May 2015 Book Round-Up

130: CH: The Naked and The Undead(ebook) – Wayne D. Dundee

131: AC: Fallout:An Alex Walker Story)(Ebook) – J. L. Hays

132: HR: A Tell-Tale Heart(ebook) – J. L. Hays

133: TH: Digger: Smoked Out(ebook) -Warren Murphy

134: CR: Frankly Speaking(ebook) – Don Massenzio

135: FA: Everville: The Fall of Brackenbone(ebook) – Roy Huff

136: WE: The Legend of Caleb York (A Caleb York Western) – Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins

137: FA: Armageddon’s Arc(ebook) – Victor Baptiste

138: MY: Let Me Be Frank(ebook) – Don Massenzio

139: SF: Just Another Day (ATLAS)(ebook) – Isaac Hooke

140: TH: 15 Minutes To Live(ebook) – Phoef Sutton

141: TH: Yesterday Is Dead(ebook) – Jack Lynch

142: TH: Fix(ebook) – F. Paul Wilson, J.A.Konrath, and Ann Voss Peterson

143: TH: To Parts Unknown – John Anthony Miller

144: SF: Caterpillar Without A Callsign (ATLAS)(ebook) – Isaac Hooke

145: TH: Hail Storme: A Wyatt Storme Thriller – W. L. Ripley

146: CH: Children’s Book: Stories for Children 8: kids books ages 4-9 (WONDERFUL STORIES FOR CHILDREN)(ebook) – Francois Bissonnette

147: CR: Susannah Screaming – Carolyn Weston

148: CH: Whales(ebook) – Emma Child

149: SF: SWAB(ebook) – Heather Choate

150: HR: Blood Memory(Season 1, Episode 1)(ebook) – Perrin Briar

151: MY: Reel Estate Rip-Off(ebook) – Renee Pawlish

152: FA: Cold As Death(The Chronicles of Augustus Seton, book 1)(ebook) – William Meikle

153: WE: Trap For Buchanan – Jonas Ward

154: WE: Texas John Slaughter – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

155: WE: Texas John Slaughter: Deadly Day In Tombstone – William W. johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

156: SF: No Dogs In Philly – Andy Futoro

157: TH: The Interrogation(ebook) – Ethan Jones

158: HR: The Dead Man: Halfway To Dead(ebook) – Leigh Grayson
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159: HR: The Dead Man: Eater of Souls(ebook) – Joseph Nassise

160: SF: Doctor Who: Tip of The Tongue(ebook) – Patrick Ness

161: HR: Truth Decay(ebook) – William Meikle

162: HR: The Dead Man: Hell Casino(ebook) – Bill Peschel

163: HR: The Dead Man: Motherless Bastards(ebook) – David Searls

164: WE: The Man From Jerusalem – Jack Martin

165: HR: Z-Minus-1(ebook) – Perrin Briar

166: WE: Flintlock: Gut-Shot – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

167: CH: Oliver and Jumpy: Stories 16-18(ebook) – Werner Stejskal

168: SF: Sliding Void(ebook) – Stephen Hunter

169: SF: The Devil In Snakeskins(ebook) – Andy Henion

170: WE: Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories(ebook) – Elisabeth Grace Foley

171: TH: The Society of Orion: The Orion Codex(ebook) – Gerald J. Kubicki and Kristopher Kubicki

172: SF: The Skull(ebook) – Philip K. Dick

173: TH: Common Sense(ebook) – Richard David Bach

174: SF: Fatal Injection: Black Market DNASeries(ebook) – Anthony Melchiorri

175: AD: King Solomon’s Mines – adaptation by Mark Ellis and Pablo Marcos

176: Ad: Stone Rider – David Hofmeyr

177: WE: Vulture Gold(ebook) – Chuck Tyrell

178: TH: The Fourth Amendment – SM Smith

179: WE: Buchanan’s Revenge – Jonas Ward

180: CR: So Nude, So Dead – Ed McBain

181: CR: The Phantom Automobiles: a Gordon Gardner Investigation(ebook) – Scott Dennis Parker

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May 2015 Movie Round-Up

The Avenger(1931)

Range Feud(1931)

3 Bullets For Ringo(1966)

Death On High Mountain(1969)

Reverend Colt(1970)

God’s Gun (1976)

Jurassic Park(1993)

War of The Worlds Radio Broadcast

Goatsnake: Because I Like Them

Tags

Goatsnake

Reverend Colt(Reverendo Colt)1970

Guy Madison, old Wild Bill Hickok from his TV days, is Miller Colt, a man at a crossroads in his life. A former bounty hunter, he’s now a priest looking to build a church. We learn from flashbacks that his father, a preacher, had been killed by a pair of bandits he’d offered a meal and a resting spot for the the night. Just a boy, Miller had grown up to bounty hunting and was a particular violent one. Every outlaw he killed was killing those who’d murdered his father. Then one day in a shoot-out with two bandits, a small boy was killed. Miller wasn’t even sure whether he’d fired the fatal bullet or one of the bandits.

And that was enough.

Miller Colt knew vengeance wasn’t the answer anymore and thus became a priest,

He arrives in Tucson to be greeted by Sheriff Donovan(Richard Harrison), an old friend. Harrison doesn’t have much to do here and plays a slightly, at times, dotty character, mainly setting up Madison.

The bank is robbed and Reverend Colt is the first to aid a shot down town member. But the rest of the town doesn’t see it that way. His fearsome reputation precedes him and they don’t believe that he’s a priest. After all, he still wears a gun. They believe he killed the innocent. Ready to lynch him, Sheriff Donovan arrests him to save his life and then helps him out by releasing him to go after the bank robbers.

Miller Colt comes upon a small wagon train, only three, under attack by the same bunch. They take refuge in all old fort and the siege begins.The gang can’t get in, but they are low on water.

Not a bad film. It came at that brief lull between the spaghetti western heyday of the mid to late sixties and the brief resurgence of the genre when the Trinity films introduced comedy elements.

Two More From Brash Books

Tags

Brash Books, Jack Lynch, Phoef Sutton

Carl lived in the home he’d grown up in. One night he hears an impossible sound, one he didn’t recognize at first. Then it hit him. Pebbles off the window glass. Jesse used to do that back in high school.

Looking out, he found Jesse. But not Jesse. It was her, but she still believed it was 1976 and that she was seventeen. And Carl was eighteen.

Also Jesse’s short memory was messed up. She forgets fifteen minutes later. All she knew was that Carl was her boyfriend.

Things get further complicated when he finds she drowned several months back. At least everyone believed.

What I liked here were the twists sprinkled throughout. Kept me reading and figuring. What good fiction should a always do.

Outstanding.

Peter Bragg heads back to old stomping grounds in Seattle when an old friend he’s known since high school asks for help.

A free lance writer, Benny is getting phone messages warning him to leave town. Not sure why, his stories never seem to have anything controversial in them.

But his brakes have been cut, shots fired at him that killed an innocent bystander. after Bragg arrived, someone tries to kidnap Benny’s two sons walking home from school. Bragg manages to stop that one, but later gets his own call to butt out, followed by a savage beating.

And Bragg’s ex-wife pops in and seems intent on resuming their relationship.

Dealing with her and suspects that may have possibilities, it’s obvious he’s getting close.

I believe this was the last Bragg Novel from the late author. A shame.

BRASH BOOKS is doing a great service to crime readers reprinting these and other older novels.

Out of Business For A Bit

Having problems with the PC. Until I get that looked at, I won’t be posting. Have no problem posting through my Kindle Fire, just haven’t figured out adding pictures or video clips.

I do have a couple already scheduled.

Two From Brash Books

Tags

Books, Brash Books, Carolyn Weston, W. L. Ripley

Casey Kellogg and Al Krug are partners on the Santa Monica police department and as different as two men could be. Kruger, a cop more than twenty years, is old school, hardheaded when he gets an idea in his head. Kellogg is young, college educated, and willing to embrace new ideas.

The case they get is a man on a motorcycle hit by a car in an alley. They have two witnesses with differing stories. Rees calls it murder, saying the driver backed up over him a second time. Susannah says it’s simply hit and run and both have completely opposite descriptions of the car.

The body is unusual as well. The torso is completely wrapped in Saran Wrap and between that and the skin are 1500 crisp new twenty dollar bills. Which turn out be high class counterfeit.

As the two detectives get into the investigation, they learn Rees is an ex-con, just out of prison and in possession of a large amount of cash. Real cash. And the two witnesses hook up, further clouding things.

Krug believes Rees is part of whatever’s going. Kellogg wonders why he would report a murder if he was involved.

Then Susannah takes a header out of a tenth floor window.

Nicely plotted tale with a few twists along the way. BRASH BOOKS is the new publisher, bringing old crime back into print. Susannah Screaming is the second novel of three, the first which served as the source material for The Streets of San Francisco pilot.

Recommended.

From 1993, this thriller introduced the world to Wyatt Storme, ex-Dallas Cowboy receiver, a man who walked away and lives a quiet life in Colorado. He’s in Missouri on a bow hunting trip when he stumbles onto a marijuana field and an attempt to kill him.

The bow hunter prevails though and when he reports the field to the county Sheriff, it sets off a chain of violent incidents.

The Sheriff is found murdered, his oafish opponent has a desire to create mayhem on Storms and his new friend bounty hunter and former CIA Chick Easton, the FBI and DEA are harassing them, and a hood with his class in everything in the county has his pet monster, a former NFL lineman and pro wrestler, tap dancing on Storme’s head. Oh, and of course, the new designer drug about to hit the market

Nicely written thriller that kept me page turning such that I finished it in a few hours.

Range Feud(1931)

Tags

Buck Jones, John Wayne, western

Buck Jones is Sheriff Buck Gordon, a man caught up in a budding range war.

Edward LeSaint as John Walton is one side and Will Walling as Dad Turner the other. Gordon’s problem is that Turner raised him as if he was his son and Gordon loves “kid brother” Clint(a very young John Wayne).

But Gordon makes it clear at a church service that he will not take sides. His almost father violated the law by driving his cattle onto Walton land for grazing because he’d always done so. But Walton was in the right, saying he barely had enough grazing land for his own. In the budding feud a man died. Dad Turner claims Walton has been rustling his cattle. Gordon makes it clear that the feud will stop.

Wayne’s character is in a Romeo and Juliette subplot with Judy Walton(Susan Fleming) and that leads to trouble when he declares for her hand with her father. A bitter argument follows, Clint leaves, then Walton is murdered, a gun shown sticking in the window.

Clint is blamed and Gordon arrests him to save his life as a lynching is in progress. His gun has a fired shell, he claims he shot at a coyote, but missed. The trial finds him guilty and he’s scheduled to hang the next day.

Gordon is looking into the rustling charge. A letter was found in his hand written by a seller letting him know he was coming to examine the cattle he’d sold to Walton, still penned up. He’d tell him then who from whom he’d bought them.

That night someone releases those cattle and in the chase Buck is shot. The only clue is a piece of cloth caught in a nail on the gate. Buck regains consciousness almost to late the next morning. He has to get into town to stop the hanging and clear Clint’s name.

Not a bad film, though in a Wayne biography it was referred to as the first in a collection of “cheap, assembly line pictures.”

New In The House

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Books

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1: 2 Guns For Hire -0 Neil MacNeil

2: Amos Flagg Lawman – Clay Randall

3: The Green Wound Contract – Philip Atlee: these first thre came from a discussion on Facebook of promisisng series from the old Gold Medal days. I decided to check out the first books in these series

4: Those Jensen Boys! – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone: first in a new series about the next generation of the Jensen clan

5: Star Trek: Crisis of Conscious – Dave Galanter: an original series novel. I liked this last author’s last effort in the Trek universe

and the ebook:

6: Reel Estate Rip-Off – Renee Pawlish: More mysteries to die for in this acclaimed private investigator series! Reed Ferguson’s second adventure is again filled with film noir and a lot of humor. Along with the Goofball Brothers, Reed’s not too bright neighbors, and Cal, Reed’s computer geek friend, Reed tackles a dangerous case, sharpening his skills as he unearths a string of clues that lead to a killer – but will this case cost Reed his life? With an ode to old Hollywood and movie memorabilia, Reel Estate Rip-off is humorous detective noir at its best.

7: The Forever War – Isaac Hooke

8: Atlas – Isaac Hooke: two novels in the military Science fiction series