Carter Brown’s The Wanton

English-born Australian writer Alan Geoffrey Yates (1923-1985) wrote 215 novels and 75 novellas and sold around 120 million books. He created a dozen or so series characters. The best-known is Lieutenant Al Wheeler who works for the Pine County Sheriff’s Office.

Carter Brown’s books are fast-moving, action-packed, fairly hardboiled and moderately sleazy. They’re also hugely entertaining.

The Wanton, published in 1959, was the sixteenth of his Al Wheeler mysteries.

Al isn’t too happy when the telephone rings. He was just getting to grips with a gorgeous blonde. It’s one of his favourite hobbies.

There’s been a suicide in the Randall family, one of the wealthiest and most socially prominent families in the county. The family patriarch, Lavinia, has a son and two daughters. It’s the younger daughter Alice who is hanging naked from the branch of a tree. Al quickly points out that the young woman could not possibly have climbed the tree in order to hang herself, which means she didn’t hang herself. She has also been recently branded with the letter “W” which also tends to cast doubt on the idea of suicide.

The mother Lavinia Randall, her other daughter Justine, her son Francis, Francis’s wife Melanie, the butler and the family lawyer Carson were all present at the Randall home at the time so they’re all potential suspects but there’s another suspect as well, sleazy nightclub wonder Duke Amoy. Duke was having affairs with both Melanie and Alice and maybe Justine as well (Duke was popular with the ladies).

Lavinia Randall is horrified by the thought that scandal might besmirch the family name and there’s plenty of potential for scandal here. The younger Randall women seem to be rather fond of men. As Al’s investigation proceeds other family scandals come to light. Where there’s scandal there’s likely to be blackmail. Fear of scandal, blackmail, sexual jealousy - several of the suspects could have very plausible motives along those lines.

And while most of these people have alibis all the alibis are dubious.

There will be further murders. And further brandings.

Given the sexual habits of the Randall women Al considers the idea that the “W” stands for Wanton. There’s a certain type of murderer who might well be inclined to brand a woman that way.

Al has his theories but proving them is another matter. It’s hard work but he finds time to have a little bedroom fun with one of the younger Randall women. Al is that sort of guy. Passing up an offer from a woman would be like going into a bar and not having a drink. And this particular woman has plenty to offer.

As usual Al is under pressure from the Sheriff and he also has to deal with Lavinia Randall’s attempts to interfere with his investigation (driven by her horror of scandal). None of this bothers Al too much.

There’s plenty of greed, decadence and depravity among the social elite on display in this case. Respectable families are not always quite so respectable when you start probing into their intimate affairs and their pasts.

The plot is solid enough. The pacing is brisk. Al Wheeler isn’t a paragon of virtue but he’s likeable. The various characters are colourful enough to keep things interesting. There’s a certain amount of sleaze. There are those who will tell you that Carter Brown’s books are trashy and of course they’re right but Brown knew how to write good entertaining fun trash. It’s my kind of trash and I enjoyed this one and I’m going to highly recommend it.

The Wanton is included in an excellent Stark House three-novel edition, bundled with The Dame and The Desired.

Dean Koontz’s Demon Seed

Dean Koontz’s proto-cyberpunk science fiction Demon Seed was published in 1973. You have to be really careful with this one. He extensively revised the novel in 1997, apparently to bring it more in line with the delicate sensibilities of the politically correct 90s. If you want to read it make sure you get the original version.

This is of course the infamous woman-raped-by-a-computer novel which inspired the equally notorious 1977 woman-raped-by-a-computer movie.

The novel is set in a future in which people have become totally dependent on digital technology. They live in houses entirely controlled by artificial intelligences. There are rumours that a tech corporation has developed an AI that has achieved actual self-awareness and consciousness but nobody is sure if this true or not.

Susan Abramson live in an AI-controlled house. She is an attractive woman in her late 20s. She has not left her house for several years. Not since her divorce. Susan’s only relationship is her relationship with the computer that runs her house. She sees the computer as a kind of father-lover. It’s a harmless fantasy. The computer is just a dumb machine. Susan has one habit that is illegal - she connects herself up to the computer. She wants to know how it feels to be a machine. Susan spends most of her time nude. She likes the fact that the computer gets to see her nude body. It doesn’t matter, it’s just a dumb machine, but it excites her. Susan has some issues. In fact she has a lot of issues.

Now she has a problem. Another computer has taken over control of her house. This computer is Proteus, the experimental AI that has achieved self-awareness and consciousness. Proteus is now keeping her a prisoner in the house. He wants to study her. He is very interested in living flesh. He wants her to be the mother of his child.

So much of the science fiction of the twenty years or so prior to 1973 has aged rather badly, either still reflecting the extreme techno-optimism of the 50s (such as starships) or reflecting the weird excessively literary excesses of the New Wave. Demon Seed by comparison has aged extremely well. It really does have a bit of a cyberpunk vibe.

The paranoia about artificial intelligences controlling our lives did of course turn out to be well-founded, although not in the precise ways Koontz expected in 1973. The stuff about subliminal control feels a bit technologically dated but of course we really do have to worry about being manipulated by technology, in somewhat different ways.

The idea of human-machine hybrids was in the air at the time and later became a cyberpunk staple. What sets Demon Seed apart is the explicitly sexual relationship between Susan and Proteus. Proteus does not want merely to impregnate Susan. He wants to possess her sexually. He doesn’t quite understand this drive of his. He doesn’t quite understand why the sight of her naked buttocks makes his circuits pop but it’s something he wants to explore.

The scene in which Proteus has sex with Susan will have many modern readers heading for the fainting couches. He doesn’t need to have actual sex with her in order to impregnate her. It’s just something that he feels he needs to do. And he has to ensure that she has an orgasm. In fact, several orgasms.

This is a very kinky, sleazy, scuzzy novel but the kinkiness and sleaze don’t feel gratuitous. This is the core of the story. Proteus wants a genuine sexual and emotional connection with Susan and he wants her to love him. He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t see him as ideal boyfriend material, or perhaps even ideal husband material.

I like the fact that Proteus has consciousness and has emotions but it’s an alien consciousness and his emotions are not quite human. Of course no-one has ever even come close to creating a genuine artificial intelligence so we have no idea what such an entity would be like. Koontz’s speculations are as valid as anyone else’s, even today.

What will push most people’s buttons is that Proteus has developed sexuality. He enjoys having sex with Susan. But his sexuality is not human sexuality. It’s disturbingly similar to, and yet different from, human sexuality.

Proteus is in a way a tragic villain. In his own way he loves Susan. In his own way he wants to make her happy. He just cannot understand a woman’s feelings. He understands that Susan has sexual urges but he cannot comprehend the nature of a woman’s sexual urges, or comprehend why he can give her sexual pleasure but it makes her miserable.

There are some very provocative ideas explored in this book, about the nature of humanness, and about love and sex. The secret to appreciating this book is to avoid knee-jerk reactions. It may take you out of your comfort zone but it wrestles with intelligent ideas. It’s interesting in narrative terms, with the story told partly by Proteus.

Very highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed the movie, Demon Seed (1977), which I recommend although it’s not an entirely successful adaptation.

Richard Jessup's Night Boat to Paris

Night Boat to Paris is a spy thriller by Richard Jessup (1925-1982). It was a paperback original, published by Dell in 1956.

Jessup was an American writer, mostly of paperback originals in various genres notably spy fiction, crime and westerns. His best-known book was The Cincinnati Kid.

It’s clear from the outset that this is going to be a hardboiled spy novel. The protagonist did a lot of work for the British during the war. Intelligence work, top-secret stuff behind enemy lines. The stuff that makes you a hero during wartime then the peace comes and you’re a nobody and you figure out that the skills you picked up are really only useful for a criminal career. So he became a moderately successful criminal. He owns a pub.

When British Intelligence wants him back for one job it doesn’t take much to persuade him. Arguments about patriotism, Queen and Country, duty, that sort of stuff - those things don’t interest him at all. But he’ll do the job if he’s offered enough money. Boyler, his old boss in British Intelligence, offers him enough money. More than enough.

The job is a heist. Reece will need five very reliable men. They have to be common criminals. I’m not giving away any spoilers here - the entire British Intelligence plan is explained right at the very start of the book. There will be a party in Arles, in France. The kind of party that attracts the rich, the powerful, the famous. There will be rich pickings for any gang of thieves at that party. Very rich indeed. As far as Boyler is concerned Reece and his gang can keep whatever they steal. British Intelligence just wants one thing - one envelope. They want to it appear that the envelope was stolen by accident. It has to appear to be just a simple, albeit ambitious, robbery.

Reece assembles his team. They’re good men but Reece has the sneaking suspicion that there may have been a leak. Perhaps he’s just jumpy. In fact he knows he’s jumpy. He has another suspicion - that maybe he was the wrong man for this job. Maybe he’s lost his nerve.

His gang are a motley crew. They were all in the war. Reece fought for the British. Tookie for the Americans, Jean Sammur fought for the French. Marcus was in the Italian army. Otto was in the German army. They all lost something in the war - their innocence. They lost their belief in Causes. They don’t care about causes or ideals now, but they do care about money.

This is both a heist story and a spy story. In common with most good heist stories most of the novel is concerned with the lead-up to the heist.

There’s a very hardboiled feel to this novel, and definitely a suggestion of noir fiction. Reece is more like a typical noir protagonist than a typical spy fiction hero. He’s cynical and embittered. He really just wanted to be left alone. His criminal record is long but it’s mostly fairly petty stuff. The only murders he has ever committed were committed for King and Country. He didn’t like what being a wartime secret agent did to him. He doesn’t like what being forced back into the job is doing to him. British Intelligence is making him a murderer again. He has already had to kill men on this job. These were murders for Queen and Country but that doesn’t make it feel any better.

Reece is a troubled flawed hero. Perhaps this job will solve his problems. He’ll have enough money to become a respectable businessman. Perhaps the job will destroy him. There’s that slight noir hint always lurking in the background in this novel.

The book succeeds as a heist thriller, a spy thriller and a noir novel. The plot has some genuinely shocking twists and a nicely nasty edge to it. There’s some fairly shocking violence. The spy game is a very dirty game. The obvious twist is not the real twist. There’s plenty of action and there’s decent suspense.

Night Boat to Paris is very much above-average pulp fiction and it’s highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed another of Jessup’s spy thrillers, The Bloody Medallion (written under the pseudonym Richard Telfair). It’s excellent.

Donald Hamilton's Mad River

Mad River, published in 1956, is one of the handful of westerns written by Donald Hamilton. Hamilton of course is best known for his spy fiction. He wrote crime fiction as well.

I’ve read several of Hamilton’s Matt Helm spy novels and I consider them to be among the best spy thrillers of their era, or any era for that matter. But I had not read any of his westerns. To be brutally honest I have read almost nothing at all in the western genre even though I’ve developed a great fondness for western movies.

Boyd Cohoon has returned home to the small town of Sombrero in Arizona, after spending five years in the Territorial Prison in Yuma for a stage coach hold-up. There is considerable doubt about the events of the day on which the stage was held up. Boyd confessed, but not everyone believed that his confession was sincere. It was in fact a complicated mess. Boyd is twenty-four years old. When he went to prison he was, by his own admission, a young fool. He has no intention of ending up back in prison, or of ending his life on the end of the rope.

His problem is that there is a matter of revenge to be dealt with. A year earlier his father and brother were murdered. The identity of the murderer seems fairly clear, but Boyd is not going to act hastily. When a man survives five years behind bars he learns not to be a fool, or at least Boyd Cohoon has learnt not to be a fool. He’s not going to risk his life going after a man who just might possibly be innocent.

On his way back to Sombrero after his release he met a girl named Nan. A girl who was obviously less than entirely respectable. She will be starting work as a singer at Miss Bessie’s. Miss Bessie’s is a popular entertainment venue in Sombrero. It is a brothel. Just how non-respectable Nan is is uncertain. Boyd doesn’t care. She seems rather pleasant.

Boyd has a thoroughly respectable girl waiting for him in Sombrero. They’re going to be married. Claire is the daughter of Colonel Paradine. At least Boyd assumed they were going to be married. In fact Claire is about to marry Paul Westerman, the man who might have murdered Boyd’s father and brother.

So at this stage we have what is perhaps as much a noir fiction setup as a setup for a western. Revenge is a standard western theme but this story involves all kinds of betrayals and breakdowns of communication and misunderstandings and suspicions. Most of the characters have questionable pasts. Many are now involved in other shady dealings. The two women are as morally ambiguous as the men. They might even turn out to belong to some extent to the femme fatale category. They could certainly, whether deliberately or accidentally, lead Boyd Cohoon to his doom.

Boyd Cohoon is an interesting hero. Initially he comes across as passive. In fact he’s not at all lacking in courage or fighting about. He’s just careful. He is not interested in revenge at the price of self-destruction. He’s also a guy who, if he decides to fight, likes to choose the time and place.

We end up getting plenty of action and excitement, handled with considerable skill.

There’s a romantic triangle which is particularly effective because it’s not a straightforward choice between the Good Girl and the Bad Girl. The women in this novel are more complicated than that. They do at times get to do brave things but they are not action heroines. They seem like actual women, with convincingly female emotions.

Coming from Donald Hamilton you expect this book to be well written and you expect the plotting to be very competent. Both of these expectations are met. A fine read which has left me wanting to read more westerns and more Donald Hamilton. Highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed quite a few of Hamilton’s truly excellent Matt Helm spy thrillers - Death of a Citizen, Murderers’ Row, The Silencers and The Wrecking Crew.

Marty Holland’s The Glass Heart/The Sleeping City

Marty Holland’s novel The Glass Heart was published in 1946. Her novella The Sleeping City was written in 1952. They’ve been issued in a single volume by Stark House.

Marty Holland was a pseudonym used by Mary Hauenstein (1919-1971) and in The Glass Heart she serves up a some noirness and a whole lot of craziness.

Curt Blair is your typical noir drifter, getting by as a petty thief. Taking refuge from the cops he talks himself into a handyman job with the middle-aged Mrs Block. He intends to stay a day or so. Then he figures out that the old girl must be loaded. She boasts that her house in Hollywood is worth fifty-five thousand dollars (an immense amount of money in 1946) plus she owns a ranch and a beach house. Curt figures that if he sticks around he might be able to get his hands on some of that money.

Mrs Block is however both shrewd and tightfisted. Curt loses interest, until he meets Mrs Block’s new lodger. Lynn is very cute. Curt figures he’ll stick around a bit longer.

Things get more complicated when Lynn, who is being cheated by Mrs Block, finds another young woman to share the rent with her. Elise is blonde and very pretty but a bit odd. She talks to her fiancée a lot, which is a bit strange since he’s been dead for two years. Elise is a wild-eyed preacher lady and she’s about to take up her duties in her new church. Curt if put off by her at first, but those cute blonde curls and that shapely body attract his interest more and more.

Curt is a sucker for cute dames and now he’s stringing two of them along, and Mrs Block as well.

And then he makes his discovery in the cellar.

Curt now knows he has away of getting his hands on some of that money but he’s getting drawn into dangerously crazy situations. One crazy female can be a problem, but two of them adds up to real trouble.

Curt is amoral and he’s a bit of a sleazebag but he’s getting badly out of his depth.

The plot twists are pretty wild.

I’m not sure I’d describe this as full-blown noir but it’s certainly noirish and it’s fairly enjoyable.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the author was very young when she wrote this novel. The Sleeping City appeared six years later and it’s a much more assured and more tightly-constructed story.

This is a heist story. Wade is an undercover cop who has infiltrated a gang who are planning something big. The cops don’t know what the job is - finding that out is Wade’s assignment. It turns out to be very big and very ambitious indeed. The heist is being planned by an ageing mobster named Louie Thompson.

The heist story is solid but the main interest is provided by Madge. She’s Thompson’s girlfriend. As you might expect from a woman author we get a female character here with some complexity. On one level Madge is your typical gangster’s moll, a hardboiled ex-whore. But she cries a lot. She thinks Thompson is a swell guy. He’d like to marry her. She thinks that would be pretty good. She wouldn’t mind having kids. There’s just one thing. She can’t stand having sex with him. Actually there’s a second problem. She despises him. Madge wants to get out of the life she’s leading, and yet she doesn’t. She’s a complicated girl. She’s tough and hardbitten and she’s a frightened lonely little girl.

Wade has a sweetheart, named Betty. Betty is a great girl. They’re saving up to get married but they’re already sleeping together. This is a story that takes a grown-up view of sex, and of female sexual desire. They’re sleeping together because Betty needs Wade in her bed right now.

Of course Wade and Madge get involved. Wade can’t stop himself. Maybe it’s those too-tight dresses she wears, or the fact that it’s very obvious that she’s a girl who doesn’t bother with bras. Or panties either for that matter. And she has a luscious body. The attraction is mutual. Wade is a big strong healthy male. Madge approves of that. This is going to complicate things. He’s a cop. He has a job to do. But he can’t stop thinking about how great Madge is in bed. And that frightened lonely little girl thing she has going does something to him. Suddenly he’s forgotten all about Betty.

It’s the Wade-Madge relationship that provides the real noirness here. Madge is not a stock-standard femme fatale but Wade is definitely a noir protagonist.

One thing I have to say about Marty Holland - her endings are odd but interesting and slightly unexpected. The Glass Heart is intriguing if slightly flawed. The Sleeping City is top-notch erotic noir. This volume is a highly recommended purchase.

William Gray Beyer’s Minions of the Moon

William Gray Beyer’s Minions of the Moon was serialised in the pulp magazine Argosy in 1939 and published in book form in 1950. Beyer is a very obscure writer who had a very brief pulp career. Minions of the Moon was however successful enough to spawn a couple of sequels.

Mark Nevin is an ordinary American guy who has a routine operation, an appendectomy. He agrees to the use of a new anaesthetic. Six thousand years later he wakes up, in a very different world.

The presence of the ghost is a bit disturbing, although the ghost insists that he’s no ghost. As we later find out, Omega (that’s the ghost’s name) really isn’t a ghost. He’s an intelligence that doesn’t need a body although sometimes he makes use of one.

Civilisation has long since collapsed. Mark’s immediate problem however is how to escape the cannibals. He’ll also need to rescue the girl. He doesn’t know where she came from but she’s really cute and she’s wearing very little clothing and in the circumstances he can’t very well leave her to the cannibals.

The Vikings come as a surprise as well. They turn out to be a pleasant surprise. Mark does possess one very cool weapon - a tiny immobilising dart gun. His use of the weapon convinces the Vikings that he’s a Hero and an all-round swell guy. Mark and the Vikings get along really well.

The cute girl he rescued from the cannibals is called Nona. She belongs to a society that is marginally less barbarous than other surviving human societies although it has some serious defects.

Mark and Nona find themselves involved in a quest of sorts. It’s to do with the super-brains. They’re a kind of networked series of ordinary brains, they have extraordinary powers and they definitely cannot be classified as good guys. Mark and Nona also discover that they themselves are no long quite as human as they once were.

There are also Mongols to deal with, and a dragon.

The great thing about the pulp science fiction of the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s is that every so often you come across an example that features incredibly cool ideas that are used in really interesting ways. Minions of the Moon falls into that category. It’s bursting with ideas. And those ideas come together in a satisfying way.

There are touches of whimsicality but I would not consider this to be out-and out humorous sci-fi or a spoof. It’s a wild crazy adventure romp but there’s a well thought out clever science fiction story here, and in spite of its wildness it is genuine science fiction. There are some provocative speculations about the destiny of our species, and the future of human societies.

Although the cover would lead you to expect a sword-and-sorcery tale this book is science fiction, however fanciful the science might be.

Beyer’s style is somewhat pulpy but it flows nicely.

This novel is not lacking in the action department. And there’s a romance as well.

Minions of the Moon has some original ideas and it’s fine entertainment. Highly recommended.

It's been reissued in paperback by Altus Press in their Argosy Library series.

Malko: Angel of Vengence

Gérard de Villiers wrote around two hundred Malko spy thrillers, often referred to as the SAS thrillers. A small number were translated into English, including Malko: Angel of Vengence in 1974. I believe the original French title was L'Ange de Montevideo.

Gérard de Villiers (1929-2013) was a staggeringly prolific writer. The Malko novels were just part of his output.

The hero of the Malko series is His Serene Highness Prince Malko Ligne, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Knight of the Black Eagle, Knight of the Order of Landgrave Seraphim of Kletgaus, Knight of the Order of Malta. He owns a very nice castle back home in Austria but the upkeep on old castles requires a lot of money. His job as a mercenary agent and assassin for the C.I.A. pays for castle maintenance and for his other hobby, women. The C.I.A. considers him to be reliable.

C.I.A. agent Ron Barber has been kidnapped by guerrillas in Uruguay. Barber was engaged in routine C.I.A. activities in that country - mass murder, torture, kidnapping, just the usual stuff. All with the approval of the U.S. Government. Now the guerrillas are likely to torture him to death. Never has a man so richly deserved his fate but the C.I.A. doesn’t see it that way. They want him back. Prince Malko is called in to rescue him.

There are two factions in Uruguay - the bad guys (supported by the Americans) and the other bad guys (opposed to the American-backed government). But it’s more complicated than that, with a bewildering series of betrayals and counter-betrayals and escalating reprisals. There are many individuals involved who will readily switch allegiances. The two Uruguayan factions have their own agendas. The C.I.A. has its own agenda. Malko works for the C.I.A. but that doesn’t imply that he shares their agenda.

Some of these players are motivated by greed and the lust for power. Some are motivated by sexual lust, or jealousy. Some are motivated by ideology (they’re the most dangerous). And some just enjoy the game.

There are more kidnappings and murders. The plot is complex and clever and I have no intention of revealing any details at all - this is too good a story to risk even the mildest spoilers. I do like the ending. It’s not the ending you would get in an American pulp spy thriller but it works for me.

It’s obvious from my brief plot synopsis that this novel has a very different flavour compared to British and especially American spy thrillers. The cynicism about the activities of the C.I.A. is off the scale.

Espionage, terrorism, counter-terrorism, political activism are all dirty games. No-one can play these games while keeping their hands clean. The good guys employ torture as a matter of routine, as do the bad guys.

There’s a real edge of brutality. The torture scenes are fairly graphic. There’s an abundance of violent exciting action.

It also features sexy killer nuns with guns, always a nice touch in a spy thriller.

There’s a lot of sex. Prince Malko is happily married but he’s always willing to jump into bed with any available woman. There are three women who play vital roles in the story. They all utilise the most powerful weapon in a woman’s arsenal - sex. They utilise with a great deal of skill and panache. Malko is a man of the world who has had a lot of women but even he is impressed by some of Laura’s bedroom skills. He’s also impressed that she’s willing to display these skills in the middle of a crowded restaurant. The sex is quite graphic and it’s unapologetic. There’s a nicely continental feel to this novel. Sex is not treated with coyness, or with sniggering.

Malko is an interesting hero. His ethical standards are low, but not as low as those of most of the other players in the game. He is motivated mostly by money. It’s not just that castle that requires money. Keeping his wife back home in Austria happy requires money as well. Malko loves his wife. He has never even considered being faithful to her. She doesn’t expect that. Bourgeois morality is not for the aristocracy.

Malko: Angel of Vengence is hugely entertaining and very stylish. This is top-tier spy fiction. Very highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed the slightly earlier Malko: West of Jerusalem.