Creature by John Saul

The small mountain town of Silverdale Colorado is perfect. A company town with perfect weather, perfect neighborly citizens, and the perfect high school with a perfect football team. It is to this perfect town, run by the corporate tech giant, Tarrentech, that the family of 16-year-old Mark Tanner moves; a promotion for his father and a chance to start again for Mark. Little does he know that such perfection comes at a cost. Due to a childhood sickness, Mark is now a short, skinny kid who avoids sports in favor of more scholarly pursuits but when faced with continual bullying from school, friends, and even his own dad, it becomes harder and harder to resist what the town, and the high school sports clinic has to offer.

I’ve tried two John Saul novels before and thought them “OK” but not particularly brag-worthy. But several of my reading friends have been urging me not to give up on him and so I dug this one out of my vast home library of unread books and gave him another try. Happily, I can report that this one surprised me quite nicely, keeping me engaged throughout with good narrative story-building. The character of Mark, especially, was well done and I think I will remember him for a long time to come. It’s not fine literature by any means but that's not what I was looking for when I picked it up to read.

Published in 1989, the plot of this novel makes full use of the dangers and fears of anabolic steroid abuse, vitamin enhancing therapies, etc. of the time. The novel takes things to extremes, of course, in order to create a truly horrifying story but just as in most good horror, it is the nature of humans and how we treat each other that is the real horror occurring.

Uther (The Camulod Chronicles #7) by Jack Whyte

It was with great reverence and a bit of trepidation that I returned to my reading of the Camulod Chronicles.  The first six novels of this amazing series form a complete series by themselves and I was a little worried that even though I had greatly enjoyed those novels, this next one might be more of a “filler” novel. After all, it tells the story of Uther Pendragon, a life that was already mostly covered during the events of book three, The Eagles' Brood, where he is shown growing up with his cousin Merlyn. The shear length of the book also added to my concern, weighing in at over 900 paperback pages. So… at the risk of suffering through a lengthy filler novel, I plunged in anyway, tossing my fears aside for the simple reason that I trust this author, Jack Whyte, to provide me with yet another amazing novel, much as he had with the first six books.

And he did just that. Most of the first half of the book was, indeed, a repeat of the events of The Eagles' Brood but while that book was told from the first person perspective of Merlyn Britannicus as he looked back on long-ago events, this book was from Uther’s third person perspective as those events unfolded. It’s quite a different viewpoint because the two characters are so different from another. 

The second half of the book covered Uther’s life after leaving Camulod (Camelot) as he becomes King of Cambria and leads his alliance in an aggressive defense against Lot of Cornwall.  These events were not covered in previous books in the series other than a passive mention of Uther being off doing his thing in the West. So I was happy to fill in these holes. We do know the end result of Uther’s campaigns, of course, and so the second half of the book does read a little like a tragedy. But to read of Uther’s actions, his thoughts and growth as a character, his relationship with Ygraine, their child Arthur, the difficulty with dealing with various allies as Uther tries to counter the devious Lot… all of that was truly awesome.

Historical novels that center on warfare can often get bogged down in endless battles but the battles that take place in the final 200 pages of this book were absolutely intriguing. To watch Uther’s brilliance at overcoming difficult odds, designing a new brand of warfare when desperately needed, and demonstrate ideal leadership qualities was extremely fulfilling. The battles themselves are like a combination of a strategic chess match and well-choreographed action sequences filled with all the bloody horror one would expect from up close and personal sword play, flails impacting helmets, pounding horse hooves, etc. I never once felt bogged down or wished for the plot to speed up even though this is a very long novel. But don’t get the impression this is strictly a war novel. That’s really only a small part of Uther’s life and of this novel.

Once again, a Jack Whyte novel gets my highest recommendation. But definitely start at the beginning of the series (The Skystone) in order to be privy to the numerous interactions and history leading up to the rise of Arthur himself. Only two more books to go in the larger series and I am already dreading the moment when I will have turned the last page.

Hardcase by Luke Short

Dave Coyle is an outlaw. The sort of outlaw that thumbs his nose at the law, that can escape any jail he’s thrown in, and generally is able to strut about with confidence that his skills are superior to anybody who might disagree with him. But he is loyal to his friends and his actions are mostly honorable. So, when pretty Carol McFee asks for his help in saving her father from having his ranch suckered out from under him with a fake bill-of-sale, Coyle steps in to assist.

I’ve read several hundred westerns over the years, but this is my first by Luke Short, pen name of Frederick Dilley Glidden and not to be confused with the gunfighter of the Old West. Most of his work was published in the 1930s and 40s. This book was first published in 1941 and definitely has that pulp western vibe to it.

The novel is certainly a western novel, but it has many hallmarks of other genres, especially hard-boiled crime with a strong mystery element. Dave Coyle is the protagonist but not afraid to act outside the law to right a wrong. He’s hard-headed but smart. The novel certainly is titled appropriately. The plot is a complex whirlwind of interesting characters. With a couple of exceptions, the reader isn’t always sure who are the good guys and who are the bad hombres. The very nature of the power structure in the town, including the sheriff and his deputy, is well thought out and provided a lot of intrigue, double-crosses, and the mandatory fight scenes. I was impressed with the nature of the scheme to steal the ranch. Very creative, as was the solution engineered by Dave Coyle. The ending was great fun as Coyle proves his own innocence and nails the bad guy in an unorthodox Old West court of law. It’s not a flawless novel to be sure with some parts that wandered around a little, but ultimately it pulled me right along.

I’m glad I read this one and will be looking for more westerns by Luke Short.

The Hunter From the Woods by Robert McCammon

Having read Robert McCammon’s outstanding WWII/adventure/thriller/werewolf/spy novel The Wolf's Hour earlier this month I knew I had to find and read the “sequel” as soon as possible.  The character of Michael Gallatin and his story was just so rich with possibilities that I was thrilled to discover there was another book.  And, still, to this day, I have yet to read a disappointing book by Robert McCammon.

This book is not another novel, however. It is a collection of 6 stories, all very much connected to one another (as well as with the original novel) but each depicting a different episode in Michael’s intriguing life.  Essentially all six stories fill in his background, mostly taking place during the war itself and just prior to the current events of the first novel. The second story here, ‘The Man From London’ is fairly short but serves to illustrate how Michael is recruited by the British Secret Service for his unique talents. Three of the stories are fairly long, novellas really, and were easily my favorites due to the depth that the longer form allows the author to take the plot and the character. In addition, the answer to a burning, unanswered question from the original novel is answered in the last story of this book.

A definite must-read for McCammon fans. 

The Wolf's Hour by Robert R. McCammon

Robert McCammon has always provided me with great entertainment and this time around was no exception.  This is primarily a World War II spy novel wherein Michael Gallatin is on a mission to support the allied D-Day invasion by preventing a Nazi gas warfare scheme.  It’s a clever plot filled with adrenaline-charged action at every turn.  On its own, it would be a very nice thriller but the fact that Michael is also a werewolf makes this one a keeper.

In the hands of a lesser author I would be concerned that combining a werewolf story with a WWII spy novel would come across as hokey at best.  But in McCammon’s hands, it reads superbly.  Michael’s werewolf origin story is told through a series of lengthy flashback sections that not only stand on their own but provide some excellent emotional scenes that tie in well to the events of the spy story. It all works well together and despite its length (over 600 paperback small print pages in my copy) I polished it off quickly, fully absorbed every step of the way.

This is a stand-alone novel but thankfully, McCammon provided some additional material for us in the form of inter-linked short stories collected in a volume entitled, The Hunter from the Woods.  I made room on my shelves for that one as well just as soon as I closed the cover on this book. 

Kill Me If You Can by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

The year 2022 marks the 75th anniversary of the original publication of the very first Mike Hammer novel, I, the Jury, by Mickey Spillane way back in 1947. While a dozen more would follow, all penned by Spillane himself, he also left behind numerous unfinished manuscripts, summaries, radio scripts, ideas, etc. During his final week of life in 2006, Spillane asked his friend Max Allan Collins to continue the series and make good use of that material. MAC has been doing just that ever since and succeeding in fine style. This book is the thirteenth with both Spillane and Collins listed as authors, effectively doubling the original Spillane-only output and bringing the total to 26 Mike Hammer novels. Also of note, is the infamous 10-year gap in Spillane’s output, from 1952 to 1962. This novel, Kill Me If You Can falls chronologically between Kiss Me, Deadly and The Girl Hunters which bookend that decade-long gap.

The novel opens with Mike Hammer having been working a case for several weeks involving a high-end robbery crew. A month ago, they’d hit the “Civac reception” and gotten away with a lot of jewelry and other valuables. But we soon find out they had taken something much more valuable than jewels, something that boils Hammer’s blood and leads him on a desperate whirlwind of a chase.

Velda is missing.

Velda, Hammer’s secretary and PI partner, and much more than that if the ring he recently gave her is any indication. Has she been kidnapped? Murdered? To gain some more intel, Hammer turns to his old friend and mobster, Packy Paragon who is trying hard to go legit. The man has opened a nightclub which features his famous and beautiful wife Victoria as the star singing attraction. Hammer is not in a good place when this novel begins, his days filled with drinking and his nights failing to sleep. His cop buddy Pat Chambers, the chief of homicide has about had enough of him.

Max Allan Collins, once again does an excellent job of channeling Mickey Spillane and producing an excellent Mike Hammer novel. All the elements that you hope for are here including familiar and new characters, the hard-boiled driving plot, and the richly described atmosphere of the City. Always willing to use his gun to kill killers, Hammer never hesitates to hand out justice, even when temporarily without a permit or even a PI license. Not all plot points are resolved but many readers will already be familiar with what will happen because they are detailed in the follow-on novel, The Girl Hunters, published in 1962.

This is not a tremendously long novel but rather one that is tightly plotted and one that moves along at a nice clip. Happily, five additional short stories are also included in this volume including two Hammer tales. These are all good too and written in a style much like you might find in editions of Manhunt magazine or the like.

I’m not sure how much is left in the Spillane un-published material vault but I’m sure looking forward to anything MAC can coax out, collaborate on, write, polish and let loose on the world.

First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton

Written in 1958, more than a decade before the first actual Moon landing, this novel takes us on an adventure that is part scientific speculation and part Cold War thriller. American Adam Crag is tapped to lead the first manned mission to the moon, racing against the Soviet Union to be the first. The reward, per UN doctrine, is the right to claim the entire lunar surface for the country that can be the first to get there and still be surviving when the final UN vote takes place. But as if the mission itself wasn’t enough risk for these astronauts, intelligence suggests the Soviets plan to destroy the American rocket ship before it can ever launch.

But those Americans can be tricky, and they have prepared for just such a contingency. Their primary rocket ship is merely a decoy, and so when it is, in fact, destroyed, their real ship is able to blast off into space and proceed with the mission. But hold on, the Soviets aren’t done yet. Word comes down that one of the American astronauts is secretly, a saboteur!

This novel was author Jeff Sutton’s first. As a former marine (including WW2 service on Guadalcanal) and now a research engineer for Convair-San Diego, Jeff Sutton was used to journalistic and technical writing. He specialized in high-altitude survival and this background novel served him well in all the myriad technical aspects of this spaceflight novel. Of course, much of the plot was speculative I nature, particularly what it would be like on the surface of the moon. The Cold War plot of pitting the two superpowers against each other in actual space combat and moon-surface gunplay seems a bit hokey looking back from our time, but it provided a pretty good action-adventure alternative to what could have been simply an overcome-the-technical-glitches plot.

I pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this novel. The technical parts were pretty spot-on but sometimes the characters acted in an unconvincing manner. For example, the American staff back on Earth desperately tried to determine which of the astronauts was the likely saboteur via background checks and interviews with their childhood teachers and so forth. We get to see some of that, but most occurs in the background. But when they finally think they have their man, they choose not to tell Commander Crag in case they have it wrong. They tell him they don’t want to poison his opinion of any of his crew. What? Why go to the trouble of figuring it out and then not tell him so he can take precautions. Poor Commander Crag must not only have to deal with fixing the rocket ship for a return flight, severe oxygen deficiency problems, incoming nuclear warheads launched from earth by the Soviets, crew morale problems, gun fights with a Soviet Moon landing crew, and more…he also has to battle the stupid bureaucrats back home. Yeah…probably more realistic now that I think about it.

So as long as you can take off your 21st century hat and insert yourself into 1958, this is a pretty good science fiction yarn. Jeff Sutton would go on to write 22 more novels in science fiction, war, political novels, and juvenile fiction. Most of them involved themes involving the space program.

The Beast of Nightfall Lodge by S.A. Sidor

The follow-up to Fury From the Tomb begins in 1920, almost 35 years after the events of that first book. A mature Rom Hardy and Evangeline Waterson of the Institute for Singular Antiquities are reminiscing about prior adventures when Evangeline decides she wants to hear Rom’s version of one particular adventure having to do with a Beast at Nightfall Lodge back in 1890 in the mountains surrounding Raton New Mexico. The rest of the book describes that adventure in full detail.

This is a solid sequel to the first book, continuing the over-the-top plot and style. The main story involves a wealthy big-game hunter who seeks the ultimate kill. No not a human being…that’s been done to death. Instead, he hunts “the Beast”, a supernatural wendigo-type monster. To aid him in the hunt, he invites a number of guests to join in, including a huge hulking mountain man with a trained grizzly bear, a wild west gunslinger, a snake-oil salesman/inventor, a mute Native American, and a man claiming to be Billy the Kid (although the Kid had been killed by Pat Garrett several years previously -- sure looks like him though...). And of course, all four of Rom Hardy’s team from book one are invited as well. The prize for who can capture the Beast? The true and authentic golden calf idol from when Moses went up Mt Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. Wouldn’t that be a fine addition to the Institute for Singular Antiquities!

What follows is a rollicking adventure mixed with gruesome horror, humor and supernatural injections of lycanthropy, séances, and resurrecting the dead. Once again, there is a lot of plot packed in to this one novel but somehow the author manages to make it a coherent story. It blends the best of Indiana Jones, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, the weird-west genre, and classic Universal monster movies.

This is modern pulp adventure done right. It’s fun reading all the way through and I certainly hope there are more to come in this series.

Riding the Snake by Stephen J. Cannell

“Riding the snake”, at least in this novel, refers to the efforts of Chinese immigrants to seek better lives by engaging in the lengthy process to illegally enter and live in the United States.  Unfortunately, the process is managed by the notorious criminal Triad organization and as such, is fraught with peril for those who make the risky and desperate attempt to make the ride.  

Wheeler Cassidy, a wealthy playboy type with no ambition but pursuing lower golf scores, looser women, and ever more alcohol, has his life permanently altered when his near perfect do-no-wrong politically connected brother dies from a heart attack. Or was he murdered? Wheeler is joined by Tanisha Williams, a black street-smart LAPD detective from the Asian crimes Task Force in an effort to determine just what is behind the death and it isn’t long before the pair are on the trail of international criminals, the Chinese underworld, and having to fight against expectations and their own people along the way.  For them, “riding the snake” has a different meaning but still fraught with just as much peril.

Stephen Cannell, is of course, well known as one of the most successful Hollywood television script writers and producers over the past fifty years. That could have been a red flag for me because television and novels are two different mediums and success in one certainly doesn’t always translate to success in the other.  But I’ve read Mr. Cannell before and he usually produces fun-to-read novels.  There are similarities to his TV shows; his novels are always well-paced, meaning there is a time for action, a time for romance, and a time for reflection.  It’s a bit formulaic but it’s a formula designed for satisfying entertainment and, once again, it works well here.  The characters were interesting and the plot was a good one. I felt invested in the outcome. I definitely learned more about Chinese life in general, Hong Kong, and about the last couple of decades of Chinese history than I knew before going into this book. In the end, it was another satisfying read from Mr. Cannell.

The Masked Master Mind by George F. Worts

Gilbert Dollow, a young man in his early 20’s is not content with his lot as a lifeguard on the beach of the small town of Maple Hollow. He envies the life of old Constable Dench who seems to command the respect of the townspeople, young and old. But there was only one constable in this small town and so Gilbert must look elsewhere, all the way to Steel City. If he can get there, become a member of their police force, his future would be fulfilled.

One problem: Gilbert isn't the smartest cookie in the tin. Gullible, yes. Likeable even. But just a little short in the smarts department. But luck…now that was something else. Luck tended to shine her light on him all day long. He knew if he wanted to gain a position on the Steel City police force, he would need to earn his way. Thankfully, his astounding luck led him to find and capture a well-known counterfeiter, even though he had thought he was snagging a bigamist whose wanted poster he had recently seen. He was on his way at last.

Annie May Prine has her eye on capturing Gilbert’s heart although he seems immune to her charms. When Gilbert rides the success of his recent capture of the notorious counterfeiter all the way to Steel City, Annie May chases after him, knowing he’d be like a lost puppy in the big city without her. Indeed, Gilbert’s naiveté leads him to all sorts of trouble and being made fun of and the big city police force wants nothing to do with him. That is, until his incredible luck plays out again and he manages to capture a whole ring of criminals. When he accidentally repeats this with yet more bad guys, this time having fallen into some black paint that disguises his features, the Police Commissioner realizes he can use this young man. Thus, the “Man in the Black Mask” AKA the “Masked Master Mind” comes into being.

Despite the ongoing success-by-luck that Gilbert enjoys, he comes to believe he is being taken advantage of, just another form of being made fun of. He decides his dream was not meant to be and instead would prefer to settle down with Annie May back in little Maple Hollow, if only he could remember what she looks like. He searches for her across the big city while she searches for him. Surely, they will find one another, won’t they? These moments give the story an extra layer of sweet desperation and gives readers a greater stake in the outcome.

This pulp novel was first published serially across five issues of Argosy All-Story Weekly magazine in 1926. It’s a delightful story filled with humor and fun pulpy action with an underdog protagonist who you can’t help but root for. The author, George F. Worts, was a favorite of Argosy readers, with an easy-going style and a flair for humorous situations. He also wrote detective fiction under the pen name, Loring Brent, featuring the character, Gillian Hazeltine, among many other pulp series.

A non-traditional masked vigilante story to be sure, but one that I highly recommend.

Too Many Cooks (Nero Wolfe #5) by Rex Stout

The fifth novel in the Nero Wolfe series finds Wolfe and his secretary/chauffer Archie Goodwin on a rare trip away from the brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City. Beyond his detective work, Wolfe is also something of a foodie. Given his girth and exuberance for eating, this is not surprising. Here, his culinary know-how earns him an invitation to a gathering of fifteen of the world’s most famous chefs. And of course, there will be a murder. This time, it’s one of the attendees, an irascible man who is literally stabbed in the back, likely by one of his peers. 

A side note: The story is set in 1938, a time of less-than-palatable racism. It can be an uncomfortable reading experience from today’s perspective, but readers must recognize the times for what they were. I’ve heard more than once that these novels, in general, are racist but I think it’s important to differentiate an accurate depiction of the era from purposeful prejudicial writing. In fact, the author, Rex Stout works to demonstrate how wrong these prejudices truly are, as evidenced by this comment from Nero Wolfe:

    “The ideal human agreement is one in which distinctions of race and color and religion are totally disregarded; anyone helping to preserve those distinctions is postponing that ideal…"

I’ve been wanting to read more of this series ever since I read book number one, Fer-de-Lance. I thought that one was OK but felt it was probably not the best of what the series had to offer. I searched through various top-10 lists and found that this one, Too Many Cooks was listed on every single one. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has made me a fan of Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, and of course Rex Stout. The mystery elements were excellent, as expected, and those who enjoy brilliant detectives should like it too. Happily, there is a nice amount of humor sprinkled throughout, as well.

And so, another lengthy series has been added to my ever-growing TBR list… Sigh.