ŷ������

You know it's a weird night when I'm listening to Sabaton at two in the morning, but hey, sometimes that's the way it goes.

Prolific Western author Chap O’Keefe is actually regularcommenter and long-time friend of this blog Keith Chapman. Something of alegend as a writer and editor, Keith worked on the Sexton Blake series right out of high school, founded and edited EDGAR WALLACE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, wrote andedited for numerous British comic book publishers, and wrote many well-regardedWestern novels for Robert Hale’s Black Horse Western line before branching outon his own with both new and reprinted Westerns. I’ve just read his novel THEREBEL AND THE HEIRESS, originally published by Hale in 2005 and revised andpublished as part of Chapman's Black Horse Extra line in 2023. Purely by coincidence,it deals with the post-Civil War, Reconstruction era like the last Western Iread, CALHOON by Thorne Douglas (Ben Haas).

Unlike CALHOON, however, THE REBEL AND THE HEIRESS takes place in Arizona, asetting that’s somewhat neglected in its relation to the war and its aftermath.Former Confederate Tom Tolly arrives back in the territory to find his fatherdead and the family homestead burned to the ground. A corrupt politician hasgotten his hands on the property, and as a former Rebel, Tom is no longer welcomein the nearby Union-leaning settlement. He’s not the only one who has shown upin the area recently, though: a disreputable hobo is squatting on the property,and he knows some things that may lead to trouble.

Also visiting the settlement are a mining tycoon and his beautiful daughter,and there are unexpected connections between them and Tom. Throw in a shadymining superintendent, some crooked lawmen, and a trio of hardcases looking fortrouble, and Tom is surrounded by mystery and danger.

Chapman keeps things moving along at a brisk pace and manipulates the plot withconsiderable skill. The action scenes are very good, and Tom Tolly is a likableprotagonist, no superhero but tough and determined to get to the bottom ofthings and make a place for himself in his former home. THE REBEL AND THEHEIRESS is a very solid traditional Western yarn spun by a real professional. Ienjoyed it, and if you’re a Western fan, I think it’s well worth reading. It's available on Amazon in and editions.

I really like the cover by Paul Stahr on this issue of ARGOSY. Stahr doesn't get mentioned a lot when people talk about great pulp cover artists, but I think his work was consistently excellent and he really gave ARGOSY a distinctive look. The lineup of authors inside this issue is very strong, too: a Whispering Sands story by Erle Stanley Gardner, short stories by F. Van Wyck Mason and Anthony M. Rud, and serial installments by Roy de S. Horn, J. Allan Dunn, Eustace L. Adams, and J.E. Grinstead. Those serials are frustrating to readers and collectors now, but the readers back in 1930 must have enjoyed them. 

Those hombres look like there's fixin' to be a necktie party. I don't want to be the guest of honor at that one! This issue of WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, one of the most venerable of the Western pulps, features the first installment of a Max Brand serial, "Weakling of the Wild", which would be published by Dodd, Mead a few years later as the novel HUNTED RIDERS. I don't own this issue, but I do have a copy of the novel version and hope to get around to reading it one of these days. Also to be found in this issue are stories by Robert J. Horton (Walt Coburn's mentor and an author I really need to try), Frank Richardson Pierce (as Seth Ranger), Robert Ormond Case, Ray Humphreys, Harley P. Lathrop, and Roland Krebs (no idea if he's related to Maynard G.). The cover art on this issue is by Gayle Hoskins.

Like SHADY LADY and CONTRABAND, NO WINGS ON A COP is another novel published under Cleve F. Adams’s name that was actually expanded by Robert Leslie Bellem from an Adams pulp story into a novel. Bellem and Adams were good friends, and I seem to recall reading that Bellem wrote those novels as a favor to Adams’s widow. Of course, I imagine Bellem got a cut of the money, too. If I’m wrong about any of that, I hope someone who knows more about the situation will correct me. Also, I’m not sure which Adams story served as the basis for this book. It might be “Clean Sweep��, from the August 24, 1940 issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, which, according to the Fictionmags Index, features police lieutenant John J. Shannon, the hero of NO WINGS ON A COP. If anyone knows for sure, again please let us know in the comments.

With that bit of background out of the way, how is NO WINGS ON A COP as a novel? Pretty darned good, that’s what it is. When the story opens, Lt. Shannon’s boss and good friend, Captain Grady, has already been murdered, and the killing has been pinned on gambler Floyd Duquesne, who evidently had been paying off Grady for protection. Shannon doesn’t believe that his friend was crooked, of course, and sets out to find the real killer. Almost as soon as he begins his investigation, though, somebody plants a bomb in his car. Shannon survives the explosion, but his left arm is broken, so for the rest of the book he’s going around with his arm in a cast and a sling, which proves pretty inconvenient at times but ultimately comes in handy on at least one occasion.

All the action in the book takes place in less than twenty-four hours, and it’s a whirlwind pace, as you might expect. Shannon clashes with the acting chief of police (the regular chief is out of town), gets kicked off the force, gets hit on the head and knocked out, trades banter with his girlfriend, who’s a beautiful model, has a couple of shootouts with hired killers, has a beautiful redheaded stripper try to seduce him, and runs up against an assortment of crooked cops, corrupt politicians, big-time gamblers, and dangerous hoodlums. It’s all great fun, with a complex plot that Shannon finally sorts out at the end. I’ve been reading this sort of hardboiled detective novel for more than forty years now and still get a big kick out of a good one, which NO WINGS ON A COP certainly is.

Bellem’s writing is as smooth and fast and enjoyable as ever, and knowing the background of the book’s authorship gives it an added level of humor. There’s a mention of a cab driver reading an issue of the DAN TURNER, HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE comic book, some of the characters sit around and drink Vat 69, Turner’s favorite hooch, and Bellem even writes himself into the book as a character, bank officer Robert B. Leslie: “The guy was a middle-aged man with slightly wavy hair, a thickening middle and a mustache of which he seemed inordinately vain.�� Although Adams might have been responsible for some of that in the original story, I don’t know. He and Bellem were friends, after all.

NO WINGS ON A COP was originally published by Handi-Books in 1950 and later reprinted by Harlequin. As far as I know, it’s been out of print for more than fifty years now, and it ought to be a prime candidate for reprinting by one of the small presses. This is one of those books that sat on my shelves for years without me getting around to reading it, then was lost in the fire. I replaced it not long ago and decided that I’d better get it read. I’m glad I did. Highly recommended.

(This post appeared originally on April 16, 2010. Since that time, NO WINGS ON A COP still hasn't been reprinted. One of these days . . .)

Man, this is really a restful, relaxing song. Just what I need on a night like this. 

Last week I reran a review of a Ben Haas novel from someyears back, and that put me in the mood to read another Western by him. Fordecades, I’ve been meaning to read his Rancho Bravo novels, a five-book seriespublished by Fawcett in the Seventies under the pseudonym Thorne Douglas. Iknow an omen when I see one, so I dug out my copy of CALHOON, the first book inthe series.

Lucius Calhoon comes to Texas right after the Civil War. A former Confederatecavalry captain, he’s lost the plantation he owned in South Carolina and alsolost his right hand to torture he was subjected to in a Yankee prison camp. Theman responsible for that torture was a young Union officer named GordonWeymouth. Weymouth is supposed to be in Texas, at a town in the South Texasbrush country along the Nueces River. Unlike many former Confederates, Calhoondoesn’t head for Texas to make a fresh start. He’s there for one reason and onereason only: to kill Gordon Weymouth.

And of course, things don’t work out that way. Calhoon rescues a former slavefrom a lynching attempt and befriends a flat broke rancher who has a big spreadof chapparal and thousands of mostly wild longhorns. The rancher, Henry Gannon,is going to lose the ranch to the corrupt Reconstruction judge the Yankees haveput in charge of the area, who just happens to be Gordon Weymouth’s father.Calhoon throws in with Gannon and the former slave, Elias Whitton, and decidesto help them achieve their dream of driving Gannon’s cattle to West Texas andestablishing a ranch there, in the middle of Comanche country, to be calledRancho Bravo. The local commander of the Yankee occupation forces, CaptainPhilip Killraine, is sympathetic to their cause, as is his beautiful sisterEvelyn.

Unfortunately, that may not be enough to allow the partners to stand up to thepolitical corruption and greed of the Weymouths, father and son, and theviolence of the brutal Regulators who work for them.

CALHOON is a flat-out superb Western novel. Haas manipulates his plotskillfully, piling up trouble and more trouble on his heroes. Lucius Calhoon,as the protagonist of this book, comes in for the most character development,and he’s a fascinating individual, very demon-haunted and not even all thatlikable at times, but always sympathetic to the reader. The other charactersare interesting, as well, including the villainous Weymouths. And of course,there’s plenty of the great action you’d expect in a Ben Haas novel. He was oneof the best there ever was at writing both close combat (fistfights and knifefights) and epic, large-scale battles.

I galloped through this book and enjoyed every page of it. I think it’sone of the best Ben Haas novels I’ve ever read. And it’s really just theopening chapter in a much bigger tale. I suspect I’ll be reading the secondbook in the Rancho Bravo series very soon. CALHOON is available in an edition from the fine folks at Piccadilly Publishing, and so are the rest of the books in the series.

We’re fans of the TV show DOWNTON ABBEY, so when we cameacross this DVD at the library that said, “From the writer and director ofDOWNTON ABBEY��, we figured it might be worth watching. As it turns out, JulianFellowes wrote the screenplay, but it’s based on a novel by Laura Moriarty. Andwhile DOWNTON ABBEY is so very British, THE CHAPERONE is pure Americana.

This movie opens in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, as 16-year-old Louise Brooks isabout to head off to New York to study at a famous dance studio. The thing is,she needs a chaperone to go with her. A local woman played by ElizabethMcGovern (Lady Grantham, Lord Grantham’s American-born wife on DOWNTON ABBEY)volunteers for the job. They head off to New York for various romances, scandals,and dramatic revelations that verge on the soap operatic. As a longtime fan ofsoap operas, that’s fine with me.

And I enjoyed this based-on-a-true-story drama, too. The pace is leisurely, andthe tone is genteel for the most part, although some more sordid parts of lifecrop up every now and then. The acting and the production values are very good.I think the movie captures the time period quite well.

Although there’s a framing sequence set in the 1940s, the main story endsbefore Louise Brooks becomes a big star in silent movies and her career then falls apart for various reasons. It bothered me a little that there’s absolutely nomention in THE CHAPERONE that her final film was OVERLAND STAGE RAIDERS, one ofthe entries in the Three Mesquiteers series with John Wayne as Stony Brooke,Ray Corrigan as Tucson Smith, and Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin. It probablywon’t come as a surprise to any of you that that’s actually the only LouiseBrooks movie I’ve ever seen . . .

I suspect I’ve been reading Erle Stanley Gardner longer thanany other author. It would have been 1963 or ��64 when I checked out my first Gardnernovel from the bookmobile. It was one of the Donald Lam/Bertha Cool seriespublished under the pseudonym A.A. Fair, and the bookmobile clerk probablyshouldn’t have let a ten-year-old check it out, but he knew I was already readingabove my grade level, so to speak. And I’ve continued to read Gardner’s work,at least two or three books a year, sometimes more, ever since. I’ve never readanything by him that I didn’t enjoy, either.

That trend continues with “Above the Fog��, a novelette published in the February1930 issue of the little-remembered aviation pulp FLYERS. Dave Flint is a pilotwho flew in the Great War, but as the story opens on a foggy dawn, he’s workingat the Oakland airport with a buddy from the war who laments that they don’t haveany action or excitement in their lives anymore.

Then a beautiful woman comes flying out of the fog, accidentally drops her pursebefore she flies off again when she realizes she’s being pursued, and Dave setsout to track her down, return her bag, and help her with whatever trouble she’sin. This lands him in a day-long whirlwind of fistfights, shootouts, and high-flyingdogfights as he attempts not only to locate the girl but also to solve a murderand find a missing millionaire.

Gardner never lets the pace slow down for more than a moment or two as he heapstrouble and danger on Dave Flint’s head. The characterization may not be verydeep, but who cares? This novelette moves. And Dave is a likable andfairly smart guy. Gardner’s descriptions of flying and the weather achieve asort of rough-hewn poetry in places. He was a great storyteller and a betterwriter than he often got credit for.

I enjoyed “Above the Fog��. It’s available to download as a PDF on the website, along with a lot of other great aviation pulp fiction. If you’rea Gardner fan, you’ll probably want to read this rarity.

10 ACTION ADVENTURES appeared for only one issue in 1939, despite this being listed as Volume 1, Number 3. The newsstands must have been just a little too crowded for it to find its audience, because it looks like a pretty good adventure pulp. The cover is by Norman Saunders, and inside are stories by E. Hoffmann Price (with his name misspelled on the cover), Arthur J. Burks, Carl Rathjen, Lurton Blassingame (Wyatt's brother and better remembered as a literary agent), William J. Langford, and house-names Paul Adams, Ralph Powers, Rexton Archer, Cliff Howe, and Clint Douglas. I have no idea who wrote the house-name stories, but Price is always a possibility. I wonder if Ace Magazines, the publisher, even intended for 10 ACTION ADVENTURES to continue past this one issue, or if it was some sort of clearing house to get rid of some inventory. Chances are we'll never know, but if anybody is aware of the circumstances, I'd love to hear about it.