two young children, belted together in a seat. Further investigation reveals a body buried in the snow, and a whole lot of drugs. Meanwhile, Erland Bannister, who tried to have Kate killed more than once, has died. But why did he make her the trustee of his estate and the head of his foundation?

   Stabenow captures one’s interest from the very first sentence. Her writing is evocative and visual. It captivates, involves, and becomes real. And it moves, no long narratives here; just writing which keeps one turning the page. One also realizes just how timely are the themes of her story. But it’s the details of dealing with Alaska that make one’s eyes widen. For those who follow the series, this is an Alaska very different from the state as it was in the beginning, which only adds to the interest.

   The story is perfectly balanced between the action, the pastoral, and the wonderfully normal, human moments. The transition between these elements segues perfectly, one to the next. It’s fascinating to see how Kate’s mind works; how she walks through the possible scenarios of traps Bannister may have set for her. Her comparison of a modern minimalist office lobby, using the term “dead perfection” from a Tennyson poem and comparing it to a columbarium is identifiable.

   One can’t but love the references to other writers: Dick Francis, Ellis Peters, Damien Boyd, Adrian McGinty, John Sandford, and even Tennyson. Such things make the character seem real– “To quote the late, great Dick Francis, life keeps getting steadily weirder.” —along with references to food– “…caribou steak with loaded baked potatoes and canned green beans fried with bacon and onions.”

   Stabenow weaves the issues of poverty, drugs and government cutbacks seamlessly into the story through the conversations of the characters. She offsets that by observing the way people in the park care for one another. The plot meanders a bit between the characters and the mystery involving the children, but doesn’t life? There is romance and a bit of erotic heat, but it then stops before becoming too graphic. Quite satisfying is Kate’s justifiable anger at law enforcement not having gone after someone they knew was a criminal. Valid and significant points are made about the status of things without being preachy, and the suggestion of a future threat is intriguing without being an end-destroying cliffhanger.

   No Fixed Line is a great pleasure to read. It has everything a really good book should: well-developed characters, a compelling plot that keeps one turning the pages, excellent dialogue, a touch of humor, well-done suspense, well-placed twists, and a perfectly executed ending. Thank you, Dana Stabenow.

Rating: Excellent.