A hot, summer Sunday morning.

The police have Pepe Miranda, a thief and killer, pinned in a hotel room. He refuses to come out. The building is surrounded by both civilians and police. The roofs, hanging out of windows, all watching, the crowds alternately cheering the police and Miranda.

We have Zip, a would-be gang leader who’d formed The Latin Purples and idolized Miranda. He has four members and wants instant respect. He thinks murdering a sixteen year old who’d merely said hello to a young woman he fancied as his girl friend(she had other ideas) as the way to go. He’d blown it up from saying hello to feeling her up. The encounter with real gang members hadn’t helped his ego.

Andy Parker of the 87Th, once a good cop, who’d survived a savage beating and now wanted to kill Miranda to “fix” himself.

And Steve Carella, going in disguised as a priest, knowing he was going to be used as a hostage. Miranda had already shot one of the patrolman that went up to arrest him and a detective, Frankie Hernandez, climbing the fire escape after Zip shouts a warning.

As always, McBain paces everything nicely, drawing things out to the inevitable conclusion.

Liked this one.

For more forgotten books, see Patti Abbott over at her blog, Pattinase.

Marcus Pauly, her mother’s brother, had been his best friend during the war and they stuck together after the end, falling into the outlaw ways so many at the time did. At the bank robbery, they were ambushed by the townspeople and only three had made it out: Ramsey, Pauly, and the gang leader, Boss Larsen. Marcus was badly wounded and Larsen wanted to leave him. Ford didn’t and stayed with a promise to split the loot later. With a posse after them, there was no time

His friend died and Ramsey took the time to bury him before moving on. It was his undoing and the posse caught him. He went to prison, denying all the time the belief that he had killed Pauly and Larsen and hid the money.

That tale followed him after he got out of prison. Ramsey knew he was being watched, but ht found work and toiled away for three years. That his boss was a snot-nosed punk, son of the owner, he just had to take. Old and an ex-con, he needed the job to survive.

So when Annabelle came calling, he hesitated. She wanted to honor her late mother’s quest to bring her uncle’s body home for burial in the family cemetery. But one nasty comment from his young boss got the boy a beating and Ramsey and Annabelle set out to find the body.

Ramsey’s instincts were a bit rusty, but he had the feeling someone was following them.

Quite enjoyed this story of honor and friendship and what one will go through to get it done.

Recommended.

O’Doul, an older man, worked at the ranch of Joe Reichert. The only other hand was young Leonard Fain. The two watched the boss disintegrate after his young son wandered into a paddock and was trampled to death by a wild mare. Reichert blamed his wife, Annie, who’d been hanging clothes out to dry when the child wandered off. The boss’s drinking and the treatment of his wife got worse until he ordered her off the ranch, never to return.

Young Leonard was already incensed at the way he treated her. The next day he rode into town where she was staying with the doctor and his wife.

O’Doul had his own problems. Known only to him and the Doctor, the old man was dying of cancer, with only a few months, tops, to live. Laudanum was the only thing that kept him going.

Word came that Leonard and Annie had been having dinner together and taking walks. Nothing improper, except to the interminable gossips in town.

Trouble was coming as Reichert’s drinking got even worse. When he found out what was going on in town, however innocent it really was, O’Doul knew what would come next.

Another fine western.

The second video is a YARDBIRDS tune with Jimmy Page on guitar from 1968. The first album, Cumular Limit(2000), it appeared on credited Holmes with writing the song, arr. Yardbirds. A later release, Live Yardbirds featuring Jimmy Page, left it, under the title I’m Dazed, the only song with no songwriting credits.

The third version appeared on Zeppelin’s first album in 1969. Songwriting credits made no mention of Jake Holmes. Holmes sent Page a letter about the songwriting credits and received no reply. He finally sued for copyright infringement in 2010.

Judge for yourself.

Mida King(a stage name for King Midas, who had the golden touch) is an actress who’s a grasping, greedy, evil woman who specializes in taking men for all she can get, loving cash, furs, perfume, and expensive jewelry, which she sells immediately. Distrusting banks, she converts her money to thousand dollar bills and keeps it with her. She’s landed a big fish, millionaire David Henderson, and plans to marry him after the night’s running of her play, then heading west in a private rail car.

The framework of the film is that old stand-by of gathering all the suspects together, then the rest of the film is each telling their story about the events preceding the murder. The body is found in that private car. The bundle of thousands is missing.

And there’s a host of suspects. Her ex-husband(no one knows why she married him; he doesn’t have a dime) who works for the railroad where the car was parked. The stepfather, a “psychic,” who was always hitting her up for money(an ace of spades playing card, he carried a fistful of them, was slipped under her dressing room door). Her housekeeper, a woman who gave her her start when she was just another struggling young actress and now only gets room and board, no salary, for administering to her every need. The housekeeper’s daughter, Mida’s understudy. The producer, a hood type, another one of her “victims.” The new fiance, who overhears a conversation about a rich divorce in six months. Her fiance’s ex-fiancee, a rich girl who’d been engaged to him for years, only to be told that very night that he was marrying Mida. The ex-fiancee’s father, chairman of the board of the railroad, who had tried to buy Mida off with what she called coffee money. Turk(Stephen McNally in his first film role billed under his real name, Horace McNally), Rocky’s client, yet another male victim, and a man who’d been framed for a murder. He’d escaped from the detectives bringing him in and phoned in a death threat to Mida, causing her to run out on the play after the first act, fleeing to her private car.

Rocky himself is even considered a suspect, having been spotted lurking around the theater and the car by the other suspects.

Sam Levene plays Inspector Gunther, the police detective investigating the murder. Rocky and he seem to have the usual adversarial/friendly relationship these sort of tales require.

Not a great film, but enjoyable. A comedy/drama combination, the two investigators bounce off of each other until Rocky finally solves the murder. All’s well that ends well.

For more overlooked films and related stuff, check out Todd Mason over at Sweet Freedom.

1: Prince of Wolves – Dave Gross

2: Death’s Heretic -James L. Sutter

3: The Worldwound Gambit – Robin D. Laws: Paizo had a special, buy two get one free, on these Pathfinder fanmtasies. So I took a chance.

4: Queens Full – Ellery Queen: a collection of three novelettes and two short stories featuring Ellery Queen.

5: The Glass Village – Ellery Queen: from 1954, a non-Ellery mystery. Because of the date, I’m assuming it was written by the two cousins and not the ghost-written books of the late sixties.

Interjection: there was a third Queen book delivered, Q. B. I., that I refused delivery on. It arrived with postage due, $.84. I’d already paid Amazon $3.99 for shipping & handling and wasn’t about to pay more. I’ve literally bought hundreds of used books through four brokers and never before had one arrive postage due. The book seller at first claimed a scam by Post offices East of the Mississippi(silly on the face of it), then sent me an email saying he’s glad I returned the book. He’d take it to his post office and see what’s going on. I checked his profile and found a number of recent complaints for the same thing, whatever that means. Maybe he’s innocent. We’ll see.

6: The Dead Man: Fire and Ice(ebook) – Jude Hardin: the latest installment in the ebook series.

A group of students, masked, are rioting on campus for the right to bear arms at all times. A professor named Davis is shot by one of them and refuses to identify his assailant before he dies.

It’s left up to William Barton Rogers, future founder of M.I.T., to ferret out the murderer. He’s aided by a young student who suspects the culprit because he lent the fellow his pistol on request, only to discover later his box of balls, made by his own hand, missing. The student was seen by a slave, Jack, of the late professor just before the shot was fired.

It’s not enough proof.

Rogers comes up with a plan to bring him into the open.

Liked this one.

Available HERE at a reasonable price.

The title QUEENS FULL refers to the lineup of the tales within the covers: three novelettes and two short stories.

Two of the novelettes are set in Wrightsville, the small New England town Ellery visits frequently and the scene of several novels.

THE DEATH OF DON JUAN: an abrasive actor hired at the last minute for an amateur production play in Wrightsville is murdered between acts one and two and names the killer with his last breath. Sort of. Only Ellery and one other heard him.

THE WRIGHTSVILLE HEIRS: an elderly woman is murdered after announcing she intends to change her will, leaving out her three stepchildren and installing the young woman/caregiver who’d slavishly devoted her life to care for the old woman as heir until after that one’s death, then the estate goes to the children. A couple of attempts are made on the young woman with Ellery there to protect and figure the real murderer.

THE CASE AGAINST CARROLL: a young lawyer is up for the murder of the man who caught him embezzling from a trust fund. It looks bad for him until Ellery gets involved.

And the short stories:

E=Murder: a scientist is stabbed to death from behind and leaves a clue with his dying breath.

DIAMONDS IN PARADISE: a young woman’s diamond earrings are stolen just as the police, Inspector Queen in charges, raids the gambling establishment. The thief falls and with his dying breath says the earrings are in Paradise. It takes Ellery to decipher that mumbled clue.

Always have fun with the Queen stories. Old fashioned fun.

For more forgotten books, check out Patti Abbott over at Pattinase.

After awhile, something else shiny and new caught my eye and it got pushed to the side. Not forgotten though.

Three of them attacked, wiping out a whole company of Rangers and the Secret Service team guarding Truman. They were after a captured flying saucer. The Rangers and the SS team, though wiped out to a man, took out two of the aliens, leaving Truman with a pistol to face the last one.

Emerson LaSalle is to be the main character of a film, PULP BOY, written by Anthony Neil Smith and Victor Gischler. Which one wrote this little gem I’m not sure. Maybe both.

update: mystery cleared up. For me anyway. I’ve always been a little slow. Go HERE for a great deal.

The four leads: Charles Bronson(Link Stuart), Toshiro Mifune(Kuroda Jubie), Ursala Andress(Cristina), and Alain Delon(Gotch “Gauche” Kink), a Frenchman. Anthony Dawson(who appeared in a couple of Bond films as well as DIAL M FOR MURDER) plays Hyatt, the only gang member with any sort of weighty role.

Link and Gauche are partners and their gang holds up a train, looting the express car of $200,000 in gold coin and the passengers of all valuables. They get a bonus when they learn the new Japanese ambassador is being transported to Washington. A large amount of cash is with him and a gift for the President, a large, ornate, gold/jewel encrusted sword. When one of the samurai moves to stop him, Gauche kills him.

And then Gauche proceeds to double-cross Link, who spots it in time to dive out of the express car ahead of a couple of sticks of lit dynamite.

Kuroda is charged by his ambassador with retrieving the sword. The samurai also has a revenge motive as the other samurai was his friend. He vows to kill Gauche as soon as he sees him. He also is on a time clock of sorts. The ambassador gives him a hara-kiri knife with a rope of seven knots tied into it. That’s how long he has, a week, before the ambassador comes back through on the train. If he doesn’t have the gift sword…

Link is charged with leading Kuroda to Gauche. He’s not happy. He wants Gauche himself, but alive long enough to find where the gold has been hidden. We’ve already seen a sequence where the Frenchman has had four men bury the gold, then ruthlessly guns them down so only he knows the location.

Here’s where the movie drags a bit. They spend too much time between the two men establishing their priorities. Link wants a promise from Kuroada to let him get the location of the gold first, Kuroda is resolute in his determination to kill his opponent. First one gets the upper hand, then the other, escape attempts on Link’s part and the rebuffs by Kuroda. A little judicious editing wouldn’t have hurt the sequence.

Link leads Kuroda first to a small village where he Cristina resides as a member of the local Cat house. Gauche has a thing for her, and she for him, and Link likes the madam of the establishment, Pepita(Capucine, a beauty close to rivaling Andress). Ursala Andress was one of the great beauties of the time, if not a great actress. Her in a film guaranteed a larger male audience(hey, we’re simple people; we know what we like). I think it’s fair to say her role in the first Bond film, DR. NO, got that franchise off to a good start.

Link and Kuroda get there ahead of Gauche, who instead, sends four men to pick her up. The two men leave only one man alive, Hyatt(Dawson), to send an ultimatum to the Frenchman, Cristina for the sword and the the gold. Hyatt is embarrassed and wants Link for himself.

They take Cristina and head for the meeting point.

Along the way, they find a village hit by Comanches, Cristina escapes(I think purposefully as the pair follow instead of trying to catch up). A small band of Comanches take her and we finally get to see Kuroda’s work with his samurai sword as they rescue her.

The two parties converge on the meeting point, their showdown only to be delayed by a very large band of Comanche’s lead there by the one that escaped the earlier confrontation. Here again a little editing could have been done. The battle goes on a little long, first in the old mission, then the cane field surrounding it.

Overall, I enjoyed the film. Terence Young, director of three Bond films(DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, & THUNDERBALL), does the same duty here, with a screenplay by a host of writers, four, I’m not at all familiar with. A subdued score by Maurice Jarre(LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) only helps the film.

Now for a couple of mistakes.

The film is set early after the Civil War. The Union troops accompanying the Japanese ambassador as guards(and doing a piss-poor job of it as half are killed, the rest left on foot as the gang simply moves the train a few miles away before the looting begins) are armed with bolt action rifles, a bit ahead of that form of militaary armament I believe.

The second goof is with the Hyatt(Anthony Dawson) character. As the two parties are about to face off in the old mission, with Hyatt behind Link and ready to shoot him for his embarrassment, The Comanche announce their presence with an arrow through Hyatt’s back. He falls across the table dead. However, in the fire sequence of the cane field battle, we see him with his pistol(taken earlier by Link from his dead hand) in one brief scene.

Check out the trailer below. Below that, for those interested, is a link to the entire film on Youtube. For more overlooked films, go to Todd Mason over at Sweet Freedom.

RED SUN