Devil May Care – James Mullaney

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Crag Banyon, James Mullaney

P.I. Crag Banyon is back in his second adventure. He’s your typical private investigator, an ex-cop. The apartment rent is overdue and eviction threatened. Ditto for the office. Utilities are all past due. He tends to drink heavily. And he hadn’t seen a client in a month. The local police Lieutenant is eternally after him. And he has a secretary, Doris, that sticks with him even though the pay gets iffy at times.

However…

Banyon’s world is a bit different. Demons run the streets, Godzilla is real and had finally destroyed Tokyo back in the eighties. Super intelligent talking gorillas had dropped through a swirling vortex from the future years back. Stone statues disconcertingly coming to life during electrical storms. Banyon had once been hired to return gargoyles to the local church. Though short, only three feet, they were exceedingly tough. They were made of stone after all. Minotaurs on the police force. And he had an elf named Mannix for a junior partner, an elf with a part time job passing naughty names to the North Pole.

But everything has it’s limits. When he arrives at his office to find a demon named Molokai with a sob story and a sack filled with thirty pieces of silver, he was inclined to refuse the job. Molokai, all eight feet of him was sweating slime all over the furniture and burning holes in the carpet with his hoofed feet.

Demon Molokai was VP of the Cruel & Unusual Punishments department in Hell. One of his charges, Harvey Waters, forty-seven years into a sentence of eternity, had escaped back into the real world, exactly the same as he’d looked back then before the car had splashed him all over the street. The demon wanted him found before word got back to the Big Guy. Just too embarrassing.

Banyon didn’t really want the job, but greed overwhelmed him. Remember the mention of overdue rents, utilities, and bar bills all over the city.

But the simple missing person(?) case soon devolves into much worse. Things are not so simple as a missing soul. Banyon is running for his life and the cops are after him for several deaths.

James Mullaney has long been a favorite writer. He wrote or co-wrote some of the best books in The Destroyer series. The Crag Banyon series uses that same sarcastic comments, both out loud and interior monologue, the skewed look at much of what passes for pop culture that was a hallmark of that series. Such as the method Banyon uses to visit hell to question some of the missing soul’s co-workers. It involves watching virtually any George Clooney movie. Works by Adam Sandler and Nicholas Cage work just as well. Banyon can stand proudly alongside Remo and Chiun.

Devil May Care can be ordered here and the first Crag Banyon adventure, One Horse Open Slay, in which Banyon gets an elf arriving on a stolen sled claiming something strange is going on at the North Pole is equally wild. Banyon blows him off and the elf turns up murdered the next day.

Both are highly recommended.

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October 2012 Book Round-Up

226: TH: Killer Instincts(ebook) – Jack Badelaire

227: WE: Riders In The Storm – Lee Floren

228: WE: Sixkiller, U. S. Marshal: Day of Rage – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

229: SA: Bill Smith Goes To College(ebook) – David Stagg

230: MY: The Case of The Perfect Maid(ebook) – Agatha Christie

231: MY: Poirot and The Regatta Mystery(ebook) – Agatha Christie

232: WE: Savage Blood(ebook) – James Reasoner

233: AD: The Spider: Shadow of Evil – C. J. Henderson

234: AN: Mind Slices(ebook) – Kevin R. Tipple

235: WE: Maverick: Boss of The Rocking H Ranch – Charles I. Coombs

236: WW: Hawthorne: The Spider Tribe(ebook) – Heath Lowrance

237: GR: They Meet(Rhyme Time, Pt 1)(ebook) – Rory Scherer

238: AD: Zorro – Steve Frazee

239: WE: Wild Bill Williams – Jack Martin(Gary Dobbs)

240: CR: Hard Bite(ebook) – Anonymous-9

241: WE: Cutler: Wolf Pack – John Benteen

242: WE: Cutler: The Gunhawks – John Benteen

243: TH: A Dubious Plan(ebook) – Gerald J. Kubicki

244: Midnight City: A Conquered Earth Novel – J. Barton Mitchell

245: TH: The Intercept – Dick Wolf

246: TH: The Informer(ebook) – Steen Langstrup

247: CR: Devil May Care(ebook) – James Mullaney

248: TH: Road To Nowhere – Jim Fusilli

249: WE: Cutler: Eagle Man – H. V. Elkin

250: WE: Cutler: Yellowstone – H. V. Elkin

October 2012 Movie Round-Up

Flesh and The Devil(1926)

Red Dust(1932)

The Brasher Doubloon(1947)

The Hound of The Baskervilles(1959)

The Last Man on Earth(1965)

Viva Django(1968)

Cemetery Without Crosses(1969)

Romney and Halloween…A Good Match

Overlooked Movies: The Hound of The Baskervilles(1959)

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Christopher Lee, Overlooked Movies, Peter Cushing, Sherlock Holmes

When Hammer Films was to make this version of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel, they called on their two biggest stars of the time. Peter Cushing took the role of Sherlock Holmes, while Christopher Lee was Sir Henry Baskerville. Andre Morell was Dr. Watson. The production was the first time fans would see Holmes in color. Cushing received mixed reviews at the time and Morell was seen to portray Watson as closer to Doyle’s ideal than other sometimes more comic versions. And Lestrade made no appearance in this version.

The film is said by some to be the best Holmes movie ever made(Rotten Tomato gives it a 100% rating), though it was only loosely based on the novel.

Things not in the novel were Sir Henry’s heart condition, no ritual sacrifice, no tarantula, nor was Holmes thought to be caught in a cave-in. Stapleton’s daughter was actually his wife in the novel, though pretending to be his sister. She didn’t hate Sir Henry in the novel, did not drown in the bogs. Stapleton wasn’t mauled to death by the hound in the novel, but disappeared into the moors, presumed drowning in one of the bogs. The hound din’t wear a devilish mask in the novel, but was made to appear demonic with luminescent paint.

Peter Cushing went on nine years later to play Holmes in a BBC series of sixteen episodes, including a two-part Hound reprise. Cushing was a Holmes aficionado and brought his knowledge to all productions.

All in all, I rather enjoyed this version, never having seen it before.

For more overlooked films, check out Todd Mason every Tuesday.

New In The House

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New In The House

1: The Blood Gospel(ARC) – James Rollins and Rebecca: the fist book in the Order of The Sanguines series.

2: The Intercept(ARC) – Dick Wolf: a first novel, a thriller, by the creator and guiding light of the Law & Order franchise. A Good one.

3: The Pain Scale(ARC) – Tyler Dilts: after a year long medical leave that left him scarred and constantly in pain, Long Beach homicide detective Danny Beckett wants to prove he still can do the job. he, of course, gets a big case that is not what it seems.

4: Road To Nowhere(ARC) – Jim Fusilli: a nameless drifter rescues a young woman from a beating and gets himself embroiled in a mess. When his daughter, from which he’s estranged, gets a threat, he moves to end it then. I liked this one.

5: The Creative Murders – Carter Brown: my first Carter Brown in ages.

and the ebooks:

6: Red The Riot Act – James Mullaney: the thrid novel in the Red Menace series: a fifties superhero that does battle with Commies.

7: The Silver Menace – Murray Leinster: two novels from the Fifties SF icon.

8: The Informer(review copy) – Steen Langstrup: first English language crime novel from a fine Danish writer. Already read and posted on this one.

9: The Chimera Vector(review copy) – Nathan M. Furrugia: this SF novel looks to be of the military subgenre.

The Spam-bots Are Back…And Going Crazy!

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Spam Attacks

The spam has been quiet for a while, only an odd one occasionally. But today they’ve gone nuts.

Earlier today I cut the computer on and logged into the blog to find 99 spam in the queue. All linked to the same blog post, all with the exact same message word for word. The only difference was the business being advertised. I deleted them off, did a few other things, and found another twenty same as the others.

Later in the day, halftime of the football game, I found 123 just like the morning’s bunch. Same post linked to. I delete them, then kill off a handful more before returning to the game.

After the game, I discover 67. While writing this another six showed up.

They are no problem to delete. Just put the cursor on permanently delete and start clicking. never have to move that cursor, exact same message remember, and fast as I can hit the delete key, they go.

One shudders to think, though, what I might have in the morining, even as early as I awake.

update> I arose at two a.m. to find 216 waiting my spam queue.

Cemetery Without Crosses(Cimitero Senza Croci)1969

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Michele Mercier, Robert Hossein, spaghetti western

CEMETERY WITHOUT CROSSES(alt. title THE ROPE AND THE COLT) was a 1969 spaghetti western directed by and starring Robert Hossein. a French actor. It was his only venture into the genre. Spaghetti Western Database lists it as number seventeen of the twenty essential films in this particular sub-genre of western films. I’ve seen nineteen of them. How many have you seen? The script was by Hossein and Claude Desailly. A number of places give Dario Argenta a writing credit, though Hossein maintains he had nothing to do with it.

As the film opens we see three men being pursued by a larger pack. One is obviously wounded, Eventually the other two split off and the third is followed to his home. His name is Ben Caine and, in front of his wife, Maria(the female lead Michele Mercier), he’s hung, despite her pleading.

They are the Rogers family, the head, Will Rogers(Daniel Vargas), and his three sons, along with a few riders. They are the most powerful ranchers in the area, known, or suspected rather, of rustling. They had indeed stolen the Caine herd and the three Caine brothers, Ben, along with Tom and Eli, had went after them. To late to get the herd, they had stolen the money it sold for. The Rogers also had the local law in their pockets.

Leaving the widow alive turns out to be a mistake. She wants revenge and goes to an old lover for help.

Manuel(Hossein) lives alone in a ghost town. He refuses to help her, apparently giving up violence, refuses to do it for money, refuses to do it because Ben Rogers had been a friend(we see an old photo of the three of them together). He gradually comes around after Maria leaves and heads out.

While checking into the local hotel, he sees one of the Rogers brothers throw a prostitute from his room without paying. That gives him a way into the Rogers house as, later in the saloon, three men come in and accost the Rogers brother, at the prostitute’s urging, tying his hands behind and starting a beating. A head butt to one gets a gun drawn and that’s when Manuel steps in, killing all three in the blink of an eye, then walking out of the saloon.

Before I go any further, I must comment on Manuel’s gun style. Left-handed, he wears his gun on his right hip, butt forward. Not sure why, but he always pulls a black leather glove on his right hand, which he never uses, whenever he expects gun play, then removes it, storing it in his right jacket pocket.

He’s waiting calmly in his hotel room when the sheriff and two deputies come to arrest him for murder. He’s only locked up long enough for the Rogers brother to ride to the ranch, get a ladder from Will, and get it to the sheriff. Rogers offers him the foreman’s job, twenty-two a month plus food and lodging, which he accepts. Later that night, he’s wandering around the ranch when he’s stopped by a guard near the corral, being advised that the boss didn’t like anyone around the horses. “Fine, I’m going to bed,” just before attacking the man.

Then comes the strangest scene in the movie. The dinner scene. The long table was filled with men, maybe twenty, twenty-five, along with Manuel, and one woman, Rogers’ daughter. Manuel, as he eats, notices everyone staring at him, including the servants. It gets right odd after a bit. No one speaks, just keep shoveling food into their mouths as they watch him. What happens is similar to the old spring loaded snake in a can. Everyone roars with laughter when he launches it. This scene was directed by Sergio Leone according to the Spaghetti database.

The horses are released and driven away, giving him the diversion he desires as the entire Rogers clan mounts up and gives chase. He then kidnaps the daughter and returns to his ghost town, soon to be joined by Maria and her two brothers-in-law. Here we find out Manuel is perhaps not a nice man himself. Maria takes a necklace from the girl and leaves. He watches as the two Caine brothers take off their guns and go up to the girl’s room. We don’t see anything, but only here her scream. Later, she lying on the bed, clothes ripped, and I think we know what happened.

Maria simply wants the Rogers humiliated. The necklace is her ticket. She forces Rogers and his sons to accompany her husband’s hearse, then bury him, all of them filling in the dirt.

The showdown at the end has a twist I didn’t see coming.

A few final words.

The characters here drank their coffee from bowls instead of mugs. Apparently a French convention that I wouldn’t have known of if I hadn’t ran across it in another review.

Sergio Leone was reputed to have a part in the film as the hotel clerk when Manuel checks in. It definitely wasn’t Leone in the Youtube film I saw. But his performance was reviewed somewhere by someone and when it was revealed that Leone wasn’t it the picture, that reviewer said it must have been a bad print he saw. He maintains everyone he spoke to said Leone was in that role. For that reason, some suspect that Leone was actually filmed, then replaced by another actor. Does that reflect on Leone’s acting talents? Who knows?

I have to say the movie looked unlike any other spaghetti western I’ve seen. Oh, it had that bleak landscape you see in a lot of them. Filmed in Spain, it was mostly naked dirt with a few scrubby bushes here and there and only a couple of puny trees. That distinctive sound of gunfire we all know and love was not there. And the violence was not nearly what I’ve seen in most other films of the genre. Manuel killed only a handful of men, seven I think, and there was maybe another half dozen.

One final thought on the horse Hossein rode. A beautiful white animal, it was either his own or well trained. In one scene near the end, he jumps ff and goes looking for amria, the horse walking behind him.

A pretty good film I thought.

Here’s the trailer, in Italian, and below that a link to the film if anyone cares to watch it.

The Informer – Steen Langstrup

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crime, Steen Langstrup

THE INFORMER is the first novel by Danish horror writer Steen Langstrup published in English. It was nominated Best Nordic Crime Novel of the year and selected as one of the best thirty-six novels for a relaxing beach read by a major Danish newspaper.

And it’s every bit of it.

Set during 1944, a dark time for the Danish people, it’s the story of a hunt for an informer in Sabotage Group BB. Germany had invaded Denmark four years before and the government’s attempt to co-operate with them has gone awry. A few months before, the Gestapo had rounded up most of the police force and deported them to concentration camps. Criminals run the streets now. The Gestapo replaced the police with the Hipo, a hand-picked force that are bullies more than anything.

All that is history.

Sabotage Group BB has a traitor in it’s midst. Suddenly, missions are going wrong. The German authorities were waiting for them when they rolled in. They barely escape.

It’s a mixed group: a minister, a prostitute, an ex-cop, a sixteen year old raw recruit. The hooker’s life is saved on the second mission by the kid, killing two Germans about to shoot her.

It has to be one of the group. A small unit unknown to other resistance teams, it can’t be anyone else. Unthinkable though.

The author of fifteen novels, Steen Langstrup was unfamiliar to me. Based on this novel, THE INFORMER likely won’t be the last for me. The man knows how to tell a story and showed me a bit of history about WWII. Several of his works have been translated into English, with more to come, including Sabotage Group BB tales.

Recommended. Should be on a lot of reading lists. Well worth the modest price.

Barbara Radford Cox R.I.P.

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Barbara Radford Cox

Just returned from the funeral for my aunt. She was one of six siblings, fourth in line. My mother was the second after a brother that passed away only a few months into his life from pneumonia. Aunt Barbara left us on the twenty-third of October.

It was a moving service. Two of her granddaughters, sisters were to each sing one of her favorite hymns. When the first started to break down half way through, her sister rose singing and joined her to finish the song, then embracing each other. It brought a tear to these old eyes. Later one of the great granddaughters reads some notes others and she wrote about visiting their” Nanny.”

She will be missed.