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Haffner Press Leigh Brackett 100th Birthday Newsletter – December 7, 2015

December 7, 2015 – Leigh Brackett’s 100th Birthday



Today, we celebrate the 100th birthday of one of our favorite writers, Leigh Brackett. Rather than craft a bio of our own, we’d like to share with you the lady’s own words from 1954:     

“I was born, of course—December 7, 1915, in Los Angeles, California; educated there and in New Orleans and Boston, where I lived for a few years. My father died before I was three, but whatever knack for writing I may have I inherited from him. Not long ago I found a bundle of his poems, plot-sketches, and half-completed stories among the family papers—an experience made more eerie by the fact that one of his stories bore a title almost identical with one I was working on myself at the time. It’s a pity that he did not live long enough to establish himself as what he always wanted to be—a writer…

“At thirteen I began writing seriously, and very serious it was, too. I wrote two heavy problem novels, quite a number of shorter stories, and several poems, All in longhand on ruled paper. I‘ve often wondered if editors really bothered to read them, and I have even more often prayed that they did not. This early, or Eolithic, Brackettiana was dealt with later in a private burning of the books.

“Most of my childhood—certainly the happiest years of it—was spent in my grandfather’s house on a rather isolated California Beach. There I swam, fished, soaked up sun, and acquired a taste for beach-combing that has never left me. There I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs and Mars. There I read Doyle’s “The Maracot Deep” in the Saturday Evening Post, another milestone. There I learned Kipling’s “Jungle Books” by heart, and made my first inroads on Rider Haggard. I also got good marks in English. These two things later betrayed me, the one into fantasy and sf, t’other into believing that writing would be an easy profession. I found out.

I sold my first story (in late 1939, to Astounding) largely because of two things. First, because this same grandfather had a sure and quiet faith in me, and showed it by financing me in my chance to write when I was quite old enough to make my own living. Second, because one Henry Kuttner, of whom you may have heard, chose to think my wobbling and misshapen efforts had some promise, and went out of his way to help me develop it.

“I have been writing for a living ever since, mostly in science fiction, sometimes in detective stories, for three years and a bit in the Hollywood studios (Columbia, Republic and Warner’s), and a very brief excursion into radio. I like to write. There are times, I’ll admit, when I wish I had chosen the profession of ditch-digging instead. (In all honesty, I’ll have to qualify that last. Since moving to the country I have actually dug a ditch, and I believe that writing is easier.) But it’s a satisfying job and one that constantly expands and changes because you can never possibly learn everything about it. You ask what my philosophy of writing is—I don’t know that I have any. To tell a good story, to tell it as well and effectively as possible, and to try to grow a little wiser and a little deeper all the time—I suppose, put into words, that’s what I aim at. Whether or not I hit it is another matter entirely.”

Thankfully, she hit what she aimed at very well: her contributions to genre fiction—in print and on the screen—have influenced three generations of storytellers. It is arguable that without the work of Leigh Brackett, tens of millions of movie-goers would not be in cinemas next week watching STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS.

So it is with great pride that we celebrate the day of Leigh Brackett’s Centennial with the announcement of a new hardcover collection of her most famous creation:



THE BOOK OF STARK
By Leigh BrackettArtwork by Raymond SwanlandEdited by Stephen Haffner
ISBN: 9781893887862
720+ pages
Smythe-sewn HardcoverTHIS IS IT! The BIG one! All the tales of Eric John Stark in a single volume. The stories, the novels, and for the first time, Brackett’s working notes for the abandoned FOURTH “Stark” novel from 1977. Need we say more?Contents
“Queen of the Martian Catacombs”
“Enchantress of Venus”
“Black Amazon of Mars”
“Stark and the Star Kings”
The Ginger Star
The Hounds of Skaith
The Reavers of Skaith
“1977: Notes for Stark #4″



LEIGH BRACKETT CENTENNIAL
Edited by Stephen Haffner
Foreword by Bruce DouglassISBN: 9781893887848
500+ pages
Trade Paperback
Over 50 interior images
Discovered by editor Stephen Haffner, Brackett’s unpublished story “They” leads off this tribute volume collecting the majority of Brackett’s nonfiction writings, supplemented with vintage interviews and commentaries/remembrances from such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, Richard A. Lupoff, and more.LEIGH BRACKETT CENTENNIALcovers numerous facets and events of Brackett‘s life including:
  • Bringing Philip Marlowe into the 1970s for Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE . . .
  • SF author and NASA employee hosted Brackett at the launch of Apollo XII . . . 
  • Bookseller Ray Walsh documents the day he escorted Brackett to view a new groundbreaking space-fantasy film in the summer of 1977 . . .



CONTENTS LIST
All contributions are by Leigh Brackett unless noted

Introduction by editor Stephen Haffner
Foreword by Bruce DouglassA BRAND NEW NOVELETTE    
“They”

NONFICTION & INTERVIEWSBarton, Interplanetary Reporter
Meet the Authors
P.S.’s Feature Flash
Hero, Heroine, Heavy
Give ’Em Hell, Leigh!
The Story Behind the Story
The Science-Fiction Field
Meet the Author
Who’s Who in Science Fiction conducted by Robert Briney
Range by L. Sprague de Camp
And As to the Admixture of Cultures on Imaginary Worlds
Barsoom and Myself
Foreword to The Coming of the Terrans 
Answers to The Double:Bill Symposium
Letting My Imagination Go
Avant-propos (Introduction to Le Livre de Mars)
The Hawksian Woman by Naomi Wise
Eulogy for John W. Campbell
A Comment Upon “The Hawksian Woman”
From The Big Sleep to The Long Goodbye 
     and More or Less How We Got There
The Hounds of Skaith Interview
Beyond Our Narrow Skies
Leigh Brackett Interview by Tony Macklin
Science Fiction Writing: Experiences as a Writer
     by Juanita Roderick and Hugh G. Earnhart
Leigh Brackett: An Interview by Paul Walker
Grab What You Can Get:
     The Screenwriter asJourneyman Plumber by Steve Swires
Letter from Leigh Brackett
Letter from Judy-Lynn Del Rey
Fifty Years of Wonder
Introduction to Sword Woman 
Afterword to The Best of Leigh Brackett
Addendum

MARKING HER PASSING
Leigh Brackett Dies by Charles N. Brown
See You Later, Leigh by Andrew Offutt
In Memoriam by Robert E. Briney
Leigh Brackett 1916-78 by Michael Goodwin and Naomi WiseOTHER VOICESThey Call Her for Salty Dialogue by Hedda Hopper
Leigh Brackett by D. Peter Odgen
N’Chaka—“Man-Without-A-Tribe” by Peter F. Roy
Two-Fisted Novel Interested Director Hawks in Miss Brackett
King’s Cross in Orbit: Edmond Hamilton & Leigh Brackettin Sydney
& Inaugural Meeting of the Sydney Science Fiction Foundation
     by Patrick A. M. Terry
Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury by William F. Nolan
Story-Teller of Many Worlds by Edmond Hamilton
Introduction to The Sword of Rhiannon by Elizabeth A. Lynn
The Sword of Rhiannon by Rosemarie Arbur
The Long Tomorrow by Gary K. Wolfe
No “Long Goodbye” Is Good Enough by Rosemarie Arbur
Leigh Brackett:American Screenwriter byAlain Silver and Elizabeth Ward
Future Imperfect: Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow by Donna DeBlasio
The Sword of Rhiannon by Joe Sanders
The Long Tomorrow by Carl B. Yoke
Collecting Leigh Brackett by Robin H. SmileyB & B: Brackett & Bradbury: 1944 by Ray Bradbury
Queen of the Martian Mysteries by Michael Moorcock
Prelude to Empire by Ray Walsh
Red Mist and Ruins:
    The Symbolist Prose of Leigh Brackett by Thomas F. Bertonneau
Leigh Brackett: Much More Than theQueen of Space Opera! by Bertil Falk
Lorelei of the Red Mist by Richard A. Lupoff
Three Days with Leigh Brackett& Edmond Hamilton by Joseph Green
The Crime Fiction of Leigh Brackett by Christine Photinos
Stark Adventuring: Leigh Brackett’s Eric John Stark by Mike BarrettSCREEN STORY TREATMENT
“The Vampire’s Ghost” 

Copyright © 2015 HAFFNER PRESS5005 Crooks Road • Suite 35 • Royal Oak, MI 48073-1239
(248) 288-4756 • www.haffnerpress.com
•  Keep Watching the Skies!  • Haffner Press Leigh Brackett 100th Birthday Newsletter – December 7, 2015

Carrie Fisher’s blunt, magical press tour is already the best thing about the return of “Star Wars”

Carrie Fisher’s blunt, magical press tour is already the best thing about the return of “Star Wars” From Salonfor the entire article go here:http://www.salon.com/2015/12/07/carri...

Let's applaud Fisher, who reprises her iconic role as Leia, for her commentary on ageism, sexism and fandom VIDEOMARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS  Follow
Share2KPost28TOPICS: CARRIE FISHER, STAR WARS, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS, AOL_ON, LIFE NEWS, ENTERTAINMENT NEWS (Credit: AP/Jordan Strauss)Even if you’re someone who’s always been only “meh” about the “Star Wars” empire, the imminent release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is nonetheless cause for nonstop rejoicing. Because where’s there’s “Star Wars,” there’s Carrie Fisher.Fisher, currently competing with the New York Daily News for the title “Legendary American Institution with the Fewest F__ks to Give,” has been making the media circuit to promote the forthcoming installment of the saga, and it’s damn glorious. Because Carrie Fisher — actress, memoirist, former Jenny Craig spokeswoman, self-described poster child for bipolar disorder — is not having your nonsense.Speaking last week with the Wall Street Journal, the woman who has famously explained that “I swear when I was shooting those films I never realized I was signing an invisible contract to stay looking the exact same way for the rest of my existence” nonetheless embraced her iconic identity, saying she never hesitated about returning as Leia. “I’ve been this character for 40 years, why would I not? Because I’m going to be associated with Princess Leia more? There is no ‘more.’ And I’m a female working in show business, where, if you’re famous, you have a career until you’re 45, maybe.Maybe. And that’s about 15 people.”And she replied to journalist Michael Calia’s observation that “There’s been some debate recently about whether there should be no more merchandise with you in the ‘Return of the Jedi’ bikini” with a terse, “I think that’s stupid.” She added, The father who flipped out about it, ‘What am I going to tell my kid about why she’s in that outfit?’ Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.”

MURDERERS' ROW by Donald Hamilton Titan Books

Murderers’ Row is the fifth Matt Helm novel.  It was originally published by Gold Medal in 1962, and it is the best of the ten or so Matt Helm titles I’ve read.  Helm is anxious for a long awaited vacation to visit a new lady friend in Texas when Mac calls him on assignment; Mac is the chief of the counter spy agency referred to as “the organization”.  He is directed to help an agent with her bone fides, and play her second chair, to infiltrate a Soviet ring that kidnapped an American scientist.  Her orders.  Extract the scientist, or close his eyes permanently.

Helm’s cover is a low level mob enforcer named Jimmy (the Lash) Petroni.  His mission: “plausibly,” and effectively beat up the female agent tasked with infiltrating the Soviet kidnap ring to buttress her cover as a breaking down alcoholic agent.  Helm reluctantly accepts the task, but everything goes wrong in short order.  The female agent dies at Helm’s hand.  Helm is arrested for murder by the local police, and Mac wants him back in Washington with no further action.  Murderers’ Rowis to thrillers as the 100 yard dash is to track and field; fast, hard, and entertaining as hell.  The opening sequences deftly alternate between Helm’s botched assignment and Mac’s orders.  The tone of the narrative in the opening scenes is clinical and professional; very much like a briefing of events without emotion or introspection.  When the female agent dies at his hands, he explains:

“It wasn’t the worst moment of my life.  After all, I’ve been responsible for the deaths of people I knew and liked: it happens in the business.”But as the novel moves forward the narrative wobbles from the clinical to the personal.  Helm begins to doubt his motives and even, at least regarding the death of his fellow agent, his reality.   His concern: his “hand slipped” during the assault intentionally rather than accidently, which brings to mind a comment Mac made about the psychology of men who kill for a living —

“After a while…their judgment becomes impaired, since human life has ceased to have much value for them.”Helm doesn’t spend more than a few passages worrying it, but he spends just enough time to give him credibility with the reader.  A credibility that removes him from the classless sociopath to a workman doing a dirty, nasty, but very necessary job.  

Murderers’ Row has everything the Matt Helm novels are known for—action, a vivid cast of characters, a tight and lean plot, and a touch of humor.  As an example of the humor, in the opening scenes Mac explains why Helm needs to perform the assault rather than a young agent previously assigned—“Not one of them would kill a fly, I sometimes think, to save an entire nation from dying of yellow fever.”Helm responds—“‘Yes, sir’….’Yellow fever isn’t carried by flies, sir.  It’s transmitted by mosquitoes.’”        Mac—“‘Indeed?’...‘That’s very interesting.  I could have made it an order, but the young fool…’”The best part, if you read closely Mr Hamilton always explains the title, which is usually far from intuitive.  In this case, “murderers’ row” is a euphemism for the organization’s headquarters in Washington, D. C.  

Murderers’ Rowwas recently republished in mass market by Titan Books.  Purchase a copy at Amazon.


This review originally went live November 22, 2013 and since there has been some talk about the Matt Helm novels on a few other blogs I decided it was a good time to kick some new life into this one.

How Jane Vonnegut Made Kurt Vonnegut a Writer

How Jane Vonnegut Made Kurt Vonnegut a WriterBY GINGER STRAND   The New Yorker







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Kurt Vonnegut, at age twenty-two, didn’t know what to do with himself. It was autumn, 1945. He was back from Europe, having survived the firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, and he had convinced the love of his life, Jane Cox, to marry him. Beyond that, he had no positive ideas, only negatives. He wasn’t going to be a scientist—his bad grades at Cornell made that clear. He didn’t much like working in an office. At one point he had considered law school, but not for long. And he knew for sure he wasn’t going to be a writer. He wasn’t good enough.He was still in the Army; after his wedding on September 1, 1945, he had been assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas, where he was working as a clerk-typist while awaiting his endlessly delayed discharge. It gave him plenty of time to ponder his future. “Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief; Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief,” he wrote to his new wife that October. He wrote to her often, and the twin themes of these letters are his uncertainty about his future career and his love for her. Copies of the first eleven letters are at Indiana University’s Lilly Library, but there are scores more, still in the Vonnegut family’s private possession. Jane Vonnegut was the family archivist, and while Kurt’s letters have been preserved, hers have not. But even hearing just Kurt’s side of the conversation gives a sense of how it went. Jane knew what her husband should do with his life: he should write. And she seems to have made it her first mission as his spouse to convince him of that. 
It would be easy to view these letters as sorry proof of yet another woman shunted to history’s backstage. But their passionate and thoughtful character instructs us rather to re-see what we may have missed—to write Jane back into the story and acknowledge the clear-eyed ways in which she helped shape the Vonnegut narrative, both in life and on the page. Many of the ideas and themes that characterize Vonnegut were born in the conversation between Kurt and Jane, and throughout his career she remained a voice in the text. She was there: that was her.Jane and Kurt had known each other since kindergarten, long enough that Kurt could tell Jane she was his “best friend,” a less clichéd declaration, perhaps, in 1943. He had confided in her for years—since they each left Indianapolis for college, he at Cornell, she at Swarthmore. His college letters laid out plans for house parties and weekend dates, bragged about his columns for the Cornell Sun, and occasionally made rosy predictions about his future as a biochemist. But his main subject was their mutual future. They would be married in 1945, he declared as a sophomore—he placed a bet on it with a fraternity brother. They would have a home with books and art and a well-stocked bar. They would have friends over for intellectual conversations. They would have seven kids. He traced sevens behind his paragraphs and signed most of his letters with seven X’s.
They both dreamed of writing. Together they fantasized about going to Europe or Mexico to work as news correspondents, going to Hollywood to work as screenwriters, building side-by-side studios in their back yard and pounding out masterpieces. “I wish I could write as well as you,” he told her in an undated, postwar letter. “Right now you’re the composer and I’m the musical instrument. We periodically swap roles.”




for the rest go here:
http://www.newyorker.
com/books/page-turner/how
-jane-vonnegut-made-kurt-
vonnegut-a-writer

Forgotten Books: Spree by Max Allan Collins

Spree by Max Allan Collins


Ed here: I'm such an Al Collins fan that it's impossible for me to choose a favorite. But this may be it or at least is very close. Character, plot and writing impeccable. Read it to enjoy and writers read it to learn. It's a hardboiled masterpiece.

This is my favorite of Collins' Nolan series. Formerly a man associated with the mob, though reluctantly, now trying to go straight with a restaurant in the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River. Things are going along nicely until Cole Comfort and his dim son catch up with him. They hold him resposible for some of their serious bad luck.

To fully appreciate Cole you have reach back to William Falkner and Erskine Caldwell. Outwardly he's something of a haydseed, right down to his flannel shirts and bib overalls. But he's hard to peg, as one of his early victims learns. She wonders about a man who says "ain't" then a few sentences later uses the word "conduit." Go figure.

Cole Comfort is one of the great bad guys of hardboiled fiction. A man who has used his family to help him run every kind of scam, con and robbery you see on those WANTED posters in the post office. And not a sentimentalist. Oh, no. If he has to lose a loved one in the process of getting what he wants so be it.

Son Lyle is a twenty-three year old pretty boy who is in effect his father's robot. He doesn't want to kill anybody but just as the book opens he's about to off his sixth victim. He has flashes of remorse but they don't last longer than any of his other thoughts, around thirty seconds.

In broadstroke the story is a confrontation between Nolan and the Comforts. They are nasty sumbitches and make some of the mob men who tried to kill Nolan years earlier seem like nice guys.

What makes the book memorable is its successful balance of hard boiled suspense and wit. No easy task. Nolan is just detached enough to function as a mercenary when he goes after the Comforts for kidnapping his woman (Collins partially modeled him after Lee Van Cleef) but believable enough to really care about her. Collins' description of their relationship is winning and unique.

But the Comforts take the book. Loathsome as they are--Cole is a combination of Bubba and Richard Speck--you can't look away no matter how grotesque they become. Most of the Comfort scenes have me smiling all the way through. Several have me laughing out loud.

Spree is pure twisty pleasure and a major book in Collins' career.
POSTED BY ED GORMAN 

Smith’s Monthly #24, #25

Smith’s Monthly #24
Over sixty-five thousand words of original fiction from USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith. 
In this twenty-fourth monthly volume the full novel Bad Beat: A Cold Poker Gang Novel, plus four short stories, and an ongoing serial novel.
Short StoriesGambling Hell: A Poker Boy StoryDead Post BumperCheerleader RevelationFor Your Consideration: A Bryant Street Story
Full NovelBad Beat: A Cold Poker Gang Novel
Serial NovelAn Easy Shot: A Golf Thriller (Part 7 of 8)
NonfictionIntroduction: Two Full Years
Smith’s Monthly #25

Over sixty-five thousand words of original fiction from USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith. 
In this twenty-fifth monthly volume the full novel Star Mist: A Seeders Universe Novel, plus four short stories, and an ongoing serial novel.
Short StoriesLuck Be a Lady: A Poker Boy StoryPeter the HermitCall Me Unfixable: A Bryant Street StoryClicking Sticks
Full NovelStar Mist: A Seeders Novel
Serial NovelAn Easy Shot: A Golf Thriller (Part 8 of 8)
NonfictionIntroduction: The Tale of Three Books

Robert Palmer’s “Addicted To Love” helped define the MTV era

By Ron HartDec 2, 2015  12:00 AM AV Club










In We’re No. 1, The A.V. Club examines an album or single that went to No. 1 on the charts to get to the heart of what it means to be popular in pop music, and how that has changed over the years. In this installment, we cover Robert Palmer’s “Addicted To Love,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 3, 1986.Robert Palmer’s iconic video for his biggest single, “Addicted To Love,” celebrates its 30th anniversary this coming January. Paying homage to American art deco legend Patrick Nagel, for the video the singer substituted the seasoned session men who helped him record his breakthrough 1985 LP Riptide and replaced them with quintet of high fashion models. “I remember feeling an acute sense of embarrassment when I first saw how sexy the video was,” “bassist” Mak Gilchrist said to Q Magazine in 2009. With Palmer out front dressed to the nines in a white shirt and tie, the video created an imagery that has come to define MTV during its ’80s heyday as prominently as any other single of its time. Nobody in the Top 40 carried themselves like Palmer back then: Standing in a crowd among his peers, he looked like Don Draper on the set of The Goldbergs. “People talk about the way he dressed in the videos, but that was the way he dressed all the time,” renowned studio guitarist Eddie Martinez tells The A.V. Club.Martinez, along with Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor—Palmer’s associate in the short-lived supergroup The Power Station in ’85—gave the song its feral hard-rock edge. “And there was no pretense; he was very comfortable in his own skin. He’d come to the studio dialed in his double-breasted suit and proper tie, and he wore it well. I always respected that.”However, it was the strength of the song itself that propelled “Addicted To Love” to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of May 3 in 1986. The success of that single and the Riptide album served as a serious turning point in Palmer’s established career, which dated all the way back to his work in the early ’70s English R&B group Vinegar Joe. That effort led to a long relationship with Island Records, yielding such choice solo work as 1974’s Sneaking Sally Through The Alley, 1975’s Pressure Drop, and 1980’s Clues. With Riptide, however, the singer updated his approach, coupling the white-hot mid-’80s R&B climate with the equally in vogue hard-rock scene to create a sound entirely his own. Palmer was helped by Chic bassist Bernard Edwards behind the production desk and a crew of great musicians that included Taylor, Martinez (the man behind the guitar riffs on the Run DMC hits “Rock Box” and “King Of Rock”), drummer Tony Thompson, keyboardists Wally Badarou and Jeff Bova, and bassist Guy Pratt, among others. “Robert had this plan for a while,” Pratt explains to The A.V. Club. “He wanted to do a rock album, with Jeff Beck originally, using disco technology. No one had really done that yet, and Riptide was a very influential album in terms of the shaping of that ’80s sound. You know, that big guitar and really bright techno stuff, all of which had nothing to do with the vast amounts of cocaine being used by people at the time [Laughs.] Originally when Robert wrote ‘Addicted,’ it was basically a ZZ Top song. It was Bernard who came up with that bass line, which takes the song to a whole other place because it came from the man who created ‘Good Times.’”“For the ’80s, the song had something very modern to it,” adds Martinez. “When I listen to Riptide now, and particularly that track, there’s something to it that still holds up to this day in a really good way. There are other albums I was on during that time that didn’t hold up as well. But I think the way it was recorded and the way it was performed really still rings true. The whole thing was done digitally, too.” “Addicted” was originally intended to be a duet with Chaka Khan, but her then-manager refused to sign off on its release in fear of her overexposure, as she was enjoying her own success with her 1984 LP I Feel For You. A demo version of the song with Khan, however, is said to be in existence. Palmer gave her credit for vocal arrangements. Khan posted a picture of her and Palmer performing “Addicted” at Wembley Stadium on her website, shortly before Palmer died of a heart attack in September 2003. She wrote, “I arranged the vocals for his #1 hit ‘Addicted To Love’ but unfortunately, the vocals I recorded didn’t make the final version. I was still pretty stoked to have been involved in this project!”for the rest go here:
http://www.avclub.com/article/robert-...

Black Gat Books: Two New Titles

Gravetappimg-Ben Boulden
There are two new titles now available from the Stark House imprint Black Gat Books. If you’re not familiar with Black Gat, you’re in for a treat. It is a mass market line dedicated to reprinting great crime novels of the past. Stark House’s website identifies Black Gat’s mission statement—  
“This is a single-title line of books, uniformly priced at $9.99, offering additional reprint titles from past masters of mystery fiction. Each book will be numbered. Some will have new introductions, some will not.”
The two new titles available now are:
No. 4.  The Persian Cat  by John Flagg. This is one of the earliest Gold Medal titles. It features agent Gil Denby, and is set in Tehran.
Publisher’s Description: “A post-World War II thriller set in Teheran featuring cynical agent Gil Denby. His mission: bring a beautiful traitor to justice. His odds: slim.”
No. 5.  Only the Wicked  by Gary Phillips. This is an Ivan Monk mystery set in Los Angeles. 
Publisher’s Description: “The fourth Ivan Monk mystery, never before published in paperback. A tense Los Angeles thriller with roots in the Deep South.”
The Black Gattitles are available directly through the publisher, and most online bookstores. If you click on the titles above you will be whisked to the Amazon page for each.
Click here to see the first three books in the series.You are subscribed to email updates from Gravetapping.
To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.Email delivery powered by GoogleGoogle Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States

The DeChance Chronicles Omnibus - .99

The DeChance Chronicles Omnibus - .99And the coupon for BLACK FRIDAY at the online store
 CPBLACKFRIDAY has been extended to the 3rd of December.
Save 25% off one purchase... SHOP HERE
http://crossroadpress.com/2015/11/dec...-
omnibus-only-99-books-1-4/ DeChance Chronicles Omnibus only .99 Books 1-4FOR A LIMITED TIME - all four books for only .99 - time to fall in
love with a new series! AMAZON   BARNES & NOBLE  APPLE
KOBO  GOOGLE Donovan DeChance is a collector of ancient
manuscripts and books, a practicing mage, and a private investigator.
This Omnibus Collection includes books I, II, III, and IV of the series. Included …Read more.

Fred Blosser on THE POISONERS by Donald Hamilton

GOLD MEDAL IN THE ‘70s: “THE POISONERS” BY DONALD HAMILTON (1971)by Fred Blosser
Donald Hamilton began the 1970s with two books from Fawcett Gold Medal.  “Donald Hamilton on Guns and Hunting,” a collection of articles reprinted from “Outdoor Life” and other outdoorsman magazines, appeared in 1970.  (I wish I’d kept my copy from long ago: it’s a relatively pricey item now on the used-paperback market.)  “The Poisoners,” the thirteenth book in the Matt Helm series, followed in March 1971, nearly two years after the previous Helm.  At 224 pages, “The Poisoners” was one-third to one-fourth longer than the earliest, tightest Helm novels.  It continued the series’ turn toward more expansive and often flabbier page counts that became more the norm for Hamilton from the ‘70s on.    
“The Poisoners” begins with a familiar premise, as Helm’s boss, Mac, calls him back from vacation for a mission.  Mac orders him to find out who mortally wounded a female colleague in Los Angeles, Helm’s one-time bedmate Annette O’Leary, and oh yes, as a suggestion and not an order, authorizes Helm to take out the killer in turn as a lesson to the competition, whoever the culprit may have been and whatever the motive.  In LA, a local gangster summons Helm and serves up one of his employees, whom he claims committed the murder.  The employee, Basher, a small-time boxer, sullenly goes along with the story and says it was a case of mistaken identity.  But Helm is unconvinced, in part because Basher is too clumsy with the murder weapon, a .44 Magnum revolver, to be a believable shooter.
All of this occurs in the first 30 pages.  The rest involves Helm with a successive array of gorgeous but untrustworthy woman (a Hamilton staple), a hierarchy of mobsters, and Red Chinese agents.  Much of the storyline employs Hamilton’s formulaic playbook from earlier novels and those yet to come, including the ploy of somebody staging a fake assault against Helm or another character, for motives that the seasoned Helm easily discerns.  Compared with today’s world where arsenals of military-grade weapons seem to be a dime a dozen on the streets, it’s quaint that Helm’s weapon of choice is a .38 revolver.  A laser sight on a sniper’s rifle is such advanced technology that Helm calls it a “Flash Gordon gizmo.”
Hamilton’s title, “The Poisoners,” has a couple of symbolic meanings that are associated with the main, interlaced threads of the plot.  One meaning refers to a Mafia scheme that Matt stumbles into, involving the movement of ten kilos of Chinese heroin into the U.S. from Mexico.  The other meaning refers to a bigger Red Chinese operation for which the drug deal is only a cover.  This component of the plot brings back a recurring character from two earlier Helm novels, Red Chinese mastermind Mr. Soo, Mr. Soo isn’t sufficiently colorful, and isn’t on stage long enough, to be very memorable.  Still, I suppose he’s preferable to the Red Chinese villain played for laughs by the late, very un-Asian Victor Buono in the movie version of “The Silencers” (1966), Tung-Tse (the name being one of the movie series’ inane sexual puns -- get it, “tonguesy”?)
To say much more about the Red Chinese operation would give away the twists in the plot, but at risk of a spoiler, I’ll note that Hamilton foreshadows the big reveal by setting the action in LA during a smog crisis, alluding to the offstage disappearance of an environmental scientist, and through Helm, commenting several times on the “damp, chemical-smelling mist” that pervades the city.  I suspect that Hamilton devised, plotted, and wrote the novel with one eye on TV news coverage of Earth Day, the enactment of the U.S. Clean Air Act, and other environmental developments of 1969 and 1970.  Enough said, except to note that, even after Helm figures out the mystery on p. 178, Hamilton still has several surprises waiting in the remaining 46 pages.
You may wonder if the .44 Magnum in the novel was also an attempt by Hamilton to be topical, given that 1971 also saw the release of Don Siegel’s “Dirty Harry,” in which Clint Eastwood’s Insp. Harry Callahan fetishized the sidearm as “the most powerful handgun in the world.”  Nope, chronologically impossible: “Dirty Harry” wouldn’t open until eight months later.  Maybe there was something in the water that year.
“The Poisoners” went into a second Gold Medal edition in 1984 with different packaging.  Aesthetically, the new cover was classier than the old format.  Nevertheless, older fans from the ‘60s are likely to mourn that something minor but significant went out of the series when the old layout was discarded.