tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69840679904679636452024-03-18T23:07:47.633-07:00Vintage Pop Fictionspulp novels, trash fiction, detective stories, adventure tales, spy fiction, etc from the 19th century up to the 1970sdfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comBlogger1091125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-4910625208478715222024-03-18T23:07:00.000-07:002024-03-18T23:07:03.922-07:00Edgar Wallace's The India-Rubber Men<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY9SAu5dw8k4cGQnbPZnsOjDNQj-KYOXf6KsmLr5PoH9bmFePZx4yKfuoNR4QE0-S6Li2Kux3C4dcuT7qXd_d5uwzH67m9qCEO7wMQzzs-hmG9d3LiYNLL8AAR5vvLBVgt2TUPlvktE9-n0vQjEoi0B_rNSLEEWGyeKlNDiygO0_Iha6E6Wx0qgY9-H4Oc/s1437/India%20Rubber%20Men1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1437" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY9SAu5dw8k4cGQnbPZnsOjDNQj-KYOXf6KsmLr5PoH9bmFePZx4yKfuoNR4QE0-S6Li2Kux3C4dcuT7qXd_d5uwzH67m9qCEO7wMQzzs-hmG9d3LiYNLL8AAR5vvLBVgt2TUPlvktE9-n0vQjEoi0B_rNSLEEWGyeKlNDiygO0_Iha6E6Wx0qgY9-H4Oc/s320/India%20Rubber%20Men1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><i>The India-Rubber Men</i> is a 1929 Edgar Wallace thriller.<br /><br />London has been hit by a series of daring robberies carried out by men in rubber gas masks, armed with gas bombs. They have become known as the India-Rubber Men.<br /><br />Inspector John Wade of the river police is interested in the goings-on at the Mecca, a kind of riverfront boarding house for ship’s officers. Not a very reputable establishment. It’s run by Mum Oaks, a very disreputable middle-aged woman. Her niece lives there as well. Lila is a timid but attractive young woman and Inspector Wade has grown rather fond of her.<br /><br />Wade starts to see some connecting threads but they’re rather puzzling. There’s a penniless lord who isn’t penniless any more. There’s a mysterious sea captain. There’s a mysterious man who takes young Lila out to dinner once a year. There’s a woman who tries to drown herself, and she’s clutching a photograph of Lila. There are numerous attempts on John Wade’s life. There are abductions and a woman is drugged. There are break-ins in which nothing is stolen. There are fast motor launches that appear and disappear. There are suspects who should be thousands of miles away, but they aren’t. There’s a lawyer who knows something. There are links to events in the past. There’s an inheritance.<br /><br />This is pretty classic Edgar Wallace stuff. Apart from the India-Rubber Men there are small-time river thieves. There are jewel thefts. There are hidden rooms. There’s gunplay (with machine-guns). And Chicago gangsters.<br /><br />There’s also a policeman in love.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYJRTDssqjV8R3LdYX0XqTm_BhHpFoGiE0qazf9M8A_c8ZSgUFdaGQ6UM-lX54gOiy9XgLAzzaVAof-5dms9tg6yL_ewrsXT96NfO6kTus4RmYXxWAoI6dVFJfL2lu2uWtEtlHbck_F4MfRqHvXRqVB0QxX_V1lHUqM57lhyecrU0VPieLtQv0yky0wDH8/s1063/India%20Rubber%20Men2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="684" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYJRTDssqjV8R3LdYX0XqTm_BhHpFoGiE0qazf9M8A_c8ZSgUFdaGQ6UM-lX54gOiy9XgLAzzaVAof-5dms9tg6yL_ewrsXT96NfO6kTus4RmYXxWAoI6dVFJfL2lu2uWtEtlHbck_F4MfRqHvXRqVB0QxX_V1lHUqM57lhyecrU0VPieLtQv0yky0wDH8/s320/India%20Rubber%20Men2.jpeg" width="206" /></a></div>A good deal of the action takes place on the river or at sea. There’s a definite nautical flavour to the activities of the bad guys (and I do love nautical mysteries and thrillers). Naturally there are various sea-going and river-going vessels that seem innocent, even when they’ve been thoroughly searched. But in reality they are far from innocent.<br /><br />There’s quite a collection of bad guys and it’s not until late in the story that we start to suspect the identity of the most dangerous of the villains. There are quite a few characters who are not at all what they appear to be.<br /><br />Wallace liked convoluted plots but he was always able to resolve them satisfactorily and this story is no exception. <br /><br />Wallace also liked to build an atmosphere of breathless excitement and he does that here. There’s suspense, action and last-minute escapes. There’s a very high body count. Wallace was interesting among British writers of that era. He didn’t stint on the murder and mayhem and his villains were violent and ruthless. In some of his books in the 1920s he seemed to be trying to inject a slight American flavour. Not a bad idea since Chicago gangsters were big news at the time.<br /><br />There’s some romance as well.<br /><br />Inspector Wade is a likeable enough hero. He bends a few rules, but not too much. He’s also inclined to rely on bluffs, which don’t always come off.<br /><br />Wallace seemed to be incapable of writing a dull book. He knew his market, he knew the right ingredients to include and he delivered the goods.<br /><br />This is a fine Edgar Wallace thriller and it’s highly recommended.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-78951832968989777792024-03-16T05:14:00.000-07:002024-03-16T05:14:52.756-07:00Elliott Chaze’s Black Wings Has My Angel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-c-kG-n9d2nE9dB64jsmq6BvXaGrxuMwDgTMJ8z3G7GNVERaffEKNQTIO6mlr8veT8ZE42tB6Kd9SPhBwKDxh2UjClBtYhX6PyFfaMcsjIbvI284jvYoPNzL1nvkQKfnTMcWH356QPPSuT5mZkHguiMmdofd_1kFCUNm3GshWX9tKHu51S0swPx-Iroy/s1007/Black%20Wings%20Has%20My%20Angel1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1007" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-c-kG-n9d2nE9dB64jsmq6BvXaGrxuMwDgTMJ8z3G7GNVERaffEKNQTIO6mlr8veT8ZE42tB6Kd9SPhBwKDxh2UjClBtYhX6PyFfaMcsjIbvI284jvYoPNzL1nvkQKfnTMcWH356QPPSuT5mZkHguiMmdofd_1kFCUNm3GshWX9tKHu51S0swPx-Iroy/s320/Black%20Wings%20Has%20My%20Angel1.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>Elliott Chaze’s <i>Black Wings Has My Angel</i> is a 1953 noir novel published by Fawcett Gold Medal.<br /><br />Elliott Chaze (1915-1990) had a very long career as a novelist and journalist but wrote only nine novels, and only a minority of those qualified as crime fiction. <br /><br />Tim has just finished up a spell working on an oilfield. Now he’s in his hotel, having washed off several weeks’ worth of grime and he’s feeling pretty good. And the bellboy has found a girl for him. Her name is Virginia. She’s stunningly beautiful, obviously well educated and has a cultured voice. You’d expect a girl like Virginia, if she happened to be a whore, to be a high-priced Manhattan call-girl rather than turning tricks for ten bucks a throw in some jerkwater town.<br /><br />Tim isn’t complaining, not when the girl has legs like these.<br /><br />Three days later they finally get out of bed and head off together. Tim has no intention of allowing anything serious to develop. He has plans and Virginia does not fit into those plans. He’ll dump her at some gas station when he’s tired of her, but he isn’t tired of her yet. Virginia’s love-making is cold and mechanical but undeniably skilful and that’s fine.<br /><br />Tim’s plan is for a big heist. He’s currently on the run after breaking out of prison. But the plan is perfect and there’ll be enough money to set him up for life. Virginia might be a problem, if she learns too much about the plan.<br /><br />Then they have a huge fight. They beat the daylights out of each other. They both end up covered in bruises. But the sex afterwards was incredibly hot and there was nothing cold and mechanical about Virginia’s love-making this time. Now they realise they love each other.<br /><br />Insofar as either is capable of loving anything other than money.<br /><br />Of course they cannot trust each other. They both know that.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3dirpeoBd_xgCXjWyBS21aUasgDZXQiEwRlzRABZWtNHdybZanQXarL6VJrURay6Iv134rNrwLL2cHQwGu0778C76ydmmhe_v82Xkm1N8xn7G7aH6AmUk-i4E6fcUUg1qx7BB3r-EQs3WgIgEN7U_1m_Up7wQsYFcZm1mUJQLF29wScKDxtsDUjbZdTq/s1524/Black%20Wings%20Has%20My%20Angel3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1524" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3dirpeoBd_xgCXjWyBS21aUasgDZXQiEwRlzRABZWtNHdybZanQXarL6VJrURay6Iv134rNrwLL2cHQwGu0778C76ydmmhe_v82Xkm1N8xn7G7aH6AmUk-i4E6fcUUg1qx7BB3r-EQs3WgIgEN7U_1m_Up7wQsYFcZm1mUJQLF29wScKDxtsDUjbZdTq/s320/Black%20Wings%20Has%20My%20Angel3.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>You could not describe Virginia as a classic femme fatale. She never even pretends to be a good girl. With Virginia you know what you’re getting right from the start. She’s selfish and greedy and treacherous but she makes no secret of any of these things. And she is gorgeous and she’s good in bed. She’s everything Tim wants in a woman.<br /><br />Tim isn’t corrupted by Virginia. He was thoroughly corrupted long before he met her. He’s a criminal and he’s ruthless. He doesn’t like murder but if it’s necessary he’ll do it. He’s selfish and unstable and a bit crazy. And he’s good in bed. He’s everything Virginia wants in a man.<br /><br />The plot is nothing special. We know how a story like this is likely to end and the ending isn’t likely to be pretty. The ending is however not quite what we expect. Chaze likes the idea of fate having nasty little ironic twists in store for his characters. I have to say that I found the ending to be clever but a bit contrived.<br /><br />There’s some violence and it’s kind of nasty. There’s plenty of sleaze. There’s as much noir atmosphere as you could possibly want. Virginia and Tim are not very nice people. They’re not particularly nice to each other (except when they’re having sex and the sex is a bit nasty). They’re obsessed by money and they don’t care if other people have to get hurt.<br /><br />Their relationship is quite complex. There is love, of a sort. Neither of them had any intention of falling in love and whether that love is strong enough to overcome their innate greed and their natural instincts for betrayal is an open question. But however twisted and tenuous their love might be, it is there.<br /><br />The heist itself is moderately clever. The plan for disposing of the evidence is a bit more ingenious. But the heist is not the focus of the book. In fact crime is not the focus of the book. The relationship between Tim and Virginia is what the novel is all about.<br /><br />This is a pretty good noir novel. I’m not sure I’d put it in the very top rank of noir fiction but as a twisted love story it’s definitely top-tier. Highly recommended.<br /><br />Stark House have paired this one with Bruce Elliott’s <i>One is a Lonely Number</i> in one of their excellent two-novel paperback editions.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-55280373745032059892024-03-13T18:16:00.000-07:002024-03-13T18:16:05.321-07:00Jim Harmon’s The Man Who Made Maniacs!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0xVw3e-Hk9f3UoUnkC0KGGK4dEKtTJG9yZD4USDCsizZpMcA26UUm0Eoc25kYASM6cqA0y2VTk8bVswWno5WEfChE-KKOIKeEgE2xSHnCszk59Y601Ue189XjiRGljfM4l11t-UL3Nlyf441KjHVW5tI_RvjLh0R2HZzURzxYRyZtRV39JjDewxuUf5L_/s1390/Man%20Who%20Made%20Maniacs%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="889" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0xVw3e-Hk9f3UoUnkC0KGGK4dEKtTJG9yZD4USDCsizZpMcA26UUm0Eoc25kYASM6cqA0y2VTk8bVswWno5WEfChE-KKOIKeEgE2xSHnCszk59Y601Ue189XjiRGljfM4l11t-UL3Nlyf441KjHVW5tI_RvjLh0R2HZzURzxYRyZtRV39JjDewxuUf5L_/s320/Man%20Who%20Made%20Maniacs%20cover.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>Armchair Fiction have re-issued a lot of obscure but extremely interesting science fiction and other mid-20th century genre novels. Their two-novel paperback editions are usually very much worth buying. In these editions you might get one excellent novel and one that’s not so good but it’s surprising how often both novels turn out to be highly entertaining. Science fiction and horror are their specialities but occasionally they come up with something so weird as to be almost unclassifiable.<br /><br />That’s definitely the case with their double-header that includes Thorp McClusky’s <i>Loot of the Vampire</i> and Jim Harmon’s <i>The Man Who Made Maniacs!</i> I see <i>Loot of the Vampire</i> as fitting vaguely into the short-lived 1930s weird detective story genre. <i>The Man Who Made Maniacs!</i> was published in 1961 and I have no idea to what genre it belongs. All I know is that it’s deeply weird. It’s <i>The Man Who Made Maniacs!</i> that concerns us in this review.<br /><br />Jace Reid is a Hollywood screenwriter. A couple of years earlier he had a big success with a book and a movie called Maniac. It was about murderous sex fiends. Naturally a lot of people assumed that a man who wrote about such subjects was most likely a sex fiend himself. One guy saw the movie and then committed a murder, claiming to be inspired by the movie. That was pretty upsetting to Jace.<br /><br />Now something even worse has happened. Someone has accused him of running a sadistic satanic Hollywood sex cult. And the cops seem to be taking the accusation seriously. The cops come knocking on his door just as he’s about to engage in some serious bedroom fun with his agent Lisa, which is more than a little annoying.<br /><br />Jace has worked in Hollywood so he, like everybody else, knows that most people in Hollywood really are involved in bizarre sex orgies. But mostly they’re harmless bizarre sex orgies. And Jace is not personally involved in any such goings-on.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBAJfV6wLMBaLGv4JaGrKTU2OezlE3-Yt62NKEqalvKb3aPLJadnSUzG0OACPK767sWvcZP8b5wAKV32bdrMXt598kDtkxzbYfGIjXAMGdpYx6HPFN_dWK5CSQFciS7mIdnSa9C5TXA_tlGjCtjlvR3WdueDnZrpQqxZEQ8styRV9y9mKy15D0-G0ARsOe/s474/Man%20Who%20Made%20Maniacs2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="317" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBAJfV6wLMBaLGv4JaGrKTU2OezlE3-Yt62NKEqalvKb3aPLJadnSUzG0OACPK767sWvcZP8b5wAKV32bdrMXt598kDtkxzbYfGIjXAMGdpYx6HPFN_dWK5CSQFciS7mIdnSa9C5TXA_tlGjCtjlvR3WdueDnZrpQqxZEQ8styRV9y9mKy15D0-G0ARsOe/s320/Man%20Who%20Made%20Maniacs2.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>Soon things become a lot more disturbing for Jace. He finds himself in a sanatorium where the staff are crazier than the patients. He is drugged, or at least he thinks he was drugged. There’s a girl named Doris MacNiter who accuses him of encouraging her sister Clara’s sadomasochistic tendencies. He has never met Clara. Now he gets to meet both sisters and they’re both rather worrying.<br /><br />Then the dead body shows up.<br /><br />The books gets much stranger. There’s a dead guy who may or may not really be dead. There’s a vampire, or at least there might be. There’s lots of sexual kinkiness. People are not who they seem to be, but then maybe they are. Disturbing things happen to Jace, or at least they might have happened. There are beatniks.<br /><br />This is actually a book that would fit in well with the late 60s vogue for psychedelic freak-out movies and books, but you don’t expect that so much in 1961.<br /><br />This might be a crime story of sorts. It might have been intended as horror. It may have been aimed at the sleaze fiction market. In fact I’d be fairly certain that was the primary target market but the author seems to have had other agendas going.<br /><br />There are some amusing moments but it’s not quite certain that this is intended as a spoof, but it might be a spoof.<br /><br />All of the women have very large breasts. That point is strongly emphasised. Not just large breasts but large thrusting breasts. There are lots of catfights. Those large thrusting breasts always seem to play a key role in the catfights.<br /><br />It’s hard to say whether the book is well-written or badly written. A decision on that point depends on just how seriously you think the author was taking his story, and whether you think it’s all done with tongue firmly planted in cheek.<br /><br />Either way it’s a wild crazy oddball book and for me that’s enough to earn it a highly recommended rating, as long as you realise that I’m recommending it for its very high weirdness quotient.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-73924124431241316862024-03-11T06:04:00.000-07:002024-03-11T06:04:51.259-07:00Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vrhPp4ulUlQ/XbCG_xLBfXI/AAAAAAAAZhA/rmoQWZL0InwRWTwLkgW655ropUsvCNy5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Secret%2BAgent2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="213" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vrhPp4ulUlQ/XbCG_xLBfXI/AAAAAAAAZhA/rmoQWZL0InwRWTwLkgW655ropUsvCNy5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Secret%2BAgent2.jpg" width="194" /></a></div>
The publication of Joseph Conrad’s <i>The Secret Agent </i>in 1907 is an important milestone in the development of the spy novel. Spy fiction already existed but it was very much of the heroic sort. The Secret Agent is the beginning of a tradition in spy fiction that would reach its full flowering in the works of Eric Ambler, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, John le Carre and Len Deighton - the pessimistic, sordid, cynical school of spy fiction.<br />
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The inspiration for Conrad’s novel was an anarchist bomb outrage in London in the 1880s. Even by the standards of anarchist terrorism this was a remarkably senseless and useless act - an attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory, of all things. It also seems highly likely that it was influenced by Dostoevsky’s The Devils (also known as Demons or The Possessed) although the rabidly Russophobic Conrad was unlikely to have admitted to the influence.<br />
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Mr Verloc runs a sleazy little shop in London, specialising in dirty books. He makes very little money from this trade but he has another source of income - he is a secret agent working for an unnamed European great power. He is in fact an agent provocateur. His problem is that so far he has provided some useful intelligence on the anarchist organisations he has infiltrated he has not actually managed to provoke anything. And now his employers want him to do just that. They want a terrorist outrage in Britain. They believe this will encourage the British Government to join them in a continent-wide crackdown on anarchists, socialists and other trouble-makers.<br />
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While the foreign power for which Mr Verloc works is not named it does has an emperor so it has to be the Austrians, the Germans or the Russians. Given that the Polish-born Conrad was not only motivated by his inherent Polish Russophobia but had presumably picked up on the hysterical Russophobia of 19th century England it seems reasonable to assume that the power in question is Tsarist Russia. And it’s made clear that this power is extremely reactionary which tends to confirm the view that it’s Russia.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNyBsk0w4dpxPkY-G2U8OxOa0GEGkUu93h4p-m54OYOWF8HblQhw55ewg6c70Z-A9YdNJ2Bu3wWm6Cwf6O9wEIIc-7y2SXLwLn-pi5apHaDmJvcLbXPI5ljyDFRa_0RbtEfzHmLBPwKeGrlxzX1rT0AW1wu4CYU6fAYAi9exp1sd0CgvLgz6kgNANQMyU/s353/Secret%20Agent1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="216" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNyBsk0w4dpxPkY-G2U8OxOa0GEGkUu93h4p-m54OYOWF8HblQhw55ewg6c70Z-A9YdNJ2Bu3wWm6Cwf6O9wEIIc-7y2SXLwLn-pi5apHaDmJvcLbXPI5ljyDFRa_0RbtEfzHmLBPwKeGrlxzX1rT0AW1wu4CYU6fAYAi9exp1sd0CgvLgz6kgNANQMyU/s320/Secret%20Agent1.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>Mr Verloc has close connections to a committee of anarchist activists. They are in fact a motley collection of dreamers, ineffectual agitators, incompetent propagandists, lunatics, losers and would-be terrorists who would be unlikely to terrify even a sensitive five-year-old child. Somehow Mr Verloc will have to find a way to produce the required terrorist outrage or risk losing his lucrative post as a secret agent. That would mean that he might actually have to work for a living, a prospect that horrifies him. Mr Verloc has a wife to support, as well as Stevie. Stevie is his wife’s brother, a young man who is somewhat child-like, over-sensitive and over-excitable.<br />
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Most of Mr Verloc’s anarchist contacts are unlikely to be of much help to him but the Professor is another story. The Professor makes bombs. He also carries a bomb with him permanently concealed in his person, a bomb which he intends to detonate if a policeman ever tries to arrest him.<br />
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Preventing such acts of terrorism is the task of the Special Crimes division at Scotland Yard. Chief Inspector Heat is an old hand at the job and he is very competent. His superior, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Special Crimes division, is perhaps not so competent. He’s an ex-colonial policeman but he is more adept at playing politics than at catching anarchists. The sensible course of action would clearly be to leave the matter to Chief Inspector Heat but the Assistant Commissioner, for reasons which an ungenerous observer might describe as self-interest, decides to meddle.<br />
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Conrad clearly has little sympathy for these anarchist misfits and even less sympathy for secret agents. He doesn’t have a huge amount of sympathy for the police either, or for the governments that employ them. And for all his contempt for the anarchists he has to admit that the society they wish to overthrow is corrupt and unjust. He just doesn’t think that throwing bombs will lead to a better society.<br />
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Conrad was a deeply pessimistic writer but his tone in this novel is ironic and mocking. It’s often rather amusing. This is not quite the black comedy of Greene’s spy thrillers but at times it does approach black comedy. The world of Conrad’s novel is sordid and cynical. This is not quite Greeneland but one could say that Conrad was mapping out the territory that would later become Greeneland.<br />
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This is of course a lot more than a spy novel but it’s <i>The Secret Agent</i>’s place in the history of spy novels with which this review is concerned. Don’t expect a great deal of action and excitement or even suspense (although there is some suspense at the end). <i>The Secret Agent</i> is a study in the psychology of espionage, and the psychology of betrayal, and its influence on writers like Greene and le Carre make it a crucial step in the evolution of the genre. And they make it essential reading for serious students of espionage fiction. Recommended.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-58716641334986071942024-03-09T04:16:00.000-08:002024-03-09T04:16:46.786-08:00Guido Crepax's The Story of O<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjQ-YJDQ1LFkeknBCp5GVbLsp-lZZw74VOKT5mi9UN2YmP9GUn0OdxQu62qDPTuPd-Cgg_u2twtAY_7F981060DI7KVQB_NQQLRWP_7Xbo8IgWZeAt_HvdOtd_N4XicN3bsxvvaGjAGJFxtMzhhsnKWlG2HFpw12d2irvBJDufCRpQH3W1IsRxnqRQ4ss/s750/story%20of%20o%20guido%20crepax1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="557" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjQ-YJDQ1LFkeknBCp5GVbLsp-lZZw74VOKT5mi9UN2YmP9GUn0OdxQu62qDPTuPd-Cgg_u2twtAY_7F981060DI7KVQB_NQQLRWP_7Xbo8IgWZeAt_HvdOtd_N4XicN3bsxvvaGjAGJFxtMzhhsnKWlG2HFpw12d2irvBJDufCRpQH3W1IsRxnqRQ4ss/s320/story%20of%20o%20guido%20crepax1.jpg" width="238" /></a></div><i>The Story of O</i>, written by Pauline Réage and published in 1954, is one of the most famous and most notorious of all erotic novels. It’s one of the select group of erotic novels that can be taken seriously as literature. It was hugely controversial in its day with the fact that it was a novel about sadomasochism written by a woman adding to the scandal.<br /><br />In 1975 it was turned into an excellent movie directed by Just Jaeckin. At exactly the same moment Jaeckin was shooting his movie Guido Crepax was adapting it as a graphic novel. These two adaptations coincide so closely in time that it’s unlikely that either influenced the other.<br /><br /><i>The Story of O</i> concerns a young woman known only as O who is taken to The Château at Roissy by her lover René. O is to be trained in the art of submission. Not just submission to whippings - she is also taught to make herself available to any man who desires her.<br /><br />René’s half-brother Sir Stephen adds a complication. Does O belong to René’s or Sir Stephen? Which of these two men does she love? Which of them loves her?<br /><br />O is not in any sense a prisoner or a slave. She is free. She is not sure if she wants freedom and is not quite sure what the word means. This is one of the major themes of the story. Do any of us want freedom? Is love more important than freedom? What if O makes a free choice not o be free? <br /><br />This is a story about sex but it is also most definitely a story about love.<br /><br />Other complications arise when Anne-Marie enters the picture.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVQp0M-C30ayNF7Wmdx4mfoW1YRs2OY1HOIuCp1ldAHNXAnkeL6fVgDdrRGNLPbjM-35D7oU96KY8neiJhImbao7Cq6G9TcBy25i5ZqL6U_kMtKKnyPoO1l7lTHPBbqQmqZcg11kb55c8uqxtiXji58965i5j7q8t0Wptwyx7-ufhQ6VIYZnoCSRKpDPQM/s722/story%20of%20o%20guido%20crepax2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVQp0M-C30ayNF7Wmdx4mfoW1YRs2OY1HOIuCp1ldAHNXAnkeL6fVgDdrRGNLPbjM-35D7oU96KY8neiJhImbao7Cq6G9TcBy25i5ZqL6U_kMtKKnyPoO1l7lTHPBbqQmqZcg11kb55c8uqxtiXji58965i5j7q8t0Wptwyx7-ufhQ6VIYZnoCSRKpDPQM/s320/story%20of%20o%20guido%20crepax2.jpg" width="222" /></a></div>Crepax was one of the boldest and most innovative comic book writer-illustrators of his generation. His style both conformed to and rejected the technical conventions of comics. He was equally bold both stylistically and thematically. He was also known for comics that dealt with dream states and fantasies. <i>The Story of O</i> is not a dream story but Crepax’s approach works well here. It is in some ways a story that takes place in a hidden world unknown to most people, the kinky sexual underworld.<br /><br />Personally I think Jaeckin’s movie is better. This is partly because Jaeckin, having had enormous mainstream success with Emmanuelle, was not making a sleazy grindhouse movie. He was aiming once again at the mainstream market (and The Story of O was a major commercial hit). This meant that he had to focus mostly on creating an atmosphere of eroticism whilst making the sex scenes tasteful and not too explicit. His movie was very much softcore erotica. I think this works I the movie’s favour.<br /><br />Crepax by contrast was not constrained in any way by censorship so his graphic novel is much more explicit and often crosses the line into hardcore.<br /><br />The movie also has the advantage of having rather subtle performances by Corinne Cléry as O and Udo Kier as René (and yes I’m aware that I’ve just used the words Udo Kier and subtle in the same sentence but I stand by that - his performance is nicely underplayed). Those performances bring these two key characters to life in a way that Crepax doesn’t quite manage.<br /><br />The graphic novel is however certainly stylish.<br /><br />Crepax did a series of adaptations of erotic novels such as <i>Emmanuelle</i>. He also adapted other novels. His version of Henry James’ famous ghost story The Turn of the Screw is superb.<br /><br />Crepax’s The Story of O retains most of the spirit of the novel which is a provocative look at desire, freedom and the all-consuming desire to give oneself entirely in love. Crepax provides us with a fine example of intelligent erotica done in a graphic novel format.<br /><br />I’ve reviewed Just Jaeckin’s movie <a href="https://princeplanetmovies.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-story-of-o-1975-blu-ray-review.html" target="_blank">The Story of O (1975)</a> elsewhere.<br /><br />I’ve also reviewed two collections of Guido Crepax’s comics, <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2022/11/guido-crepax-evil-spells.html" target="_blank">Evil Spells</a> (which I highly recommend) and <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2023/06/guido-crepaxs-private-life.html" target="_blank">Private Life</a>.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-8069932508630554012024-03-07T03:24:00.000-08:002024-03-07T03:24:18.437-08:00Don Smith’s Secret Mission: Tibet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRnsxeB_cQOUxsHKF2Yim6v0oLXj9axnUVqTSxzOY9szzAcHmkhwnXG4y4U7z_GOkV2Bs4tGlKsSxCEqTxB-3TGOf3KADF0Qm5GcK2csQQfCwWwCmBDKSoDvjoCoAFQyjdTEtCFaBwPlYZMZq8ABT2C6v5bstalA2MySFGjbTcdOJnfj9hHQ4vqFVJf8Ge/s500/Secret%20Mission%20Tibet1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="309" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRnsxeB_cQOUxsHKF2Yim6v0oLXj9axnUVqTSxzOY9szzAcHmkhwnXG4y4U7z_GOkV2Bs4tGlKsSxCEqTxB-3TGOf3KADF0Qm5GcK2csQQfCwWwCmBDKSoDvjoCoAFQyjdTEtCFaBwPlYZMZq8ABT2C6v5bstalA2MySFGjbTcdOJnfj9hHQ4vqFVJf8Ge/s320/Secret%20Mission%20Tibet1.jpg" width="198" /></a></div><i>Secret Mission: Tibet</i> is a fairly early (1971) entry in Don Smith’s Secret Mission spy novel series. At that time there was a huge market for action-oriented spy thrillers. If you were at least a halfway competent writer and could turn out such books fairly quickly they might not make you rich but you’d certainly be able to pay the rent.<br /><br />The hero of this novel is Phil Sherman (I believe he also features in some or all of the other books in this series). He’s not a professional secret agent. He’s an international businessman although not an overly successful one. He is persuaded to take on an espionage mission, not for the CIA or any of the usual suspects but for NASA. They’ve lost a couple of satellites. What worries them is that they’ve been talking to the Soviets and the Soviets have lost some satellites as well. All these satellites suddenly stopped transmitting while passing over a certain point in central Asia. It looks like foul play was involved.<br /><br />A top NASA space scientist named Newton wants to find out what happened to those satellites but he wants the investigation to be secret. He’s afraid that if word gets out the US Government will get nervous and suspend the space program. He can’t ask the CIA for help - he certainly doesn’t trust those guys to carry out a discreet secret investigation. So he persuades his old pal Phil Sherman to help. Phil is sceptical but he is assured that all he has to do is get air-dropped into Tibet, place two radio direction finders, and then get air-lifted out. There’s no risk at all.<br /><br />Phil Sherman has cause to regret his naïvete when he ends up imprisoned by the communist Chinese in an ancient Tibetan monastery. That’s what happens when you offer to help out an old buddy.<br /><br />This novel was written at the height of hysteria over Red China. The Chinese Communists had taken over from the Russians as the chief villains in spy novels, TV series and movies. In this case the Chinese have a super-laser.<br /><br />Phil isn’t the only prisoner in the monastery. There’s another American, Bill Rogers, who built that super-laser. There’s a middle-aged German, von Kruger. And there’s von Kruger’s beautiful half-Chinese daughter Suwary. The prisoners are not tightly guarded, the assumption being that the surrounding countryside is totally impassable so only a lunatic would try to escape. But Phil knows something that makes escape essential.<br /><br />He was hoping to take just Rogers and the girl with him. Rogers because he is the key to the secret of the super-laser, Suwary because Phil has already discovered that she makes an enthusiastic and skilful bed-partner. He eventually finds he has to take von Kruger as well.<br /><br />Most of the novel is an epic chase through hostile terrain with the Chinese snapping at the heels of the fugitives. There’s plenty of action and excitement.<br /><br />However most of the interest is provided by the webs of deceit and betrayal in which the four main characters are enmeshed. Phil Sherman cannot trust a single one of them. They cannot trust each other. Phil is pretty certain that all have lied about their backgrounds and motivations. Any one of them might at any moment betray one of the others. The author handles this aspect rather well. He builds up a nice atmosphere of paranoia.<br /><br />There’s also a great deal of sexual tension. Phil doesn’t know if Suwary has slept with Rogers or not, but she might have. He doesn’t like that idea. Rogers is pretty sure Suwary has slept with Phil and he really isn’t happy about it. And Suwary may have slept with some of their captors.<br /><br />This is a very solid novel of its type with suspense, well-handled action sequences and huge dollops of paranoia. I liked it enough to persuade me to look for further books in the series. Highly recommended.<br /><br /><div>Note: The cover features a girl in a skimpy fur costume wielding a very large sword. Tragically this cover illustration has zero connection with anything in the book. But hey, chicks with swords do help to sell books.</div>dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-12015579706560220342024-03-03T23:42:00.000-08:002024-03-03T23:42:10.901-08:00Sidney Herschel Small's Festival of the Dead<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4JeFOsufHb553fS7NusmXQCXZl3PnGRYn13zaVf_eXDy-j_lLtndzAljpKeX4Jxyl6jkG-ezgNh0EIr94KL88bLwFl4FiZfV9zEHkXoBD9lbpFF5AggYN07E4uq2orfGZXgt4aKpxEU48WhmV-zTzezxrhPqbQSM1NxF0K8jIuOC4Lidm2cTjXBeDwBy/s630/Festival%20of%20the%20Dead1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="419" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4JeFOsufHb553fS7NusmXQCXZl3PnGRYn13zaVf_eXDy-j_lLtndzAljpKeX4Jxyl6jkG-ezgNh0EIr94KL88bLwFl4FiZfV9zEHkXoBD9lbpFF5AggYN07E4uq2orfGZXgt4aKpxEU48WhmV-zTzezxrhPqbQSM1NxF0K8jIuOC4Lidm2cTjXBeDwBy/s320/Festival%20of%20the%20Dead1.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><i>The Festival of the Dead</i> is a collection of the early Jimmy Wentworth stories by Sidney Herschel Small (1893-1958), published in pulp magazines in 1931. The stories are set in San Francisco’s Chinatown.<br /><br />Jimmy Wentworth is an American but was brought up in China and speaks fluent Chinese. He works as a clerk for the chief of the Chinatown detail. The murder in the first story is so baffling that the chief decides to give Wentworth his chance. He’ll put him on the detail ostensibly as a beat cop but his real job is to find out things that an ordinary beat cop could not find out. Jimmy’s advantage is that he is fluent in all the Chinese dialects but nobody in Chinatown knows that. He will get to hear things and the inhabitants of Chinatown won’t know that he understands them.<br /><br />These are typical pulp stories with plenty of action. There’s also an element of paranoia, as the hero is continually pitted against a diabolical criminal mastermind who seems beyond the reach of the police.<br /><br />In the first story, <i>Festival of the Dead</i>, a popular beat cop on the detail, a grizzled old-timer named Bannion, has been murdered. This is puzzling. Bannion was an honest cop and was popular with the Chinese. He understood little of their culture and never interfered. <br /><br />The head of the Chinatown detail is desperate enough to take a chance on putting Jimmy into uniform and assigning him to Bannion’s beat. With his knowledge of the language and his understanding of the culture Jimmy might turn up something. And he does. But it’s not the murderer he wants, it’s the man (or men) who planned the murder.<br /><br />In <i>Crimson Circles</i> another cop is murdered and Jimmy is on the trail of the mysterious arch-criminal Kong Gai. There is a dope selling racket he wants to bust as well. He has a vital clue - crimson circles painted on the leg of a dead man. He sees similar circles painted on other men’s legs. Nobody knows what they mean, but Jimmy is sure they’re the key to a puzzle.<br /><br />In <i>King Cobra</i> a rich man named Carrington blows his brains out but the puzzling thing about the case is that a piercing scream was heard from his apartment five minutes before the gunshot. Jimmy thinks it’s murder although the other circumstances suggest that that is impossible. Jimmy also suspects Kong Gai’s involvement, and there is a damsel in distress to be rescued - an innocent girl enslaved by drugs. There’s a link between the girl and Carrington.<br /><br /><i>Death Rock</i> is a tale of rum-running (this being the days of Prohibition). Not the sort of criminal enterprise one would expect Kong Gai to be involved in but the dying words of a sailor point in his direction. The explanation of the sailor’s injuries is clever and devious.<br /><br /><i>The Bloody Emerald</i> begins with two apparently unconnected incidents - a daring robbery of San Francisco’s most prestigious jewellery store and the discovery by Jimmy Wentworth of the corpse of a pretty Chinese girl. There’s another devious murder method and a very unusual motive for murder. There’s an even more unusual motive for the jewel robbery.<br /><br /><i>The Horns of the Dragon</i> begins with the outbreak of a tong war. Tong wars are nothing new in Chinatown but this one begins in an odd way and there are some circumstances surrounding it that puzzle Jimmy Wentworth. It turns out that there’s something other than a tong war going on.<br /><br />These are all quite entertaining stories and they’re nicely atmospheric, and there’s a fine sinister super-villain. This collection is recommended.<br /><br /><i>The Festival of the Dead</i> is one of the titles in the excellent Argosy Library series from Steeger Books.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-68111285591269914242024-03-01T02:30:00.000-08:002024-03-01T02:30:07.916-08:00James O. Causey's Frenzy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBzpz8rWbRVg4wzwDTsD7-boGepb3aB9_l3uutKAvGs5ZEX4GwGRMqVIuk4VqfVJW71YILLwaW4PC8u1xwYE1NP6Zaw305xWeotnn2YTG6AqxY3hshdNe_FW7AsR6n822DHQEsoL8l5WdycJWf81pZcrYtWnwe86pXKEtaGC8aWjnNFX9AnvZfHv8vwkV/s737/Frenzy2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="481" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBzpz8rWbRVg4wzwDTsD7-boGepb3aB9_l3uutKAvGs5ZEX4GwGRMqVIuk4VqfVJW71YILLwaW4PC8u1xwYE1NP6Zaw305xWeotnn2YTG6AqxY3hshdNe_FW7AsR6n822DHQEsoL8l5WdycJWf81pZcrYtWnwe86pXKEtaGC8aWjnNFX9AnvZfHv8vwkV/s320/Frenzy2.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><i>Frenzy,</i> published by Fawcett in1960, is one of the three excellent noir novels written by James O. Causey between 1957 and 1960. These novels were quite successful at the time but for reasons unknown his writing career petered out after Frenzy.<br /><br />Norman Sands (the first-person narrator) is a loser and a louse. He’s a two-bit grifter working as a shill in a casino. Or he was working there, until he slept with Robin. Robin was a singer at the casino but she belonged to the boss. The boss didn’t take kindly to the idea of her sleeping with Norman. Norman gets a severe beating and, totally down-and-out, he winds up in his home town. He left Mason Flats after an unfortunate fight which left another kid dead. That was a decade-and-a-half ago.<br /><br />We get his backstory early on. He started messing up his life really early. There was a woman, Laurie, with whom he was hopelessly in love at the age of sixteen but there were plenty of other reasons that he became a loser and a louse.<br /><br />He discovers that his brother Matt is still planning to marry Laurie. Matt is a failed businessman.<br /><br />Mason Flats is about to be hit by oil fever. Nobody is sure if there is any oil or how much there is but there’s plenty of greed. For a smart guy like Norman, who knows all the crooked angles, that’s an opportunity. The problem is Murdoch. Murdoch owns Mason Flats. He owns the Chief of Police. He owns the mayor. There is plenty of corruption in the town and Murdoch has a finger in every corrupt pie. He’s not going to be pleased about a city punk moving in and running his own corrupt schemes.<br /><br />Norman is confident he can outwit these dumb hicks. He’ll have to use Matt. Matt is dumb and naïve but even worse he has a streak of idealism. He is however necessary to Norman.<br /><br />Women always get Norman into trouble and another dangerous woman is about to enter the scene. Shannon is a thousand-dollar whore. She belongs to Murdoch. It would be crazy even to consider taking her to bed but she has a fabulous body and Norman thinks she’s worth the risk. Maybe she’s in love with Norman. Maybe she just sees him as her ticket out of Mason Flats. Maybe she’s crazy and unstable. She’s certainly ruthless. Norman doesn’t care. He wants her.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU56OV1b8h7y9fyEvRbdOrDx9RaNXlF0alAThyNH73Kqg__1_ugBw5YgxllqjbvzC1b40NcKSQDl_fgPLjXdfxIzKm-4ZFeX85YgkHkF5PdPq9yUpCOHWQOgf1OcUBREKdhKzd2kssYzd1ufrmyUlESc1GVlA3Oxl_vyD3JokL82aRV8Yw4Hr1GYZwhdmJ/s1000/Frenzy%20Causey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="647" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU56OV1b8h7y9fyEvRbdOrDx9RaNXlF0alAThyNH73Kqg__1_ugBw5YgxllqjbvzC1b40NcKSQDl_fgPLjXdfxIzKm-4ZFeX85YgkHkF5PdPq9yUpCOHWQOgf1OcUBREKdhKzd2kssYzd1ufrmyUlESc1GVlA3Oxl_vyD3JokL82aRV8Yw4Hr1GYZwhdmJ/s320/Frenzy%20Causey.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>Norman’s chief asset as a grifter is his persistence. He can have the daylights beaten out of him and immediately he’ll start working on a new angle. You can admire his refusal to give up, or you can shake your head in wonder at a dumb punk who never learns his lesson.<br /><br />Norman is dumb and smart at the same time. His schemes are clever and devious and daring. That’s the smart part. He’s also a small-timer trying to play games with the big boys and the big boys play very rough. Norman is out of his league. He might be smarter than Murdoch and his cronies but they have organisation and muscle behind them and they’re utterly ruthless. If Norman makes one slip-up he’s a dead man. He really should quit while he’s ahead but he won’t. That’s the dumb part.<br /><br />Norman is definitely a louse. But he’s a louse with complicated motivations. Of course he wants big money but women are perhaps a bigger motivating factor. His relationships with the three women - Robin, Laurie and Shannon - are complex in both emotional and sexual ways. Mostly Norman wants to prove he’s not a loser. He has a pathological need to win.<br /><br />Norman Sands may be the most vicious treacherous conscienceless amoral protagonist in all of noir fiction. He will betray anybody and everybody. No scheme is too dirty for him. Despite this he’s fascinating. His risk-taking is breathtaking. He never ever gives up. And perhaps he does, in his twisted way, love one of the three women. Even scarier, perhaps he loves all three, but not in a way that could possibly be described as healthy.<br /><br />The three women are rather complicated as well. They’re not straightforward femmes fatales. Shannon is the closest to being a classic femme fatale but her motivations are understandable from her point of view. Given that Norman is far more morally corrupted than Shannon he certainly does not need a femme fatale to corrupt him. He’s more dangerous to these women that they are to him.<br /><br />This is noir fiction on steroids and it’s excellent. Very highly recommended.<br /><br />Stark House have issued all three Causey noirs in a single paperback volume and it’s a must-buy. I’ve also reviewed his two earlier noir novels, <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2020/05/james-o-causeys-killer-take-all.html" target="_blank">Killer Take All!</a> and <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2022/06/o-causeys-baby-doll-murders.html" target="_blank">The Baby Doll Murders</a>.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-37166631584444111822024-02-26T05:28:00.000-08:002024-02-26T05:30:04.399-08:00Hollow Earth Tales vol 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKnNKRvLUAIZJtim-3bF_Y21YyLZlONFwkv38vrNLS8HzW4v4VPY18-QzxgJp1VAAllZZGlfKiyUAfh_1CgLjslAXOb0LeuGcAnmv9bXoqavbTNjJ7wcyURNGS5B8JlJgOqPTnWgbMhh1LW76S7yRdb40fgnWw0JcFUr8Beo7ad2tKCjhT4jv3HuRJLrOO/s1177/Hollow%20Earth%20Tales%20vol%201_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1177" data-original-width="736" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKnNKRvLUAIZJtim-3bF_Y21YyLZlONFwkv38vrNLS8HzW4v4VPY18-QzxgJp1VAAllZZGlfKiyUAfh_1CgLjslAXOb0LeuGcAnmv9bXoqavbTNjJ7wcyURNGS5B8JlJgOqPTnWgbMhh1LW76S7yRdb40fgnWw0JcFUr8Beo7ad2tKCjhT4jv3HuRJLrOO/s320/Hollow%20Earth%20Tales%20vol%201_1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>There’s a whole sub-genre of science fiction dealing with the idea of a hollow earth, or undiscovered civilisations deep beneath the Earth. It’s a sub-genre that appeals to me quite a bit. Jules Verne’s <i>Journey to the Centre of the Earth</i> and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ wonderful Pellucidar stories are the most obvious examples but the idea was extremely popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. At that time the idea did not seem outrageously implausible. Today of course it seems very implausible indeed but that just makes these stories more fun.<br /><br /><i>Hollow Earth Tales volume 1</i> is a collection of such tales from the pulpier end of the literary spectrum. They’re variable in quality but some are pleasingly off-the-wall.<br /><br /><i>The Plunge of the ‘Knupfen’</i> by Leonard Grover was published in <i>All-Story Magazine</i> in 1909. This is very much in the scientific romance mould but with some extraordinary bizarre flights of fancy. Like many such tales it involves a subterranean digging machine invented by an eccentric scientist but in this case the scientist does not seek scientific knowledge. He is after gold. He is convinced that there are unlimited quantities of the precious metal to be found if you can just get deep enough within the Earth. And his subterranean craft, the Knupfen, is capable of taking its one-man crew hundred of miles beneath the surface. <br /><br />What he finds there is very strange indeed. An enjoyably lightweight story.<br /><br /><i>The Smoky God or a Voyage to the Inner World</i> by Willis George Emerson was published in 1908. It’s a bizarre mix of pseudoscience and mythology. The most interesting thing about it is the idea that if you go far enough into the polar regions you will find yourself in the interior of the Earth. An interesting curiosity.<br /><br /><i>The Annihilator Comes</i> by Ed Earl Repp was published in Wonder Stories in 1930. It is set in 1980. A giant rocket-propelled U.S. airship is on a mission to rescue a party of Swedish scientists lost in the Arctic, close to the North Pole. They are surprised to find themselves in a tropical region, although it’s no tropical paradise. It’s a tropical hell. The dinosaurs are bad enough but there are worse horrors to come.<br /><br />They quickly realise that they are now in the interior of the Earth. An outrageously pulpy but action-filled entertaining story.<br /><br /><i>The Strange Voyage of Dr Penwing</i> by Richard O. Lewis appeared in Amazing Stories in 1940 is much stranger and more interesting. A crazy old scientist believes that we’re not living on the surface of the Earth but inside it. The story also plays around with fun half-baked Einstein-ian ideas. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek but very clever.<br /><br /><i>The Hollow Planet</i> by Don Wilcox was published in Amazing Stories in 1942. An earthquake plunges Randolph Hill into the interior of a planet (whether or not the planet is Earth is not quite clear). This is a world turned inside out, with people eking out a precarious existence on what is in effect the inside of a giant eggshell, with a sun in the middle. These people have no idea that any other worlds exist. They believe the interior of the planet is the entire universe.<br /><br />We get Randolph Hill’s account in the form of his journal but the main story takes place many years later and involves his granddaughter and the man she loves, a man who believes that other worlds exist. In this society that is a dangerous belief. Not a bad story.<br /><br /><i>The Voice from the Inner World</i> by A. Hyatt Verrill appeared in Amazing Stories in 1927. A meteor is sighted and a ship disappears. Then a strange radio message is picked up - from deep beneath the Earth’s surface! The message is from a survivor of that ship and he tells of a world of terrifying cannibal giantesses. And he tells of a deadly threat to the whole world. A very pulpy tale with a fair leavening of horror, but enjoyable.<br /><br /><i>The Underground City</i> by Bertrand L. Shurtleff was published in Amazing Stories in 1939. Every few years a major coal mine is hit by a disaster. The bodies of the miners are never recovered. A young mining engineer thinks he has found a clue and it leads him to a very strange underground city. It leads him to unimaginable horrors, and perhaps an awful fate for the girl he loves. A reasonably enjoyable tale.<br /><br />On the whole this is an interesting and varied collection and if the hollow earth idea appeals to you you’ll want to check it out. Recommended.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-76789443413932439442024-02-23T02:08:00.000-08:002024-02-23T02:08:42.300-08:00Tom Harland's Love Camp on Wheels<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomx8mZRjqEo3IEtkPzjew3lHEl6nBbHl0VpztkAUGmR6R7I9ETWv0CR0S0YjBi5YvuuE6zDyImDm1HYCYyHFYOjs-nw70W3RSktvDADkQwp33G2brelPMk8w4Ip64O9Z43QlbMIA10E5vIsFi0b_GPbVlLXAbYZ60DUm6kOhI5wn8rLDLFdgiISpeUPrr/s600/Love%20Camp%20on%20Wheels1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="356" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomx8mZRjqEo3IEtkPzjew3lHEl6nBbHl0VpztkAUGmR6R7I9ETWv0CR0S0YjBi5YvuuE6zDyImDm1HYCYyHFYOjs-nw70W3RSktvDADkQwp33G2brelPMk8w4Ip64O9Z43QlbMIA10E5vIsFi0b_GPbVlLXAbYZ60DUm6kOhI5wn8rLDLFdgiISpeUPrr/s320/Love%20Camp%20on%20Wheels1.jpeg" width="190" /></a></div><i>Love Camp on Wheels</i> is a 1963 sleaze novel by Tom Harland that belongs to the small but intriguing sub-genre of trailer camp sleaze.<br /><br />Stan manages a trailer camp for Meg. It’s the best job he’s ever had and it pays well. Stan knows that a smart guy would be careful not to let his personal life interfere with his job. Stan is a smart guy, mostly. There are however a lot of temptations headed his way. <br /><br />And his personal life is already a bit complicated. He’s having an affair with his ex-wife, Mae. Mae’s new husband Larry knows about it but doesn’t seem inclined to do anything about it. As long as Stan and Mae are reasonably discreet everything is OK.<br /><br />Meg is a lesbian. Linda is Meg’s girlfriend. Linda and her husband Ben live in the trailer camp rent-free. That gives Ben plenty of drinking money as long as he turns a blind eye to her affair with Meg. That also seems to be a stable situation.<br /><br />These situations could of course become very unstable if anything were to change. If, for example, Stan and Linda were to get involved. Even if they just slept together things might get complicated. If anything more serious happened things would get very complicated very fast. Stan knows this and he tries to keep away from Linda but he also knows that he won’t be able to.<br /><br />There’s also Sonny and his wife Birdie. They work at the trailer camp. Stan already has enough to worry about. He really does need to resist Birdie’s advances.<br /><br />The motivations of the characters are mixed. Ben and Sonny are just out to get what they can for themselves and they both have their eyes on Stan’s job.<br /><br />Stan doesn’t know if he’s still in love with Mae. He doesn’t know if he’s in love with Linda. He doesn’t know whether he really wants either of them, or whether he wants both of them. There’s nothing vicious or calculating about Stan. He just doesn’t entirely understand his own feelings about women.<br /><br />In the case of just about every character money, sex and love are hopelessly mixed up. Meg wants love but she wants her business to succeed so she’ll make compromises. Mae wants love and sex and she wants Stan but she wants Larry’s money. <br /><br />And love can be pretty twisted, by jealousies and by guilt and by a desire for control.<br /><br />Some of the characters are sympathetic, others less so. Ben and Sonny are lowlifes. Meg, Stan, Linda and Mae behave badly or foolishly at times but they’re not bad people. They are mixed up.<br /><br />As with so much of the sleaze fiction of that era there are noir undercurrents and you can never be sure how how the noirishness will be pushed. The setup is certainly ideal for noir fiction. Things could end really badly for some, or even all, of these people but in this genre it’s not always possible to predict whether the ending will be a happy one or a tragic one.<br /><br />And like so much sleaze fiction this is a romantic-sexual melodrama. There’s no graphic sex, and nothing that even comes close, but the erotic tensions are overwhelming and the eroticism is dangerous and destructive. Love is dangerous and destructive as well, or at least it can be.<br /><br /><i>Love Camp on Wheels</i> has plenty of overheated steamy sleazy atmosphere with surprisingly complex characters. It’s all very entertaining and it’s highly recommended.<br /><br /><i>Love Camp on Wheels</i> is included in Stark House Cult Classics’s three-novel <i>Trailer Tramps</i> paperback, along with Orrie Hitt’s <i>Trailer Tramp</i> and Doug Duperrault’s <i>Trailer Camp Woman</i>. All three were originally published by Beacon Books. These Stark House 3-in-1 paperbacks really are terrific.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-69322527533968183252024-02-19T20:05:00.000-08:002024-02-19T20:05:14.675-08:00Thea von Harbou's Spies (Spione)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpOtpMVjNeGRLhHNNTIj7MbXh8d69LxHJvTP1vOiOro1eSq-8YlEeHnAM7r_O_pd_JLkd6k_vNzH4q-W8Y2BD124l1Tx9CUzAU-Q64avRibRLzFr5tVblgDe3uZd4dDhOBGfpYb1PCGbdLJSZi9EMsn6U6COqzZWU_vAAnodJdgMAJS3ntgwLaNVHe53Iw/s706/Spione%20Spies%20Thea%20von%20Harbou2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="706" data-original-width="477" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpOtpMVjNeGRLhHNNTIj7MbXh8d69LxHJvTP1vOiOro1eSq-8YlEeHnAM7r_O_pd_JLkd6k_vNzH4q-W8Y2BD124l1Tx9CUzAU-Q64avRibRLzFr5tVblgDe3uZd4dDhOBGfpYb1PCGbdLJSZi9EMsn6U6COqzZWU_vAAnodJdgMAJS3ntgwLaNVHe53Iw/s320/Spione%20Spies%20Thea%20von%20Harbou2.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><i>Spies</i> (the original German title is S<i>pione</i>) is a 1929 spy novel by Thea von Harbou.<br /><br />Thea von Harbou was married to Fritz Lang from 1922 to 1933 and wrote the screenplays for most of his great German movies. Some of her screenplays were based on her own novels while in other cases she wrote both the screenplay and the novel more or less simultaneously. While she is recognised as a very important screenwriter her novels are less well known in the English-speaking world. <br /><br />Which is a great pity. Her novel <i>Metropolis</i> (written in tandem with her screenplay for Lang’s great movie) is superb and if you’re a fan of the movie the novel adds additional fascinating layers.<br /><br />The movie <i>Spies</i> (or <i>Spione</i>) was released in 1928 and was ground-breaking - it was the first great spy movie made anywhere in the world. The novel is perhaps not so ground-breaking (spy fiction was already an established genre) but in its own way it was a step forward. There’s more emphasis on technology. There’s a lot more paranoia and there are complex multiple levels of betrayal. <br /><br />It’s also perhaps the first major spy novel to put sex on centre stage. The spy fiction up to that point (William le Queux, E. Phillips Oppenheim, the Bulldog Drummond books and John Buchan’s Richard Hannay thrillers) tended to be fairly squeaky clean. The reality of course was that sex had always been one of the most effective weapons in the arsenal of intelligence agencies and had always been a major factor in luring people into the world of espionage. Thea von Harbou makes this very explicit. The most dangerous spies in the novel are women and they use sex ruthlessly to accomplish their missions. And sex is always there as a motivating factor, for the good guys as well as the bad guys.<br /><br />There are also hints of the moral murkiness that Graham Greene and Eric Ambler would explore so successfully in their spy novels of the 1930s. There are villains in von Harbou’s novel but her villains can be motivated by idealism rather than a mere lust for power. Or, more dangerously, their motivations can be a blending of idealism and the desire for power.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib9LqpEoINnKp1Rp805gDzVgA5vMB5ekroCrKb47lN0hW1c_lcTR3f8HOrnD1SWXcddCfydXhpZ6CLibisc2akZVfRpO5Ts0aULrxR9CAN2qlP1HDXfF-FLRbTuFGFpO6RwVtQAdWeICpMb3JSBooDcwG_QjOsaQeAwAvSPRV_HHRoxy3bUEvVD4Rawj62/s1299/Spione%20Spies%20Thea%20von%20Harbou1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1299" data-original-width="845" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib9LqpEoINnKp1Rp805gDzVgA5vMB5ekroCrKb47lN0hW1c_lcTR3f8HOrnD1SWXcddCfydXhpZ6CLibisc2akZVfRpO5Ts0aULrxR9CAN2qlP1HDXfF-FLRbTuFGFpO6RwVtQAdWeICpMb3JSBooDcwG_QjOsaQeAwAvSPRV_HHRoxy3bUEvVD4Rawj62/s320/Spione%20Spies%20Thea%20von%20Harbou1.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>The hero of the novel is an agent known only as Number 326. His chief, Jason, has given him the task of breaking a vast espionage organisation about which tantalisingly little is known. The immediate problem is a secret treaty which must at all costs remain secret.<br /><br />He is soon distracted by other matters. Number 326 has always avoided entanglements with women but now he has a damsel in distress on his hands. She may have shot someone. He cannot believe that it could have been murder. And this woman, Sonia, awakens something in him. Perhaps he is after all capable of falling in love.<br /><br />The question of course is whether he should trust her.<br /><br />Number 326 has an ally, a Japanese master-spy. There is a question of trust involved here as well. This man is as honourable as a spy is capable of being but of course his loyalties are to Japan. Perhaps in this case the interests of Japan and of Number 326’s own country coincide perfectly. Perhaps.<br /><br />Number 326 finds that love and duty don’t always mix well.<br /><br />There’s decent suspense. Neither Number 326 nor the reader can be sure which characters will prove to be trustworthy and which ones will turn out to be treacherous. And treachery in this novel isn’t necessarily straightforward. The paranoia level slowly rises.<br /><br />This is a story of espionage and a story of love and it works equally well on both levels.<br /><br />It has a slightly different feel to contemporary British spy thrillers (spy fiction was at this early stage very much a British thing).<br /><br />It’s a novel well worth reading and if you’re a fan of the movie it’s pretty much essential reading. And it's available in an English translation. Highly recommended.<br /><br />I’ve reviewed von Harbou’s novels <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2011/09/metropolis-by-thea-von-harbou.html" target="_blank">Metropolis</a> and the flawed but strangely brilliant <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2019/08/thea-von-harbous-indian-tomb.html" target="_blank">The Indian Tomb</a>.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-43318522272361381702024-02-16T06:09:00.000-08:002024-02-16T06:09:27.916-08:00Darwin Teilhet’s Take Me As I Am<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkfDsMfvsisUDsjy_9VqTxnZSLbReQkMowUHf0DyMfVfzUfa7fTwRlOC6Qie6zQbOE60FaQRVHfPz6k7QW398n84QZfelgf2XPTvU5hVCXLQKLwFh8Kmuk85vXcFYt6vMuSlfr3tm_sYgz2SmCp5Bjg1cJdUVq1QFOpRRzsoE3zxHB8JCWTcySB4XyA/s698/Take%20Me%20As%20I%20Am%20Teilhet1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="698" data-original-width="428" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkfDsMfvsisUDsjy_9VqTxnZSLbReQkMowUHf0DyMfVfzUfa7fTwRlOC6Qie6zQbOE60FaQRVHfPz6k7QW398n84QZfelgf2XPTvU5hVCXLQKLwFh8Kmuk85vXcFYt6vMuSlfr3tm_sYgz2SmCp5Bjg1cJdUVq1QFOpRRzsoE3zxHB8JCWTcySB4XyA/s320/Take%20Me%20As%20I%20Am%20Teilhet1.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>Darwin Teilhet’s <i>Take Me As I Am</i> was published by Gold Medal in 1952.<br /><br />Darwin Teilhet (1904-1964) was an American novelist and screenwriter, writing under his own name and several pseudonyms. <i>Take Me As I Am</i> was one of several novels he wrote using the William H. Fielding pseudonym. It falls into the “couple on the run” sub-genre.<br /><br />The novel starts with a guy named Monk and two other hoods carrying out an armoured car holdup. With a bazooka, which is a nice touch. Their boss, a guy known as Gramma (short for Grammelini), planned the heist and with half a million dollars in that armoured car Monk’s share will see him set up for life. The robbery goes horribly wrong, and worst of all there’s only a hundred grand in that truck. The police will be closing in at any moment. Monk was supposed by be picked up by his girl Alma and they would take the money to a specified drop-off point. Now there’s just one chance. Monk will lie low and maybe Alma can bluff her way through the roadblocks. She’s a cute blonde and cute blondes can bluff their way out of tight corners.<br /><br />Then fate intervenes as it tends to do in noir fiction (and we’re definitely in noir territory in this story). Alma picks up a hitchhiker. His name is Bill and he’s eighteen, four years younger than Alma. Alma figures that if she can persuade Bill to pretend he’s her kid brother they can get through the roadblocks. The coppers are not going to be looking for a young brother and sister. And Bill is naïve enough to agree. He thinks Alma is such a nice girl that it never occurs to him that she could be in trouble.<br /><br />Bill possibly should have noticed that the story Alma tells him is a bit odd, and she has a tendency to change her story. A couple of odd things happen, involving other blondes. Bill becomes slightly uneasy but he’s falling in love with Alma and he puts his doubts aside. And really they’re only tiny niggling doubts and he’s only eighteen.<br /><br />More odd things happen. Bill has entered a nightmare world but he doesn’t know it yet. There doesn’t seem to be any possible connection between the odd events.<br /><br />Gradually Bill starts to see a pattern, but it’s a constantly shifting pattern. The reader sees almost everything from Bill’s point of view. The seasoned crime reader will certainly be a step ahead of Bill in connecting the dots but there are still plenty of twists to come.<br /><br />Then the real nightmare kicks in and the story becomes a desperate chase.<br /><br />This is definitely noir, but it avoids overly obsessive clichés. Bill really is a true innocent. He just wants to believe that he really has met a nice girl. <br /><br />Alma is not quite a stereotypical femme fatale. To find out what actually makes her tick you’ll have to read the book.<br /><br />Bill and Alma are both hopelessly out of their depth. They really have no idea what’s going on. Alma initially thought she knew what she was mixed up in but every one of her assumptions turned out to be mistaken Bill and Alma are both trapped. Bill is horrified to be involved, even indirectly, in crime. But he loves Alma. Alma is more complicated. Both Bill and the reader are left uncertain until the very end as to whether she’s a good girl or a bad girl. Maybe she’s a bit of both, but she’ll have to make a choice.<br /><br />There’s plenty of suspense and excitement and quite a bit of action towards the end. There’s romance but it’s a twisted love story. It’s not just that Bill is out of his depth with a woman like Alma. He’d be out of his depth with any woman. He’s also very conflicted. He wants to have sex with Alma, he’s resentful when she won’t sleep with him but disappointed in her when she does. He’s an innocent farm boy who thinks nice girls don’t have sex. Alma wants to have sex with Bill but she’s sure he won’t respect her if she does. There’s plenty of tortured 1950s sexual guilt in this novel.<br /><br />There’s a background of corruption. There are plenty of references to the moral decay of America and the ubiquity of organised crime.<br /><br />This is a good solid noir novel that moves along briskly. Highly recommended.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-41543432699639767572024-02-13T04:40:00.000-08:002024-02-13T04:40:42.670-08:00Richard Telfair’s The Bloody Medallion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL2wzdg8zrwaCLzN_KJWoKeli-znOwjEvxlacl0H4AxO8655eZ7j7DKEFnXo0OfUYb91fLSbQJlpXVfWSgn5X0MkuMvBZnhIP_SbIJNhHTH30_RVhJ7VNRRf9cw-qopjfSM5wZuOxt7AiaqKmPozZwm4qZ0VyUtGjfH3q5wqXy9tDznimVYBC7fbdG-76a/s706/Bloody%20Medallion1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="706" data-original-width="421" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL2wzdg8zrwaCLzN_KJWoKeli-znOwjEvxlacl0H4AxO8655eZ7j7DKEFnXo0OfUYb91fLSbQJlpXVfWSgn5X0MkuMvBZnhIP_SbIJNhHTH30_RVhJ7VNRRf9cw-qopjfSM5wZuOxt7AiaqKmPozZwm4qZ0VyUtGjfH3q5wqXy9tDznimVYBC7fbdG-76a/s320/Bloody%20Medallion1.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><i>The Bloody Medallion</i>, published by Gold Medal in 1959, was the first of Richard Telfair’s Monty Nash spy thrillers.<br /><br />Telfair was actually Richard Jessup (1925-1982), an American novelist and screenwriter who wrote crime and adventure fiction as well as spy fiction. Jessup was apparently quite influenced by the existentialists and there are signs of that in this book. I wouldn’t quite call this an existentialist spy novel but I would call it a spy novel with an existentialist tinge. And spy fiction and existentialism are not a bad fit.<br /><br />Montgomery Nash (known always as Monty) is the first-person narrator. Monty works for a secretive American counter-intelligence agency. The teeth of this agency are it’s two-man Fox pursuit squads. It’s not explicitly stated but it’s implied that they’re more or less US Government assassins.<br /><br />Monty has just had the bad news that his partner Paul Austin is dead. Worse than that, Austin is now suspected of being a double agent. And worst of all, Monty is now under suspicion as well. He decides, in the best pulp fiction tradition, that the only way to clear his name is to escape from custody and find out the truth about Paul Austin. <br /><br />The most promising lead he has is Austin’s mistress Helga. If Austin had turned traitor it’s likely there was a woman involved. Women were Austin’s big weakness. <br /><br />Monty picks up a vital clue from Helga. It is a medallion, supposedly containing a piece of a battle flag stained with the blood of revolutionary martyrs killed at Stalingrad. There is a shadowy organisation, every member of which carries such a medallion. Interestingly enough although this is a revolutionary communist network it seems to have no links with any Soviet or Chinese intelligence agency. No official links, and no unofficial links either. The medallion-carriers are a totally independent ultra-radical revolutionary group with their own agenda.<br /><br />Monty Nash does some fast talking and infiltrates this network. He has given an assignment - he has to steal 38 million Swiss francs in bearer bonds from a safety deposit box in a bank. Robbing a safety deposit box is a formidable challenge but Monty has a plan.<br /><br />Things have become complicated since he shot Maria. Maria is a member of the medallion carriers gang. She’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. He’s fallen for her in a big way. She likes him a lot as well and she’s not even angry that he shot her.<br /><br />Maria has two formidable faithful dogs, fierce but loyal. One of those dogs will be essential to Monty’s plan. But he’ll still have to decide about Maria. She’s an enemy and he loves her.<br /><br />This novel is interesting in that mostly it’s a conventional Cold War-era spy thriller of the action-adventure type with the assumption that the Americans are of course the good guys. There are however touches of cynicism and Monty starts to wonder if the spy business is as simple as he’d assumed. He’s starting to have conflicted loyalties. There’s some degree of emotional complexity. There’s plenty of action but some very dark moments. And at times there is that faint whiff of existentialism. There are also some hints of noir fiction.<br /><br />Lone wolves are not exactly unusual in crime and spy fiction and the idea of a cop or spy deciding that it his superiors will never believe he is innocent and that he will have to go rogue and handle the case on his own on a totally unofficial basis is not dazzlingly original either. These clichés don’t seem like clichés here, mainly because Monty isn’t just a straightforward square-jawed hero and the dilemmas he faces have real consequences.<br /><br />On the other hand Nash is breathtakingly violent and ruthless. He kills a lot of people during this case, and he does so without hesitation or compunction and feels no remorse. Oddly enough he also cries quite often. He’s a complex kind of guy.<br /><br />Maria is also not quite a straightforward beautiful dangerous lady spy. Her motivations are complex and enigmatic.<br /><br />An exciting entertaining read with just a bit more to it than you might be expecting. Highly recommended.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-71023475938882572772024-02-09T21:53:00.000-08:002024-02-09T21:53:58.742-08:00Dorothy Quick, Mistress of Dark Fantasy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinDw9nkFnevFau5v4I4HhzdkLH3irkqTMqN9wTNOOoQFQEh2tOY6fHFmwhBL29KQAxQDdx_0GaDXSVBsJMD5M0NwjtVecuiIBYhYvGjplOgCS2_KocPzmY9lZe9theeTv2jt3t0PZX2rqs8iEzSBCwoTOk-b-Uv1_LqL2adztrw2NJ6U9B1-ItJM659Q/s737/Mistress%20of%20Dark%20Fantasy%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinDw9nkFnevFau5v4I4HhzdkLH3irkqTMqN9wTNOOoQFQEh2tOY6fHFmwhBL29KQAxQDdx_0GaDXSVBsJMD5M0NwjtVecuiIBYhYvGjplOgCS2_KocPzmY9lZe9theeTv2jt3t0PZX2rqs8iEzSBCwoTOk-b-Uv1_LqL2adztrw2NJ6U9B1-ItJM659Q/s320/Mistress%20of%20Dark%20Fantasy%20cover.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><i>Mistress of Dark Fantasy</i> is a collection of stories by Dorothy Quick that were published in pulp magazines from the 1930s to the mid-50s. Most of them appeared originally in <i>Weird Tales</i>.<br /><br />These are horror tales combined with love stories. That’s a common enough combination in gothic romances but these are not gothic romances. Or perhaps they are in a way, but not in the usual sense. They do however all deal with love.<br /><br />In some of these tales the horror is quite real. In others it’s more ambiguous.<br /><br />There’s a definite fairy tale vibe to a lot of these stories.<br /><br />Quick is not a great prose stylist, in fact her prose on occasions is just a little flat. On the other hand she comes up with very clever story ideas. Some are startlingly original but even when they’re not original she gives them fresh twists.<br /><br />If there’s a weakness to these stories it’s the author’s unwillingness at times to go for a full-blooded horror payoff.<br /><br />The stories all have contemporary settings but the author shows a lot of skill in introducing familiar gothic trappings to such setting.<br /><br />The first story is <i>The Witch’s Mark</i>. Aspiring writer Shamus O’Brien has just figured out that he’s in love with Trudy. He’d thought they were destined just to remain friends. Then he meets gorgeous glamorous redhead Cecily. It’s lust at first sight but he starts having some strange memories of events in which he could not possibly have been involved. Memories from long long ago.<br /><br />Had Shamus and Cecily been lovers centuries ago? The memories seem so real. They may be real, but not in the way he thinks. It’s an effectively spooky tale of a dangerous love.<br /><br />In <i>Strange Orchids</i> a young woman meets a rather creepy man at a party. She feels him undressing her with his eyes, but then she feels that he’s peering into her soul as well. He gives her a very beautiful orchid. She has the strange feeling that the orchid almost speaks to her. She meets another man as well. He’s looking for girls. Eighteen of them. All of whom have mysteriously disappeared. A very good story.<br /><br />In <i>The Cracks of Time</i> a woman notices some faint cracks in one of the tiles in her sun room. She fancies that the cracks resemble a face. The next time she notices the cracks the face seems more distinct. She is sure it is the face of Pan. The face even changes expression. She feels it might in some mysterious way be communicating with her. And then she hears the music. A low-key subtly mysterious story, but very effective.<br /><br /><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw2QazEVRRP-YuiKXpLqhRJlcSQIywiAFtQ7w0Kf7ky94k-jA-I0GaoQ-SkIuj18I5REb7n6tZL0wnvo6pvSZysQoM5TD-ZE2upVgYiIiSjueXonUUu4CBzCyxOp4L3ifvwzt-mZEktX2KqngsUMopGX-7c37Vs6u0y3BqswZXOWfrIy7JfCKq7-9k_Q/s351/Mistress%20of%20Dark%20Fantasy%20Strange%20Orchids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="236" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw2QazEVRRP-YuiKXpLqhRJlcSQIywiAFtQ7w0Kf7ky94k-jA-I0GaoQ-SkIuj18I5REb7n6tZL0wnvo6pvSZysQoM5TD-ZE2upVgYiIiSjueXonUUu4CBzCyxOp4L3ifvwzt-mZEktX2KqngsUMopGX-7c37Vs6u0y3BqswZXOWfrIy7JfCKq7-9k_Q/s320/Mistress%20of%20Dark%20Fantasy%20Strange%20Orchids.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>A Year from Tonight</i> initially seems like a goofy lighthearted story. A guy gets caught in a wild storm on a quiet road in Georgia. His car breaks down. He sees a light and thinks he’s found a house where he might be able to some help. Instead he finds himself held captive my mediæval nights in what appears to be an authentic feudal castle. He thinks he’s found himself among lunatics but slowly comes to think that maybe he really is somehow in the year 1050. The story does slowly become rather darker.<br /><br /><i>The Horror in the Studio</i> has a Hollywood setting. A young woman is hired to design the costumes for Bryant Holden’s new picture. She had Bryant had once been sweethearts. Bryant is disturbed about the movie, based on an old manuscript someone at the studio found. It’s the story of a man who sells his sold to the Devil and then tries to redeem it by delivering five other souls to damnation. Bryant think the story is pure evil and has a bad feeling about it. He’s right to have that feeling. <br /><br />A man being possessed by the spirit of someone else, someone truly evil, isn’t a dazzlingly original idea but making the victim an actor, someone whose stock-in-trade is pretending to be someone he isn’t, makes the idea work rather well. A good story.<br /><br /><i>Edge of the Cliff</i> is not really a story, just a very brief vignette which manages to be very dark and very romantic.<br /><br /><i>The Gothic Window</i> is about a window that has a long tragic history going back to mediæval Spain. The window now resides in a modern house in America but it has to be kept locked at all times. This is a story that seems to be heading in a predictable direction until Quick throws in a couple of clever twists at the end. A very good story.<br /><br />In <i>The Lost Door</i> a young American, accompanied by his friend Wrexler, travels to France to claim his inheritance. It is a magnificent chateau named Rougemont. By the terms of his father’s will he must live there for six months in the year, and everything in Rougemont must be kept just as it was in the sixteenth century. The two young men both see and fall in love with a beautiful girl, but the girl appears to be a ghost. There is a curse, and a mysterious door. Good story.<br /><br /><i>The Man in Purple</i> concerns a haunted hotel room and, once again, a curse.<br /><br /><i>More Than Shadow</i> has a strong folk tale feel. There’s the shape of a dog that appears on the carpet when water is spilt, then a dog turns up and Mona has a dream that the dog offers her something. It is perhaps an offer that she should not accept.<br /><br />In <i>The Enchanted River</i> an Englishman in Ceylon falls in love with a girl but the priests forbid the marriage. They get unexpected help. It’s another story in which the distant past has a profound effect on the present. Not a bad story.<br /><br /><i>The Lost Gods</i> once again deals with supernatural powers from the past. A man is tempted by a Dream Woman. She is perhaps a goddess. He finds ancient jewels that might bring her to him in reality but what will this mean for his wife? A clever story hingeing on the power of belief.<br /><br /><i>The Woman on the Balcony</i> is a routine ghost story and is rather disappointing.<br /><br /><i>The White Lady</i> is the first story in this collection to have a period setting. In the England of Henry VIII a young heiress wishes to choose her on husband, against the wishes of a scheming abbot. It’s an OK story.<br /><br /><i>Turn Over</i> seems to be an attempt at whimsy but it falls very flat and it’s the worst story in the collection.<br /><br /><u><span style="font-size: large;">Final Thoughts</span></u><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>I’d describe most of these stories as gothic romance with some genuine horror elements. The later stories are just romance with the supernatural thrown in to advance the romance plot. These later stories are not very successful.<br /><br />Overall there’s more good than bad in this collection and Quick does have an approach that is intriguingly different to that taken by most pulp weird fiction writers. This book is worth a look and is definitely recommended to gothic romance fans.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-82761742064916472652024-02-06T09:35:00.000-08:002024-02-06T09:35:02.353-08:00Calvin Clements Sr's Satan Takes the Helm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfMqYqQbjiY9y20zmSzlku8E_Cs9DORnoV67roSAhpzTnIVU0waXUDU0c0c71Us6bv5Bdzh-4c3N2HCVK6cr6eWICPNxugN-Iah6RztMhecpT6NlaGqtiy2XR1i20nqhQ-GbSaHAzGPISXCuhmzfLCA39e0HHPbnT1WfZeqhs6V-9GQAnpTZ2gj7c50Q/s640/Satan%20Takes%20the%20Helm1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="391" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfMqYqQbjiY9y20zmSzlku8E_Cs9DORnoV67roSAhpzTnIVU0waXUDU0c0c71Us6bv5Bdzh-4c3N2HCVK6cr6eWICPNxugN-Iah6RztMhecpT6NlaGqtiy2XR1i20nqhQ-GbSaHAzGPISXCuhmzfLCA39e0HHPbnT1WfZeqhs6V-9GQAnpTZ2gj7c50Q/s320/Satan%20Takes%20the%20Helm1.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>Calvin Clements Sr wrote four pulp novels with nautical backgrounds in the 1950s. Some were essentially Far East adventures but <i>Satan Takes the Helm</i>, published in 1954, is very much noir fiction.<br /><br />Calvin Clements Sr (1915-1997) had been a fireboat pilot before becoming a writer.<br /><br />Times are tough for seamen. The narrator of the novel, Martin Lewandowski, has his master’s ticket and had held a command but at the moment he’d be willing to settle for just about anything. An old buddy tells him of a possible opportunity but Lewandowski doesn’t think it’s even worth the trouble of following up. He does so anyway. He is surprised that his employer is a woman and he’s even more surprised to get the job. The biggest surprise is that he is not to be Chief Officer of the steamer <i>Eastern Trader</i> but the skipper.<br /><br />The battered old freighter belongs to Ezra Sloan. Sloan is an old man, too old now for active command. He’ll still be aboard and Lewandowski will theoretically be working for him but in practice Lewandowski will be the captain. There’s yet another surprise. The woman who gave him the job is Sloan’s wife and she’ll be aboard as well.<br /><br />Ezra Sloan is the most physically ugly man that anyone has ever set eyes on. Joyce Sloan is half a century younger than her husband and makes no secret of the fact that she married him in order to inherit the Eastern Trader. They’ve been married for six years and she had been rather hoping he wouldn’t live quite so long. She and her husband do not share a bed. That does not mean that Joyce has no interest in sex. She’s very interested indeed in sex, and she intends to have Lewandowski as her bed partner. <br /><br />You can pretty much see where all this is going to lead. It’s a standard noir plot but it’s very well executed.<div><br />It helps that Clements has a lively writing style.<br /><br />Joyce Sloan is a classic femme fatale, scheming and ruthless. There’s no subtlety to the characterisation of Joyce Sloan.<br /><br />Her husband is more interesting. He’s not the silly old fool that one might have expected him to be. His main weakness is that he’s a decent man who lacks the ruthlessness that is called for in hard times. Tough decisions need to be made. Costs have to be cut. The crew will not be happy about any of this. Lewandowski discovers that his job is to make those tough decisions and make sure they’re accepted by the crew.<br /><br />Lewandowski is a reasonably complex protagonist. He’s decent enough and more or less honest but he’s not a soft touch and if the crew suffer as a result of decisions he has to make he’s not going to let that worry him. He’s a hard man. <br /><br />He knows it would be both wrong and stupid to start sharing Joyce Sloan’s bed but he does so anyway. Mainly he’s just worried that rumours will start among the crew that he is sleeping with Ezra Sloan’s wife. This could be a real problem. The crew are devoted to old man Sloan.<br /><br />Lewandowski is a mixture of good and bad. Which of course makes him a fine noir protagonist.<br /><br />Clements is able to bring the story to a very satisfying conclusion.<br /><br />The book’s biggest strength is the shipboard setting which Clements brings vividly to life. You can almost smell the salt spray. I’m a huge fan of mysteries, thrillers and adventure tales with nautical backgrounds and this is a very fine example of nautical noir. The battered old steamer becomes almost a character in this tale.<br /><br /><i>Satan Takes the Helm</i> is a very solid noir and is highly recommended.<br /><br />I’ve also reviewed Clements’ excellent <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2022/10/hell-ship-to-kuma-by-calvin-clements-sr.html" target="_blank">Hell Ship to Kuma</a> which is more of an adventure tale but with a few noir tinges.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-14593991792861399602024-02-03T03:05:00.000-08:002024-02-03T03:05:04.417-08:00Dwight D. Swain's Drummers of Dauvago<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtvnqPf_0A-PNfO2yum8of5Zd9Dgbx6wlOCX9Y3IPWUtRZE5dysmHiHnbrwU7O4Ppcp-IajvNflUjVnw8O_Z8wrQICccj0drnBWpA5HD1VjGwkM5tLZTYs08JGmj4y1PgqvlEAZH4OuAfmI7yHeKRlI0AOjtWNVf9Es-lxM5IizbfQN5Q6ZqoWvUSrmw/s271/Drummers%20of%20Daugavo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="271" data-original-width="200" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtvnqPf_0A-PNfO2yum8of5Zd9Dgbx6wlOCX9Y3IPWUtRZE5dysmHiHnbrwU7O4Ppcp-IajvNflUjVnw8O_Z8wrQICccj0drnBWpA5HD1VjGwkM5tLZTYs08JGmj4y1PgqvlEAZH4OuAfmI7yHeKRlI0AOjtWNVf9Es-lxM5IizbfQN5Q6ZqoWvUSrmw/s1600/Drummers%20of%20Daugavo1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><i>Drummers of Dauvago</i> is a short science fiction novel by Dwight D. Swain originally published in <i>Fantastic Adventures</i> in March 1943.<br /><br />Dwight D. Swain (1915-1992) was an American who wrote in various genres including science fiction.<br /><br /><i>Drummers of Dauvago</i> has been re-issued by Armchair Fiction in one of their excellent two-novel paperback editions. They’ve put out an enormous number of forgotten pulp science fiction novels and novellas dating from the 1930s through to the early 60s. It’s amazing how much of the obscure pulp stuff really is worth reading. Some of these novels are truly excellent. Most are at least good fun.<br /><br />Which makes <i>Drummers of Dauvago</i> a bit of a disappointment.<br /><br />Since it was published in 1943 you won’t be surprised to find that it deals with villainous Nazi plots. It starts with an American intelligence agent named Holcomb convinced that he has spotted the notorious Nazi spy Lubeck in Chicago. That’s impossible, because Lubeck is known to be in Australia. The guy he’s spotted doesn’t even look like Lubeck but Holcomb has no doubt that he’s right in his identification. Lubeck is after all a master of disguise.<br /><br />Holcomb trails Lubeck but it all ends disastrously, with an American intelligence agent dead and Holcomb facing a murder rap. No-one will believe his fantastic story.<br /><br />Holcomb realises he’ll have to escape from the cops and single-handedly track down Lubeck and foil his plans. It’s his duty to escape. The fate of America depends on him.<br /><br />He hooks up with a girl named Sheila. She believes his crazy story and she’s a reporter and she smells a story. Holcomb and Sheila head for Ecuador. That’s where Holcomb’s only lead points. That lead is a shrunken head.<br /><br />There are the usual elements you expect in a story such as this. Holcomb and Sheila get captured and have to escape, they discover the secret of Lubeck’s evil plans. They also get captured by fierce (and huge) amazon warriors. Holcomb is not giving up. Lubeck must be stopped.<br /><br />The first problem with this book is that Lubeck’s plan, which is the core of the story, is very silly. It’s not silly in an engagingly goofy fun way, it’s just silly.<br /><br />The second problem is that the action scenes are pretty poor. Holcomb has lots of narrow escapes but there’s nothing clever about the escapes. There’s no imagination on display. If he gets tied up he just naturally manages to untie himself. If someone points a gun at him he just knocks the gun out of the bad guy’s hand. These scenes don’t generate any real sense of danger or excitement because they’re too straightforward and obvious and, to be honest, boring.<br /><br />Holcomb is a stock-standard square-jawed hero. The Nazis are stock-standard evil Nazis. Even the amazons are not very interesting. OK, the drums are a nice touch.<br /><br />It is at least fast-moving. But it’s the kind of story you can read and five minutes after you’ve finished it you’ve forgotten it because there’s nothing memorable about it.<br /><br /><i>Drummers of Dauvago</i> is just very routine and it’s hard to recommend.<br /><br />Armchair Fiction have paired this novel with Emmett McDowell’s 1948 novel Citadel of the Green Death (which is a rather interesting story and worth reading).<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-58239390617379705982024-01-30T05:03:00.000-08:002024-01-30T05:06:17.538-08:00Lawrence Block's Campus Tramp<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ByteQCSJKtF8DdJqUtF9Sq1_T-22UpOAzKiTtnbqLSFWeHVPsuIjJNDDmwAQ3UcPcRlgq0Nq8xLsLiwAZ3BsBmaGDfAscn5_7lk_VHTjY_08KLxdDprpdg7ROljS2V9DCMpPkKDpxYUefSW4QtbGZHAB6YBv8sVws8Gq6qMgdPRvHLs21aKEvZStO_cd/s1133/Campus%20Tramp1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1133" data-original-width="775" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ByteQCSJKtF8DdJqUtF9Sq1_T-22UpOAzKiTtnbqLSFWeHVPsuIjJNDDmwAQ3UcPcRlgq0Nq8xLsLiwAZ3BsBmaGDfAscn5_7lk_VHTjY_08KLxdDprpdg7ROljS2V9DCMpPkKDpxYUefSW4QtbGZHAB6YBv8sVws8Gq6qMgdPRvHLs21aKEvZStO_cd/s320/Campus%20Tramp1.jpg" width="219" /></a></div><i>Campus Tramp</i> is one of the many sleaze novels penned by Lawrence Block very early in his career. He wrote this one in 1959 under the pseudonym Andrew Shaw.<br /><br />Linda Shepard Is a new student at Clifton College. She managed to get through to graduation from high school with her virginity intact. Now that she’s a college girl she intends to lose her virginity as quickly as possible. Nice girls don’t have sex with boys at high school but it’s different for college girls.<br /><br />Clifton College might not be the nation’s most prestigious seat of higher learning but from the female point of view it has one very big thing in its favour. The men in the student body outnumber the women three-to-one.<br /><br />The first boy she meets is Joe. He’s a really nice boy, very kind and considerate and obviously hopelessly in love with her. Naturally she’s not interested in him.<br /><br />Then she meets Don Gibbs, the editor of the student newspaper. Don is cynical and sarcastic, totally self-obsessed and has a reputation as an inveterate womaniser. He obviously doesn’t love Linda but he does want to get her into her pants. Naturally she falls for him. Soon she’s spending so much time having sex with Don that she doesn’t have time for boring stuff like going to classes. <br /><br />When their relationship predictably crashes and burns she decides to devote her life to the only thing she considers herself to be any good at - having sex. Pretty soon she’s had sex with most of the men on campus. She does try to keep within reasonable limits - no more than two men per night. Except for gang bangs, but even then she doesn’t take on more than half a dozen guys at a time.<br /><br />She even has a fling with her female roommate.<br /><br />She discovers another passion in life - gin.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawLGPRu3GiwSrmAxn7JXKLmuMxwCBPDEZlDLh7lkWYNGRjxykKsPgvOBZmtqR6jOUa3VD1oyMqDkGA1vko2Xb2m0e40ZJl6paI5aHj9HZF_P0rOTyTXLbABlVX866K3Vo0Ipuk_KQ4ai6cwZDAp4QO9TRsJRcgA4Og63Yf22teA7X5NNuBff1YQY8QrQm/s289/Campus%20Tramp2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="189" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawLGPRu3GiwSrmAxn7JXKLmuMxwCBPDEZlDLh7lkWYNGRjxykKsPgvOBZmtqR6jOUa3VD1oyMqDkGA1vko2Xb2m0e40ZJl6paI5aHj9HZF_P0rOTyTXLbABlVX866K3Vo0Ipuk_KQ4ai6cwZDAp4QO9TRsJRcgA4Og63Yf22teA7X5NNuBff1YQY8QrQm/s1600/Campus%20Tramp2.jpg" width="189" /></a></div>She feels that she’s achieved her destiny. She’s the college tramp. Every man on campus knows he can have her. He just has to ask. Sometimes she’s happy with her new life of non-stop sex but then the self-pity kicks in and she starts to hate herself.<br /><br />And life throws her a few extra curve balls to keep her on her toes.<br /><br />Like a lot of sleaze fiction of this era this is essentially romantic melodrama but with lots of sex (although the sex is described very coyly). <br /><br />What’s most interesting is what the novel says about the sleaze fiction genre in the late 50s and very early 60s. Both writers and publishers had to tread very carefully. And what’s interesting about that genre is what it says about a society both fascinated by and terrified of sex. A sleaze writer could certainly get away with a book in which the heroine has sex with dozens of men (and Linda’s score probably runs into the hundreds rather than the dozens), as long as the author was careful to give the impression of disapproving of such wickedness. The author had to make it clear that bad girls like Linda always pay for their sins. He had to go through the motions of appearing to hold to rigid traditional moral standards.<br /><br />In fact most of these writers did not share these traditional moral views at all, so the challenge was to write a book in such a way as to avoid getting into trouble with the law whilst also sneakily suggesting that maybe girls like Linda were not monsters of depravity and did not deserve to suffer horrible fates. So you always have to bear in mind that the reader is not necessarily supposed to take everything literally. When Linda indulges herself in orgies of shame and guilt over her sexual adventures we’re not necessarily supposed to agree with her savage self-denunciations. Some readers at the time may have judged such characters harshly but the writers may have hoped that their readers would be less condemnatory.<br /><br />Endings also presented a challenge. The writer again had to be careful not to outrage traditional morality, but would often try to come up with an ending that wasn’t merely a straightforward punishment for breaking the moral rules.<br /><br />Exploitation movies of the 50s would often include a “square-up” - sometimes a prologue in which someone purporting to be a psychiatrist or a cop would warn of the deadly menace to America of immorality, while the movie itself gleefully exploited that very immorality. Sleaze fiction often did something similar (although not so obviously) with endings that managed to have it both ways - with the bad girl redeemed without being destroyed.<br /><br />So on the surface <i>Campus Tramp</i> is a very conventional moral tale but it’s a bit more intriguing when you read between the lines. It’s not one of Lawrence Block’s finest moments but it has points of interest.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-61988461668365624562024-01-27T05:03:00.000-08:002024-01-27T05:03:10.874-08:00David Lewis’s The Omega Assignment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVYSgvvwjErULRgvQXpO6YDTecf6w5jX3IzAeZjtg8nWhDcZdhFB7d5lfqwsAoIQ5FkGE8IGjIF3fIedDHaFo--72yGlsMN8oY7_7ebhwrKp1OUx_lnuRIfRJt5sk1afHwL5Lo1Ps6vOlh-qlG0itNSBvZSTrRpv778Kscw0-mfXAC_Hhhdt6vvUjhRg/s690/Omega%20Assignment1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="423" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVYSgvvwjErULRgvQXpO6YDTecf6w5jX3IzAeZjtg8nWhDcZdhFB7d5lfqwsAoIQ5FkGE8IGjIF3fIedDHaFo--72yGlsMN8oY7_7ebhwrKp1OUx_lnuRIfRJt5sk1afHwL5Lo1Ps6vOlh-qlG0itNSBvZSTrRpv778Kscw0-mfXAC_Hhhdt6vvUjhRg/s320/Omega%20Assignment1.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><i>The Omega Assignment</i>, published in 1976, was the second of David Lewis’s two Steve Savage spy thrillers. I believe that was the extent of Lewis’s literary endeavours. His real name was Patton D. Lewis. That’s all I know about him. Given that his spy hero is British it’s reasonable to assume that Lewis was British.<br /><br />Steve Savage is a photo-journalist who does occasional jobs for the British intelligence services. He’s strictly a free-lancer. He does intelligence jobs for the cash.<br /><br />This adventure starts with the sinking of an incredibly expensive and luxurious private yacht, the <i>Cytherea</i>, not far from Cyprus. The <i>Cytherea</i> was owned by a wealthy German businessman, Herr Braeder. The sinking was no accident. There appear to be no survivors.<br /><br />The <i>Cytherea</i> was a floating pleasure place. The pleasures it catered for were the pleasures of the flesh. Whatever your sexual tastes, no matter how outré, the girls on the <i>Cytherea</i> would ensure that those tastes would be accommodated.<br /><br />Half a dozen of the passengers on the <i>Cytherea</i>’s final voyage were senior NATO officers. They did not meet easy deaths when the ship went down, not did any of the passengers or crew. Although nobody knows it in fact one man and three of the girls survived. Their survival was not due to luck.<br /><br />Shortly afterwards Steve Savage is offered a photographic assignment. A German magazine wants photos of the wreck. This surprises Steve, since as far as he was aware the wreck had not been located. He will be working with a journalist named Destiny Blaine. Destiny is a pretty blonde American, very feminine, although feminine girls usually don’t carry Colt .45s in their handbags.<br /><br />Steve and Giorgio (an expert Cypriot diver with whom Steve has worked before) find the wreck easily enough but in that sunken ship there are a lot of things that are puzzling and disturbing. There are signs that some terrible things went on before the ship went down. Steve isn’t entirely surprised when it turns out that someone does not want them to investigate that wreck, and will take drastic steps to dissuade them.<br /><br />Things get more dangerous and more violent. Steve also figures out that that there are a lot of things he wasn’t told. He is half inclined to have no more to do with any of it. That changes when events transpire that give him a personal stake in the case. In fact two personal stakes. <br /><br />There is non-stop action. The plot isn’t anything special, it’s pretty standard spy stuff, but the book powers along at such a pace that you don’t have time to worry about plot weaknesses. The action scenes are violent and exciting and very well handled. <br /><br />There’s some underwater action, always a bonus as far as I’m concerned.<br /><br />There’s definitely a brutal edge to this book. There are scenes of horrific violence and torture, and they’re described very graphically. There are also touches of perversity.<br /><br />There’s some sex but it’s pretty tame by mid-70s standards.<br /><br />Steve Savage is a fairly stock-standard secret agent hero. He’s more cynical than Bond. He doesn’t care about ideology. He just wants to live to get paid. Destiny is a likeable enough heroine. There’s no real depth to any of the characters.<br /><br />The novel does have a memorable villain. He’s a diabolical criminal mastermind but more insane than most of that breed and more sexually perverse. And he has a proper diabolical criminal mastermind secret headquarters.<br /><br />I have no idea why this author wrote just two spy thrillers. On the basis of this one I’d have expected him to have a decent career writing pulpy action-adventure thrillers.<br /><br /><i>The Omega Assignment</i> is fine entertainment. Highly recommended.<br /><br />I discovered this book through a rather favourable review at <a href="http://www.paperbackwarrior.com/2022/01/steve-savage-02-omega-assignment.html" target="_blank">Paperback Warrior</a>.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-65283635044232003382024-01-24T16:22:00.000-08:002024-01-24T16:22:55.059-08:00The Blue Fire Pearl - The Complete Adventures of Singapore Sammy, Volume 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQnhKaUTm12pBygIEpe8zP7okJmAqw7xhTRfoKgI7SukcIhOCJIZ-OqHMEG67oNY7CVFEuM6FZR_2RKsV9z3dGXT6ZqO7cPxdgQ89s-9OwIWq5XXwjmYK0QSfa8hA1TaGfteigg8upU25uX_3l5y3ifTRyOsRonW_KqRD_dGIgV7DREf2Yjd-3_tPktPd7/s1360/Blue%20Fire%20Pearl1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="907" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQnhKaUTm12pBygIEpe8zP7okJmAqw7xhTRfoKgI7SukcIhOCJIZ-OqHMEG67oNY7CVFEuM6FZR_2RKsV9z3dGXT6ZqO7cPxdgQ89s-9OwIWq5XXwjmYK0QSfa8hA1TaGfteigg8upU25uX_3l5y3ifTRyOsRonW_KqRD_dGIgV7DREf2Yjd-3_tPktPd7/s320/Blue%20Fire%20Pearl1.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>George F. Worts (1892-1967) was a prolific pulp writer under his own name and also using the pseudonym Loring Brent. <i>The Blue Fire Pearl: The Complete Adventures of Singapore Sammy volume 1</i> includes five stories featuring the young American adventurer known as Singapore Sammy. Sammy is on a quest to find his father. He’s tracked him all over the Far East.<br /><br />These stories, written in the late 1920s, are typical of the tropical adventures pulp genre and they’re fairly good examples of that genre.<br /><br />In <i>The Blue Fire Pearl</i> Singapore Sammy is confined in the dungeons of an evil crazy maharajah. Sammy is still looking for his father, not out of filial affection but because his old man cost him his inheritance and he wants that money. His father has two obsessions, elephants and pearls. This maharajah’s realm has plenty of both. Sammy is to be pitted against another American captive in a boxing match. The winner gets his freedom and a fabulous blue pearl worth a fortune. The loser will be executed.<br /><br />A temporary alliance might be useful, but it might also be dangerous. A competent story.<br /><br />The second story, <i>Cobra</i>, also concerns pearls. Specifically a black pearl. Singapore Sammy is robbed and left for dead and he’s out for revenge. All he knows about the man responsible for the attack is that the guy has the eyes of a cobra. Sammy also has to help out an old buddy down on his luck. Maybe he can do that in a way that will further his bid for vengeance. What Sammy needs to do first is to turn a small amount of money into a large amount and he has a rather clever plan to do just that.<br /><br />Sammy’s plan is clever and the story itself is very clever and a lot of fun.<br /><br />In <i>South of Sulu</i> that blue pearl leads Sammy into another dangerous adventure. He is tempted by stories that the pearl is one of two identical pearls and of course the two together would be worth a vast fortune. He also feels that he may be getting close to finding his father. Perhaps it’s the thought of owning two blue pearls that makes him careless. He falls victim to a card sharp. He finds himself in big trouble, and those sharks (real sharks not card sharks) may be an even bigger problem.<br /><br />Plenty of action in this tale and a nicely gripping finale in which Sammy faces apparent certain doom.<br /><br />In <i>The Pink Elephant</i> Sammy really does find a pink elephant. At least it’s a baby elephant that is not the normal elephant colour and and that makes it sacred. And being sacred makes it fabulously valuable. Unfortunately Sammy is not the only adventurer who knows about this elephant. Sammy hoped to get rich and win the favour of the King of Siam but now his problem is how to get out of the kingdom alive. He is very hot on his father’s trail now but his father is smart and treacherous and ruthless.<br /><br />Some good double-crosses and some humour in this entertaining tale.<br /><br /><i>Octopus</i> is a story about a real octopus and a man known as the Octopus. Both are equally dangerous. It starts with two American sailors being fleeced in a card game. This is a situation that is always likely to end in a brawl but in this case the consequences are much more serious. <br /><br />One unexpected consequence is that Sammy turns treasure-hunter, in partnership with one of the sailors. It’s sunken treasure and deep-sea diving for treasure is perilous at the best of times. We’re talking old school deep-sea diving here, not scuba diving. Finding the treasure is easy. The problems start once they find the treasure. A fine exciting story.<br /><br />All five stories are good. The first story is slightly the weakest but the other four are excellent.<br /><br />This is fine pulp adventure fiction that makes good use of its exotic settings and provides ample thrills. Highly recommended.<div><br /></div><div><i>The Blue Fire Pearl</i> is one of the titles in the excellent Argosy Library series from Steeger Books.<br /><br />I’ve reviewed one of the collections of Peter the Brazen Far East adventure tales, <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2023/04/loring-brents-city-of-stolen-lives.html" target="_blank">The City of Stolen Lives</a> (written as Loring Brent). I think the Singapore Sammy stories are stronger than the Peter the Brazen stories.<br /></div>dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-61742455198413619932024-01-21T17:09:00.000-08:002024-01-21T17:09:08.985-08:00Eugene Thomas’s Bait for Men<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2rqJLlVZySWFocWzHgKXGPDDmeDluGGoY98Buf6zHG8g3GDTumlZwIsJR5GD5uU01uncVgYDMTBiGpxe96P3ROAMcWoi0fsEZkHpKrB2woEjs6_W8G8g6Amk2uHjbYNCoWaklwZcHYwQV2bMKo_Q8v7rfg0eyEwryxpdqSUvppSZTIPu8qwcZZUiERw/s2560/Bait%20for%20Men1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1689" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2rqJLlVZySWFocWzHgKXGPDDmeDluGGoY98Buf6zHG8g3GDTumlZwIsJR5GD5uU01uncVgYDMTBiGpxe96P3ROAMcWoi0fsEZkHpKrB2woEjs6_W8G8g6Amk2uHjbYNCoWaklwZcHYwQV2bMKo_Q8v7rfg0eyEwryxpdqSUvppSZTIPu8qwcZZUiERw/s320/Bait%20for%20Men1.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><i>Bait for Men</i> collects the first of Eugene Thomas’s stories about Vivian Legrand, The Lady From Hell, published in <i>Detective Fiction Weekly</i> during the mid-1930s. She was a notorious criminal and blackmailer who later reformed. This volume contains the early Lady From Hell stories and in these tales she certainly shows no signs of being a reformed character.<br /><br />These are linked short stories so they really do need to be read in sequence. In fact it’s more like an episodic novel.<br /><br />While the stories date from the mid-30s they’re set in the period before the First World War.<br /><br />The first story gives us her backstory. She is the daughter of a ruthless gambling club owner and criminal in Shanghai. He is Duke Donellan. Duke is putting the screws on the hapless Alan Legrand. Legrand owes Duke a lot of money. Duke doesn’t want the money back, he wants to use the debt to force Legrand to do his bidding. Poor Legrand is also hopelessly in love with Duke’s daughter Vivian. He hasn’t figured out that Vivian has inherited her father’s ruthless streak. Legrand and Vivian hatch a plan but will they prove to be clever enough to get the best of Duke?<br /><br />Vivian’s story continues in <i>Bait for Men</i> as she gets mixed up in a plot against a rajah in Malaya, and lands herself in trouble. Vivian is still inexperienced in the word of crime and intrigue but she’s learning fast. She has acquired a partner, Doc Wylie. And she has learnt to think on her feet.<br /><br />No-one would be crazy enough to try to blackmail the British Secret Service but in <i>The Episode of the Secret Service Blackmail</i> that is exactly what Vivian Legrand does. The case involves a stolen letter that could be political dynamite. Vivian did not steal the letter but she knows who did. The British Secret Service is desperate. For three thousand pounds Vivian can save them a great deal of embarrassment and anguish.<br /><br />What Vivian doesn’t know is that there’s more than embarrassment at stake for the British. The entire future of British India hangs in the balance. Vivian doesn’t care about British India but with so much at stake there could be a chance of gaining more than three thousand pounds. She is forced to behave ruthlessly, but that doesn’t bother her one bit.<br /><br /><i>The Episode of the Forty Murderers</i> concerns a prisoner in the Andaman Islands. That prisoner knows something that could be worth a lot of money to several different countries, and could mean a hefty profit for Vivian Legrand. She will have to engineer a gaolbreak. That certainly doesn’t bother her.<br /><br />In <i>The Episode of the Grave Robbers</i> Vivian is intrigued by an old woman who has been losing vast amounts of money at the casino at Monte Carlo. The old woman lives in squalor and has no money, so where does the money she squanders at the casino come from? Vivian suspects that the money is not come by honestly, and that could be an opportunity for a ruthless blackmailer like herself.<br /><br />Vivian gets into more trouble in <i>The Episode of the Levantine Monster</i> and has more narrow escapes. She is betrayed by a woman but Vivian knows how to deal with such situations. She has the girl sold into slavery.<br /><br />Vivian was always likely to end up behind bars, which happens in <i>The Episode of the League of Death</i>. But you can’t keep a bad woman down. Vivian certainly has no intention of remaining in a Turkish prison. Getting out will require a considerable amount of ruthlessness, a quality she has in abundance.<br /><br />In <i>The Episode of the Orient Express Robbery</i> Vivian finds herself held captive by a bandit chieftain. He wants to marry her. Her other problem is that the bandit chieftain’s daughter wants her dead. She comes up with a plan to evade the marriage and stay alive and if it all goes well she will also pull off one of the most spectacular robberies in history - robbing the Orient Express. Her plan is as devious as you would expect.<br /><br />In <i>The Episode of the House of Secrets</i> a crooked American banker on the run needs help. Perhaps Vivian will help him. At a price. All he has to do is to trust her. People have trusted her before. They always regretted it.<br /><br /><i>The Pounce of Death</i> involves an inheritance and Vivian’s devious scheme to get a share to which she is most definitely not entitled. There’s more than one criminal conspiracy in this tale, and more than one criminal gang. Vivian has no doubt she will come out on top as usual.<br /><br />Vivian has no redeeming qualities. She is a thief, a blackmailer and a murderess. She is cruel, vindictive and has no moral scruples. She is also intelligent, resourceful and daring and one can’t help developing a liking for her. She’s a classic sexy bad girl. She’s also an early example of an anti-heroine.<br /><br />The stories are clever, fast-paced, devious and fun. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-64529514014627489052024-01-18T21:43:00.000-08:002024-01-18T21:43:30.520-08:00Emmett McDowell's Citadel of the Green Death<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDrKU2zDZRgW8DxON-btk4TJpxNhe2xZexjH8AqKhoQ22q5VDn-BGugDFEg7D-iyx6JmvakXgcIv5V8BEugw0iptAPLOJg1j2nbxLQ0iphZCn78rS_6C1syjRTUFNKgAaNqJUhZk6ev-iki_PJdWuIk3xrNiRN2ZRBwgWtRVDpoc_vLyJYRNcbwZo4rw/s796/Citadel%20of%20the%20Green%20Death1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="528" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDrKU2zDZRgW8DxON-btk4TJpxNhe2xZexjH8AqKhoQ22q5VDn-BGugDFEg7D-iyx6JmvakXgcIv5V8BEugw0iptAPLOJg1j2nbxLQ0iphZCn78rS_6C1syjRTUFNKgAaNqJUhZk6ev-iki_PJdWuIk3xrNiRN2ZRBwgWtRVDpoc_vLyJYRNcbwZo4rw/s320/Citadel%20of%20the%20Green%20Death1.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><i>Citadel of the Green Death</i> is a short novel by Emmett McDowell originally published in the fall 1948 issue of <i>Planet Stories</i>.<br /><br />Emmett McDowell (1914-1975) was a very obscure American science fiction writer.<br /><br />The novel is set several thousand years in the future. Joel Hakkyt has been convicted on manslaughter and maladjustment. He is to be sent to the Experimental Station where the maladjusted are used as guinea pigs in scientific research. No-one ever leaves the Experimental Station alive. Joel is however offered an alternative. Selected convicts are sent to Asgard, a planet in the Centauri system, rather the Experimental Station. Slave labour is desperately needed for the colony on Asgard.<br /><br />Joel is puzzled by a cryptic message given to him by a guard.<br /><br /><div>Asgard is a jungle planet and it’s rather hostile. The plants can move about and some are carnivorous. It is believed that there are human-like creatures on Asgard. Their villages have been found. Curiously the creatures themselves have never been seen.<br /><br />Joel makes a deadly enemy on the voyage to Asgard but he also meets a pretty slave girl named Tamis. There’s a certain immediate attraction between Joel and Tamis.<br /><br /></div><div>Joel will find out that he has already met one of the human-like inhabitants of Asgard. They are the Ganelons. Physically them seem very human indeed but in other ways they have evolved very differently. Joel will also find himself mixed up in a simmering revolt.<br /><br />He has also attracted the attention of Priscilla Cameron, the notoriously wicked daughter of the governor of Asgard. Priscilla decides to buy Joel as her personal slave. She’s had a good look at his body and she likes what she sees.<br /><br />There’s also something strange about Joel. He’s not just maladjusted.<br /><br />And there isn’t just one revolt in the offing on Asgard. There are plots and counter-plots and conspiracies within conspiracies.<br /><br />This novel deals with one of those “utopia gone wrong” futures. Human civilisation seems to be thriving but anyone who doesn’t fit in is ruthlessly weeded out. Humanity has already wiped out the human-like civilisations of Mars and Venus. There’s a subtle but definite edge of totalitarianism to this future human civilisation. It’s a society that seems to be run by doctors and scientists but it’s far from being a humane society, and aliens who encounter humans can look forward to extinction or exploitation. The scientists believe in rational scientific breeding and have eliminated useless outdated concepts like love. <br /><br />The novel explores evolutionary alternatives. The Ganelons have primitive technology but they have developed some remarkable powers over their own bodies. They have some telepathic powers (an incredibly popular theme in science fiction from the 40s to the 70s). They also have other abilities which explain why the colonists on Asgard have never seen them.<br /><br />Their society is based on coöperation rather than exploitation. <br /><br />McDowell isn’t a great prose stylist and this novel is a bit rough around the edges. It’s typical of quite a bit of pulp science fiction of its era, a pulp action-adventure tale that also tries to deal with some science fiction Big Ideas. That’s one of the things that makes the pulp science fiction of that era so fascinating. In this case the Big Ideas are ideas that other writers were addressing as well. McDowell does a reasonable job grappling with ideas about the future of the species whilst still providing plenty of romance and mayhem. And yes, it includes space opera staples such as battles with ray guns. <br /><br /><i>Citadel of the Green Death</i> is fast-paced and entertaining and manages to deal with potentially silly concepts quite skilfully. Highly recommended. </div><div><br /></div><div>This novel is paired with Dwight D. Swain’s <i>Drummers of Daugovo</i> in one of Armchair Fiction’s excellent two-novel paperback editions.</div>dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-37662631196343220662024-01-15T22:33:00.000-08:002024-01-15T23:52:05.250-08:00Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise: A Taste for Death<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Uu4ESJ9fPBE-5W6PydUdky0X_hwncJjgoSYfzgxYGu6_WaD9S0h7m77dMmMDh7VHgjadi0y-ytdk_KDbmCoekqmxblunZJOgDE4lrp-RhrVMfJdJRAB-bxfCfBlC1k7pFHS4CZGioyiI-7BlQlL_VXMRa6aue4C-VrE-cvR6QdHDXbFex9ew0aDlgg/s482/Modesty%20Blaise%20A%20Taste%20for%20Death1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Uu4ESJ9fPBE-5W6PydUdky0X_hwncJjgoSYfzgxYGu6_WaD9S0h7m77dMmMDh7VHgjadi0y-ytdk_KDbmCoekqmxblunZJOgDE4lrp-RhrVMfJdJRAB-bxfCfBlC1k7pFHS4CZGioyiI-7BlQlL_VXMRa6aue4C-VrE-cvR6QdHDXbFex9ew0aDlgg/s320/Modesty%20Blaise%20A%20Taste%20for%20Death1.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><i>A Taste for Death</i>, published in 1969, was the fourth of Peter O’Donnell’s eleven Modesty Blaise novels. Modesty Blaise of course made her first appearance in comic-strip form in 1963. O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise comics are excellent but the novels are even better, having a lot more depth. <br /><br />Modesty Blaise is one of the great fictional spy/crime thriller characters. Her nightmarish childhood left her psychologically damaged but she learnt to turn her psychological damage into assets that made her more dangerous and more formidable. She acquired the ability to shut down completely psychologically whenever she was in a really unpleasant situation and this now gives her an extraordinary resistance to pain and suffering.<br /><br />Modesty became a very successfully criminal. She is now not so much reformed as retired. Like that other great fictional rogue, the Saint, she feels no remorse or guilt for her criminal past. She gave up crime because she was smart enough to quit while she was ahead. Like Simon Templar she has an amazing ability to find adventure. In fact adventure finds her. She sometimes does jobs for a British counter-intelligence agency but she is strictly a freelancer. Modesty is her own boss. If the agency wants her to do a job for them she does it in her own way on her own terms. Modesty takes orders from no-one.<br /><br />She is also rather complex emotionally and sexually. Willie Garvin was her righthand man in her criminal days and he is still her righthand man. The emotional bond between them is intense but unconventional. They know they can never sleep together. Which is not to suggest that Modesty has a problem with sex. She has a healthy enthusiasm for it. She has no difficulty forming emotional attachments with men, but those attachments remain loose and temporary.<br /><br /><i>A Taste for Death</i> begins when Willie, on holiday on a remote island, witnesses a murder. He witnesses it at long range and cannot prevent it. Two hoods are about to murder two girls but they kill only one of them. For some unknown reason they want the other girl alive and undamaged.<br /><br />Willie rescues the surviving girl. She is a blind Canadian girl named Dinah. And the reason the hoods wanted her alive cannot be because they hope to hold her for ransom. She has no money and her family has no money. She also possesses no knowledge likely to prove useful to a criminal gang or a spy ring.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghb2zffHBVTBGTBL-LoaqlXh_tbpX6qNv_oM7xEDQ1P7P_shRMSo3kbwIcRh2LQA6MJfDFcjDfZ-2clGXXhn3z7EPimLSbGvClodFTwxpeItXwRq3jljARxDh3rmPXlrThvUzgoQM81vdhqMfUqVEoP5cWK8P0PdxQdj4gxCd65BPBppVE5WdcYjGAug/s626/Modesty%20Blaise%20A%20Taste%20for%20Death2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="626" data-original-width="377" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghb2zffHBVTBGTBL-LoaqlXh_tbpX6qNv_oM7xEDQ1P7P_shRMSo3kbwIcRh2LQA6MJfDFcjDfZ-2clGXXhn3z7EPimLSbGvClodFTwxpeItXwRq3jljARxDh3rmPXlrThvUzgoQM81vdhqMfUqVEoP5cWK8P0PdxQdj4gxCd65BPBppVE5WdcYjGAug/s320/Modesty%20Blaise%20A%20Taste%20for%20Death2.jpg" width="193" /></a></div>Willie sees something else that really interests him. He sees two men on a yacht. They are clearly awaiting the return of those two hoods. Willie recognises both men on the boat, and one of them is Gabriel. If you’re familiar with the previous adventures of Modesty and Willie you know that Gabriel is one of the most formidable villains they have ever encountered. If Gabriel is involved then something big is about to go down.<br /><br />While this is happening an archaeologist is murdered in London. There is no obvious connection between these two events but of course a connection does eventually emerge. And the reason for Gabriel’s interest in Dinah slowly becomes clear. Dinah has a peculiar talent. A very useful talent.<br /><br />Gabriel is not the principal villain on this story. That rôle is played by Simon Delicata, a giant of a man and a man far more dangerous and evil than Gabriel. He’s a wonderful creation.<br /><br />Most of the action takes place in the desert, at the site of an archaeological dig. Modesty and Willie have a plan but it misfires and this time there seems likely to be no way they can escape with their lives. But Modesty and Willie never give up and Dinah’s strange talent comes to their aid.<br /><br />There is action and excitement, there is a vast criminal conspiracy, there is suspense. The peculiar talents of Modesty and Willie are called for. While they both possess the kinds of abilities you expect, such as formidable combat skills, what really makes Modesty and Willie so dangerous is their extraordinary psychological self-training. Both Modesty and Willie will face fights to the death with the odds stacked against them but it is their mental toughness and flexibility that will give them a chance of survival. Modesty also has a frightening willingness to put herself in extreme danger quite willingly, and to endure tremendous punishment. It’s a price she is prepared to pay if it will give her a psychological edge.<br /><br /><i>A Taste for Death</i> is top-notch action adventure fiction. Highly recommended.<br /><br />I’ve reviewed the earlier Modesty Blaise novels, <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2018/08/peter-odonnells-modesty-blaise.html" target="_blank">Modesty Blaise</a>, <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2022/12/peter-odonnells-sabre-tooth-modesty.html" target="_blank">Sabre-Tooth</a> and <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2023/06/peter-odonnells-i-lucifer-modesty.html" target="_blank">I, Lucifer</a>, which are all excellent. I’ve also reviewed several of the earlier volumes of the collected Modesty Blaise comics, <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2023/05/modesty-blaise-la-machine-long-lever.html" target="_blank">The Gabriel Set-Up</a>, <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-black-pearl-modesty-blaise.html" target="_blank">The Black Pearl</a> and <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2023/10/modesty-blaise-hell-makers.html" target="_blank">The Hell-Makers</a> which I also highly recommend.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-76498661208909302972024-01-12T22:19:00.000-08:002024-01-12T22:19:14.138-08:00Battle Mask - Mack Bolan The Executioner 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQ825i4C24czL2F7wynD2fM58UqNUCgAUrH9uwo94Ef7I8IwsvBVFcDXOLtsJ-eOOOMTo04RyO42Fr1F09M3VY01bXRmAppVqcxZe6KvTxTs95yTi4Et8kYWPcFg6jp-SYKSaDf1GgIcVscCltIv13YfS4uDP8ItTy4zMaOf1fQQEa4Fy05kwgdf1DQ/s614/Battle%20Mask2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="385" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQ825i4C24czL2F7wynD2fM58UqNUCgAUrH9uwo94Ef7I8IwsvBVFcDXOLtsJ-eOOOMTo04RyO42Fr1F09M3VY01bXRmAppVqcxZe6KvTxTs95yTi4Et8kYWPcFg6jp-SYKSaDf1GgIcVscCltIv13YfS4uDP8ItTy4zMaOf1fQQEa4Fy05kwgdf1DQ/s320/Battle%20Mask2.jpg" width="201" /></a></div><i>Battle Mask,</i> published by Pinnacle Books in 1970, is the third of the Mack Bolan (or The Executioner) series of men’s action-adventure novels. The series eventually ran to a total of 464 novels over the course of half a century.<br /><br />All but one of the first 38 novels were written by Don Pendleton (1927-1995). Pendleton later sold the rights to the character and apparently the series later changed dramatically. This is my first Mack Bolan novel so I can’t comment on these later changes.<br /><br />Mack Bolan is a Vietnam vet who has been conducting a private war against the Mafia, with his own small private army. We get some backstory on the character. He was a sniper in Vietnam. He has a personal grudge against the Mafia and the methods he uses against them are the ones he learnt in Vietnam.<br /><br />Now, for various reasons, he has to work alone and the Mafia is closing in on him. The odds against him are impossible. There may however be one way out. He could get a new face. He happens to know a surgeon (an ex-army doctor) who could perform such an operation.<br /><br />First Mack has to throw a Mafia death squad off his scent. The opening pages are non-stop action as Mack uses every trick he knows to keep one step ahead of those Mafia goons.<br /><br />Mack does not intend to keep running. His war against the Mafia is far from over.<br /><br />His target will be West Coast capo Julian DiGeorge. Only a crazy man would try to infiltrate himself into the upper echelons of a Mafia Family operating entirely on his own but Mack Bolan intends to do just that. He makes use of the capo’s daughter Andrea, taking advantage of her uneasy relationship with her father.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD547Hi_c9KfrMQUQWumY5sQSQBo4ZpZCfsUFkYVtto0ISStsxlwuQFeo0ShUCneI_q9SUuBU7z0r977rKYEoS1Bfi71rETK8er8WEjWxlV2QOIjg6uEUPmOax74MmofO31bkeE5RMKc_qChZAokWjon05HMPS72_N3KGJZ5WKu7WGU3ixdqGgPF-yfw/s899/Battle%20Mask1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="530" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD547Hi_c9KfrMQUQWumY5sQSQBo4ZpZCfsUFkYVtto0ISStsxlwuQFeo0ShUCneI_q9SUuBU7z0r977rKYEoS1Bfi71rETK8er8WEjWxlV2QOIjg6uEUPmOax74MmofO31bkeE5RMKc_qChZAokWjon05HMPS72_N3KGJZ5WKu7WGU3ixdqGgPF-yfw/s320/Battle%20Mask1.jpg" width="189" /></a></div>The problem he faces is that sooner or later, even with a new face, his cover is going to be blown. Mobsters check up on new recruits very very thoroughly. The other problem he has it that the cops are after him. They don’t approve of his methods. Officially at least. Unofficially he may get some help from some cops.<br /><br />What follows is a great deal of mayhem and carnage and Pendleton handles the action scenes with plenty of energy and style. Some of the violence is fairly grisly. Except in the opening scenes Bolan doesn’t rely on fancy weaponry. He relies on his jungle warfare training and his wits rather than massive firepower.<br /><br />Bolan’s strategy is to pit one faction of mobsters against the other.<br /><br />This is a classic one-man vigilante tale. Vigilantes are not overly attractive but Pendleton makes sure our sympathies remain with Bolan. He pulls no punches in describing the brutal methods used by the Mob. However ruthless Bolan might be his enemies are much much worse. We’re also told that Bolan saved the lives of lots of children in Vietnam. He’s a merciless killer with a sensitive side.<br /><br />Pendleton doesn’t get into politics. This is a straight organised crime story.<br /><br />The sleaze factor is non-existent. There’s no sex at all. There’s an attraction between Bolan and Andrea but nothing happens.<br /><br />There’s some decent suspense. It seems that DiGeorge and his goons must at any moment figure out out that they’ve been conned and that their new recruit is actually their most feared enemy, Mack Bolan the Executioner.<br /><br />It’s a pretty dark book. Lots of innocent people, good people, get hurt very very badly. Bolan is aware that his crusade against the Mafia has put those people in danger. For Bolan it’s a war but innocent civilians get killed in wars. He’s also aware that he’s putting Andrea in danger. There’s not a huge amount of moral complexity in this tale but there is some. And there are lots of betrayals.<br /><br />Overall it’s a wild action-filled ride. Recommended.dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-83200540820391690602024-01-09T10:25:00.000-08:002024-01-09T10:25:40.737-08:00Gaston Leroux’s The Perfume of the Lady in Black<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiShVgYx_-lXBNuRxKaBCEQcf_-qCatLuodXeEhT8Z1RPsuLirgfjl9LahkV8jr-_W6cX6_10L-NMSt7hiGyD21ndfFQf33yu2R0Pf2_z5dfoNMkOj-q8_I-4jDA6ySNHpHDTVfZHMfU-1JyPULbdSa0T7TamP7AdFMXfhd89_sOigWvepF7kqj2Lzi2w/s351/Perfume%20of%20the%20Lady%20in%20Black%20Leroux1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="230" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiShVgYx_-lXBNuRxKaBCEQcf_-qCatLuodXeEhT8Z1RPsuLirgfjl9LahkV8jr-_W6cX6_10L-NMSt7hiGyD21ndfFQf33yu2R0Pf2_z5dfoNMkOj-q8_I-4jDA6ySNHpHDTVfZHMfU-1JyPULbdSa0T7TamP7AdFMXfhd89_sOigWvepF7kqj2Lzi2w/s320/Perfume%20of%20the%20Lady%20in%20Black%20Leroux1.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>Gaston Leroux’s impossible crime novel <i>The Perfume of the Lady in Black</i> (the original French title is <i>Le parfum de la dame en noir</i>) was published in 1908.<br /><br />Gaston Leroux (1868-1927) is best known in the English-speaking world as the author of <i>The Phantom of the Opera</i>. Keen detective fiction fans are also aware of his 1907 locked-room mystery <a href="https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2011/01/mystery-of-yellow-room-by-gaston-leroux.html" target="_blank">The Mystery of the Yellow Room</a> but Leroux is not regarded as a big deal in the Anglophone world. Leroux was however a prolific and extremely successful author and in France he is definitely a big deal, being considered one of the greats of genre fiction.<br /><br />The Perfume of the Lady in Black is a kind of sequel to <i>The Mystery of the Yellow Room</i>. Once again the hero is Joseph Rouletabille, newspaper reporter and amateur detective. Joseph Rouletabille was a mere teenager when the events recounted in <i>The Mystery of the Yellow Room</i> took place. Since this book constantly refers to the events of <i>The Mystery of the Yellow Room</i> you probably should read that one first. To avoid spoilers I’ll be very vague about plot details.<br /><br />There’s a man who should be dead but may not be. He was (or is) a nefarious villain, cunning and ruthless.<br /><br />Rouletabille has become obsessed with the perfume of the Lady in Black. It’s a childhood memory with immense significance for him.<br /><br />Most of the story takes place in a castle on the border between France and Italy. The castle was built in the 12th century, extended in the 15th century and again in the 17th century. It’s a maze of intact and partially ruined towers on a peninsula which is almost an island. It’s a great setting for a story of mystery and terror and Leroux makes extensive and skilful use of it. The castle has withstood attack many times and now Rouletabille is hoping it can withstand a more modern type of attack - by a master criminal.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjop3t-wMBt4JKC7yaerfCOHnAQv4c1DKQGX8kLIIqoFvC7hlvUSOuyCKUsEXijSVJRwLtXXnuLZ5K9pq_FOo2OaorciuqmxLA3j9FrD1siB2g_OzUnBpdx_trHBeSUsYaHxzxbaJ9h2E_fkwQsW_v8CPnWpf5fQZuE5ciN73iH4erJn0JAj2GWDlNmfg/s1054/Perfume%20of%20the%20Lady%20in%20Black%20Leroux2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1054" data-original-width="741" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjop3t-wMBt4JKC7yaerfCOHnAQv4c1DKQGX8kLIIqoFvC7hlvUSOuyCKUsEXijSVJRwLtXXnuLZ5K9pq_FOo2OaorciuqmxLA3j9FrD1siB2g_OzUnBpdx_trHBeSUsYaHxzxbaJ9h2E_fkwQsW_v8CPnWpf5fQZuE5ciN73iH4erJn0JAj2GWDlNmfg/s320/Perfume%20of%20the%20Lady%20in%20Black%20Leroux2.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>Leroux goes to extraordinary lengths to convince us that the impossible crime which occurs really is impossible. He provides us with floor plans. The big problem is that there is one body too many.<br /><br />There are several murders and several disappearances. Rouletabille is sure that Larsan is not far away.<br /><br />The plot hinges on a device that was immensely popular in the mystery and thriller fiction of the late 19th and early 20th century. It’s device which most modern readers will find much too far-fetched. The plot is ingenious but contains a number of elements of doubtful plausibility. Very few readers today will be satisfied with the solution to the impossible crime angle.<br /><br />Modern readers will also have problems with the pacing. <br /><br />There are two major plot strands. One concerns events in the here and now and one concerns events in the past, events which concern Rouletabille. The perfume of the Lady in Black continues to haunt him. He feels it is the key not just to his past but to his future happiness and sanity.<br /><br />Rouletabille is a boy genius detective who enjoys keeping his secrets. He knows certain things which he has reasons not to reveal to anyone else. His plan to apprehend a dangerous criminal depends on secrecy.<br /><br />I like the breathless sensational tone and the general atmosphere of overheated emotional hysteria.<br /><br />The concept of fair play had not yet become an accepted part of the detective fiction genre but if you’re familiar with the conventions of the crime fiction of that era you will have your suspicions as to at least a part of what is going on. <br /><br />There are also several interlocking romance subplots. <br /><br /><i>The Perfume of the Lady in Black</i> is, to be honest, mainly of historical interest. It has some slight affinities to the 19th century English sensation novel. I enjoyed it well enough but you do have to be a fan of the crime fiction of that era. If you fall into the category you’ll find it worth a look.<br /><br />There have been several film adaptations of this novel, including Francesco Barilli’s giallo <a href="https://princeplanetmovies.blogspot.com/2011/08/perfume-of-lady-in-black-1974.html" target="_blank">Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974)</a>.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-1355008721305076972024-01-06T05:14:00.000-08:002024-01-06T05:14:38.912-08:00Alain Robbe-Grillet's La Maison de rendez-vous<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIXObsDs0cR8J6IFEJZ7HqBhJNMAPWhNbuEZIEuxSUm916FcxP1Tk26IEfbDC2wm4v5dJNRjrFil8yoI-ZY6hybdd2vJTiwhnqKiydku6nrRdGj4SZCZt2zB9-LK2ev5C95Sr8c5_d8SaTO8Ue8EFD3qqUlewAkWq288K0TZcwxGdCDgld4g-B8KZAWsZ/s473/La%20Maison%20de%20rendez-vous3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="299" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIXObsDs0cR8J6IFEJZ7HqBhJNMAPWhNbuEZIEuxSUm916FcxP1Tk26IEfbDC2wm4v5dJNRjrFil8yoI-ZY6hybdd2vJTiwhnqKiydku6nrRdGj4SZCZt2zB9-LK2ev5C95Sr8c5_d8SaTO8Ue8EFD3qqUlewAkWq288K0TZcwxGdCDgld4g-B8KZAWsZ/s320/La%20Maison%20de%20rendez-vous3.jpg" width="202" /></a></div><i>La Maison de rendez-vous</i> is a 1965 novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008). Robbe-Grillet received great acclaim in his native France as a novelist, belonging to the so-called New Novel (Nouveau Roman) school. This was one of the many variants of modernism with perhaps some touches of what would later become known as postmodernism. Writers such as Robbe-Grillet were not notably concerned with traditional approaches to narrative and characterisation. <br /><br />Robbe-Grillet also achieve both fame and notoriety as a filmmaker. His movies play around with conventional narrative and include some very marked surrealist influences. He is best-known in the English-speaking as the screenwriter of the superb and influential 1961 movie Last Year at Marienbad (which was directed by Alain Resnais but feels much more like an Alain Robbe-Grillet movie).<br /><br /><i>La Maison de rendez-vous</i> concerns certain events connected with the Blue Villa in Hong Kong. This is a kind of salon presided over by Lady Ava. Or perhaps it’s more of a high-class brothel. There are two murders although one might be suicide. There is a mysterious man known as Sir Ralph but he is also known as The American even though he might not be an American.<br /><br />There is a beautiful Eurasian servant girl with a large dog on a leash. Her name is Kim. She keeps popping up. It might not necessarily always be the same servant girl. Sometimes it might be her sister, if she has a sister. Her sister’s name might be Kim.<br /><br />There is a young Japanese prostitute named Kito. There is drug-smuggling going on. There might be espionage as well. There are subtle hints of sadomasochism, and possibly vampirism, and possibly human sacrifice.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33lJOCDvodQboA9x8rBUNGoEvLkEP1Ma2aLbJidNi_mXd98gSSo-7030JNJxUIP8zkxqaPlK2dL_X-deXDSFvGWjzbvtDBDxNap1ExRBHSXajmZ4wscFoekTmuWfq1Nnn5zPN1rCVHakeP6x_Y-nlTTz98heICcf6oJqpzm3Sn5Ftd-hkvS-5UNCL9CQM/s528/La%20Maison%20de%20rendez-vous1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="345" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33lJOCDvodQboA9x8rBUNGoEvLkEP1Ma2aLbJidNi_mXd98gSSo-7030JNJxUIP8zkxqaPlK2dL_X-deXDSFvGWjzbvtDBDxNap1ExRBHSXajmZ4wscFoekTmuWfq1Nnn5zPN1rCVHakeP6x_Y-nlTTz98heICcf6oJqpzm3Sn5Ftd-hkvS-5UNCL9CQM/s320/La%20Maison%20de%20rendez-vous1.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>The entertainment at the Blue Villa includes theatrical performances. The star is Lauren, or her name might be Loraine. Sir Ralph is obsessed by her and wants to buy her, if he can raise the cash.<br /><br />There are interesting groups of erotic statuary surrounding the Blue Villa. The theatrical performances sometimes mimic the statuary.<br /><br />The events surrounding the Blue Villa are recounted many times and they never turn out exactly the same way twice. The characters are somewhat malleable as well. Their names change slightly. It’s not entirely certain Kito exists. Or she may have been killed.<br /><br />The narrative is unstable and fragmented and non-linear and it is impossible to know which events really happened. There are point of view shifts and occasionally there’s a first-person narrator. The characters are unstable.<br /><br />There are certainly some surrealist influences, as there are in Robbe-Grillet’s movies. Maybe we’re in the world of dream, or maybe we’re in the world of books which are not necessarily the same as real life. There are no concessions to conventional realism. The characters are not real people, they’re characters in a story. Or maybe that’s what real life is.<br /><br />There’s an atmosphere of slightly off-kilter eroticism, just as in his movies.<br /><br />What really links this novel to Robbe-Grillet’s movies is its playfulness. In his movies Robbe-Grillet plays games with the viewer but the viewer is welcome to participate and Robbe-Grillet wants the viewer to have as much fun as he’s having. This novel takes more or less the same approach. With Robbe-Grillet you don’t want to agonise too much about meanings or waste time looking for messages. It’s more enjoyable to go with the flow and enjoy the ride.<br /><br />If you’ve seen <a href="https://princeplanetmovies.blogspot.com/2008/10/last-year-at-marienbad-1961.html" target="_blank">Last Year at Marienbad</a> (1961) and Robbe-Grillet’s own films such as <a href="https://princeplanetmovies.blogspot.com/2020/06/trans-europ-express-1966.html" target="_blank">Trans-Europ-Express</a> (1966) and <a href="https://princeplanetmovies.blogspot.com/2020/05/la-belle-captive-1983-blu-ray-review.html" target="_blank">La Belle Captive</a> (1983) and the wonderful <a href="https://princeplanetmovies.blogspot.com/2020/04/alain-robbe-grillets-limmortelle-1963.html" target="_blank">L’immortelle</a> (1963) then you know what to expect from this novel. If you enjoyed those movies you’ll enjoy this novel just as much. I love his movies and I loved <i>La Maison de rendez-vous</i>. It's quite easy to find in an English translation.<br />dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com0