Forgotten Books: The Lady in the Morgue by Jonathan Latimer

Jeez, it's been a long time since I read this one, and it made me wish I'd done it sooner. Latimer's Bill Crane mysteries are the sort of books that should be reread - and savored - every few years.

Part of what makes The Lady in the Morgue (1935) so great is the three-way repartee between Crane as his two detective pals, Williams and O'Malley. Doc Williams had a solid role in the first book, Headed for a Hearse, and appeared only briefly in number 3, Murder in the Madhouse. O'Malley makes his first appearance here. Together, they're sort of a cross between the Three Musketeers and the Three Stooges, and if there's another trio like them anywhere in crime fiction, I'd like to know about it.

The story starts, as you might expect, with a lady in the morgue. When her body is stolen, everyone either blames Crane or insists that he find her - and, in the process, find out who she was. Caught between two rival mobsters, a society family, and their demanding boss Colonel Black, Crane and friends drink up half the liquor in Chicago and engage in plenty of good-natured lechery on their quest to solve the mystery.

I'm impressed with every line of Latimer's prose, but I was particularly fond of this single long paragraph in the middle of a party scene:

     Somebody had turned up the radio until the music sounded as though it were being played by the United States Marine Band. A girl was dancing on the terrace in an orange-colored chemise. Somebody was smashing crockery in the kitchen. Two men were being dissuaded with difficulty from fighting. A baby-faced blonde borrowed a dollar from Crane for cab fare home. A couple were necking on one of the davenports. Three men were bitterly arguing politics on the other. A man in shirt sleeves asked O'Malley if he was having a good time. O'Malley asked him what the hell business it was of his. The man said he was sorry. He said he wouldn't have asked except that he was giving the party and wanted everybody to have a good time. O'Malley accepted his apology. A baby-faced blonde borrowed a dollar for cab fare home from Williams. Somebody fell over a chair on the terrace. Two girls were wading in the fountain. A gold watch flipped from the pocket of a man trying to Charleston on the terrace, shattered itself on the polished tile. Williams asked the girl in the nightgown which wasn't a nightgown for her telephone number and she tossed him a handkerchief, and what do you think? The number, Superior 7500, in green thread in one corner, so all you had to do was to keep the handkerchief. A baby-faced blonde borrowed a dollar for cab fare home from O'Malley. The redhead, Dolly, passed out and had to be put to bed. 

Now that's a party!

Preston Foster starred in a movie version in 1938 - a movie I still hope to see someday. Don't know how good it is, but the ad copy sounds pretty close to the mark:

More Forgotten Books at pattinase!

Art Gallery: Savage Sword II

Boris Vallejo

Boris Vallejo

Alex Nino & Frank Magsino

Skyler Hobbs goes to Japan

OR

スカイラー・ホッブスと転売詐欺事件

In the wake of reviewing the Sept/Oct EQMM story "Skyler Hobbs and the Garden Gnome Bandit" (among others) on his blog (as reported HERE), Japanese writer Toshiji Kawagoe has done me the honor of translating my first Hobbs flash fiction tale, "Skyler Hobbs and the Rollback Bandit," into Japanese.

For those of you who read Japanese (or just like looking at it, because it does look pretty cool), that's HERE.

For those of you who read Google Translate and enjoy scratching your head and wondering what the heck it means, that version is HERE.

This tale originally appeared here on the Almanack in November 2009, in answer to Patti Abbott's "Walmart, We Love You" challenge. The story was then collected in the Untreed Reads eBook Discount Noir, where the English version resides today. That's available HERE.

My thanks to Mr. Kawagoe for making Mr. Hobbs accessible to Japanese readers. More flash translations are coming soon.

Not-so-Overlooked Films: The Gunfighter (1950)

Sadlly, The Gunfighter is not about gunfighting. It's a about a gunfighter regretting the life he's led and losing everything he's ever wanted. And if that's not depressing enough, all the other characters are helping him regret, and helping him lose. It's what you might call an anti-gunfighter film.

The trouble is, the producers of this one were so intent on making a "grown up" western that they forgot what makes a western good. Despite the smoking six-guns depicted on the posters, this one has almost no shooting, dang little action, and not a lick of fun. Gregory Peck spends most of his screen time fretting and regretting in a near-empty saloon. And just to prove how grown up the film is, it delivers a totally predictable downbeat ending.

I ain't saying grown-up themes or emotions are bad, even in westerns, but they're a lot easier to take when balanced with a little raucous humor and gratuitous violence. If this is an "A" western, I'll take a "B" every time.

Punk Kid #1 challenges Gunfighter. 

Punk Kid #1 bites the dust. (Yeah, this is the same scene, but the lobby cards for the rerelease were colorized differently than the originals.)

Punk Kid #1's brothers come looking for trouble.

In the next town, Gunfighter discovers an old pal packing a star.

An ex-father tries to bushwhack Gunfighter, believing G killed his son. 

Ex-Father is invited to cool his heels.

Punk Kid #2 tries (and fails) to pick a fight.

Ex-girlfriend declines G's invitation to visit South America.

The downbeat denouement.

More Overlooked Films await you at SWEET FREEDOM. 

Devil Wings Over France: An Air War Thriller by James Reasoner

Back in the 1930s, Air War pulps were hugely popular. Writers like Frederick Nebel, Raoul Whitfield, Lester Dent and David Goodis, among many others, churned out millions of words detailing the thrilling battles between American aces and German pilots in the skies over Europe.

Several air fighters even got their own magazines, including The Lone Eagle, Dusty Ayres, and the most popular air war hero of them all, G-8. The magazine G-8 and his Battle Aces ran for 110 issues, and the secret of its longevity was that he wasn't fighting just Germans. Like other great Hero Pulp heroes, G-8 went up against threats that crossed the line into the worlds of fantasy, science fiction and the supernatural.

Well. Fast-forward eighty years, and we find James Reasoner, who's written tales in just about every other pulp genre, introducing his own air war hero, American ace Dave "Dead-Stick" Malloy, in Devil Wings Over France. I can't say much about the plot of this adventure without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that Malloy is a worthy successor to G-8, and I'm hoping more tales of his WWI heroics will be coming soon.

Forgotten (and FREE) Race Williams Stories: "The Wrong Corpse" by Carroll John Daly

Here's the sixth in our ongoing series of the Lost Adventures of Race Williams - tales that have never been reprinted, and ain't likely to be anytime soon.

"The Wrong Corpse," from the February 1949 issue of Thrilling Detective, comes to us courtesy of Kim Anderson, who scanned this baby and sent it in. Thanks, Kim. We're all in your debt.

This time Race goes up against a shyster lawyer, a shifty private detective and the cop he loves to hate - Inspector Nelson - in a case involving two dangerous dames. One of those dames is dead, but Race has a heck of a time figuring out which one.

If you're already a member of Race's Fighting Legion, I'll be emailing you scans of this adventure. If not, shoot me an email at delewis1@hotmail.com, and I'll send you this and the previous five stories, detailed HERE.

For those of you not yet acquainted with our man Race, the sample below offers a good introduction to his character.

Forgotten Books is a revered Friday institution engineered by pattinase.

And coming in October, this new collection from Black Dog Books features five more Race Williams adventures, a Satan Hall story, and three other Daly gems . . .

A Skyler Hobbs Review - Japanese style

I have a Google Alert on my recently published EQMM story, "Skyler Hobbs and the Garden Gnome Bandit," and it turned up this review by Japanese writer/blogger Toshiji Kawagoe.

Now, thanks to the magic Google Translate, we are able to almost decipher what it says. Read on, if you dare.

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An excerpt from the post "Critique of the work published EQMM 9 / October (first half)"

Evan Lewis "Skyler Hobbs and the Garden Gnome Bandit" 
Hobbs has crowded believe reincarnation of Holmes himself is chasing robbery continuous figurine precision reminiscent of Jason and Wilder decided the role of Watson himself, the "Napoleon of Six", of land for gardening. Holmes parody of things like work. Continuous theft figurine gnomes, we will eventually lead to theft bike continuous. Baritsu to attack or defend themselves with the villain, but funny Rocchi Ann Shah, it was amusing Cozy Mystery. Evan Lewis, this is what Hobbes Schuyler will be published in the first post of department EQMM, seems to have its debut short story takes a further Newcomer Award.
The rating B +

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"Cozy Mystery"? Ouch. But I'll take the B+.

As proof I didn't make this up, the Google Translate version of the full review of seven stories is HERE.

The original Japanese blog post is HERE.

"Blood Kin" at BEAT to a PULP: Is is Prosch, or is it REH?

Okay, I know Richard Prosch actually wrote this himself. It says so here on the "cover," doesn't it? But Robert E. Howard (who wrote both westerns and horror stories) also wrote some western horror stories, and "Blood Kin" fits right into that Howard western horror groove. That's high praise, I know, but well-deserved. Check it out right HERE at BEAT to a PULP!