John D. MacDonald’s Nightmare in Pink

Nightmare in Pink, published in 1964, is the second of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels.

John D. MacDonald (1916-1986) was already a prolific novelist but it was the Travis McGee books that made him a very big deal in the world of crime fiction.

Travis McGee is not exactly a private eye. To get a private investigator’s licence would involve filling in forms and would give him at least an unofficial status. McGee doesn’t want any of that stuff. And private eyes have to work at least semi-regularly and have an office. McGee’s not having any of that either. McGee goes his own way. And who needs an office when you have a houseboat like The Busted Flush moored in Fort Lauderdale.

McGee takes on cases on a very unofficial basis, usually involving the recovery of stolen money. The cases are so risky and so speculative and so likely to end in failure that no-one else will touch them. If he recovers your property he gets half. His clients don’t complain. Without McGee they know they’d have no chance of getting anything.

This is a more personal case. McGee has an old army buddy named Mike who is now in a Veterans’ Hospital and he won’t ever be coming out. Mike is worried about his kid sister Nina. Her fiancé was killed and he was in possession of a large sum of money. Nina assumed he had stolen it from his employer, investment banker Charles Arminster. Mike wants McGee to find out what really happened, so that Nina can stop torturing herself.

McGee has no intention of getting romantically involved with Nina, but he does.

He comes across hints that something odd has been going on at Charles Arminster’s bank.

The plot takes a long long time to really get going. McDonald likes to indulge himself in philosophical ruminations on life and love and at time he goes overboard in this direction. 

The plot is serviceable but very straightforward and you can see how it’s going to play out very early on.

McGee does eventually land himself in a very unpleasant very bizarre situation. I’m not going to risk spoilers but it does tap into some of the major obsessions of that time period.

I don’t think dialogue was McDonald’s forte. At times it seems a little phoney. Not quite the way real people talk.

McDonald was clearly not trying for a hardboiled flavour. At times I get the uncomfortable feeling that he’s trying to be a bit too literary. The romance angle is fine but it overshadows the crime plot.

McDonald is very cynical about the world of 1964. Looking back from the perspective of today of course it seems like paradise on Earth.

There’s very little action and very little suspense. The pacing is leisurely.

I didn’t enjoy this one anywhere near as much as I enjoyed MacDonald’s first Travis McGee novel, The Deep Blue Good-By. It's moderately entertaining but I was a bit disappointed by Nightmare in Pink. Perhaps part of my disappointment is the New York setting - I like McGee more when he’s on his home turf in Florida. That’s what gave the first McGee novel such a wonderful flavour. This one comes across as more generic. It is however worth a look.

I’ve also reviewed The Deep Blue Good-By (which really is very very good).

A. Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar

The Ship of Ishtar is one of the greatest and most influential fantasy novels of all time but it has a complicated history. A. Merritt wrote it as a novelette in 1919. He sold it to Argosy All-Story Weekly. The editor didn’t publish it, not because he didn’t like it but because he liked it so much he advised Merritt to expand it into a novel. The novel was serialised in Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1924. Unfortunately the hardcover edition in 1926 was a censored butchered version. The numerous paperback editions, which sold millions of copies, were the butchered version.

The 2024 Centennial Edition published by DMR Press is Merritt’s original version and is therefore an essential purchase. It also includes the wonderful illustrations (including those by the great Virgil Finlay) from several of the earlier published editions.

John Kenton has returned from service in the First World War not exactly a broken man, but deeply scarred. He is rich and he has financed an expedition by an archaeologist named Forsyth. Forsyth has sent him an odd Assyrian stone block covered with inscriptions. Kenton discovers that the block is hollow. Inside it is a toy ship. Suddenly Kenton is standing on the deck of this ship. It is no longer a toy ship. It is the Ship of Ishtar.

He has not exactly travelled in time. He is definitely no longer in the United States in 1924 but as becomes apparent as the story progresses it is tricky to say exactly where, or when, he is now. He has perhaps traversed a portal.

He is caught up in a conflict between two Assyrian deities, the dark god Nergal and the goddess Ishtar. Kenton falls in love with the beautiful priestess of Ishtar, Sharane.

There are some odd things about this world in which he finds himself. For one thing, there’s no night and day. The ship was created by the gods several thousand years ago, but the crew includes a Persian and a Viking, who obviously originate from much later time periods.

Kenton has entered what might be a magical world, or an alternative universe, or the abode of gods or something else entirely. It becomes more and more difficult to say exactly what might be going on. This world may be a world of the past, or a world somehow outside of time and space as we understand those concepts.

The ship makes landfall at various harbours and much of the action takes place in the island kingdom of Emakhtila. This is a world partly constructed from elements of past histories and mythologies but it’s also an imaginary realm. It is a separate world created by the gods, totally separate from the real world.

There’s a fine tale of action and adventure here, and a fine love story as well. This is a love that defies the gods.

It is however the atmosphere and the mysterious ambiguous nature of the world that Kenton has entered that impress most. This is a thoroughly pagan world. Kenton and his companions and Sharane are in the hands of the gods. This is a world of fatalism. Men and women are but toys to the gods. The fact that the gods continually directly intervene in human affairs, in often capricious ways, is taken for granted.

Merritt has tried to create (or re-create) a world of myth and legend. Kenton’s instinct is to fight against fate. He’s a hero from the world of pagan mythology but even the bravest hero cannot necessarily prevail against the gods. He can however choose to die as a hero should. But Kenton does not belong entirely to this world - perhaps he will not be constrained by the dictates of fate.

The Ship of Ishtar is truly one of the masterworks of fantasy fiction and it’s very highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed Merritt’s novels The Face in the Abyss and The Metal Monster and his excellent short story collection The Fox Woman and Other Stories. All of Merritt’s books are very much worth reading.

Thomas M. Disch's The Prisoner TV tie-in novel

The first of the original novels inspired by the hit 1967 television series The Prisoner, Thomas M. Disch's The Prisoner, begins with a definite sense of déjà vu. 

It's not quite faithful to the series but it is an interesting riff on the same theme and it's a wild crazy entertaining science fiction spy thriller. 

Lots of paranoia and weirdness.

My full review can be found here.

Fritz Leiber’s Swords and Deviltry

Swords and Deviltry, published in 1970, is a collection of three of Fritz Leiber’s sword-and-sorcery tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Leiber wrote a vast number of these stories beginning in 1939, with the final story being written in 1988. In 1970 the stories were collected in seven paperback volumes arranged in internal chronological order (which was wildly different from the publication order). Swords and Deviltry was the first of the seven volumes.

In these three tales we see two young men discovering their destinies, but this is sword-and-sorcery not high fantasy so while their destinies will involve deeds of heroism they’ll also involve a good deal of thieving. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are not exactly law-abiding citizens. In fact they’re rogues and criminals, but rogues not entirely lacking in honour.

Leiber was determined that if he was going to write sword-and-sorcery he was not going to write mere Conan pastiches. He created his own distinctive style of sword-and-sorcery.

Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were perhaps the single most important influence on the development of Dungeons and Dragons. The world of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser is the world of D&D, created by Leiber thirty years before anyone had thought of role-playing games.

The first story in this collection, the novella The Snow Women, was written in 1970 and it introduces us to Fafhrd. He is eighteen years old, a young giant, still dominated by his mother but chafing at this domination. Home for the Snow Clan is the frozen northern wastes. The Snow Women are witches.

Each year a travelling show arrives, much to the delight of the men and the horror of the women who strongly disapprove of fun of any sort.

Fafhrd has rescued a female dancer, Vlana, from the jealous wrath of the Snow Women and that is likely to cause a breach with his mother. Fafhrd is captivated by the free-spirited slightly wicked Vlana but he has been courting a local girl, Mara. He is caught between these two very different women.

This is a tale that give us a very detailed backstory on Fafhrd. I’m not necessarily a fan of detailed backstories but this one does set up some of the important themes of this story cycle. The clash between barbarian and civilised societies is a perennial theme of sword-and-sorcery with, usually, a contrast being drawn between the freedom, bravery and nobility of barbarians and the corruption and wickedness of civilisation. In this story Leiber turns that on its head. The Snow Clan is a society run entirely by women. It is a repressive stifling rules-obsessed pleasure-hating society. The Snow Women ruthlessly crush anyone who defies the rules.

Vlana comes from the world of civilisation, a world of freedom and pleasure and opportunity, a world to which Fafhrd longs to escape. Fafhrd wants to breathe free city air. This is the story of Fafhrd’s first steps on the road to adventure.

The short story The Unholy Grail had originally been published in 1962. This gives us the Gray Mouser’s backstory. He was a young man known as Mouse, an apprentice wizard. An apprentice to a very humble country wizard named Glavas Rho. He is teaching Mouse white magic although he suspects that the young man may well be tempted to dabble in darker forms of magic.

The cruel and ruthless local lord abhors wizards, for reasons connected to his now deceased wife - a woman he feared greatly. The duke both fears and hates his daughter Ivrian. And the daughter has formed a secret tentative romantic attachment to Mouse. This is a situation that is likely to end badly, and it does. 

This is a story of jealousy, betrayal, suspicion and revenge and the meek young man known as Mouse becomes a more morally ambiguous but much more formidable figure, the Gray Mouser.

In the third story, the novella Ill Met in Lankhmar, we find out how these two slightly disreputable adventurers meet. They are, independently, doing some freelance thieving in Lankhmar. A dangerous thing to do - the Thieves’ Guild deals ruthlessly with outsiders. Fafhrd is living with Vlana while the Mouser is shacked up with Ivrian.

Fafhrd had made an unwise vow to Vlana, to aid her in revenging herself on the Thieves’ Guild. And now Fafhrd and his new friend the Gray Mouser, having had rather too much to drink, have foolishly decided on a head-on clash with the Guild.

Leiber handles the sorcery elements extremely well. The Snow Women’s snow magic consists entirely of a mastery of the power of coldness. And you can be in the grip of sorcerous power without being aware of it.

Leiber’s sword-and-sorcery can switch very quickly between lighthearted adventure and real darkness. 

These three stories tell you all you need to know about what makes these two slightly disreputable slightly cynical heroes tick and will leave you thirsting for more of their adventures. Highly recommended.

Peter Cheyney’s Dangerous Curves

Dangerous Curves, published in 1939, was the second of Peter Cheyney’s Slim Callahan private eye thrillers.

Peter Cheyney (1896-1951) was an Englishman who had a very successful career writing pulp thrillers in the American style, starting in 1936. He is best remembered for his terrific crime/spy thrillers involving FBI agent Lemmy Caution. Cheyney also wrote a popular series of novels featuring a home-grown pulp hero, private eye Slim Callaghan, set in the seedier sleazier underside of London.

Obviously with an English PI in an English setting the mayhem had to be toned down. You can’t have guys leaning out of cars blasting people with machine-guns or cops giving suspects the Third Degree. Slim Callaghan is tough enough but his toughness is more psychological than physical. And there’s just enough mayhem to make things exciting without seeming implausible in 1930s London.

Slim is working on the Riverton case. It’s a big case but it’s tricky and it gets very tricky indeed. Wilfred Riverton is a wealthy young man who will be a very wealthy young man indeed when his father dies, and that’s likely to happen soon. Wilfred is also a very foolish young man. He has fallen in with a bad crowd (in fact they’re out-and-out criminals) and they’re fleecing him. Gambling, dope, women - these are Wilfred’s vices. He is universally referred to as the Mug because that’s what he is.

His stepmother has hired Callahan Investigations to find out who is fleecing Wilfred and to get the young man out of their clutches while there’s still some of the family fortune left.

Wilfred’s stepmother is not much older than he is. She is very beautiful and very glamorous. The type of woman who might be no good but is dangerous anyway.

There are lots of dangerous no-good dames in this story. And lots of crooks some of whom are very tough and some of whom are just sleazy punks. It’s a situation that could end very badly, and it does. It ends with a shooting. The circumstances are slightly ambiguous but what really happened soon becomes clear. Only maybe it didn’t happen that way at all. There’s a fine mystery plot here with an abundance of neat little plot twists.

Slim Callahan likes to keep on the right side of the police but he has his own methods and if Detective Inspector Gringall knew what he was up to he might disapprove. Slim likes Gringall. He doesn’t want Gringall to know things that would just worry him.

Slim is a bit of a rogue but he’s a charming rogue. He’s very clever and there’s always the danger he’ll try to get too clever. He takes a lot of risks. But where’s the fun in life if you don’t take risks?

Slim drinks quite a bit but it seems to have no effect on him. Tough guys can handle their liquor. He likes fast cars and he likes women. And women like him.

The setting is London but it’s the seedy, sleazy, exciting London of night-clubs, gambling clubs, con-men, hoods and girls with flexible morals.

Cheyney does a fine job of capturing the hardboiled style but with an English flavour. And the man knew how to tell a story with energy and flair. This is pulp fiction with (thankfully) no literary aspirations.

Dangerous Curves is hugely enjoyable. Highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed the first Slim Callahan thriller, The Urgent Hangman, and several of the Lemmy Caution books including Poison Ivy, Dames Don’t Care, I’ll Say She Does! and Never a Dull Moment. And I’ve reviewed his excellent 1942 spy thriller Dark Duet.

Frank Belknap Long’s Space Station #1

Frank Belknap Long’s science fiction novel Space Station #1 was published in 1957.

American science fiction/weird fiction writer Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994) was a close friend of H.P. Lovecraft.

Space Station #1 is by far the biggest space station ever constructed. This is the 2020s by which time Mars has been colonised. But all is not well on Mars. A fabulously wealthy man named Ramsey now runs the planet and the original colonists are impoverished and disaffected. They believe (correctly) that he has cheated them.

The protagonist of the novel is Lieutenant Corristan, a young officer on a space liner on its way to the station. He meets a charming young lady. She is accompanied by her bodyguard. Corristan finds out that she is Ramsey’s daughter Helen. Which makes it a very big deal when she vanishes. And then her bodyguard is murdered. The killer flees. Corristan gives chase, unsuccessfully.

Corristan expects to be regarded not perhaps as a hero but at least given credit for effort. He is mystified and dismayed when no-one believes a word of his account of the event. Helen Ramsey was not aboard the spaceship. The dead man was not her bodyguard.

When they reach the station Corristan finds himself diagnosed as another tragic case of space shock. He must have been hallucinating. Perhaps in time he will recover.

Corristan isn’t giving up. He escapes from custody and then he makes some truly puzzling and bizarre discoveries. These discoveries seem impossible, but Corristan is convinced that he is not mad.

It seems that things aboard the spaceship are not what they seem to be.

Corristan hasn’t just stumbled into a fight between two factions. There are three factions involved. There are multiple conspiracies.

And lots of paranoia.

What Corristan cares about is the girl. He’s only exchanged a dozen words with Helen Ramsey but he knows that he’s in love with her. He doesn’t even know if she’s still alive. He has no idea where she is.

And he’s soon in the middle of a space battle. A space battle that is not as wildly unrealistic as most science fiction space battles.

And the author doesn’t forget the thin atmosphere on Mars, and the implications of that. And he remembers to at least mention the low gravity. The space station spins to provide artificial gravity through centrifugal fore. This is not quite hard science fiction but at least the author makes an effort to keep things science fictional rather than just being an adventure in space.

There’s more drama when Corristan arrives on Mars. And a major battle seems likely, with no clear indication as to which groups belong to which factions and what their objectives are.

Corristan is a fine hero. His love for Helen Ramsey provides him with plenty of motivation. He’s gutsy and determined.

The plot has some very nice twists and there are enough hints of weird stuff to keep things interesting. There are conflicted characters and betrayals and suspicions.

This is a decent fairly grown-up and entertaining science fiction tale and I’m going to highly recommend it.

I’ve also reviewed Frank Belknap Long's Mission to a Distant Star, which is a good story ruined by a catastrophically bad ending.

Armchair Fiction have paired this novel with William P. McGivern’s The Galaxy Raiders in a two-novel edition.

T. T. Flynn’s The Complete Cases of Val Easton

The Complete Cases of Val Easton is a collection of spy novellas by T. T. Flynn (1902-1978). They were originally published in the Dime Detective pulp magazine between 1932 and 1935.

Flynn wrote pulp crime stories and westerns as well, his best-known being The Man from Laramie (filmed by Anthony Mann in 1955).

There’s a certain amount of continuity in the five novellas in this collection. The hero is facing the same bad guys each time.

Val Easton is an American Secret Service agent. He’s a fairly typical square-jawed pulp hero. Nancy Fraser is a highly capable American lady spy with a talent for disguise.

These are very pulpy stories and the plots do not contain any real surprises although they are enlivened by some lurid crazy details and some colourful settings. And fine larger-than-life villains. There’s a very obvious Sax Rohmer influence.

The best thing in the stories is the beautiful but deadly Tai Shin, the daughter of one of the chief villains. Sax Rohmer’s 1931 Fu Manchu thriller The Daughter of Fu Manchu had introduced Fu Manchu’s wicked daughter, the Lady Fah Lo Sue. She was played by Myrna Loy in the terrific 1932 movie The Mask of Fu Manchu and Loy gave us one of the coolest, sexiest, wickedest and most depraved bad girls in cinema history. Tai Shin is very obviously inspired by Fah Lo Sue but she’s made interesting by being made slightly ambiguous. She’s a bad girl but she seems to have fallen in love with Val Easton so she can be either an enemy or an ally, or sometimes both.

In the first story, The Black Doctor (written in 1932), Val is aboard a passenger liner when he meets a pretty young woman named Nancy Fraser. He soon finds out that she is a fellow agent. There may be a British agent aboard as well. And soon there are a couple of corpses.

They don’t know it yet but Val and Nancy are up against international spy Carl Zaken, the infamous Black Doctor.

In a hotel in New York there are more corpses. Whatever the foreign agents are after is important enough to kill for.

The second story, Torture Tavern, dates from 1933. That earlier case is not quite over after all. There are loose ends remaining, dangerous ones. There’s more shipboard action. There’s a dead cop by the dockside. There’s a link to an extraordinary potential catastrophic discovery made at a Philadelphia chemical plant. The French secret service is involved. And there’s a new and terrifying enemy, Chang Ch’ien, a one-time associate of the Black Doctor.

There are three women in this story. Two will find themselves in deadly danger. The third is Tai Shin - beautiful and seductive but very dangerous indeed.

The Jade Joss, from 1933, has a very Sax Rohmer feel to it. The bad guys have stolen a jade mask belonging to a long-dead Chinese warrior emperor. The idea is that anyone who possesses that mask could set the whole of Asia aflame. It’s a good story.

In The Evil Brand, published in 1934, Val’s nefarious opponents are trying to gain control of a Chinese secret society, which will in turn give them almost unlimited power.

The Dragons of Chang Ch’ien, dating from 1935, concerns a mysterious Chinese named Li Hung. He may be a businessman, a Chinese government agent, a member of a sinister secret society or something else entirely. Whatever he is he is clearly an important man and it seems that someone is out to get him. And there’s a connection with the upcoming marriage of a wealthy American munitions manufacturer.

The Val Easton stories are fun if you like pulp crime with a Sax Rohmer-ish flavour. Recommended.