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This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copyin the scan, with another fantastic cover by Sam Cherry. He was really at hispeak during this era. Earlier this year when I reviewed the April 1950 issue ofTEXAS RANGERS, one of the members of the WesternPulps email group commentedthat the Jim Hatfield novel in it, “The Rimrock Raiders�, sounded similar tothe Hatfield novel in the March 1948 issue, “The Black Gold Secret�. So I hadto find my copy and read that one, too. Now I have.

“The Black Gold Secret� and “The Rimrock Raiders� are both by A. Leslie Scottwriting under the Jackson Cole house-name, so it’s not surprising that they’resimilar. The basic concept—clashes between cattlemen and oil drillers who havemoved into what was previously a ranching area—are the same, and Scott usedthat plot foundation in other novels, as well. But the details in “The BlackGold Secret� are different and it’s an equally entertaining yarn. Early on inthis one, Hatfield extinguishes a burning oil well, something that he also doesin “The Rimrock Raiders�, but does so in a totally different manner—and itmakes for a slam-bang, very exciting scene, too. Scott layers in some geologyand behind-the-scenes stuff about the oil industry and also provides plenty ofshootouts and fistfights along the way. The vivid descriptions that are a Scotttrademark are there but rather limited, as he keeps this one really racingalong. Of course, there’s more going on than is apparent at first, but you knowHatfield will untangle all the villainy by the end, and it’s a prettyspectacular climax, too, as the main bad guy meets his end in an unexpectedway. I had a great time reading this novel, and I’m sure I’ll be readinganother by Scott before too much longer.

Tom Parsons was a Thrilling Group house-name, so there’s no telling who wrote “GunTrail�, a short-short about a Texas Ranger doggedly tracking down a horse thiefand murderer, only to find that things aren’t exactly what he thought theywere. There’s not a lot to this story, but it’s short and punchy and enjoyable.

I started out not liking Joseph Chadwick’s work very much, but he’s won me overand become one of my favorite Western writers. I think he’s one of the best ofthe more hardboiled Western authors who rose to prominence in the postwaryears. His novelette in this issue, “The Blizzard and the Banker�, isexcellent. It’s about a small town in Dakota Territory trying to survive a hardwinter. The local banker is the hero of a Western story, for a nice change, butthere are several other good characters including an outlaw who’s maybe notquite as bad as his reputation would have you believe, a beautiful female farodealer, and assorted villains. Chadwick does a fine job with the interactionsof these characters as well as his depictions of the harsh weather. Just areally, really good story all the way around.

Allan K. Echols was one of those workmanlike writers who filled up the pages ofWestern, detective, and aviation pulps with hundreds of stories during a 30-yearcareer (mid-Twenties to mid-Fifties; he passed away in 1953 but still had newstories coming out a couple of years later). He also wrote more than a dozenWestern novels. And yet I’ve never run across anybody who proclaims themselvesa big Allan K. Echols fan. His story in this issue, “Brother’s Keeper�, is anunacknowledged reprint from the January 1938 issue of ROMANTIC WESTERN. It’snot romantic at all, though. Instead, it’s about an apparently dull-wittedsheriff who’s trying to figure out which of two rancher brothers is responsiblefor the murder of one of their enemies. It’s a well-written, solidly plottedstory, and I enjoyed it, but I doubt that it’ll stick with me. Which probablyhelps to explain why Echols is pretty much forgotten even among devoted Westernreaders.

There’s also a Doc Swap story by Ben Frank in this issue. I’m sorry, but I didn’teven try to read it. I used to say that the Swap and Whopper stories by SylMcDowell in THRILLING WESTERN were my least favorite Western pulp series, but I’vesurprised myself by kind of warming up to them recently. Not so Doc Swap, whichby this time had taken over from Lee Bond’s Long Sam Littlejohn as the regularbackup series in TEXAS RANGERS. I just don’t find these appealing at all.

However, I’d still say this is a good issue of TEXAS RANGERS. The Hatfield noveland Joseph Chadwick’s novelette are both excellent, and the stories by Echolsand Parsons are entertaining. If you have a copy, it’s well worth reading, asfar as I’m concerned. And hey, you may actually like Doc Swap, you never know.

Davis Dresser wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire as a writer when this book was published under the pseudonym Asa Baker in 1938. He was making a living writing romances and Westerns for lending library publishers, but it was a precarious one. Better things were on the horizon for him, though. The next year, 1939, Henry Holt would publish Dresser’s novel DIVIDEND ON DEATH under the pseudonym Brett Halliday, which introduced redheaded Miami private detective Michael Shayne, a character who would make Dresser a rich man (and put a few shekels in the pockets of numerous other authors, as well, present company included).

But what about MUM’S THE WORD FOR MURDER? It’s an important book because it’s a dry run for the introduction of Michael Shayne a year later. The detective, Jerry Burke, is a big, tough, smart Irishman like Shayne, and although he’s a cop in this book, he has a background as a private detective and shares the same sort of checkered history that Dresser was to give Shayne. The novel is narrated by Asa Baker (which was also the original byline), a struggling author of Western novels obviously patterned after Dresser himself. A number of years later, Dresser wrote himself (as Halliday) into one of the Shayne novels, SHE WOKE TO DARKNESS, in much the same way. The book is set in El Paso, Dresser’s hometown and the scene of one of the best Shayne novels, MURDER IS MY BUSINESS. Burke even has a nemesis, the local chief of detectives Jelcoe, who serves the same function as Miami Beach Chief of Detective Peter Painter in the Shayne novels.

As MUM’S THE WORD FOR MURDER opens, Asa Baker is struggling to find inspiration for a new novel, and he finds it in the person of his old friend Jerry Burke, who has been hired by the city as a special detective to clean up crime and corruption in El Paso. Burke tells Baker about a strange advertisement that appeared in that afternoon’s paper, warning that a murder will take place at exactly 11:41 that night and challenging Burke to do something about it. The ad is signed “Mum�.

Sure enough, a wealthy businessman is murdered at exactly 11:41, and Burke invites Baker along to observe the investigation and gather material for a novel based on the case. This is just the beginning of a clever cat-and-mouse game between Burke and the mysterious serial killer who calls himself Mum. There are several more murders, and each time it appears that the case is just about solved, Dresser throws in yet another twist. Burke has the same talent that Shayne possesses: he’s always one step ahead of everybody else in the book � and two steps ahead of the reader, finally coming up with an ingenious solution that predates another author’s more famous usage of the same gimmick.

The early Shayne novels are entertaining blends of hardboiled action, screwball comedy, and fair-play detection, many of them with plots that rival Erle Stanley Gardner for complexity. Dresser doesn’t quite have the mix down yet in this book � there’s not much comedy, for instance, and Dresser doesn’t strictly play fair, withholding a fairly important clue from the reader until late in the book � but MUM’S THE WORD FOR MURDER is still one of the most enjoyable novels I’ve read in a while. Dresser’s style is very smooth and keeps the pages turning easily. I had a hard time putting this one down.

By the Fifties, the Shayne novels were doing so well in paperback for Dell that Dresser pulled out this old novel, along with one he wrote under the pseudonym Hal Debrett, BEFORE I WAKE, and Dell reissued them under the Brett Halliday byline. MUM’S THE WORD FOR MURDER proved popular enough that it was reissued again in the Sixties, this time with a McGinnis cover that’s not a particularly good one, in my opinion. Unless that’s not actually McGinnis’s work. I don’t have that edition, so maybe somebody who does can check and correct me if I’m wrong.

There’s one more Jerry Burke novel under the Asa Baker name, THE KISSED CORPSE, which came out in 1939, the same year as DIVIDEND ON DEATH. After that, Dresser was either too busy to return to that Shayne-prototype (he was writing Westerns as Peter Field and Don Davis, in addition to carrying on the Shayne series), or maybe he just thought that Jerry Burke had served his purpose. Based on my reading of this book, I plan on trying to get hold of a copy of THE KISSED CORPSE. MUM’S THE WORD FOR MURDER is long out of print, of course, like most of Dresser’s work, but copies are fairly easy to come by on-line. I liked this one a lot and give it a high recommendation.

(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on April 2, 2010. In the comments on the original post, someone asked about the "ingenious solution" in this novel and the other author who used it later. I have absolutely no idea about any of that anymore. But another commenter confirmed that the second cover is indeed by Robert McGinnis. I have a copy of the other Jerry Burke novel, THE KISSED CORPSE. A friend sent it to me not long after this post first appeared. I'm ashamed to say that I still haven't read it. But I know where it is. Maybe time to get it out and finally read it. Also since 2010, MUM'S THE WORD FOR MURDER has been reprinted as a very inexpensive e-book, which you can get if you want to check it out.)

I’m not sure how I missed this one when it came out lastfall. Fred Blosser is an old friend, a fan and scholar of Robert E. Howard, anda fine writer. And that title! Well, that’s just pure pulp goodness and I amalways the target audience for that.

Howard’s novella “The Vultures of Wahpeton� is one of my top three favorite storiesby him. (The other two are “Beyond the Black River� and “Wild Water�, in caseanyone is interested.) The protagonist of “The Vultures of Wahpeton� isgunfighting Texan Steve Corcoran. The protagonist of “Sixgun Vixens of theTerror Trail� is gunfighting Texan Steve Cochran. At least one of thecharacters in this story believes them to be one and the same, that Cochran issimply the notorious Steve Corcoran going by another name. Blosser doesn’tresolve that one way or the other, but I’d say the evidence is pretty strongthat Cochran is really Corcoran.

But it doesn’t really matter. Cochran and a companion, a Papago Indian, set outinto the harsh landscape of Arizona in search of a fortune in silver that’ssupposed to be hidden in a lost and abandoned mission where a massacre tookplace a couple of hundred years earlier. They run into trouble almost rightaway, an ambush that proves deadly. Then things are complicated by the arrivalof two beautiful young women who hate each other but are attracted to Cochran—ormaybe they just want to get their hands on that silver, too.

Pursued by Apaches and bandits, Cochran finally arrives at the so-called BlackMission, only to discover another surprise waiting for him there, and this isthe most dangerous and strangest of all. It’s fitting that a story writtenmostly in homage to Robert E. Howard would have a little H.P. Lovecraft influence,too.

Blosser really nails the pulpish tone of this story with its fast pace,frequent gritty action, and a few spicy scenes with the so-called sixgunvixens. It’s just great fun from start to finish. Then, as a bonus for REHfans, Blosser wraps things up with an entertaining essay about Howard’s Westernfiction. If you’re a Howard fan or just enjoy a fine Western adventure yarn, Igive “Sixgun Vixens of the Terror Trail� a high recommendation. It’s availableon Amazon in and editions.

Mindi Abair is one of my favorite musicians, and I really like the easy-going vibe of this song. Sometimes, especially in the middle of the night, you want to wallow in melancholy, but sometimes you want something to lift your spirits. This song does that for me.

Let me start with the obligatorycomplaint about the length of this book: David Baldacci’s A GAMBLING MAN, likemost mysteries and thrillers from the tradional publishers these days, is justtoo blasted long. I’ll have more to say about that later on.

For now, let’s establish that this is the second novel featuring AloysiusArcher, World War II vet, ex-con (he was sent to prison for a crime he onlykinda, sorta committed, and then only for good reasons), currently on his wayto Bay Town, California, to become an apprentice private detective. I read thefirst book, ONE GOOD DEED, last year, and although it was, yes, too long, Ifound enough in it to like that I wanted to give this second novel in theseries a try.

As I said, Archer is on his way to California, but he stops first in Reno,Nevada, where, through some perilous circumstances, he acquires a fancy foreigncar and a friend in beautiful singer/dancer/would-be movie starlet LibertyCallahan. Except for these two bits of set-up, the first fourth of the book isfiller. Entertaining, well-written filler, mind you, but still . . .

Liberty accompanies Archer to California, where he goes to work for a privatedetective named Willie Dash, an old friend of the cop Archer helped out in theprevious book. They’re hired to find out who’s blackmailing a candidate formayor of Bay Town. The politician is rich and has a beautiful wife, whosefather is the local tycoon and far richer than anybody else in the area. Theguy has fingers in all sorts of pies, too, including some that may or may notbe quite on the up and up.

Well, of course, somebody involved in the investigation gets murdered, althoughit takes Baldacci almost to the halfway point of the book to get there. Archergets beaten up by thugs. Somebody else gets murdered. Archer meets a fewbeautiful dames. Turns out there were more murders nobody even knew about untilArcher and Willie Dash start uncovering connections. The plot gets prettycomplicated but makes sense in the end, which is relatively satisfying. There’senough story here for a nice, tight, 160-page paperback.

A GAMBLING MAN, in its original edition, is a 438-page hardback.

But don’t take that to mean I’m giving it a bad review. There’s actually quitea bit I liked about it. The book is set in 1949, and by and large, it readslike it. There’s only one bothersome anachronism I spotted: a woman is referredto by the title Ms. Technically, theword came into existence in the early 20th Century, but I don’tbelieve it was in common usage until the Seventies. Seeing somebody use it in abook set in 1949 was jarring, at least to me. But the rest of the dialogue andthe attitudes of the characters ring true to me. So I guess one misstep in 438pages isn’t too bad. (Yeah, I’m harping on the number of pages.)

The main plot is solid, too. Nothing we haven’t seen before, but well puttogether. I don’t know how well-read Baldacci is when it comes to classicprivate eye fiction, but I got the feeling that CHINATOWN must be one of hisfavorite movies. Nothing wrong with that. It’s one of my favorite movies, too.And I think I picked up some Raymond Chandler influence, even though the bookis written in third person. Archer’s banter is reminiscent of Philip Marlowe’s,and I have to wonder if Bay Town is a nod to Chandler’s Bay City.

As for the characters, Archer is a tough, smart, likable protagonist, whilestill being fallible and human. I think I liked him even more in this book thanI did in the previous one. Willie Dash and Liberty Callahan are both excellentsupporting characters. The villains are suitably despicable.

Now, to get back to the length of this book (you knew I would), the wayBaldacci turns what could have been a reasonably short paperback into a fathardback, other than the filler in the first part of the book, is by describingeverything. Archer can’t enter a roomwithout Baldacci giving us a rundown on everything that’s in it. Everybody hemeets gets a thorough description. You might think this would bother me, buteven I was surprised by the fact that it didn’t, much. I think that’s becauseeven though he describes lots of things, he doesn’t dwell on any one of themfor too long. He gives the reader a few details and moves on. In a way, thisbook reminds me of the work of Leslie Scott: it’s vividly descriptive, but yetit moves at a fairly brisk pace. (Baldacci isn’t as brisk as Scott, but then,who is?)

Also, reading this book made me realize something: I’d rather read stuff likethis than a lot of modern thrillers whose authors like to talk about how theynever describe anything, never use an adverb, and never, ever use a speech tagother than “said�. That’s fine if that’s how you like to write, and a lot ofsuccessful writers do, but all too often, to me that approach produces prosethat’s flat and bland and boring. I was never bored reading A GAMBLING MAN,even though it took me longer than most books do.

So overall, I liked this book, and I enjoyed it enough I plan to read the thirdand apparently final book in the series. Not right away, but I expect I’ll getto it fairly soon. I might even move on from there and try some of Baldacci’sother books. The guy can tell a story, even if it is in sort of a long-windedway sometimes. In the meantime, this one is available in the usual , , , and editions.

I said a while back that I ought to read some issues of theair war pulp SKY FIGHTERS. Well, I don’t actually own any. But I do own the of the July 1937 issue, so I read it. The cover is by EugeneFrandzen, who painted a bunch of them for SKY FIGHTERS.

This issue leads off with the novella “North Sea Nightmare� by George Bruce. Iread another novella by Bruce last year and really enjoyed it. This one is setduring World War I and centers around two young Navy pilots known as Goldilocks(because he’s small and blond) and the Bear (because he’s big and burly).Goldilocks is the pilot and the Bear is the observer/gunner in a flying boatthat does reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea, looking for German shipsand submarines. They come up with a daring plan for a raid on the bay wheremost of the German navy is based. That raid provokes an even more epic battlethat may change the course of the war. I like the way Bruce writes, and there’splenty of good action in this one. Goldilocks and the Bear are good characters,too. But I never found the plot as compelling as in the other story by Brucethat I read, and I didn’t like the ending. So while I still consider this agood story, I found it somewhat disappointing. I definitely want to read more byGeorge Bruce, though.

Over the years, I’ve read quite a few of the pulp novels featuring the LoneEagle, an American pilot/intelligence agent named John Masters whose adventuresappeared in the pulp THE LONE EAGLE (later renamed THE AMERICAN EAGLE andAMERICAN EAGLES). The stories appeared under the house-name Lt. Scott Morganbut were written by several different authors, most notably F.E. Rechnitzer,who created the series. I always enjoyed the Lone Eagle stories because Masterswas just as much of a spy as he was a pilot, and most of the novels had himoperating extensively behind enemy lines as well as engaging in aerial dogfights.He often crossed paths with the mysterious and dangerous R-47, a seductivefemale German agent who became a recurring villainess. The first two novels inthe series are reprinted in a very nice double volume from Black Dog Bookscalled WINGS OF WAR, which is still available on Amazon in and editions.

I said all that to say this: this issue of SKY FIGHTERS features a Lone Eaglenovelette, also called “Wings of War�, and it’s the only time a story about thecharacter appeared anywhere other than in his own pulp. I don’t know whatbrought that about. It’s possible one of the Lone Eagle authors turned in amanuscript that was too short and the editors at the Thrilling Group justdecided to run it in SKY FIGHTERS rather than asking the author to expand it.Or maybe the story was written to order at novelette length in order to publicizethe Lone Eagle’s own pulp—although that seems an odd thing to do several yearsinto a magazine’s run. (THE LONE EAGLE debuted in 1933.) Regardless of itsorigins, “Wings of War� is a good story, with Masters going undercover as aGerman soldier returned in a prisoner exchange so that he try to find out whythe Germans seemingly have abandoned a vital area along the front. Masterssuspects the wily Huns are just setting a trap for the Allies. He’s right, ofcourse, but he discovers what’s really going on only after another encounterwith R-47, and as usual, their meeting almost proves fatal for Masters. There’splenty of action, a plausible if far-fetched scheme by the Germans, and asmashing climax. I enjoyed this story, and it reminded me that it’s been toolong since I read one of the full-length Lone Eagle novels.

“Luck of the Damned� is John Scott Douglas, a versatile and prolific pulpsterwho wrote scores of aviation, adventure, Western, and sports stories in acareer that lasted from the mid-Twenties to the early Fifties. It’s about ayoung pilot who’s convinced he’s jinxed, especially on his birthday. So whenhis commanding officer orders him to fly a dangerous mission on that particularday, he has to battle not only the enemy but also his own superstition. This isan entertaining story that I thought wasn’t quite as strong as it might havebeen with a different twist, but it’s still worth reading.

Robert Sidney Bowen is one of the big names in aviation and air war pulp. Hewrote a lot of other things, too, including boy’s adventure novels and mysteryand detective yarns. I’ve been reading his work for close to 60 years now andalways enjoy it. Just a very solid, dependably entertaining writer. His storyin this issue, “Fledgling’s Finish�, is no exception. A young pilot volunteersfor a suicidal bombing run on a castle that’s the center of the Germancommunications network. When his commander refuses to let him, he takes it onhimself to make the effort anyway. Most of the story is written from the pointof view of the commanding officer, which proves to be an effective andsuspenseful tactic. I really enjoyed this story.

Joe Archibald’s specialty was humorous stories. He didn’t just write them forthe air war pulps (although he did a bunch of them), he turned outhumorous yarns for the Western, detective, and sports pulps, too. I’m not a bigfan of his work, but sometimes I find his stories mildly amusing. That’s apretty good description of “A Flyer in Cauliflowers�. This is part of a seriesfeaturing two American pilots named Ambrose Hooley and Muley Spink (thenarrator). The plot concerns a prizefight between an American flier and aBritish pilot to determine who deserves credit for shooting down a couple ofGerman planes. There’s also a captured German ace who escapes and has to be hunteddown. As I said above, it’s mildly amusing and moves along fairly well, so it’sa readable story. Not much more than that, mind you, but I did finish it, whichis more than I can say for some of Archibald’s yarns.

Hal White wrote dozens of Western, detective, and aviation stories for thepulps between the mid-Twenties and the early Fifties, but that’s all I knowabout him. His story “Fly High and Die� wraps up this issue. It’s about asquadron of fighter pilots who believe they’ve been cursed by a dead Germanace. Anytime they fly higher than 8000 feet, something terrible happens tothem. Of course, there’s more to it than that. The actual solution to themystery struck me as a little bland, but overall the story is okay.

And okay is a good description of this issue as a whole. The Lone Eagle storyis excellent, the Robert Sidney Bowen story is very good, and even though I foundthe George Bruce story a little disappointing, it’s still a good story andmakes me want to read more by him. The other stories are mildly entertainingbut forgettable. I probably won’t go hunting for more issues of SKY FIGHTERS,but if I come across any, I won’t hesitate to grab them, either.

I don't own this issue of FRONTIER STORIES, so I haven't read it. But it has a dramatic cover by Richard Case and a fine group of writers inside. The lead story by Les Savage Jr., "The Lone Star Camel Corps", may have been cannibalized for Savage for his novel ONCE A FIGHTER. It was reprinted in one of the Les Savage Jr. collections packaged by Jon Tuska and I have a copy of that book on order. I'm looking forward to reading the story. Also on hand in this issue of FRONTIER STORIES are William Heuman, Tom W. Blackburn, William R. Cox, R.S. Lerch, Fairfax Downey, and the lesser-known Ben T. Young and Raymond L. Hill. Lots of good reading there, I have no doubt about that.

Roger Torrey was one of the leading authors of hardboiled detective fiction for the pulps during the Thirties and Forties, starting out in BLACK MASK and writing for a number of other pulps as well, including SPICY DETECTIVE, PRIVATE DETECTIVE, and Street & Smith’s DETECTIVE STORY.Ìý

Torrey’s work has two major strengths. One is the easygoing, conversational style in which the stories are told. According to Black Dog Books� editor and publisher, Tom Roberts, reading a story by Roger Torrey is like sitting in a bar somewhere and listening to a guy spin an exciting yarn about something that happened to him. The fact that the guy is usually a private eye, and the story concerns some bizarre case mixed up with murder and beautiful babes, is a real plus.

The colorful characterization of the narrators in most of Torrey’s stories is their other strong point. Despite the fact that they all have different names, those narrators are basically the same person: a private detective, often an ex-cop and a lone operative, smart but not infallible, tough but no superman, basically a decent sort but not above a little chicanery and lechery. He’ll get beaten up when the odds are against him, he’ll be fooled by an attractive woman from time to time, and he’ll muddle his way through cases with dogged determination as much as anything else. But in the end, he comes up with the killer every time, of course.

Torrey’s background included stints as a piano player in nightclubs and an organist in movie theaters, and his stories often have some sort of show business background. He was a heavy drinker, and so are many of his characters. Despite their sometimes oddball plot elements, the stories have an air of authenticity about them, including a fatalism that foreshadows Torrey’s early death. (He wasn’t even 40 yet when he passed away, probably from alcoholism.)

BODYGUARD reprints eleven stories, several of them long novellas. While not all of them are what you’d call rigorously plotted, they’re all very entertaining and enjoyable. The book also includes an informative introduction by long-time author and editor Ron Goulart, as well as the first-ever bibliography of Torrey’s work. I had a great time reading BODYGUARD, and if you’re a fan of hardboiled pulp fiction, I highly recommend it.

(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on March 17, 2010. BODYGUARD is still available in and editions, and my recommendation of it stands. It's well worth reading.)Ìý

A while back, I Charles Burgess’s novel THEOTHER WOMAN, which was published originally by Beacon Books in 1960 andreprinted last year by Stark House as part of their great Black Gat Books line.Burgess, a Florida author who specialized in writing articles for the true crimemagazines, wrote only two novels, and his other one, BACKFIRE, was very rare,having been published only in Australia. Now the good folks at Stark House havetracked it down and reprinted it as well, along with Burgess’s only short storyand a selection of his true crime yarns. I’ve just read BACKFIRE.

The novel’s protagonist is Martin Powers, about as normal and run-of-the-mill aguy as you could find. He’s a salesman for a cosmetics company and is recentlymarried to a beautiful brunette named Angela. He has a pretty good life, he thinks—untilsomebody starts trying to kill him.

After several failed attempts on his life, Martin’s wife brings in the cops, inthe person of a hulking detective named Sam Bannerman. Unfortunately, Bannermandoesn’t seem to be able to make any progress in finding out who wants Martindead. So Martin figures if he wants to stay alive, he’d better do someinvestigating himself. He was adopted as a young child and knows very littleabout his background, so he decides that would be a good place to start. Heproves to be a clever, dogged detective, too, and starts uncovering things. Butwill he arrive at the ultimate answer before his mysterious enemy knocks himoff?

BACKFIRE is a well-constructed mystery/suspense novel that generatesconsiderably urgency and kept me flipping the pages. I think Burgess revealedsome key elements of the plot maybe a tad too early, but that didn’t take awayfrom my overall enjoyment of the book. He keeps the central questions unanswereduntil late in the book and keeps tightening the screws on Martin until asatisfying climax.

Maybe due to Burgess’s background as a true crime author, there’s a strongsense of realism to this book, as well, a sense that the investigation reallycould have gone this way. There’s nothing flashy about the style, juststraight-ahead storytelling, but in a story like this, that’s a very effectiveapproach. I'm sorry Burgess didn't write more novels. I had a fine time reading BACKFIRE and give it a high recommendation.It’s available in and editions. I haven’t yet read thetrue crime articles that round out the book, but I intend to.

I’m not sure how I missed this novel when it came out in2010. I’m sure I read the reviews of it on Bill Crider’s blog and Mystery Scene,and I should have picked it up then because it sounds exactly like my kind ofbook. Plus, the author and I are acquainted on-line. He’s commented here underhis real name, Dan Stumpf, and I’ve commented on his book and movie reviewsover on Mystery Scene. But even though it took me a while to get around to it,I’m very glad I did because ‘NADA is a terrific book.

It's set in Mexico in 1936. The title does double duty, since “nada� is theSpanish word for nothing, and in this book it’s also the nickname of the smalltown of Quenada, which is on the other side of the desert from the abandonedOld Pesos Mine. The mine isn’t completely abandoned, however. There’s acaretaker of sorts, Vernon Culley, a World War I veteran turned bootlegger andgangster turned mining engineer. He’s the narrator, and he provides a colorful,distinctive narrative voice that’s a pleasure to read.

One day a truck shows up at the mine. The two men in it are fleeing from a gangof bandits led by the Serrano Brothers, with whom Culley is acquainted. There’sa shootout, one of the men winds up dead, and Culley discovers that the truckis full of gold bars that were entrusted to the Dutchman who was killed in thebattle. He was supposed to sell the gold and return the proceeds to some DutchJews who fled to America from the Nazis. One of the group is the dead man’sfather-in-law. The Dutchman had hired a Mexican/Indian named Ray to drive him andthe gold to its destination. Ray and Culley team up to try to carry out the Dutchman’smission, since they promised the dying man they would.

Of course, it won’t be easy since they’ll have to battle the desert, viciousbandits, and corrupt lawmen along the way. Not to mention their own mercenaryimpulses and the guilt that haunts Ray . . .

This is the sort of historical adventure yarn that Jack Higgins used to write, althoughI think ‘NADA is better written than any of the Higgins novels I’ve read. Theauthor gives us a bunch of superb action scenes but also really develops thecharacters of Culley and Ray as they work together and get to know each other.They discuss books, philosophy, religion, and plenty of other subjects, buteven so, Stumpf never lets the action lag for long and the pace is suspensefuland relentless.

This is the first novel that Stumpf wrote as Daniel Boyd, but he’s done severalmore since then. It's also the first fiction by him that I’ve read, but I’mgoing to have to remedy that. Meanwhile, I give ‘NADA a very high recommendation. It's available on Amazon in and editions. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I think it’s a lock for mytop ten list at the end of the year.