Review: The Legend of Roxy Doyle

The Legend of Roxy Doyle by J.R. Roberts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first book in the Gunsmith Adult Western spin-off series tells the origin story of Roxy Doyle, a.k.a Lady Gunsmith, a pistol-packing beauty in search of her estranged bounty hunter father. The author does a nice job of portraying the young Roxy as being a bit rough around the edges, in contrast with the mature Roxy, a polished and confident gunslinger as he navigates the two timelines that make up the novel. The dialog driven narrative will be familiar to readers of the Gunsmith books, although the female perspective only serves to make the three required sex scenes seem even more nonessential and awkward. I really liked the surprise appearances of Belle Starr, and Frank and Jesse James and how they were integrated into the story. The plotting, pacing, and dialog are the author’s strong points and they are on display in this short novel making it hard to put down. An easy and entertaining read.

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College Man by John D. MacDonald - PDF

I came across a John D. MacDonald story that I had never seen before in a scan of the February 1958 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. It turns out that it has never been anthologized, so pretty much lost for 60 plus years. A little OCR work, editing, and conversion to PDF resulted in the file linked below. This is a great little story that really shows JDMs skills at creating instantly likable characters, and his uncanny ability to ratchet up the tension.

College Man by John D. MacDonald PDF

Review: Murder Mistress

Murder Mistress by Robert Colby
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A superb take on the heist theme telling the tale of Scott Daniels, an unemployed TV announcer with an alcohol problem who accidentally finds clues to a bank robbery and decides to investigate in order to claim the reward money. While Scott and his wife Myra start collecting clues to solve the crime, the clever couple who have absconded with all of the hold-up money struggle to keep stiffed partner, the brutish Roy, from getting his share. The set up and caper is told in flashbacks and in nice detail. Well plotted and expertly paced. Another page turner and highly recommended for anyone that enjoys a good heist story.

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Review: Mourn the Hangman

Mourn the Hangman by Harry Whittington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steve Blake, a private eye assigned to investigate a corrupt businessman’s South American operations returns home to find his wife murdered, an assumed frame job. Blake goes vigilante in a relentless one-man pursuit of his wife’s killer which puts him at odds with the police, his detective partner, and the powerful businessman’s entourage. A nice take on the “guy on the run seeking revenge” theme that keeps the pages turning. The dialog and prose is strong, although the plot relies a lot on coincidence, with Blake always showing up just in time to find someone just killed. A very entertaining, albeit somewhat flawed, page burner.

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Review: Chicago Wipe-Out

Chicago Wipe-Out by Don Pendleton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bolan arrives in Chicago, a hotbed of mob activity, and vows destruction of the Mafia families that control the corrupt city. Rather than battle the mob directly, Bolan uses the information provided by a man who had researched the corruption, a man who paid a steep price when his life was devastated by revenge, to identity and manipulate the families into a war with each other. It was interesting that the the book focused more on the Mafia characters than Bolan himself, and that the obligatory love interest, a dancer named Jimi, was merely a minor character. Another very good entry in the long-running series.

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Review: The Road's End

The Road's End by Albert Conroy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Albert Conroy is a pseudonym of Marvin H. Albert, a writer of many fine crime and western novels. For a while in the middle 1900s there were plenty of movies and books with an amnesia storyline, where someone gets bonked on the head and doesn’t remember anything. In this short novel, Dan Ginger, a philandering jackass, wakes up after being left for dead with no recall of what happened to him and soon is accused of the murder of a young woman that he has been fooling around with. Dan has to try to solve the murder, which turns out to be a complex web of people and events that he needs to piece together without the aid of his memory. This is truly an excellent novel with razor sharp plotting and pacing, and many vibrant characters. Best amnesia book I’ve ever read. An easy five stars.

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Review: Out of Time's Abyss

Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The third entry in Burroughs Caspak trilogy introduces a new heroic main character named Bradley, one of the crewmen from Fort Dinosaur. Bradley, Tom Billings and Tyler Bowen, the main characters from the first two books, are pretty much indistinguishable anyway. The story has been building up to an encounter with the mysterious and predatory flying Weiroo people and when Bradley is captured he becomes a one-man action hero in his battle to escape from his violent captors and rescue a lovely native woman. Burroughs does a terrific job answering the unresolved questions from the first two books, and tying up all the loose ends. Great pulp action/adventure storytelling from a master.

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Hopalong Cassidy Ultimate Collector's Edition (66-Film Collection)

My recent Hopalong Cassidy movie reviews have been fueled by this collection which I purchased online recently. All 66 of the Hoppy films are represented here in restored condition and I've been impressed with the quality of the picture and sound. I'm sure that I'll tire of watching these before I see them all, however I've really enjoyed the ones that I've watched so far. I picked up this DVD set on sale at Oldies.com. Here's a link Hopalong Cassidy Ultimate Collector's Edition (66-Film Collection)

Western Pulp: 10 Story Western - May 1940

I picked this one up at PulpFest primarily for the Harry Olmsted story, which I'm reading today. I can't say that I know much about the other writers that include Bart Cassidy, John G. Pearsol, Tom W. Blackburn, Moran Tudury, William Benton Johnson, Ruel McDaniel, Costa Carousso, Gunnison Steele, and H. M. S. Kemp, nor who painted this exciting cover.

Review: The Land That Time Forgot

The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first book in Burroughs Caspak trilogy is one of the most famous of the “Lost World” type adventures and rightly so with high pulpy action that includes submarines, sabotage, prehistoric beasts, and romance. The linear narrative is provided by Tyler Bowen’s journal which he seals in a thermos and tosses into the ocean and the end, a nice setup for the next book. The inventive biology where tribes of men are at different stages of evolution is hinted at here which helps link the succeeding stories in this classic pulp adventure trilogy.

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