Review: Legend of the Black Rose

Legend of the Black Rose by A.W. Hart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are a lot of demands on the first book in a planned series, introducing multiple characters, backstories, locations, etc. This book does a solid job with all of these although I felt that the descriptive prose was a bit excessive and it seemed over long, like 50 pages could have been cut. This was probably mostly due to the nature of being the first book so it’s forgivable. A young woman named Catalina Riviera, well trained in martial arts, is rescued by a convent of nuns after her family is slaughtered in a raid. The nuns are warriors themselves, protecting underground springs with metaphysical properties, and Catalina is a welcome addition. Catalina assumes a Zorro-like disguised identity called the Black Rose, a crime fighting vigilante in her efforts to bring the persons responsible for her family’s murder to justice. A bevy of interesting characters are introduced, some unlikely alliances, a couple of twists, and an explosive climax all contribute to a satisfying read.

Inexpensive ebook available from Wolfpack Publishing.

Review: Love-Starved Woman

Love-Starved Woman by Peggy Gaddis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really enjoyed this fast-paced pulp romance. Fantastic dialog in places, with insults thrown back and forth in a way that I'd think was quite edgy in 1953. The plot is a bit straight-forward, but has a enough twists to keep the pages turning. Starts off tightly leashed to Isobel Lamar's POV and then roves around amongst the other characters. At first this POV switch was unsettling but it quickly became a strength of the novel as it rounds out the perspective of the situations and the characters. Nothing too exciting. Just a good time-capsule into small town 1950s life. And Gaddis is on top of her game with energetic and sharp prose. This is a digest-sized paperback original published in 1953 by Croydon. Can't find any record of this having been reprinted, which is quite rare for a Peggy Gaddis novel. Cover art by Bern Safran, who painted a lot of the early Croydon covers.

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Review: House of Flesh

House of Flesh by Bruno Fischer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another great noir from 1950 that deserves to be ranked with the classics of the genre. Really surprised that this was never made into a movie because it has all the elements. I've seen this one labeled as horror or "male-gothic," but neither of those labels fit as this is straight-ahead noir. Harry Wilde is a pro-basketball player reeling from a divorce and a loss in the final game of the championship series. He goes to the countryside for the summer to regroup. He plays around a bit with young and beautiful Polly Wellman until he meets Lela Doane, the wife of a local veterinarian (who is rumored to have murdered his first wife and fed her body to the vicious dogs he keeps). Harry soon makes the classic mistake that drives so many noir plots as he pursues a torrid affair with Lela. The plot complications accelerate from there as Harry, wanting to have Lela Doane for himself, tries to prove that Doane killed his first wife, starting with a search for her bones on Doane's property. Fischer keeps the plot and the atmosphere thick throughout. Perhaps a bit too much dialog for my taste toward at the very end as it wraps up the way a lot of mystery novels do with the unraveling of the who- and how-dunnit, but all-in-all a great noir.

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Review: Vengeance at Ventura

Vengeance at Ventura by George G. Gilman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Edge books are characterized by their extreme violence, solid plotting, and breakneck pacing making them typically entertaining fast reads. The main character, a lone gunslinger named Edge, is a damaged man prone to nihilism and brutality which can often be pretty repellent. This 37th entry in the series finds Edge surprisingly altruistic, having some thoughts of romance, and a tendency to kill only fellers that deserve it. Maybe the character has matured, or maybe he’s just in a good mood for this book. Crystal Dickens, an interesting woman from the previous book (which I now need to find and read), plays a major role helping Edge resolve a family feud involving a religious zealot who has been building an ark in the desert with money stolen from his family, and who subsequently steals Edge’s horse. There are several other well drawn characters and I think that making Edge more self-reflective and less amoral help to make this one of the stronger entries in the series.

Review: The Deceivers

The Deceivers by John D. MacDonald
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Carl Garrett's wife Joan goes into the hospital to have ovarian tumors removed and he chooses this time to have an affair with the next door neighbor? Yes, and you know this can't end well. MacDonald is masterful with the character development, the inner turmoil, the sordid details of the affair, and just devastating in how he spins out the consequences. He went maybe a bit overboard in the second quarter of the book with the backstory, but the last half of the novel was riveting.

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Review: A Taste for Sin

A Taste for Sin by Gil Brewer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you are looking for a fast-paced noir thriller to lose yourself in for a few hours this Gil Brewer masterpiece is the one. Brewer removed the filter and just blew up the page. If you are a fan of crime-noir and haven't read this book yet, then you are missing out on a centerpiece of the genre.

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Review: The Removers

The Removers by Donald Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The third book in the series finds Matt Helm becoming reacquainted with his ex-wife Beth and his children after receiving an unsolicited message from her asking for his help. In a bit of a stretch, the visit to Beth’s new husband’s ranch happens to coincide with an espionage mission to track down a criminal formerly known as Martel. It turns out that Martel has replaced Beth's new husband as an enforcer with a local mobster. Helm meets and seduces an alluring younger woman named Moira, who turns out to be the mobster's daughter, leading to some interesting exchanges between the two women. The danger to his family, making the danger personal, failed to soften up Helm. He is just and cold-blooded and ruthless as ever, which I thought was a nice touch in keeping up character consistency. Coincidences aside, I thought that this was a great book, fast moving with several unexpected twists. Hamilton’s writing is strong as he continues to flesh out the Matt Helm character with Helm's clever insights and observations. This reminded me a lot of how John D. MacDonald fleshed out Travis McGee in that excellent series. Five stars.

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Review: Death House Doll

Death House Doll by Day Keene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you like the classic hard-boiled detective novels, this one fits right in. Keene, as he often did, twists the genre a bit by not using a detective to do the detecting. Here it is an army sergeant on leave checking up on his dead brother's wife and child. As the book begins he's visiting her in prison because she's the death house doll. Plenty of action and twists and turns as the sergeant, a medal of honor winner, takes on hoods and cops as he tries to solve the crime and free his brother's wife from death row before she is executed in five days. Just a couple of things made this clunky. A lot of information is learned through too conveniently over-heard conversations. And then the big summary reveal at the end, although that is a convention of the mystery genre, I wish it could have had a more active ending.

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Review: Call South 3300: Ask for Molly!

Call South 3300: Ask for Molly! by Orrie Hitt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If there was ever an Orrie Hitt book set up for one of his $300 abortion plot lines this was it, but not much of a spoiler to say no abortions here. Slade Martin is a hard charging sales director and Ann Frank is a secretary moonlighting as a prostitute. Hitt sticks to their POVs, alternating chapters, and actually does a deep dive (if not very nuanced) into their motivations and this gives the narrative a welcome edginess. The business is the manufacture and selling of TV sets, but Hitt does not explore that milieu with any depth, and that is a disappointment because one of the fun things about reading Hitt's books is that he typically provided a time capsule look into 1950s/1960s business. Not so much this time. Likewise with conventions. Despite the tease on the jacket copy, the convention aspect is barely shown. So don't read this expecting a take on conventions. Plenty of other vintage sleaze books to a better job of showing convention hi-jinks. And it would have been better with more of a noir plot as the prostitution angle doesn't get edgy at all. This is mostly a character study of two needy people. What do they need and will they be satisfied? Although disappointing in many ways, Hitt did more with character than usual, and that made it more interesting than some of his other books. And this was actually one of the few times that Hitt surprised me with the direction he went with the ending. The Beacon paperback is scarce, but there is now an eBook version available.

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Review: Wolf Pack

Wolf Pack by David Robbins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Wilderness series is an interesting take on the historical fiction Mountain Man genre in that the main character, Nate King, is an educated man and a family man, as opposed to the loner survivalist types that typically dominate these types of stories. This changes the dynamic significantly since being a protector of his beloved family raises the stakes when danger threatens, as it surely will in adventure books. David Robbins, is a pro and this short novel is well-written with smart dialogue and a compelling plot that tells the story of Nate King and his family investigating a murder assumed to be committed by trappers from their peaceful valley before a retaliation effort is mounted by angry Native American warriors. The trail leads to a conflict with a band of particularly ruthless and violent outlaws that have been brutally terrorizing innocent settlers and pilgrims. This is not an Adult Western series, so although violence and gore are plentiful there are no awkward sex scenes or foul language. A solid entry in a dependably reliable series.

Now available in an inexpensive digital double.