Attention Nick Graniero: I have your book, and I'm keeping it.

When I pulled the Flash Casey novel Silent Are the Dead (1942) off my shelf to begin reading it, I came across this cool bookplate. Just wanted you to know, Nick, it's MINE now, and if my name rhymed with "zero" I'd scratch yours out and write mine in.

You are, however, invited to tune into Forgotten Books this Friday and read my comments. Cheers!

Forgotten Books: Satan Hall in "Ready to Burn" by Carroll John Daly

Last month I reread and reviewed the first Satan Hall novel, The Mystery of the Smoking Gun (that's HERE), and enjoyed it so much I was anxious to revisit the second book, Ready to Burn.

Well, I have to admit, I liked the first book better. Not because it was a better novel, because none of Daly's books are truly novels, but because it was pulpier. The Mystery of the Smoking Gun was composed of five complete novelettes, while Ready to Burn was made from three not-quite-so-complete short novels. Simply put, Smoking Gun has more action, more intrigue and more shootouts.

Satan Hall, in case you haven't been introduced, is a New York police detective who just happens to look like Old Nick, and has a disposition to match. He solves crimes by shooting the bad guys dead. The hardest part of his job is tricking the villains into shooting first, so he can snuff them in self defense.

By the time the three connected stories that became Ready to Burn appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly, Daly already had nine and half books under his belt (including six featuring Race Williams) and most, if not all, employed the same technique his Mask-mate Dashiell Hammett used to construct Red Harvest and The Dain Curse.

It seems clear that Daly intended these three tales, published in 1934 and 1935, to be recycled in book form, but it was a long time coming. The book Ready to Burn did not appear until 1951, and then only in England. This time out, Daly was trying harder to set up a plot that would not be resolved until the third story, but in doing so he took some of punch out of part two - originally published as "Satan Laughed."

Actually, Our man Satan didn't have much to laugh about in that one, because he promises the police commissioner he will not kill ruthless gunman Eddie Jerome. Instead, he'll bring the guy in alive, so the State can burn him in the electric chair. For Satan, that proves to be just about the toughest case of his career, because his normal solution is to put a bullet smack between the bad guy's eyes. Though it nearly kills him, Satan succeeds, and Eddie Jerome gets a reprieve until part three, "Ready to Burn."

The head villain of the piece is a blubbery mass of flesh named Hollis Daggett, who controls judges, politicians and an impressive criminal empire, but has the misfortune to fall for a clean, pure society gal named Nina Radcliffe. When Nina falls for Satan instead, Daggett turns to trickery and threats to win Nina's affections. And when she still won't come across, he resorts to a bullwhip. No kidding.

Anyway, here's the bottom line. Read The Mystery of the Smoking Gun first. A pdf version is available HERE from Vintage Library. If you like Satan Hall, you''ll want to read Ready to Burn too, which is also offered by Vintage Library. A third Satan novel, "Satan's Vengeance," appeared as an eight-part serial in 1936. That one remained unreprinted until just this year, when The Battered Silicon Express Box published The Compleat Satan Hall, a huge volume containing all three novels and all 21 other Satan Hall adventures (for more info on that collection, click HERE.)

Don't forget: More Forgotten Books at pattinase.

A SPICY DETECTIVE eBook from Black Dog

Black Dog Books has just issued shiny new eBook editions of three of their still available trade paperbacks, and one of them is Killer's Caress, a novel by Spicy Detective author Cary Moran, featuring Spicy Detective character Johnny Harding.

Killer's Caress is especially alluring thanks to this full-page ad than ran in all the Spicy mags back in 1936. I mean , who can resist a hero whose motto is Don't shoot until you see the whites of their thighs?

Don't beat around the bush! Get Killer's Caress for your eReader today!

  And don't neglect these: 

Bonus: A virtual cover by the great Rudolph Belarski!

Overlooked Films: The Durango Kid in "Blazing Across the Pecos" (1948)

The Durango Kid, in his black outfit and mask, looks cool and mysterious on movie posters, which may explain why he survived long enough to appear in 67 films.

On screen, though - at least in this film - the Kid is considerably less cool and mysterious. He’s pretty much your standard western hero, roaming from town to town and arriving just in time to rescue an innocent good-lookin' and purehearted female and her father from evildoers. And he performs most of his heroics unmasked, this time under the name Steve Blake.

For reasons unexplained (and likely inexplicable) the Kid's unmasked name changes from film to film. So he might be Steve Duncan or Steve Lawson or Steve Armitage or Steve Drake or Steve Woods or or or. And sometimes, probably just to get out of a rut, his first name is Jim or Jeff or Bill or Kip or something else. Also unexplained is why Steve or Jim or Whoever occasionally dons the mask and does his derring-do as The Durango Kid. I have no clue, except maybe that it looks cool and mysterious on the movie posters. And maybe that’s enough. The whole idea was to get butts in the theater seats, right?

In that list of 67 Durango Kid films, Blazing Across the Pecos falls smack-dab in the middle, at number 34. So I have to guess it’s somewhat representative of the series. The trouble is, everything about it screams cheap. TV cheap. If I didn’t know this movie was released in 1948, I’d have thought it was made for an old western TV series.

The sets are minimal. Most of the action takes place in the bad guy’s office, or the newspaper office, or the saloon. Or maybe in the street, where a bare minimum of extras are milling about. When an action scene is needed, like an attack on a wagon train or the rustling of cattle, we get a healthy dose of stock footage.

The shots are all close-ups or medium close-ups, just what you’d expect from TV, and must have looked really in-your-face on the big screen.

Steve, or Jim, or Barney, or whoever the hell the Kid is when he's not the Kid, 

engages in some unfunny horseplay with Smiley.

Smiley Burnette is on hand, playing a character named "Smiley Burnette," who looks and acts just like Gene Autry's pal "Frog." Except that Frog is actually funny, and "Smiley" is just silly. Chief Thundercloud appears uncredited (probably at his own request) as Chief Bear Claw. Sheesh, how embarrassing. The only bright spot was a 30-second uncredited appearance by Jock Mahoney, who later became a series regular.

The feeling all this conveys is that everyone involved was resigned to making a silly and forgettable cheapie, and were just going through the motions. Hard to blame them, seeing they had already cranked out 33 of them, and had 33 more to go.

The Kid impresses Chief Bear Claw and his pals with his pidgin English, 

though elsewhere they understand real English just fine.

So. Did I LIKE this film? Hm. While I didn’t especially dislike it, LIKE is too strong a word. I’m still mildly curious about Starrett’s first appearance in the role, made way back in 1940, but otherwise it’s hard to imagine devoting another 58 minutes of my life to The Durango Kid.

BELOW: Because the D.K. did not look particularly cool or mysterious on the poster for Blazing Across the Pecos, I'm sticking up this 3-sheet from an earlier film, in which he does. Shades of The Shadow, no?

Get your Overlooked Films fix this week and every week at Sweet Freedom. 

My favorite BLACK MASK cover.

September 1940 - by Rafael DeSoto

Okay, maybe I'm sadistic, but this one just speaks to me. And this ish features a great story, too. The three-part serial "Dog Eat Dog" was later published as the second Cellini Smith novel, No Love Lost. 

Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective: FREE!

GOOD NEWS: There are now over 40 adventures of Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective available FREE in a variety of electronic formats from Munseys.com. One of those is this story, from February 1943. And as a bonus for you Almanack readers, here's a look at all the original artwork.

To download "Murder's Blue Motive" click HERE and choose your format. If you'd rather just read the story on your computer, click HERE and you'll be taken to Blackmask Online.

Forgotten Books: Jeremy Six returns in "The Night it Rained Bullets" by Brian Wynne Garfield

After rereading Mr. Sixgun last month (review HERE) I was eager for a return trip to Spanish Flat, and another round of blazing action with Marshal Jeremy Six. And The Night It Rained Bullets (1965) did not disappoint.

There's a storm coming - a BIG one - and no one wants to be caught on the Arizona desert. So everyone - including a notorious gunman and a gang of toughs Jeremy Six recently kicked out of town - comes slinking in to hunker down in Spanish Flat's saloons, hotels and bawdy houses. Once the storm hits, the blizzard is so fierce a man can't see across the street, and risks being swept just by venturing out of doors.

But Jeremy Six knows that each gathering place is a potential powder keg, especially those occupied by the aforementioned gunslinger and the gang of badmen. So out he goes, ably assisted by his relief marshal Bill Dealing and his deputy Dominguez (on Six's right and left, respectively, on the cover at left).

The fuse is lit when a spoiled rich-kid accuses the gunslinger of cheating at cards, and the gang of evil varmints threaten to carve up Spanish Flat's (and Six's) version of Miss Kitty. Hell starts a-poppin', and Six and his men are right in the thick of it.

Hard to say why I'm so partial to Garfield's prose. Somehow, he always says just enough - and never too much - to set the scene and keep the tension mounting. And amazingly, the guy was only 26 when this was published. Next up for Marshal Six: The Bravos.

WARNING: If you go hunting this on ABE, you'll find some dealers who think this 75 cent edition (Ace 57601) is the first printing. But the true first is Ace M-128, the one that sold for a mere 45 cents. Nothing wrong with the reissue, of course, but you should know what you're getting. The other side of both books is Nemesis of Circle A by Reese Sullivan, which I have not read.

More, more, more Forgotten Books at Sweet Freedom.

What the Surgeon General DOESN'T want you to know!!

Here's proof: Cigarettes make food taste better . . . 

. . . help you shoot straighter . . .

. . . make you a rodeo star . . . 

. . . and help you "Bring 'em back alive!" 

Smoke a pack today!