Ed Gorman's Blog, page 94

Forgotten Treasures of the Pulps: Tony Rome, Private Eye

Forgotten Treasures of the Pulps: Tony Rome, Private Eye
Friday, April 11th, 2014 | Posted by William Patrick Maynard  FROM BLACK GATEThe paperback original (PBO to collectors) was the immediate successor to the pulp magazine as the home of pulp fiction. Marvin Albert was one of the bright lights of the paperback original market for detective fiction.Albert’s work is revered in France, where he is considered a master of the hardboiled form, but he is largely forgotten stateside since his work lacks the literary polish of Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler and was never shocking like Mickey Spillane. Albert may not have broken new ground, but he did excel at crafting hardboiled private eye stories in the classic tradition from the 1950s through the 1980s.Much like Max Allan Collins or Michael Avallone, he also supplemented his income by adapting screenplays as movie tie-in novels for the paperback original market. Oddly enough, Albert specialized in bedroom farces for his movie tie-in assignments, in sharp contrast to his tough guy crime novels and westerns.Albert utilized a number of pseudonyms during his career (although many of these titles were reprinted under his real name towards the end of his life). He published three hardboiled mysteries featuring a tough private eye called Tony Rome in the early 1960s. The books were published under the byline of Anthony Rome, as if to suggest the tales being told were real cases.Tony Rome is best remembered today thanks to a pair of campy Frank Sinatra vehicles in the mid-1960s which portray the character as a middle-aged playboy drooling after bikini-clad lovelies half his age. The fact that the private eye operated out of a houseboat called “The Straight Pass” seems to have inspired John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee private eye series, which launched later in the decade. The sad thing is such vivid recollections of the character do a terrible disservice to the books.Tony Rome, on the printed page, is a private eye who carries a great deal of emotional baggage. He quit the Miami Police Department after his father (a police captain) committed suicide following public exposure by a political rival that he had once accepted a bribe early in his career. Tony quit the force and largely retreated from the world aboard his houseboat. He is most at home snorkeling in the beautiful and peaceful Atlantic Ocean. Crime routinely brings him ashore and Rome sees justice is done before retreating out to sea once more.

for the rest go here:
http://www.blackgate.com/2014/04/11/f...William Patrick Maynard was authorized to continue Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu thrillers beginning with The Terror of Fu Manchu (2009; Black Coat Press) and The Destiny of Fu Manchu (2012; Black Coat Press). The Triumph of Fu Manchu is scheduled for publication in July 2014.

The 25 Worst Tv Shows Ever Chicago Tribune

"You're in the Picture" (1961). Jackie Gleason appeared in a prime time quiz show, but it was so bad the quiz format was dropped after one airing and it became instead a short-lived talk show. Even Gleason knew it was bad: "I've seen bombs in my day, but this one made the H-bomb look like a 2-inch salute."

"Petticoat Junction" (1963-'70). Some shows from that era hold up remarkably well -- either as sweet nostalgia or entertaining camp. Not this one, set in Hooterville.  Watch video

"My Mother the Car" (1965-66). In it, Jerry Van Dyke's mother was reincarnated as a talking automobile, the voice supplied by Ann Sothern. Actually made it through one season. Watch video

"Turn-On" (1969). Illegitimate son of "Laugh-In." Lasted one episode.

"Ernest Angley Hour" (1973-present). Broadcast from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Angley's Southern rural lisp deliveries are syndicated worldwide. While he doesn't claim to be a faith healer, his trademark palm-of-the-hand to the forehead is accompanied by his high-pitched shout "Be heeeeaaaalllled!" as the healee drops to the floor, to be caught by an assistant. Watch video

"B.J. and the Bear" (1979-81). Comedy/adventure about an itinerant trucker who traveled the nation's highways with his pet chimpanzee.  Watch video

"When Things Were Rotten" (1975). Created by Mel Brooks. Hoo boy. Lasted a half season. Brooks used the same Robin Hood theme in the 1993 movie "Men in Tights."

"Mr. T. and Tina" (1976). Starring Pat Morita (who also played Arnold on "Happy Days"). Canceled after five episodes.

"The Ropers" (1979-80). An entire show built around the landlords from the nearly as awful "Three's Company."

"Joanie Loves Chachi" (1982-83). Scott Baio's addition to "Happy Days" was a classic jump-the-shark moment; here the shark goes belly up and begins to smell.  Watch video

"Mama's Family" (1983-90). The Vickie Lawrence skit was the weak link on "The Carol Burnett Show." So, naturally, it got a weekly half-hour.  Watch video

"Manimal" (1983). NYU prof could change into any animal to help fight crimes. Show turned into a turkey.  Watch video

"Mr. Belvedere" (1985-90). Starred Bob Uecker -- need we say more?  Watch video

"Small Wonder" (1985-89): Robot scientist builds robot in the shape of a 10-year-old girl, then tries to hide her amid his family. Theme-song quote: "She's fantastic/Made of plastic." Watch video

"Life With Lucy" (1986). Lucille Ball's final, disastrous short-lived series. It lasted only a few months but still tarnished the TV icon's legacy.

"Beauty and the Beast" (1987-90). The pretty gal and ugly critter didn't just love each other; they solved crimes!

"Cop Rock" (1990). Steven Bochco, apparently bored with making legitimate cop series ("Hill Street Blues"), decided it would be fun to have cops sing, and it would be even more fun to have them performing legit, hard-core cop work while they did it.

"Pink Lady and Jeff" (1980): Quite possibly the most demented variety show of all time, this bizarre offering paired two Japanese pop singers who spoke almost no English with comedian Jeff Altman. Hilarity did not ensue.  Watch video

"The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage" (1991). A 17th Century pirate trans-whatevered to modern times has to save a life for every one he's taken. Which, come to think of it, is the same plot as "My Name Is Earl."

"The Jerry Springer Show" (1991 to present). His aim is low.

"Barney & Friends" (1992-present). Yes, some little kids love it. But parents helped compile this list, and it annoys the heck out of us.  Watch video

"Homeboys from Outer Space" (1996-97). The name was a tip-off.

"The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer" (1998). A black British gentleman run out of England for cheating takes a job as a butler to Abraham Lincoln. And it was a comedy. And it made fun of slavery.  Watch video

XFL (2001). NBC and Pro wrestling decide football isn't entertaining enough the way it is. They are wrong.

"Cavemen" (2007): We'll take this insurance commercial, see, only we'll make it 30 times as long! No, not the one with the lizard.  Watch video

It's just so wonderful being me.

Posted: 10 Apr 2014 04:35 PM PDTEd Gorman is one of the top writers of genre short stories.  His most recent collection of short fiction, Scream Queen and Other Tales of Menace, features the Gorman short story at its best.  It includes 14 stories published between 1989 and 2014.  The stories range from science fiction to straight crime, but each has the commonality of the outsider perspective, and a certain discomforting velvet darkness.
The collection opens with the 1999 story “Angie” (originally published in the anthology 999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense).  Angie has goals.  She wants the best life has to offer.  As a girl she heard the term “kept woman” and has spent her life aiming toward that destination; somehow she ended up the live-in of a bigoted small time criminal, with his son, in a dilapidated trailer.  The story builds quickly, and in unexpected ways—not once, but twice—and the ending is a perfectly dark shadow of humanity.
Scream Queen is a rich collection of stories; none are weak and each is entertaining and even provocative.  The best of the group—first among equals, in a sense—is the 1994 science fiction story “Cages” (originally published in the anthology Earth Strikes Back.  It is written in third person from the perspective of a young boy whose father is a “dreamduster” (read drug addict).  There is strife between the boy’s mother and father, mostly due to lack of money, and he has the dream of a perfect life.  A new car.  A sunlit afternoon.  And peace.  He thinks the key is money, and he has a plan to get it for his mother.
“Cages” is truly a masterpiece.  It is set in an undefined place and time; a futuristic (in a bad way) place to be sure.  A gray world with bitter gray people.  The boy’s plan is executed, but not quite revealed until the final paragraphs of the story, and its revelation is stunning.  It is reminiscent of Richard Matheson’s early science fiction stories—it particularly reminded me of his “Dance of the Dead”—but it is wholly Ed Gorman from its sympathetic treatment of the boy to the pity of the denouement.
The collection includes many of Mr Gorman’s classic dark suspense stories, including “Out There in the Darkness” (basis for the novel The Poker Club), “Stalker,” “Render Unto Caesar,” “Famous Blue Raincoat,” “The Brasher Girl” (basis for the novel Cage of Night), and the powerful vampire story “Duty”.  It also includes a few of his more recent offerings, including the terrific title story “Scream Queen” and “Calculated Risk”.  

Scream Queen and Other Tales of Menace is published by Perfect Crime Books, and it includes a very nice Introduction by Tom Piccirilli, an Afterword, which is a brief interview with Ed Gorman, and there are editorial notes at the end of a few of the stories.

Review: The Dark Side of The Island Jack Higgins from Gravetapping

THE DARK SIDE OF THE ISLAND by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

























Ben Boulden:


The Dark Side of the Island is the eighth novel published by Harry Patterson.  It was released as a hardcover by John Long in 1964, and it is the first novel, of many, Mr Patterson set (at least partly) during World War 2.
Hugh Lomax is a working screenwriter, and recent widower.  He is English, but makes his home in California.  As the novel opens Lomax is steaming to the small Greek Island of Kyros.  He was briefly on Kyros seventeen years earlier with British Intelligence to destroy a high tech radar installation.  He is returning for an elusive reason; something unfinished, nostalgia, or simply to see the island in the warmth of peacetime.
Unfortunately his welcome is less than cordial.  A man he considers an old friend threatens to kill him, another actually tries to kill him, and the local constabulary politely asks him to leave.  The locals blame Lomax for snitching out the islanders who helped him to the Germans and nearly all of them hold a grudge.  For good reason.  Nearly everyone was sent to a concentration camp at Fonchi, and more than 20 never returned.
The Dark Side of the Island is told in three acts.  The first and third are set in the early 1960s, and the middle is set during World War 2.  Lomax is lost in the mystery of who talked to the Germans, and why.  He knows it wasn’t him, but no one on the island seemingly had a motive—or anything to gain—from the betrayal. 
Lomax is a classic Jack Higgins’ protagonist; brilliant, principled, and something less (at least in the world’s eyes) than he could be.  The storyline is familiar to Mr Patterson’s regular readers, but the foray into the past is something rare.  It isn’t perfectly executed.  There is some confusion on character names.  There are two with the name “Yanni”; one a young boy in the modern sections and another a shepherd during World War 2.  The plot is relatively complicated and it would benefit from more flesh (i. e. development), but like all of Mr Patterson’s novels it is sleek, fast, and entertaining.
There is an interesting piece of dialogue, which will likely resound with most writers.  When Lomax tells an English writer, who lives on Kyros, one of his men borrowed a book of poetry from his bookshelf, the writer says—
“You know, Lomax, for some strange reason, most people seem to think writers ought to distribute their books free.”
An element that separates Mr Patterson’s work—particularly his early novels—from most of its competitors is the small and accurate detail.  In the opening pages Lomax discusses his work with the E.O.K. in Crete during the war; a right of center partisan group organized by British Intelligence to act as a competitor to the communist underground.  

Harold Adams Dies

POSTED:   04/07/2014 12:01:00 AM CDT | UPDATED:   A DAY AGO
Twin Cities mystery writer Harold Adams, who died April 4 at age 91, was "kind, intelligent and very nice," according to his longtime friend Barbara Mayor. "He wasn't anything like Carl Wilcox."Wilcox was the reluctant sleuth in 17 novels by Adams, beginning in 1981 with "Murder" and concluding in 2000 with "Lead, So I Can Follow." The stories are set at the height of the Great Depression in a small South Dakota town where Wilcox's parents own a hotel. Wilcox, who sometimes earns money painting signs, is not exactly a law-abiding citizen. He has to solve a few crimes before people stop considering him a bum."Carl wasn't a bad man, just a little different," said Mayor, who was first reader for all of Adams' manuscripts. "He was a pretty wild character in the beginning. He'd been in prison, he got into fights and he was a womanizer. But in the last book he was married and happy. It was fun to watch him change."Adams, who also wrote three stand-alone novels, won the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award and a Minnesota Book Award for his Wilcox novel "The Man Who Was Taller than God" (1993).Ed Gorman, a mystery writer, editor, critic and historian, paid tribute to Adams in the Minnesota mystery anthology "Writes of Spring" (Nodin Press, 2012)."I consider Harold Adams to be one of the major voices of his generation of crime fiction writers," Gorman wrote. "His unique voice, his strong sense of story and structure, and his rich, wry depictions of the Depression-era Midwest have stayed with me long after the works of flashier writers have faded. There's music in his books, a melancholy prairie song that you carry with you for life ... I consider him to be a master."Adams was born in Clark, S.D. He worked at the Minnesota Charities Review Council and the Better Business Bureau where he met Barbara Mayor's late husband, John. After Adams divorced he lived with the Mayors in their Minnetonka home until they moved to Summit Place Senior Community in Eden Prairie, where Adams was in the memory unit for the past three years.Gary Shulze and Pat Frovarp, owners of Once Upon a Crime mystery bookstore in Minneapolis, visited Adams frequently in his final years."We will always remember Harold as a sweet man and immensely talented author," Shulze said. He and Frovarp edited the 2012 "Writes of Spring" anthology, which is dedicated to Adams and includes two of his previously unpublished stories.Shulze, who collects opening lines from novels, said one of his all-time favorites is from "Paint the Town Red," Carl Wilcox's second adventure:When sober, I sleep light enough to hear a cat lift its hind leg for a wash job, but this guy was quiet as aging and I didn't know he was in the lobby until the desk bell clanged.Mary Ann Grossmann can be reached at 651-228-5574.

INTERVIEW WITH BILL MEDLEY OF THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS

MONDAY ROCK CITY: INTERVIEW WITH BILL MEDLEY OF THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERSJ.M. BLAINEMonday, March 31, 2014From The Weeklings
for the entire interview go here:
http://www.theweeklings.com/j-m-blain... one thing to see one of your albums achieve platinum certification, but it’s a whole different stratosphere to own the most-played song in radio history. Backed by the legendary Wrecking Crew studio band and showcasing producer Phil Spector’s famous “Wall of Sound” recording technique, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” stands alone among the classic offerings of the twentieth century.  Of course, a song like this could never work without the absolutely perfect voice.Enter Bill Medley.One half of the legendary Righteous Brothers (along with Bobby Hatfield), the duo were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 and Bill’s voice remains the gold standard for what would eventually be known as “blue-eyed soul.”Released in 1964, BMI would ultimately rank “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” as the most played song of all time. It has also received more TV exposure than any other song in the 20th century and it sits at #34 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.Also boasting the Demi Moore-bothering ballad, “Unchained Melody,” Bill has won a Grammy, a Golden Globe, an American Music Award, an Oscar and Video of the Year honors. He has enjoyed a successful solo career, he has appeared in movies and television and he continues to tour to this day, most recently playing a series of dates in Australia.We caught up with Bill shortly before his trip to wax sentimental about the golden era of rock and roll and talk about his new memoir, The Time of My Life out April 15th on Da Capo Press. Before we start, do you remember a blue-eyed soul band called the Boogie Kings?Are you kidding me? Those guys were awesome. Of course I remember.
My uncle played for them. He used to talk about your voice, those blues licks and the tone. You were the guy. Well, that’s a compliment coming from the Boogie Kings. Those guys were just incredible. Yeah man, we loved the Boogie Kings as musicians and they became good friends of the Righteous Brother later on. Hell of a band.
A quote from your book: “There’s nothing about the Righteous Brothers that should have worked.” What does that mean?We should have been the Boogie Kings! Man, we were so opposite. One guy sang high, the other low. One guy tall, one short. We were like a quartet without the two guys in the middle. If you were putting two guys together to make hit records, you wouldn’t have picked Bobby and me. But the great thing about success – and even about “Lovin’ Feeling” – is everything that made the group wrong and that song wrong, also made it commercially interesting.
You’ve played everywhere, with everybody, having top hits on the Pop, R&B and Country charts. Who were your influences?The Righteous Brothers were purely rhythm and blues, black music. Little Richard was it for me, man. Later, it was Ray Charles and Bobby “Blue” Bland, B.B. King. Bobby (Hatfield) was also into do-wop music coming off street corners in the fifties. Stuff like “Earth Angel” and all of that and Bobby was just the best at it. That’s what we knew and truth is, we weren’t crazy about a lot of white music in that day. It sounds cool now but back in ‘62 it wasn’t such a great idea for two white guys that sounded black to get together. But we were just doing what we loved to do.
You and Bobby had a difficult relationship. Seems like you were trying to make peace with him through the book.Bobby and I started out doing songs like “Little Latin Lupe Lou” and “Koko Joe”, just rock and roll rhythm and blues so the first three years was just having a good time. Going out, singing and getting paid more than we could spend and having girls hit on us that we wouldn’t have thought about before. When “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” hit we were doing a show called Shindig! and the Righteous Brothers suddenly became big business. Managers, agents, all these people we had to answer to and that really wasn’t what Bobby signed up to do. He just wanted the fun and the music. Our comfort levels were way different – I wanted to push it high as it could go but he wanted to keep it down and just have fun. He was a great singer but never comfortable on stage. Bobby became a big star by accident. There was nothing about Bobby I didn’t like… I guess I never understood why he took a left-hand turn when real success came. We got along better from 1990 until his death in 2003. I had accepted him for who he was.

Sandra Balzo's GROUNDS FOR MURDER,

Sandra BalzoAuthor at Severn House  The subject line probably ruined the surprise, but I wanted to let you know that my Maggy Thorsen series has been optioned for development as a television series or film! 

From Publishers Lunch: 

Film Rights: Sandra Balzo's GROUNDS FOR MURDER, set in a small-town coffee house, featuring a sleuth-owner and her colorful friends and customers of Uncommon Grounds, to Hartwell Media/Robert Halmi Jr. (Farscape)producer, by Nancy Yost at Nancy Yost Literary Agency. 

Books are often optioned and--yes, yes, I know--most are never exercised, meaning the shows are never made. Still, I'm just thrilled. The eighth book in the series, Murder on the Orient Espresso, came out this past December, but the first--Uncommon Grounds--was published in 2004 after multiple rejections. And six years. (I'm persistent, if nothing else.) 

I'll keep you informed as we move along. But nonetheless, YAY! 

All the best, 
Sandy 
www.SandraBalzo.com 

Clues 32.1: Tana French and Irish crime fiction. Elizabeth Foxwell Managing Editor

  Clues 32.1:
Tana French and Irish crime fiction.

Clues 32.1 (2014) has been published, which is a theme issue on Tana French and Irish crime fiction. A summary of the contents appears below (with links on the article titles).

A Debt Acknowledged: Clues Founding Editor Alice Maxine “Pat” Browne. NANCY ELLEN TALBURT (University of Arkansas). The author pays tribute to Clues founding editor Alice Maxine “Pat” Browne, who died in December 2013.

Introduction. Rachel Schaffer (Montana State University Billings).

Blurring the Genre Borderlines: Tana French’s Haunted Detectives. JOHN TEEL (Marshall University). In each of her mysteries, Tana French presents a different detective-narrator, and all of them are “haunted” by traumatic events from their childhoods or teen years. Through this use of “haunting,” French blurs genre “borderlines” by mixing the elements of the police procedural with, essentially, an aura of the gothic.

Unhappily Ever After: Fairy-Tale Motifs in Tana French’s In the Woods. SARAH D. FOGLE (Embry-Riddle University). In her first novel, In the Woods, Tana French makes sustained use of various fairy-tale motifs and conventions to illuminate her characters and their relationships as the murder investigation unfolds.

Tana French: Archaeologist of Crime. RACHEL SCHAFFER. The parallels between archaeology and detection provide a framework for the way the protagonists in Tana French’s novels work. Both disciplines follow the same general stages of surveying the scene, excavating information, and analyzing and interpreting results to shed light on the effects of past events on the lives of contemporary people.

Vision and Blind Spots: Characterization in Tana French’s Broken Harbor. CHRISTINE JACKSON (Nova Southeastern University). Obsessive watching is at the center of Tana French’s Broken Harbor. A stalker’s voyeurism shapes the case while police surveillance both conceals and unmasks detective protagonist Michael “Scorcher” Kennedy. French projects an actor’s stage background onto the novelist’s page to manipulate narrative distance and reconfigure detective novel conventions.

Liminality in the Novels of Tana French. MIMOSA SUMMERS STEPHENSON (University of Texas at Brownsville). In Tana French’s mysteries, the murder victims die at crucial turning points in their lives, and the detectives find themselves on the edge, neither in nor out, of the cases they investigate. The protagonists become involved personally and pass through liminal zones that leave them altered when the novels end.

Twenty-First-Century Irish Mothers in Tana French’s Crime Fiction. ROSEMARY ERICKSON JOHNSEN (Governors State University). Tana French’s three novels narrated by male detectives—In the Woods,Faithful Place, and Broken Harbour—reveal an intersection between crime fiction and the Irish literary tradition. Tropes of feminine imagery—particularly of the maternal—are implicated in the personal and professional failures of the narrators, and are part of French’s exploration of contemporary Ireland.

Murder in the Ghost Estate: Crimes of the Celtic Tiger in Tana French's Broken Harbor. SHIRLEY PETERSON (Daemen College). In Tana French’s fourth novel, Broken Harbor, the crimes of Celtic Tiger excess are interrogated in a deracinated ghost estate, where the desire for prosperity results in dire consequences for a young family, belying the notion that Ireland’s troubled past was well removed from its upwardly mobile present.

Authority and Irish Cultural Memory in Faithful Place and Broken Harbor. MAUREEN T. REDDY (Rhode Island College). French’s two most recent novels, Faithful Place and Broken Harbor, examine both the consequences of widespread loss of belief in any sort of authority in Ireland and some of the radical shifts in Irish cultural memory during the Celtic Tiger period and its aftermath.

"Built on Nothing but Bullshit and Good PR": Crime, Class Mobility, and the Irish Economy in the Novels of Tana French. MOIRA E. CASEY (Miami University of Ohio). Tana French’s novels demand serious literary attention for their social realist depiction of the cultural and economic impact of the Celtic Tiger economy and its recent crash. All four novels criticize Celtic Tiger culture, present the pre–Celtic Tiger past ambivalently, and represent the challenges of economic class mobility in contemporary Ireland.

REVIEWS
William Stephens Hayward. Revelations of a Lady Detective. Ellen F. Higgins

Arthur Conan Doyle, auth.; Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Rachel Foss, eds. The Narrative of John Smith. Christopher Pittard

Spiro Dimolianis. Jack the Ripper and Black Magic: Victorian Conspiracy Theories, Secret Societies and the Supernatural Mystique of the Whitechapel Murders. Rita Rippetoe

Emelyne Godfrey. Femininity, Crime, and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society: From Dagger-Fans to Suffragettes. Gianna Martella

William Luhr. Film Noir. Mary P. Freier
POSTED BY ELIZABETH FOXWELL AT 5:02 AM NO COMMENTS: LINKS TO THIS POST 
LABELS: CLUES: A JOURNAL OF DETECTION, TANA FRENCH

Born to Write Westerns James Reasoner (Good stuff)

MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014Born to Write Westerns I've read and enjoyed Westerns for as far back as I can remember. Zane Grey, Max Brand, the Hopalong Cassidy novels by Clarence E. Mulford, I read 'em all. When I was a kid, I watched more Western TV shows and movies than anything else. John Wayne, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Hoppy, Matt Dillon, Paladin...those were my heroes.
But when I decided I was going to be a writer, my first goal was to write mysteries, because I read even more of them than I did Westerns.
So I did. I became a regular contributor of short stories and novellas to MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, and the first novel I sold was a private eye yarn set in Fort Worth, TEXAS WIND. A few years went by, and I had written and sold more than a million words of mystery fiction.

Then the door sort of slammed in my face. I had written four or five novels—TEXAS WIND, THE EMERALD LAND (a historical novel written in collaboration with my wife Livia Washburn), and several ghost jobs that are still shrouded in secrecy. But my proposals went unsold, my short story markets didn't pay much, and I needed a fresh start. I saw an ad in WRITER'S DIGEST for a company called Book Creations Inc. They were looking for writers. The company was owned by Lyle Kenyon Engel, whose name was familiar to me because he had packaged a number of book series which I'd read. I sent him a letter and enclosed copies of the two novels I could claim.
Lyle must have seen something he liked in those books, because a few weeks later the phone rang and he was on the other end, offering me a job writing for BCI. It didn't take me long to say yes. Lyle said one of the editors would call me when they had something for me to write. Another few weeks went by before I got a call from Paul Block, a writer and editor who worked for BCI. He introduced himself, then asked if I could write Westerns.
What do you think I said? Of course I can write Westerns, I told him. I'd been reading them all my life.
Paul said they needed a book for a series BCI was doing called STAGECOACH STATION. I had seen the books around but hadn't read any of them. I took care of that pretty quickly, racing through half a dozen of them to get the style down, then I wrote an outline for a novel called PECOS. Paul wanted some revisions in the outline, but we got that worked out without any trouble, and I wrote the book (which is actually sort of a mystery novel, too, no surprise given my background) and had a great time doing it.
BCI had a couple of quirks in their house-style: you couldn't use contractions in narrative, only in dialogue, and you couldn't end a chapter in the middle of an action scene. If you started a fight, you had to finish it before the next chapter break. Neither of those rules bothered me, although I haven't followed them in anything else I've written, only in my books for BCI.
Everyone was pleased with the way PECOS turned out. Paul asked me to do an outline for another STAGECOACH STATION book. Sticking with a Texas setting, since that's what I knew best, my next one was called PANHANDLE. I had finished the manuscript but hadn't sent it in yet when Paul called and asked how it was going. One of BCI's other writers had failed to turn in a book on schedule and they needed to rush mine into production, he said. He wanted me to send him however much I had done so they could start working on it.
I said, "Paul, I'll send you the whole thing. I just finished it."
That must have impressed them. They wanted more books, as quickly as I could get them done. So one after the other I wrote TAOS, DEATH VALLEY, and BONANZA CITY. Paul asked me if I would be interested in writing a Texas Ranger series. He had created one and planned to write the first book himself. It was going to be called VICKERY'S LAW. After Paul wrote the first book I would take over the series with #2.


for the rest go here:
http://westernfictioneers.blogspot.co...

GOIN' by Jack M. Bickham by Ben Boulden Gravetapping

by Ben Boulden GravetappingPosted: 04 Apr 2014 07:26 PM PDT1971 was a big year for Jack M. Bickham.  He turned 41, published six novels, including his novel The Apple Dumpling Gang, and his much lesser known novel Goin’.  Goin’ is different than much of Mr Bickham’s work.  It is a mainstream novel.  Or at least something approaching a mainstream novel.  Perhaps a hybrid between a straight hippie novel and a modern western is more apt.   The year is 1969.  Stan Pierce is 40, newly divorced—
“CONGRATULATIONS, STAN.  YOU’RE FREE.  BARBARA”   
—and going through a mid-life crisis.  His hair has grown to his collar, he purchased a little Honda 450 street bike, and as the novel opens Stan is headed for the road.  He has no clear destination, but he knows what is behind him; an ex-wife, a young daughter, and a seething personal unhappiness. 
Once on the road Stan joins two bikers who are short on cash, and he tags along to a farm outside the rural city of Kirkerville (likely Arizona, but it is never identified as such), and hires on as a fruit picker.  In Kirkerville he meets a young married woman named Elizabeth Faering.  She is everything he wants.  Young.  Beautiful.  Independent.  Free.  The two lovers concoct a future together, but the dream is interrupted by a fruit pickers’ strike.  A strike Stan agrees with, but a strike that is commandeered by a man who is less interested in getting the workers’ better pay and working conditions, and more interested in starting a revolution.
Goin’is a pretty great novel.  It fits its time and place; think back to an age when motorcycle riders were considered hooligans, smoking reefer was an unconscionable sin, free love was the opposite of “up-tight”, and Eugene McCarthy was a saint of liberalism. 
The tension is generated both by plot—the strike and the population’s reaction to it—and Stan’s inner turmoil.  He is an everyman outsider.  He attempts to fit, but he is ostracized by Kirkerville’s residents as an outside agitator—it is not uncommon for him to be called a “pinko”—and the strikers, particularly his two friends, view him as a traitor.  His affair with Liz ends badly—although not unexpectedly—and it is written with a powerful simplicity, which makes Stan’s emotional pain visceral.
Goin’ was published as a paperback original by Paperback Library in July 1971, and to my knowledge it has never seen print again.  You are subscribed to email updates from Gravetapping