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Monthly Archives: October 2011

October 2011 Book Round-Up

31 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

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195: CR: Slash And Burn – Matt Hilton

196: CR: The Night And The Music(ebook) – Lawrence Block

197: WE: Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, Vol. II(ebook) – Edward A. Grainger

198: SF: Secret of The Earth Star – Henry Kuttner

199: WE: The Loner: Crossfire – J. A. Johnstone

200: TH: Blink of An Eye – William S. Cohen

201: WE: Outlaw Pass – Charles G.West

202: CR: Room To Swing – Ed Lacy

203: CR: The Sins of The Father – Lawrence Block

204: WE: Massacre Mountain – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

205: PU: Pulp Modern: Autumn 2011 – edited by Alec Cizak

206: CR: Monkey Justice(ebook) – Patti Abbott

207: SF: The Well of The Worlds – Henry Kuttner

208: WE: Devils Nest(ebook) – Richard Prosch

209: PU: Pulpsmith: The Butcher’s Son(ebook) – Moses Crawford

210: HR: The Dead Man: Kill Them All(ebook) – Harry Shannon

211: CR: Chicago Lightning – Max Allan Collins

212: MY: Mother Finds A Body – Gypsy Rose Lee

213: SF: CassaFire – Alex J. Cavanaugh

214: WE: A Lone Star Christmas – William W, Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

215: CR: True Detective – Max Allan Collins

October 2011 Movie Round-Up

31 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in movies

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Hell Below(1933)

Station West(1948)

Along The Great Divide(1951)

Tarzan and The Valley of Gold(1966)

New In The House

31 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

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New In The House




1: Smith and Other Events –
2: Breaking Smith’s Horse – Paul St. Pierre: recommended by Richard Robinson and, in the comments, Ron Scheer. I found them on Amazon for just four bucks each, like new, and I couldn’t resist.

3: The Night and The Music – Lawrence Block: an autographed copy sent to me by the author. Again, how do you resist such offers?

4: Star Wars: Darth Plagueis(ARC) – James Luceno: due for release in January. Luceno is another author who writes consistently well in the Star Wars universe. The title character is the Sith Lord who trained Emperor Palpatine.

5: Already Gone(ARC) -John Rector: A tale of the price past sins can cost. Jake Reese is a writing instructor at an American university. But he hasn’t always been that. When he’s attacked in a parking lot and one finger cut off, he, at first dismisses it as chance, then starts to wonder if it’s his past returning.

6: A Lone Star Christmas – William W, Johnstone with J. Johnstone: four Johnstone characters appear in the book, but the main story is of the Conyers family, Big Jim, the father, Dalton, the son, and Rebecca, the daughter, and a young man from Boston, Tom Whitman, that has a terrible incident in the past that prevents him from doing what his heart wants.

7: The Cartaker(ebook) – J. D. Rhoades: it’s Halloween and the author offers up a couple of appropriate tales.

8: Ask The Dice(ebook) Ed Lynskey: the author’s new thriller released to ebook.

9: The Serpent’s Kiss – Daniel Ransom(Ed Gorman) – according to all the blurbs, a serial killer with a difference. This makes the third “Daniel Ransom” I’ve got and. from other sources, it’s the three best written under the pseudonym. looking forward to them.

Nathan Heller – Max Allan Collins

30 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

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Tags

Max Allan Collins, mystery, Nathan Heller

I first became aware of Nathan Heller just a few years back during a difficult time in my life. No new money was coming into the house for about two and a half years, while I made my way through the various levels of government in what I became convinced were roadblocks to discourage people like me, I had to watch what I spent my money on. I began to frequent my local library quite a lot, something I’d gotten away from for too many years. I’d read Max Allan Collins before, of course, but mostly movie tie-in novels.

While browsing the aisles, I came across Mr.Collins’ books. They had none of the early Heller novels, beginning with CARNAL HOURS and up through CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL. They also had some of his disaster series. I’ve been tracking down his original stuff ever since. At this point, I think I’m missing one Eliot Ness and a couple of Hellers. There is a forthcoming collection of longer, but not novel length, Heller stories coming I need as well.

His Nathan Heller novels have won him many Shamus nominations and twice a winner, for TRUE DETECTIVE and STOLEN AWAY. They marry his fictional private eye with real life people and the melding is smooth and seamless. He takes real cases over the years, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, Amelia Earhart, Huey Long, Marilyn Monroe, both Kennedys, and folks all around them, some in minor roles, but real people one knows.

What I like about the Heller novels is the research Collins and others put into the writing of these stories. He strives to be historically accurate, though allowing for changes for dramatic purposes. Never a lot though. And on occasion, where there might be differing theories on a particular case, Collins will go with one, putting his own spin into the outcome. What we know about these real folks is what I would equate with sound bites on television today. Just the bare bones. I learn a lot more about the famous people reading a Heller novel than any history book. Collins does the hard stuff, the research, and gives us the meat.

I’ve always been a fan of his writing. He has a fluid style that keeps things moving along and corrals one in. it’s hard to stop once you get started.

TRUE DETECTIVE chronicles Heller’s beginnings as a Chicago police detective and the incident that propels him to realize his dream of being a private investigator. The Heller novels have become available in new editions, TRUE DETECTIVE, in both trade paperback and Kindle editions, and CHICAGO LIGHTNING collects all the Nathan Heller short stories.

Definitely worth a look if you haven’t tried one before.

Congrats To The St. Louis Cardinals!

29 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Sports

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Major League baseball, St. Louis Cardinals, Texas Rangers


The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series last night in a game seven 6-2 after staving off the Rangers several times in game six. One strike away from elimination in two different innings, they scored in the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh innings to force the game seven.

It was their eleventh World Series championship.

The Texas Rangers put on a magnificent effort, their second in a row. They will be back.

FFB: Mother Finds A Body – Gypsy Rose Lee

27 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

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Tags

Forgotten Books, Gypsy Rose Lee

Gypsy Rose Lee and Biff Brannigan, the burlesque comedian and cohort from Lee’s first novel, THE G-STRING MURDERS, had gotten married, sort of, and they were on their honeymoon, sort of. True, it was a captain that had married them, captain of a water taxi/gondola. Biff had bought a small trailer and they were driving East from San Diego. Both car and trailer were full, though. The movie people were nervous about the marriage and had sent a chaperon along until something more legitimate could be arranged. Also, two strippers and two burlesque comics had been invited along. And assorted animals: a guinea pig, two dogs, and a monkey.

And, of course, Mother.

Mother had asthma and had the most atrocious smelling powder to burn while she hovered over it with a towel over her head.

It was at a trailer park in Ysleta, Texas that Mother found the body, shot in the head, stuffed in the bathtub under the bed. The asthma powder she burned masked the odor of decomposition and she’d found it by sheer accident. It was George, the only name they knew him by, the impromptu “best” man drafted for the wedding.

Mother wanted to slip the body out and bury it in the landfill that backed the trailer park. She feared adverse publicity would hurt Gypsy’s movie career. Gypsy and Biff wanted to call the police. So Mother went for a walk.

And the next thing they knew, a fire was raging in the landfill, approaching fast. Gypsy and Biff hustled everyone from the trailer and moved the car away, then went about trying to dig a trench across the fire line. Only one trailer was lost, belonging to a widow who used it as a traveling beauty parlor.

And Mother was out of sight the whole time. And the body was gone from the tub under the bed.

She seemed to have the Sheriff wrapped around her finger when he arrived. Even when it came out that she’d started the fire, moved the body, and was caught hiding a small gun.

Where the body was found, gas poured over it, a second grave was found, a man stabbed in the back, face pulped beyond recognition. How were they tied together? Or were they? One
was killed in San Diego and one here in Texas.

A nice little mystery with a few twists, dope dealing, marijuana smoking, a third murder, an attempted murder, a confession(?). Fun, originally published in 1942.

For more forgotten books, check out the always good PATTINASE.

Forgotten Music: Trouble Is… Kenny Wayne Shepherd

26 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Blues, Forgotten Music, Kenny Wayne Shepherd

In listening to Kenny Wayne Shepherd, one can tell just which musician had the most influence on this young blue player. The first time I heard him I knew Stevie Ray Vaughan, who he met at age seven, was somewhere in there. According to the Wikipedia article he’s completely self-taught, learning one note at a time from cassette tapes which he constantly rewound. He’s unable to read music.

Born in 1977, he got his first “guitar” at age three, a cheap plastic item his grandmother got with S & H green stamps. After meeting Vaughan, he got serious. To date, he’s recorded six studio albums and one live set. TROUBLE IS… was the first I picked up by him back in December of 1997. Oh, and he’s married to Mel Gibson’s oldest daughter, Hannah, and they have two sons and a daughter.

Blue on Black was one single you heard a lot on the radio back then.

Some other favorites include:

Somehow, Somewhere, Someway

Everything Is Broken

King\'s Highway

and a ballad:

I Found Love When I Found You

Overlooked Movies: Station West(1948)

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dick Powell, Jane Greer, Overlooked Movies

In his Turner Classic introduction, Robert Osborne said STATION WEST was the only “true” western Dick Powell ever made. Whatever that means. Based on a novel by Luke Short, he went on to describe it as a film noir western, or at least a whodunit in a western setting. Jane Greer is the femme fatale in this one, not a stretch from some of her other film noir roles.

Powell is Lt. John Martin Haven, an army investigator undercover to investigate the murder of two soldiers escorting a gold-laden stage. Jane Greer is Charlene, “Charlie,” a saloon/gambling hall owner. He sets up his undercover posing as an ornery drifter, gambling, getting into an argument with an army recruiter(Steve Brodie) in Charlie’s place, worming his way in with the beautiful owner after winning a fight with her thuggish bouncer(Guinn “Big Boy” Williams). Raymond Burr has a small role as lawyer Mark Bristow, a mostly cowardly man with six thousand in IOUs to Charlie. Gordon Oliver is Prince, Charlie’s partner. Agnes Moorehead is Mrs. Mary Caslon, a mine owner keeping company with the army fort commander Captain George Iles(Tom Powers). Finally, Burl Ives is the hotel desk clerk and most every scene he’s in is an excuse to do some picking and singing.

Haven wants to find out who’s been stealing the mine shipments and why two soldiers were escorting one of the stages. Captain Iles’s relationship with Mrs. Caslon is one answer. The other is that Wells Fargo has stopped shipping the gold because of all the hold-ups. It’s being stored at the fort and there’s a lot of it by now.

In addition to the murders of the two soldiers, a large number of uniforms have gone missing, presumed destroyed in a warehouse fire. Haven is suspicious.

He gets a job running the transportation franchise in the town, Charlie owns that also. His plan to is to take a load of gold and let it get held up. He’s put a saddle in the stage and intends to follow the thieves to their hideout. As he’s leaving, the stage guard, wounded in the last hold-up, invites himself along. As planned, they are held up by five men, Things go downhill though. Haven is knocked unconscious and the guard murdered.

When he comes to, Haven finds an ID on the guard showing he was a Wells Fargo detective. He saddles a horse and follows the tracks. They’re easy. Two sets break off, one of them much deeper than the other, obviously carrying the gold. He follows, killing the rider leading the packhorse in a shootout, shooing the two horses and follows them home. The sawmill is where they lead and he spots one of his men with a wagon load of supplies, swaps places with him, and rides into the camp. They have a locked “equipment” box that needs to go back to Charlie.

He’s all set to worm his way further into things when they muddy the waters further as Mrs. Caslon steals the gold from him.

Frank Fenton and Winston Miller wrote the screenplay from the Short novel and Sidney Lanfield directed. In black and white, it did have that noir feel to it.

They keep you guessing. Not to much though. Just how deep everyone is involved is the mystery and it was easy, for me anyway, to figure the deal with the missing uniforms.

Can’t seem to find a trailer, but here’s the fight scene with Guinn “Big Boy” Williams:

FIGHT SCENE

For more overlooked goodness, check out Todd Mason\'s SWEET FREEDOM.

Anniversary Day

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Personal

≈ 6 Comments

Today is the twenty-third anniversary of my thirty-ninth birthday. For the math-challenged(that’s me), that makes me mumble-mumble.

New In The House

23 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 3 Comments

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New In The House



1: Zone soldiers – Daniel Ransom(Ed Gorman): an early SF novel.

2: CassaFire(ARC) – Alex J. Cavanaugh: due for February, it’s the science fiction author’s sequel to CassaStar.

3: Pulpsmith: The Butcher’s Son(ebook) – Moses Crawford: in reality Mel Odom. I liked this one.

4: Devils Nest(ebook) – Richard Prosch: a collection of fine tales from one of our friends. These were very good and I await more tales of Coburn.

5: The Dead Man: Kill Them All(review copy, ebook) – Harry Shannon: the latest entry in the series that relaunches this week under it’s Amazon imprint. Liked this one also.

6: Edge: the Return: The Quiet Gun(ebook) – George G. Gilman: the first book in a series of six the author wrote later and were available once on the ‘net. It’s an older more settled, Edge. But a man no less violent when he needed to be. I was a big fan of the originals when I was a much younger man. One hopes they will eventually get to the thirteen that were never published in this country. The prices on the used book sites for the few you can find are way beyond my pocketbook(the 61st commands several hundred dollars).

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