FRED SABERHAGEN – The Broken Lands. Ace G-740. Paperback original, 1st printing, 1968. Cover art: Richard Powers. Baen Books, paperback, 1987. Collected in The Empire of the East (Baen, paperback, 1990; Tor, trade paperback, 2003).

   The are very few good examples of effective combinations of science fiction with swords-and-sorcery. This may be the best so far, better to my mind than anything by Andre Norton, for example. Since a sequel is definitely required, Saberhagen may have more in preparation, very good news indeed.

   Some large indefinite time in the Earth’s future, magic and sorcery have replaced science and technology in the scheme of things. Magic works, while science is regarded with superstitious awe. But the old things do work, and a nuclear-powered tank found buried under a mountain comes to life to help fulfill a myth, as an evil satrap is overthrown by the outlaw Free Folk.

   Try to imagine a Barbarian learning the operation of that tank, succeeding by trial and error. The fascination is so great that it truly comes as a disappointment when he is captured and the secret of tank’s existence is lost.

   Humor is present, too, as when instructions for a magic stone allowing its holder to escape go unread because of the very active requirements of doing so, ’Tis a very deep stone, too, to be able to determine which side of a barrier leads to the “outside” or to the “inside” …

   Not to be put down easily.

Rating: *****

WHEN WILLIE COMES MARCHING HOME. 20th Century Fox, 1950. Dan Dailey, Corinne Calvert, Colleen Townsend, William Demarest. Screenplay by Richard Sale & Mary Loos. Director: John Ford.

   Dan Dailey stars as the first young man in his hometown to sign up for World War II, but the fanfare becomes frustration as he soon discovers he’s permanently stationed only five miles from home.

   Finally given the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of his family and friends, his mission to France ends so quickly, no one believes he was gone. As a young actor, Dailey proves to have been a lanky, likable sort of chap, and I liked his performance here.

NO GOOD DEED. Screen Gems, 2014. Idris Elba, Taraji P. Henson, Leslie Bibb, Kate del Castillo, Henry Simmons. Director: Sam Miller.

   Idris Elba plays against type in this suburban home invasion thriller. Elba portrays Colin, an escaped convict with narcissistic personality disorder. On a dark stormy night in Atlanta, he enters both the home and life of Terry (Taraji P. Henson), a former prosecutor and current stay-at-home mom.

   With charm and guile, Colin manages to persuade Terry that he is merely waiting for a tow truck after he wrecked his car. Little by little, and with the intervention of a friend of Terry’s, Colin’s story unravels. What begins as a good deed – inviting a stranger into one’s house to wait for a tow truck – turns into a nightmare.

   That’s the premise. What happens next is standard home invasion thriller fare. A cat and mouse game between the monster and the captive. There are some very tense moments here, which go to show most of all how talented an actor Elba is.

   There’s a moment – it’s actually quite late in No Good Deed – wherein the villain’s true motivations are finally revealed. Some might say that it comes too late. Others might rightfully consider that the reveal wasn’t presented in a manner that captures the viewer’s attention.

   Still, it’s a pivotal moment in the movie and one that makes No Good Deed a slightly more clever thriller than it might initially appear to be. Which makes one wonder why the film has only a mere 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s definitely better than that.

   Overall assessment: extremely watchable, but without a considerable amount of depth. If you choose to watch this one, do so for Elba’s performance and the claustrophobic atmosphere.

JACK FOXX – Freebooty. Bobbs-Merrill, hardcover, 1976.

   Jack Foxx is a pseudonym used by Bill Pronzini for four Foxx novels written in the 1970s. Two are action/ adventure stories featuring Singapore bush pilot Dan Connell — The Jade Figurine (1972) and Dead Run (1975); a third, Wildfire ( 1978), is a thriller about a small California logging community menaced by both a trio of dangerous criminals and a forest fire.

   Freebooty, a historical mystery, is very different in tone from the other tautly written, action-oriented Foxx novels. This is not to say that there isn’t plenty of action and suspense, but Freebooty‘s style is gentler, evoking an earlier age, and it is spiced with frequent, delightful humor.

   Fergus O’Hara and his wife, Hattie, arrive in San Francisco in 1863 en route to the port city of Stockton, where they suspect the members of a bandit gang who have been terrorizing coaches of the Adams Express Company are hiding out. As O’Hara explains, his wife is not an operative of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, as he is, but frequently assists him in his inquiries, “women being able to obtain information in places men cannot.”

   Before the O’Haras board the steamer Freebooty for the inland Journey, Fergus makes the acquaintance of Horace T. Goatleg, an obese man with patently suspicious motives; encounters an articulate and ribald parrot (one of the most memorable characters in a cast of outstanding ones); witnesses a near-riot on the Barbary Coast; finds a murdered man in an alley; and sustains minor injuries himself, including being half drowned by a shower of beer.

   Needless to say, all of the above events tie in to further goings–on aboard the steamer. And as the O’Haras — an effective team –investigate them, their initial purposes take a series of twists and turns, leading to a final revelation that is sure to leave the reader both surprised and amused.

   Pronzini has a firm grasp of historical fact, and he blends it skillfully into his narrative, capturing the tenor of the times without allowing detail to slow the pace of his story. This is an entertaining novel, well plotted and full of engaging characters.

     ———
   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.

ELLERY QUEEN – The Quick and the Dead. Ellery Queen #17. Pocket, paperback, later printing. Originally published as There Was an Old Woman (Little Brown, hardcover, 1943). First reprinted under this original title as Pocket Book #326, paperback, 1945. Reprinted several times since.

   It seems senseless to have changed the title,as the original one fits so much better. Remember “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe” from Mother Goose? That verse is the basic theme; Ellery Queen picks it up early, to his later confusion.

   Cornelia Potts, president of the Potts shoe business, lives with her six children and second husband, all in one house, which is the site of numerous hatreds, jealousies, and various eccentricities. Three murders, including a surrealistic duel at dawn, and one natural death later, Ellery’s deductions disrupt a weeding bring him a new secretary named “Nikki Porter.”

   We have many exaggerated character studies: Thurlow, the feeble-minded nitwit; Louella, the slave and science and invention; and Horatio, who lives in a continued childhood. It is easy to suspect that the name Potts is merely a lively excuse to call the whole family potty.

   What may or may not be a flaw is the failure of Inspector Queen to read the old lady’s will immediately after her death. While rationalized, it does lead to the clue which gives Ellery the answer, or rather, the proof of his accusation. Details fit together beautifully.

   But are duels really legal? Even those supposedly rigged to be harmless (with Inspector Queen spying on)?

Rating: *****

SHATTERED. Lionsgate, 2007. Pierce Brosnan, Maria Bello, Gerard Butler, Emma Karwandy. Director: Mike Barker.

   Shattered, released in the United Kingdom under the more dramatic title Butterfly on a Wheel, offers the viewer a solid cast, an intriguing premise, and a great deal of suspense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t capitalize on these positive aspects. Instead, the movie takes its leisurely time to finally get to the point. And when it finally does, let’s just say the big reveal is somewhat underwhelming.

   The premise and the plot are as follows. Suburban Chicago couple Neil (Gerald Butler) and Abby Randall (Maria Bello) are in what appears to be a happy, loving marriage. They have a young daughter Sophie whom they adore. While Neil works as a power broker at an advertising agency, Abby stays home to raise their child. Everything seems swell until one day a mysterious stranger with a gun (Pierce Brosnan) shows up in the back of their car and threatens their daughter’s life.

   For the next hour or so, the film revolves around Brosnan’s character putting the couple through a series of tests and ordeals. To what point and why, you might ask. That’s a good question and one the filmmakers should have thought of answering earlier in the movie than they did. Let’s just say it has something to do with Neil not being the completely upstanding husband he purports to be.

   I’ll confess that, despite its flaws, the movie kept me entertained. Or at least glued enough to the television that I wanted to know what was going to happen next. But would I watch Shattered again? Surely not. Overall assessment: intriguing premise, but an ultimate letdown. Brosnan deserved better than his thankless role.

HIGHER AND HIGHER. RKO Radio Pictures, 1943. Michele Morgan, Jack Haley, Frank Sinatra, Leon Errol, Marcy McGuire, Victor Borge, Mary Wickes, Elisabeth Risdon, Barbara Hale, Mel Torme. Director: Tim Whelan.

   A former millionaire tries to pass a maid off as his daughter and the season’s number one debutante, hoping to recoup some recent business losses. Naturally humorous romantic complications arise.

   Notable as one of the first movie appearances for Frank Sinatra, who does a fine job playing himself. The plot makes very little sense, and the songs, while more than acceptable, do not entirely seem to match the story.

KEITH LAUMER – The Gold Bomb. Berkley X1592. paperback original; 1st printing, 1968. #7 in The Avengers series.

   Steed and Tara, on the trail of radioactive gold being smuggled into England, discover that it is actually being used to bring uranium into the country. And so the hunt is on, looking for a madman walking a large Newfoundland dog, to find him before he can bring together the components if a nuclear bomb capable of wiping London off the map.

   Laumer is off and running with his Retief style here, which seems to fit the Avengers type of humor fairy well, with constant retorts and witticisms. He also seems to find a good bit of humor in having Tara confused as Steed’s daughter, or in Steed’s luck in a fiancée.

   An early critical comment by Steed on the decline of the British workingman in an unionized country seems irrelevant, but their construction site turns up later as the bomber’s idea for a perfect hiding place. Rubbing their noses in it, so to say.

Rating: ***

   
      The Avengers series by Keith Laumer —

5. The Afrit Affair (1968)
6. The Drowned Queen (1968)
7. The Gold Bomb (1968)

SINGAPORE. Universal Pictures, 1947. Fred MacMurray, Ava Gardner, Roland Culver, Richard Haydn, Spring Byington, Thomas Gomez. Director: John Brahm.

   Surely influenced by both The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942), John Brahm’s exotic noir Singapore has neither the grit of the former, nor the enrapturing romance of the latter. But it’s certainly not without its myriad charms. Truth be told, I find myself enjoying this lesser-known, sometimes clunky, film more than I thought I would.

   Fred MacMurray portrays Matt Gordon, a pearl smuggler who returns to Singapore after the Japanese defeat in the Second World War. His goal: to recover a quarter of a million dollars worth of illicit pearls that he stashed away in his hotel room. What he doesn’t expect is to encounter his former fiancee Linda Grahame (Ava Gardner) who he presumed died in a Japanese air raid.

   As it turns out, Linda is very much alive and physically well. Except for one thing. She has amnesia and has forgotten her past, including her love for Matt. Complicating matters for the heartbroken Matt is the unfortunate fact that Linda is now married to a Dutch plantation owner. Matt has to navigate that fraught situation at the same time that he has a police officer on his back and two rival seedy criminals gunning for his pearls.

   There are plenty of saccharine, downright maudlin moments in Singapore which only serve to remind the viewer that this is a product of a different era. But I found there was enough suspense and intrigue to keep me interested throughout the comparatively short proceedings. MacMurray does a fine job with the flawed source material and takes the role seriously enough that you want to root for him to get both the girl and the pearls.

   Overall assessment: decent sentimental escapism with some nefarious characters adding some spice to the mix.

FREDERICK FORSYTH – The Odessa File. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1972. Viking, US, hardcover, 1972. Bantam, US, paperback, 1974. Reprinted many times since.

   In The Odessa File, crime reporter Peter Miller finds the diary of a survivor of the Riga Concentration Camp. Miller, an extremely able journalist and a German of the postwar generation, is stunned to discover the horrors of the camp, and he sets out to track down the camp’s commandant, Eduard Roschmann (a real figure, whose story is accurately reported by Forsyth).

   Roschmarm is reported to be living comfortably under a new identity somewhere in Germany.

   In his search for the Butcher of Riga, Miller uncovers Odessa. a secret organization of former SS members. which is supported by the gold and jewels they took from the Jews in the concentration camps. Its aims are to aid former Nazis in returning to positions of influence in Germany and to further neo-Nazi propaganda. The anti-Nazi underground is powerful in the Germany of 1963, when this story takes place, and Miller is up against the biggest challenge of his career.

   German officials who are charged with prosecuting war criminals now only want to forget; Miller gets no help from them. The Israelis want to make use of him to thwart the production of an Odessa-designed guidance system that will supposedly enable Egyptian missiles to carry bubonic plague into Israel; to them, Miller is expendable.

   This tense and fascinating story reads like fact, and it is with the factual that Forsyth is at his best; he can make the assembling of a bomb in a hotel room as riveting as the best chase scene. His totally fictional characters are less sure than those based on real individuals, but Miller is a sympathetic hero.

   Forsyth’s other thrillers are The Dogs of War ( 1974) and The Devil’s Alternative (1979). He has also written mainstream novel, The Shepherd (1974), and a nonfiction book, The Biafra Story (1977).

     ———
   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.