Castle | ComicMix

John Ostrander: Radical TV Surgery

Columns
April 24, 2016

It was announced this week that Stana Katic, who plays Detective Kate Beckett on the ABC series Castle, was not going to be asked back IF the series is renewed for a ninth season. The reason cited was cost cutting which also accounts for the shortened 13 episode season planned IF the show comes back.

The premise of the show is that mystery writer Richard Castle, played by Nathan Fillion, worms his way onto the NYPD and helps the detectives solve actual murder mysteries rather than the fictional ones he creates. Central to the series has also been his relationship with Beckett; he started by annoying her but, after as many complications and delays that the writers could conceive, they fell in love with each other, acknowledged they were in love, and finally married.

Which makes the loss of Katic/Beckett difficult to understand for me. The show may have been titled Castle, but its core was that relationship between the two leads. Yes, I originally tuned in the show because I had really enjoyed Fillion on Firefly (and the movie that concluded that series, Serenity) but it wasn’t the sometimes predictable mysteries or the often interminable story arcs that made me a big fan of the show. It was the relationships between the characters and central to it all was that relationship between Castle and Beckett. That WAS the show so far as I was concerned and has been since the first episode.

Look, I get the idea that the longer a show is on the more it costs to produce and ways need to be found to cut those costs. I would think that going to a 13 week season would do that but evidently not enough to suit the suits at ABC. However, it’s a big risk.

ABC and Fillion have both expressed confidence that the show can continue without Katic/Beckett but I’m not sure. One thing I have learned in comics over the years is that every time you make a big change in a title you run the risk of alienating the fans. The general reason for the gamble is that, hopefully, you will gain more new readers by making the change than the ones you will most certainly lose by making it. You don’t want to give readers a reason to stop reading.

Some titles seem immune to this for some reason. It almost doesn’t matter which creators are doing Superman, for example. The title is going to be there so long as DC keeps publishing. That’s less true for most comics, however, and even less true for most TV shows.

Could it work? Could ABC drop Katic/Beckett from Castle and hope for it to go on? Conceivably. There will be a curiosity value for some fans, at least for a few episodes. Might that bring in new viewers and/or old viewers who have been away? Conceivably. Much will depend on how they handle it starting with how they explain and then deal with the loss of Beckett. I don’t know how they’ll do it. I’m not privy to their thinking. It seems likely to me, however, that they will kill off the character. I suppose they could put her in an off screen coma but I suspect there will be a desire to close the door.

Given this great love the show has established between Castle and Beckett, Castle would have to grieve her death as part of Season 9. If they have him just go out and start romancing and/or bedding a flock of new ladies, that will be a problem for many viewers, myself included. I personally know what it’s like to lose someone you deeply love and that doesn’t get resolved in an hour minus commercials. That takes time. Castle himself would be changed by Beckett’s loss and, if he isn’t, that just trivializes the love affair that has been at the center of the show for eight seasons. It might even undercut the revenue that the reruns of the show generate on other channels.

ABC hasn’t definitively announced one way or the other if Castle is even renewed for that ninth year. My suggestion – don’t. If in order to bring the show back even for a shortened season they have to destroy the central relationship in the show, then don’t do it. Do something else. Let everyone involved go on to other work.

When Tom Mandrake and I were doing The Spectre at DC, we knew about a year ahead of time that the series would be ending due to slowly eroding sales. DC gave us the opportunity to end the book on our own terms and we were able to put a cap on it that made the entire run one story. The ending completed it.

Right now, the ones still watching Castle are the fans. Do the right thing, ABC. Don’t piss all over them. End the show and do it with some style.

It’s not always about the money.

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #356: RICK CASTLE HAS A SEIZURE

Columns / The Law Is A Ass
May 15, 2015

Aced her Captains Exam, my ass! Based on the level of knowledge Kate Beckett showed this week, she couldn’t have aced a Poker hand with a stacked deck.

The May 11^th episode of Castle was a fairly typical episode of the show. I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing. A fairly typical episode of Castle is entertaining and doesn’t insult your intelligence over much. A fairly typical episode of Castle, also means New York City homicide detective Kate Beckett and her husband, mystery writer Rick Castle, were investigating a murder.

The episode started with a Jane Doe running through some remote woods in upstate New York then out onto a road, where she was hit by a truck, and died. Someone had carved crosses onto the woman’s face, so the state troopers believed she had been attacked in the woods then chased until she was hit by the truck. The truck driver saw a dark figure wearing a mask emerge from the woods. Based on this, the state troopers classified the case as a homicide. There was a recent receipt from a Manhattan coffee shop on the victim, so the troopers called Beckett hoping she could help them track down the victim’s identity.

Accidental death by truck during a brutal assault, however, is too ordinary a case for a police procedural show like Castle. There had to be a complication. Something to give the case that audience-grabbing oomph just before the show broke away for the opening credits.

There was. First Castle recognized the facial cross carvings and the truck driver’s description of the assailant’s mask. Then Castle gave us that extra oomph.

When he was a boy, Castle chanced upon a murder in progress while walking through some woods. Castle saw the killer had carved crosses onto the victim’s face and that the killer wore a distinctive mask; the same crosses and same mask from the current Jane Doe case. Castle realized that the Jane Doe was the work of a serial killer who had been operating for thirty years.

The detectives determined that their killer du semaine must have hidden his victims’ bodies so none were ever found. They were classified as missing persons. No one knew they murder victims, let alone that there was a TV-styled serial killer involved.

No one, that is, until Castle put the pieces together. When Castle saw the killer the first time, the killer, for reasons known only to no one, didn’t kill the only person who knew about his mask and his penchant for carving facial crosses. The killer simply warned Castle not to tell anyone about what he saw. Because that’s what you want to do if you’re a serial killer who operates in such secrecy that no one even knows you exist; you leave the only person who knows you exist alive to talk to the police. Oops, let me rethink that whole not insulting your intelligence thing.

In the course of their investigation, Castle and Beckett end up interviewing a person and Castle immediately recognized that person’s voice as being the murderer’s voice. So with about ten minutes to go in the episode, Castle and Beckett knew who the murderer was.

Problem was they had no proof.

Then Beckett learned the murderer’s dead parents had owned a remote farm in upstate New York near where the Jane Doe died. The farm was now held in trust now and their suspect was the trustee. Castle and Beckett realized that this remote farm was a perfect place for hiding bodies.

Problem was they still had no proof.

Beckett knew she could never get a warrant to search the farm based solely on Castle’s thirty-year-old voice recognition. “And if I searched it without one, then any evidence I would find would be inadmissible.” Okay, so far so good. Beckett showed an understanding of search and seizure law that was more than good enough to you ace a captains exam.

Then Beckett proved she actually understood search and seizure about as well as Cookie Monster understands good eating habits. “But you’re not [a cop],” Beckett said to Castle. “It would be trespassing. You would be breaking the law. But if you found something… And I know how much this means to you. So whatever you decide, I will back your play.”

The show broke for commercial. But rather than watch AT&T’s Lilly profess her love of bedazzling again, I took the opportunity to start writing this column in my head.

Detective Beckett was correct, the Fourth Amendment did prevent her from searching the farm without a warrant. Beckett was also correct that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t cover the actions of private citizens and that if a private citizen searched the farm without a warrant then gave any evidence he found to the police, that evidence would be admissible, because there was no state action involved – state action being actions by any government, either state or federal. It’s called the Silver Platter Doctrine, a term first used in Lustig v. United States, 338 U.S. 74.

Where Beckett went wrong was classifying Castle as a private citizen.

If a private citizen conducts a search while acting as a government agent, then state action does exist. United States v. Jacobsen 466 U.S. 109. If the private citizen is working with the police, than anything the private citizen finds during an illegal search is every bit as inadmissible as evidence found by an actual police officer, because, in essence, the police did find it.

So the question is: Was Castle acting as a private citizen or as a government agent when he searched the farm? The answer is plain. But to make it plainer, let’s look at the test most federal courts use to determine whether a person is acting as a private citizen or a government agent.

It’s a two-prong test, because courts would never make anything so simple that it could be answered with only one prong. The prongs are “ 1) whether the government knew of and acquiesced in the intrusive conduct, and 2) whether the party performing the search intended to assist law enforcement efforts or to further his own ends.” U.S. v. Walther 652 F.2d 788, 791 (9^th Cir. 1981).

Here Detective Beckett not only knew of and acquiesced in Castle’s warrantless search, she actually suggested that Castle commit criminal trespass in order to search the farm for the evidence to convict the murderer. Under the Walther test, there wasn’t enough doubt that Castle was acting as a police agent to give Thomas the Apostle pause.

And even Thomas would have stopped doubting when the show came out of commercial break. Castle didn’t drive up to the farm alone. Castle and Beckett drove up to the farm together. Beckett stayed in the car which was parked just on the other side of the farm’s property line and watched through binoculars, while Castle searched the farm’s barn. But Beckett didn’t want Castle “going in alone.” She instructed him to put his cell phone on speaker. Ever the dutiful husband, Castle gave Beckett a step-by-step account of what he found over his cell. At one point, Beckett even told him, “you’re gonna need more than that to call the police. Look around he may have keep trophies from his victims.” Beckett may not have been physically conducting the search, but she was directing it from long distance.

Was there state action? Hell yes! Castle’s search had more state than the 114^th Congress. In fact, considering current gridlock, Castle’s search had a more government action than the 114^th Congress. A lot more.

Beckett’s suggested plan of attack was one that guaranteed none of the evidence found on the farm would be admissible. Her plan actually jeopardized their chance of catching the killer. Unless, of course, she and Castle planned to lie on the witness stand about how Castle found the evidence.

But they wouldn’t do that, would they? Not even I am so cynical as to suggest that “Effective Perjury” is covered in the captains exam.

John Ostrander: TV Midterm Report Card

Columns
December 14, 2014

Well, we’re now in the Christmas doldrums for TV. The regular series are on hiatus until January or later. A couple of columns ago I discussed which shows I was anticipating or not (So How Was It For You?) and this seems a good time to revisit them and give my evaluations.

Warning: there may be spoilers sprinkled here and there. You have been warned.

The Flash – my favorite in this group. Grant Gustin is doing good work as Barry Allen/The Flash and the supporting cast is good. The writing is also first rate and they keep adding little nods to DC continuity that pleases the Old Fan in me.

Grade: A

The Blacklist – The show has kept my attention and James Spader as main character/anti-hero Red Reddington is worth watching all by himself. I thought the premise would get old fast but I find it holding up.

Grade: A-

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – The show has gotten a lot more complicated and more imbedded in Marvel continuity. Is that a good thing? Depends on your own taste. More characters have been added but a few were killed off in the finale. They’re taking a hiatus until March and, in its place they’re bringing in Agent Carter. It’ll pick up Captain America’s “best girl,” Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell in a series about the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. It takes place after the events of the first Captain America film. The two series appear to have ties to one another and I think it’s an interesting experiment.

Grade: B+

Arrow – There’s some interesting stuff going on here and they’re capable of taking twists and turns and surprising me. They also take a lot of characters and ideas from DC continuity. My problem with it is that it wants to be Batman and I don’t think that’s who Green Arrow ever was. Still, it’s worth watching and, every so often, Amanda Waller shows up. A skinny Waller, true, but she still puts change in my pocket.

Grade: B

Gotham – This may be my most controversial judgment. Lots of people love the show but I’m not one of them. I don’t hate it but it’s not must see for me. I’m not really interested in any of the characters. Frankly, it needs Batman but Bruce Wayne is a kid at this point and Bats won’t show up for ten years and I doubt the show will go that long.

Grade: C

Constantine – The show is creepy enough at times but it isn’t really setting me afire. I like it okay (although some folks – and critics – hate it) but it, too, is not must see viewing for me. The title character just isn’t snarky enough to suit me. He needs to borrow some of James Spader’s attitude from The Blacklist. Matt Ryan is okay as Constantine but they’ve made the character a little more haunted by his past. They want us to like him. Spader doesn’t give a damn if you like Red Reddington or not and thus is a more compelling character. Charles Halford is good as Chas and I’d like to see more of him but Angélica Celaya is vapid as Zed.

There’s a lot pf questions as to whether or not the series will be back for a second season. NBC isn’t commissioning anything beyond the first 13 episodes so it’s doesn’t look great although everyone connected with the show keep making positive noises. I guess we’ll find out in January.

Grade: C-

Castle – sadly, once my favorite show is now running on fumes. The characters don’t have the same life and sparkle that they once did and some of the plots have just stunk. If ABC announced the show’s cancellation, I wouldn’t be too sad. Or surprised.

Grade: D

So that’s my scorecard at half time for the season. Your mileage may vary.

John Ostrander’s 2014 TV Report Card

Columns / Reviews
June 8, 2014

We’ve had our TV season (or series) finale blitz so I thought I’d give a report card on some of the series I’ve been watching. These are my current faves; they may not be your faves but – hey – it’s my column. Grades will be of different hues of satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Here there will be spoilers; you are so advised and warned.

Arrow: Satisfactory. The plots and subplots including the backstory all wound up in a satisfactory manner. Tracks were laid down for next season. Amanda Waller, even if I’m not nuts about how they interpret her, was there and appears that she will be there next season which means I get some money down the road. I don’t care for Oliver Queens’ younger sister Thea, who comes off as a self-righteous whiny spoiled brat. In theory, she could be written out if the show by her exit but somehow I doubt it. The show gets a little sudsy for me at times but, overall, I’ll probably watch it again next season.

Almost Human: Sadly satisfactory. This should almost qualify as an incomplete as I came in late on the series but I very much enjoyed what I saw. Unfortunately, the series has been cancelled which is a shame – good writing, good cast, good production values. They couldn’t have known when they did the final episode whether or not they were cancelled but they ended on a right note between the two main characters. While there were a few loose ends that could have been tied up, emotionally it ended well. I’ll miss it.

Castle: Unsatisfactory. This season was leading up to the nuptials between Castle and Kate Becket but the show is dedicated to keeping them apart. It took them a good long time to let the characters get together at all and now they’ve done a season cliffhanger where Castle, on his way to the wedding, is forced off the road and the last thing we see is his burning car. Ooooh! Maybe he’s dead! Nah, no one believes that. No, this is just another way of keeping the two characters apart because, as we all know, once two people get married, they become dull and uninteresting and boring. I mean, Hepburn and Tracy proved that. Gomez and Morticia. The Thin Man movies. Come on!

Justified: Unsatisfactory. I think I covered this elsewhere but the season simply treaded water, there were storylines about which I didn’t give a rat’s ass, the bad guys weren’t very compelling, and it’s marking time until next season, already announced as the last. It should have jettisoned one or two storylines and wound the show up strong this season. I don’t know if I care anymore.

Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D: Surprisingly satisfactory. Of course, they did bring in Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury so they had a lot going for them but this was a series I wasn’t keen on when it started. However, after the events in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (extremely satisfactory) tied into the series, it became compelling. Betrayals, twists, character development, and Agent Coulson gets a promotion at the end. I’m looking forward to next season. Well done.

Suits: Satisfactory. There’s an underlying premise to the series – that Mike Ross, assistant to ace lawyer Harvey Specter, has faked his law degree, faked going to Harvard, and so on and that Specter (and several others at the firm) know it. The series has toyed with Mike’s exposure as a fraud and did again at the finale this year. There’s a lie at the center of the show and I think it has to be dealt with. They found an out this year; Mike has an offer of a big paying job in a different field. If he leaves, the odds on his lie being exposed reasonably go down and they’ve left it that he intends to take the job. Whether he follows through is something we’ll see next season but at least the series is addressing the issue.

The Blacklist: Satisfactory. This is a twisted series but I like how the information must sometimes be inferred and may be misleading. Characters died in the finale, often very violently. Tom Keen, the asshole pretending to be series lead Elizabeth Keen’s husband, bit the big one. Is James Spader’s character, Raymond Reddington, Elizabeth’s father? It seems as if he is but, with this series, you can never quite tell. Some questions were answered and some plots tied off but there are more questions and places to go next season and I’m ready to go with them.

Overall, not bad. More things I liked than things I didn’t. Some new shows are coming up in the fall that look promising. Nothing terribly challenging, but that’s why God created Cosmos. Oh, wait! S/He didn’t. Not a lot of God in the show, which pisses Creationists off no end – and part of the reason I really like it.

John Ostrander: Television – Coming, Going, and Staying

Columns
May 11, 2014

The word is getting out on the end of this TV season and what’s coming for the start of the next. A lot of the shows, hit or miss, are not things that I watch. Some of them are very good shows – or so I’m told – that either I just never got into or didn’t appeal to me. They may be on channels that I just don’t get (i.e. Showtime) or subscription services to which I do not subscribe (Hulu, Netflix, and so on).

Arrow has been renewed and I’m a regular viewer. It’s a good show, if not my favorite, but I keep watching to see when/if Amanda Waller shows up. Amanda, in whatever shape or form she takes, generates “revenue sharing” for me so I’m usually happy to see her. Not so much this past week. (SPOILER ALERT) I try to hold off on commenting on other people’s take on Amanda but this seems to me to be a fundamental misreading of her essential character.

As I noted previously, Waller is tough and she can be ruthless but she’s not evil and she’s not stupid. In Arrow she’s willing to nuke an American city to take out a threat. Send in the militia, sure; put everything under martial law? Not unreasonable, given the episode’s scenario of super-powered thugs are taking over the city under the leadership of a murderous psychopath. Calling in the Suicide Squad? That’s why they were created.

Going the nuclear option? Frankly, ridiculous. I can see that they would want a “ticking clock” to add suspense to the final episode but does anybody really think that Arrow isn’t going to save the city?

I was hoping maybe they would do a spin-off of the Suicide Squad but now that seems unlikely. That’s a shame. I think the Squad would have real potential as a TV series but, of course, I’m biased.

Not sure if I’m going to watch Arrow any more.

They are doing a spin off from Arrow in the form of The Flash next fall and, yes, I’ll be watching it. There are some other DC inspired shows on other channels showing up. The one I’m most interested in is Constantine, which I think has real potential if they just don’t muck it up. Yes, I’m looking at you, Syfy, and how you bollixed The Dresden Files.

Marvel will also be a presence. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been renewed and, I must say, this one has been a surprise for me. I’d been so-so about it until it tied into the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and has gotten real interesting. I haven’t yet seen the season finale and don’t know how they’ll wind it up for now but they have me wanting to see it.

They’ve also scheduled a sort of companion series, Marvel’s Agent Carter which will be a period piece starring Captain America’s great love, Peggy Carter, at the start of S.H.I.E.L.D. just after WW2. It’s a spin-off of the Marvel One Shot short, and it’ll be interesting to see if they can sell it but I’m intrigued.

Right now, DC seems to be dominating on the TV screens the way that Marvel is dominating at the movies, but Marvel also has something cooking with Netflix that could be a game changer. They’re cooking up four series (centering on Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones) and then having them all in a miniseries as a group based on The Defenders. That’s ballsy and I’ll probably become a Netflix subscriber at that point if I haven’t joined before then just to see it.

I’m a bit surprised that Castle got picked up again. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve been a big fan of the show. Nathan Fillion is terrific, charming, funny and well matched with Stana Katic. The two have a great rapport and chemistry and it would be fun to watch them do almost anything.

However, the show is getting a little long in the tooth and sometimes shows it. They did an episode a few weeks back that involved everyone pretending to be in the Disco 70s. I won’t go into why; let’s just say it stretched my willing suspension of disbelief past the snapping point. You may remember the phrase “jumping the shark” connoting when a TV series has gone too far. It was generated by an episode of Happy Days when a waterskiing Fonzie (still in his leather jacket) jumped over a shark. My Mary noted that this episode of Castle had the shark jumping Fonzie.

Castle himself doesn’t have the same fun and snap of earlier episodes. He’s not the bad boy or quite as outrageous as he was earlier. He and Kate Beckett, his partner and flame, have not only admitted they are in love but it looks like they’re getting married in this year’s season finale. I’m not sure if the writers know how to make that work and keep the characters as lively as they once were. However, the show has been renewed for another season so I maybe we’ll find out.

The only real disappointment on the cancellation scene for me is Fox’s Almost Human. I came in late on the series but I found it intelligently written, well acted, and good production values. I would have liked to see more.

Overall, my greatest concern is that all this could burn out the audience – both on TV and on the silver screen – for superheroes. I think it’s inevitable but, in the meantime, if the quality remains high, it’ll be a good time to be a comics’ geek.

John Ostrander: A Dark Glittering Intelligence

Columns / Reviews
October 20, 2013

My favorite new show of the TV season is not Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as I thought it would be (although I like that show well enough). It’s The Blacklist… which is on opposite Castle. I loves me some Castle so I have to record one and watch the other live; so far, Castle is winning out but sometimes it’s a near thing.

The Blacklist is about Raymond “Red” Reddington, a master criminal who the FBI has been unsuccessfully hunting for some time. One day he surrenders and offers to help them take down other monsters on his blacklist but he’ll only work with FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen, whom he insists on calling “Lizzie”. She doesn’t know him and neither she nor anyone else at the FBI knows why Reddington has offered his help but they must admit he’s very effective – especially with criminals and terrorists they didn’t even know were out there.

The series is derivative and there’s a Silence of the Lambs Hannibal Lecter/Clarice Starling vibe to it, but the main reason to watch it is James Spader as Reddington. He’s charming, charismatic, dangerous, and scary. He’s playing all sorts of games and what he’s really after is impossible to guess. Spader is obviously having a wonderful time with the part and is amazing in the role. Reddington is a killer but not a serial one; I’ve come to the conclusion that Reddington is less Hannibal Lecter than Professor Moriarity.

What Spader’s Reddington demonstrates is a dark, glittering intelligence and that makes him a fascinating character and, in that, he is like Lecter. Over the ages, this type of character, in different variations, has become a recurring character type. Hearth Ledger’s Joker falls into that category as well. So does Shakespeare’s Richard III. Something in our own atavistic reptilian brain stem gets drawn to them. Well, at least my atavistic reptilian brain stem does.

The trick is getting us to root for them although they’re monsters. Reddington admits to it. Why do we do that? There’s an appeal to our own dark sides. The monsters embody our dark urges on which we would never follow through. They’re our dark fantasies – unbound by social conventions. They appall us as they enthrall us.

We root for the anti-hero as well as the hero – if the anti-hero is done right. That’s the challenge for the creator. I’m guilty of it myself; in Wasteland, I once did a story from the serial killer’s point of view. The goal was to see if I could get the reader to identify with him. That would be where the horror part of the story really came in – when (if) the reader founds themselves identifying with him. Look to the recently completed Dexter or Breaking Bad. The popular success of those series – along with The Sopranos or The Shield – attests to the fact that we are willing to go there – to root for the bad guys. They need to know who/what they are, accept it, and don’t whine. That’s what we want and that’s what we love. If we’re honest, we like Loki more than Thor. Characters like that give us a delicious thrill.

Angels are beautiful, but the devil is sexy.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

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Pulp Fiction Reviews and The Red Reunion

Uncategorized
August 22, 2013

New Pulp Author Ron Fortier returns with another Pulp Fiction Review. This time out Ron takes a look at Stein and Candle Vol. III by Michael Panush.

STEIN AND CANDLE Vol III
By Michael Panush
Curiosity Quills Press
232 pages

From the talented imagination of writer Michael Panush comes this third volume in the adventures of Mort Candle, a grizzled ex-Sergeant and his ward, the teenage occult expert Weatherby Stein. Panush continues to chronicle their post World War II exploits as paranormal investigators and within these pages you’ll find the duo’s newest exploits as they travel the globe encountering all manner of supernatural monsters. There are a total of six cases set forth here and each is a well presented pulp actioner, all worthy of the 1930s classics.

The book kicks off with our guys in Japan in “Trouble in Tokyo.” They are hired by a police detective discover who it is attacking rival Yakuza clans and in the process fomenting a gangland war that could severely hamper the city’s reconstruction efforts. Soon Candle and Stein aren’t only dealing with sword wielding crooks but a secret ninja clan controlling ancient Japanese creatures of mythology to wipe out their foes. This one is exotic wall to wall action without let up from beginning to end.

The X-Files meets Happy Days in “Teenage Wasteland” when Weatherby goes undercover in a suburban high school to investigate teenagers meddling with the occult. Along the way he encounters ethnic prejudices, an athletic bully and a Sandra Dee like blonde beauty that turns his head and melts his heart. Easily one of the weirder but most enjoyable stories in this series yet.

Then there is “Lounge Lizard” wherein our heroes head for Lake Tahoe to find a missing crooner who has run off with the his boss’ cash. This leads them into a deadly parallel world of dinosaurs and their lizard-men riders. Exactly the mishmash Panush excels at. Whereas in “Drac’s Back,” Castle, short on funds, accepts an assignment from a group of American vampires to help them travel to Transylvania and resurrect the greatest bloodsucker of them all, Count Dracula. Stein is opposed to the idea and has good reason to be. It doesn’t turn out well.

The fifth tale, “Stein Family Reunion,” has Mort and Weatherby in San Francisco encountering Adam, a monstrous individual created from parts of dead bodies by an earlier member of the Stein clan. Thus do our heroes come to the aid of one of the most iconic monsters in English fiction. After introducing Dracula to the series, we just knew “the monster” couldn’t be far behind.

The book wraps up with “Big City Showdown,” parts one and two and is the longest single Stein and Candle adventure yet. And it deserves that extra space as it has a sense of climatic finality to it. Dracula and the Stein’s twisted wizard ancestor, the Viscount Wagner Stein, team up in New York with an audacious plan to conquer America. The challenges these two powerful entities posed singularly proved to be difficult to our heroes in past encounters. Now combined, they are virtually unbeatable; unless that is, our two occult detectives can assemble their own team to battle them. And this is exactly what transpires until almost every major supporting character in the series reappears for this one cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil.

There is a definitive air of closure by the story’s end that had this reader both pleased and sad. If this is the end of the Stein and Candle Detective Agency, then they go out on a grand note that we applaud. But we truly hope this isn’t the last chapter in one of New Pulp’s most imaginative series ever created. Please, Michael Panush, we want more!

PULP FICTION REVIEWS AND THE RED REUNION

Uncategorized
August 20, 2013