Review: Kiss and Kill

Kiss and Kill by Richard Deming
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Crisp plotting and a nice twist drive this short noir that tells the story of a sociopathic grifter and his wife/accomplice whose scams escalate to murder as they travel across the country bilking single women out of their money. The dollar was clearly worth a lot more when this was published. This era of paperback originals spawned several novels where the narrator was unreliable or a jerk. This is certainly one of the better ones. Recommended.

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Review: Slocum and the Family Business

Slocum and the Family Business by Jake Logan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Written by the late Ellen Recknor, a talented writer and storyteller of the Old West. This short novel is light on the action, and heavy on the eating for an Adult Western, not necessarily a bad thing. Slocum attacked by a fella named Goose who accuses him of killing his bother, then meets up with a young kid who thinks that Slocum is his father. The three of them end up working together to track down cattle rustlers at the ranch of Hiram, who feeds them well and in great detail. The sex scenes are less awkward than found in most AWS, perhaps because it was written by a woman. Nicely character driven with authentic prose and dialogue I think that this is a fine entry in the series. Book 366 in the series Slocum and the Rustler on the Run is also written by Recknor and continues the storyline. I've added it to the list of books that I'm looking for.

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Review: Monte Walsh

Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This a wonderful novel telling the story of likable cowboy Monte Walsh and his faithful friend Chet Rollins in a series of vignettes that can be humorous, exciting, or touching. Shaefer provides a truly vivid and likely accurate portrayal of cowboy life in the latter half of the 19th century from the simpler times when ranch and cowboy activity was at it’s prime to when the influx of technology such as automobiles began to signal their coming decline and the end of a way of life. This is a special book that made me laugh and made me cry. It transcends the Western genre, much like Lonesome Dove, or The Time it Never Rained. Highest recommendation.

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Review: The Man Who Chose the Devil: Manville Moon, Detective #2

The Man Who Chose the Devil: Manville Moon, Detective #2 by Richard Deming
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Deming ramps up the violence in this PI Manny Moon novella, originally published in Black Mask magazine 1948, while maintaining the solid puzzle plotting that kept me guessing the murderer and motive. More information about this series can be found here - http://www.thrillingdetective.com/moo...

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Review: The Doomsday Affair

The Doomsday Affair by Harry Whittington
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A relentless series of the UNCLE protagonists, Solo and Kuryakin, getting beat up, captured, drugged and chased page after page drive the narrative of this weakly plotted TV tie-in. The extremely sudden ending that left many unanswered questions didn't help either. Maybe my expectations were too high considering that I like both the TV series and the author.

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Review: The Shot Rang Out: 52 Western Short Stories: Scott Harris: Author of the Brock Clemons Western Series and 51 Friends

The Shot Rang Out: 52 Western Short Stories: Scott Harris: Author of the Brock Clemons Western Series and 51 Friends by Scott Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fun and remarkable collection of 52 flash/micro fiction short stories, most of them very good, each one different and revealing the unique voice of each writer. I love the concept for this collection and am thankful to Scott Harris for putting this together. I would like to see more of this type of work. Short stories, and especially Western short stories, have been lacking a visible stage for a long time.

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Review: The Juarez Knife: Manville Moon, Detective #1

The Juarez Knife: Manville Moon, Detective #1 by Richard Deming
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first entry in the largely forgotten Manville Moon series of private eye stories, this one a novella from the January 1948 issue of Popular Detective pulp magazine. Moon finds himself engaged in a well plotted locked room type of mystery with a first-rate cast of characters and a few surprising twists. Moon is from the hard-boiled school of detectives, although he's not particularly violent, and he's clearly more compassionate than others from this era. I liked that it's long enough to tell an elaborate story in an hour or two of reading without getting bogged down in details or bloat. Excellent pulp fiction and recommended to fans of post-war private eye stories.

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Here's the cover of the January 1948 issue of Popular Detective:

Quickly tiling book cover images on my Mac for this new background

I wanted to tile a bunch of book images into an image that I could use for this blogs background with the least amount of work possible. I suppose that this background would have come out a lot better if I had taken the time to make the images all the same size. Oh well.

On my MacBook, where I have already installed ImageMagick for ebook conversations, I downloaded 12 covers from my recent Goodreads books. Using "append +" I combined sets of 4 images into 3 horizontal rows, then using "append -" I combined the 3 rows vertically into the single tiled image seen below. When I get inspired I'll do this with images that are all the same size.

Here are the commands:

$ ls
10377600.jpg 14114017.jpg 25018779.jpg 40507810.jpg
10772831-2.jpg 173984.jpg 25792353.jpg 7134155.jpg
12754117.jpg 2466753.jpg 37847394.jpg 9280898.jpg

$ convert +append 10377600.jpg 14114017.jpg 25018779.jpg 40507810.jpg row1.jpg

$ convert +append 10772831-2.jpg 173984.jpg 25792353.jpg 7134155.jpg row2.jpg

$ convert +append 12754117.jpg 2466753.jpg 37847394.jpg 9280898.jpg row3.jpg

$ convert -append row1.jpg row2.jpg row3.jpg tiled.jpg

and the results:

Review: Hot Lead issue two: The fanzine of vintage western paperbacks

Hot Lead issue two: The fanzine of vintage western paperbacks by Justin Marriott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Several interesting articles in this issue. Paul Bishop's take on Harry Whittington's novelization of the movie "Charro" is spot on. Whittington manages to translate the treatment for what would become a mediocre movie into a really superb novel. Amazing novelist. The interview with artist Tony Masero, and articles about British Western comics artist Frank Bellamy, and the German Western pulp and paperbacks of the '60s are insightful. I never realized that Westerns were so popular in Germany. Excellent production standards for this fanzine. The formatting and graphics are impressive. I'm looking forward to issue three.

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Review: The Laughing Death

The Laughing Death by Paul Edwards
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Author Robert Lory penned this installment of the series and sticks to the formula with John Eagle assigned to quash a plot by a mysterious and powerful Chinese master who intends release a deadly nerve toxin designed to kill millions in an attempt to destabilize Asia and take it over. Eagle is equipped with his usual high tech equipment and a couple of disposable assistants in a dangerous trek though Indonesian jungles to the hidden lair of the ruthless master. A fun and entertaining book if you don't mind the violence and misogyny inherent in these type of books, a couple of grimace inducing sex scenes could have been left out.

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