Airship 27 Productions is proud to release its fifth book of the year; CALL OF SHADOWS, by well known fantasy adventure writer David C. Smith. Although known for its novel and anthologies starring classic and new pulp heroes from the 30s, Airship 27 Productions has occasionally ventured beyond that era umbrella.
“Every now and then, a project comes along that totally appeals to us as modern pulp,” Managing Editor Ron Fortier explained. “This was such a book. Written with all the sophistication and sensibilities of a 21st Century narrative yet capturing some of the same magic and sense of wonder the classic pulps were famous for. We’re very excited about this title.”
Restaurant owner Steve Beaudine is killed in a car accident and his beautiful wife, Ava is severely injured. After months of physical recuperation, she returns to AVA’S with the desire to keep the business going. But Tony Jasco, her husband’s partner, has plans to sell the eatery and split the profits. Ava adamantly refuses to terminate what had been Steve’s dream. She is determined to make it work no matter Jasco’s opposition.
Then the mysterious David Ehlert enters her life with a fantastic story, one straight out of a fairy tale. He claims to be a wizard and that Jasco is trying to have her killed to gain his own ends. Ava simply can’t believe such a fanciful claim…until they are attacked by magical dark forces. Suddenly she finds herself the target of a twisted, dark magician and her only salvation is Ehlert, a man claiming to have been born in 1886 but still looking young and fit.
Writer David C. Smith spins a colorful, fast paced thriller that introduces a fascinating new hero in the vein of the classic golden age pulps but with a decidedly modern day twist. It is the story of a haunted man out of time seeking redemption for past sins in a world of arcane mysteries and magiks. CALL TO SHADOWS is a masterful thriller by a veteran writer that will keep you on the edge of your chair from start to finish.
The book features a cover painted by Bryan Fowler and designed by Art Director Rob Davis with nine interior illustrations by artist Mark Saxton. Look for it at Amazon, Airship 27 Productions’ website and soon fromwww.IndyPlanet.com.
AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS – Pulp Fiction For A New Generation !
I’ve noticed lately the fine columnists here at ComicMix are paying tribute to a lovely woman I wish I could have met. It got my wheels turning. I’ve done plenty of moaning, groaning, hyping and griping up until now… but I’ve never paid tribute to those who helped shape me as I am. The desire to tell you all about my family is tempting, but it might be more apropos to give some love to special someone who directly changed the course of my career (and all of the subsequent creative endeavors). But enough preamble, eh? I want to pay homage to an amazing educator and mentor… Dean Auriemma.
Mr. Auriemma, or just Mr. A, was my high school art teacher for my sophomore and senior year in high school. Unlike your stereotypical art educator you might think of, he taught those willing to learn that art is a scholarly endeavor as much as math or science. A bit of backstory: The “art track” at my high school was a true four year journey, meant to be taken chronologically, ultimately ending with A.P. (that’s Advanced Placement, or college level) Studio Art. Well, the art bug bit me a year late, so I ended up taking both the junior and senior level courses both in my senior year. It wasn’t unheard of (as I recall one other student joined me in this undertaking), but it was certainly challenging. But I digress.
Mr. A made art hard. For me, this was (and still is) the most exhilarating concept I’ve ever wrapped my head around. You see, I was a very good student. Took all honors classes. Graduated in the top 5% of my class (of over 600 students). I’d happily admit that I coasted throughout High School without sweating over tests, and grades, and memorization. Not that I didn’t work hard mind you, but no class outside of Mr. A’s A.P. Studio Art ever put me in my place quicker. Mr. A never pulled a punch.
During critiques, he would tell me that I couldn’t draw my way out of a paper bag. He said my artistic prowess could best be described as “Craposition”… a term so beloved by the class, we used it as the title to our class mix tape. Best of all? His words rang true, because they absolutely were. I sucked. Beyond the harsh words though, came true support. Mr. Auriemma took time with me to show me where my strengths were, how to hone (and hide) my weaknesses, and explore not only technical proficiency but conceptual development at the same time.
One fond memory that sticks in my craw even today were Mr. A’s dreaded Gallery Journal entries. He forced our class to go to galleries every month and truly look (and write about) art. He challenged us to critique accepted “masterpieces” instead of simply enjoying them. He deconstructed a world most simply adhere to accept. In short, he forced each and every one of his students to take an intellectual leap beyond “I like this.” Most important, when I spoke and wrote of my love of comic books, and that art form, Mr. A did not once scoff. He knew that masters like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and the modern artists that inspired me like Alex Ross and Mike Mignola, should be studied as much as Renoir, Titian, or Bacon. All art was equal in his class, so long as you could apply the lessons he taught to them.
The best panels and issues of modern comic books utilize complex composition, juxtaposition of focal points, value balance, and harmony all to visually communicate what only a 1000 words might. Again, I can’t hit on this fact enough; where some art teachers hand you a canvas and a brush and tell you to let your mind go wild… Mr. Auriemma did it too, but forced you to use the skills and tools honed over time to produce more than whimsy and feelings.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Mr. A’s lesson plan. Tough love gave me the drive to do better. His “acceptance” was earned through hard work and dedication. It was a tribute to these abilities that drove so many of us alumni to trek back to the hallowed halls of Homewood-Flossmoor High just so we could show him what we were doing in college. Certainly when Unshaven Comics published its first graphic novel, I raced back to his class room to show that I’d learned to draw out of that paper bag. OK, I won’t lie. Matt drew the first book… I just colored, lettered, and co-wrote it. But like JD looking for that hug from Dr. Cox on Scrubs, I wanted that approving “Good job, buddy” like Courtney Love wants attention.
Not even a few years after I’d been away at college, Mr. Auriemma got his masters in Education, became a top-notch school administrator, and is still to this day (to the best of my knowledge) now a principal. I dare you to find another Art Teacher that took that path. I bet you find a bunch of paint-strained smocks, and some weed.
Suffice to say, Dean Auriemma instilled in me a drive and determination that exists to this day. In fact, I happily admit that my love of A.P. Studio Art was so great, Matt and I still meet every Friday to work on our art projects. We may have grown beards, got wives, had sons, and bought houses… but thanks to Mr. A, we’re still just two kids in class, hoping one day to make it in the business. And if this bit of brown-nosing doesn’t land me that damned ‘A’ I’ve been after… I don’t know what will.
It used to be, Tom Hanks was the everyman who took us into one film after another, giving us a chance to experience the mundane to the fantastic. That role in many ways has been ceded to George Clooney, who displays in one film after another, a charismatic vulnerability that makes you root for him regardless of the circumstances. He brings that empathy to Matt King, the lead figure in The Descendants, out this week from 20th Century Home Entertainment.
Yeah, we all now he was nominated for Best Actor but if you haven’t seen the film; you can watch the video and see the actor lose himself in the character. King is married, with two teen children, and has his world rocked, first by the wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) getting sick and then learning she has been having an affair. While she lingers in the hospital, he goes in search of Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard), his daughters — Alex (Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (Amara Miller) — in tow. Kaui Hart Hemmings’ acclaimed novel is well adapted by director Alexander Payne. (more…)
Espionage stories fall into one of two categories: thoughtful, well-plotted stories about characters forced to make difficult choices or high-tech, glossy larger-than-life adventures. Most espionage films and television have focused on the latter while the former has become a staple of modern day fiction with the acknowledged grandmaster being John le Carré. His books are difficult to adapt given the amount of plot and detail but they make for gipping reading and when brought to the screen entirely depend on the skill of the writer, director, and cast.
His best known novel is probably Tinker Tailor Solider Spy which was a wonderful miniseries starring Alec Guinness several decades back. This past holiday season, a big screen version was delivered and for the most part was overlooked by audiences. That’s a shame because as we now know, it gave Gary Oldman one of the most interesting roles of his career and brought him an Academy Award nomination for his work as George Smiley. The movie is out Tuesday on home video from Universal Home Entertainment.
The movie certainly benefitted from le Carré being a producer, but it was the skillful screenplay by Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O’Connorthat boiled the novel into a digestible 2:08 movie. Director Tomas Alfredson grabbed the audience by their heads and said to them, “This requires your complete attention so focus now.” Early on, there are a series of scenes, some just seconds long that carefully build a mosaic of images and story points. We open with the resignation of Smiley and C (John Hurt), the head of MI:6, forced out in the wake of a botched mission in Budapest. Soon after, C dies from illness and Smiley is brought back in from the cold to work independently to prove whether or not a mole exists within the agency. (more…)
One of the things I bemoan as a professional reviewer is the lack of graphic novels I’m sent to look at.Note I did say, “look at.”The fun of such material is that, when well done, it becomes both a literary and visual feast; a narrative told with both words and art.
The problem is that, even in our supposed enlightened times, most major publishers still do not appreciate or acknowledge graphic novels as legitimate and thus are not receptive to publishing them.Those pioneer publishers who do are few and far apart.Happily Tor Books is one of the leading pioneers in this acknowledgement and they deserve credit for not only publishing books such as the Foglios’ “Girl Genius” but also promoting them so heavily.
Since its inception as a webstrip many years ago, this manga inspired sci-fi steampunk comic about airships, monsters, half-humanoid beings and a magical talent called “the Spark,” has won three Hugo Awards and been nominated for both the Eisner & Eagle Awards; the best for American and British strips respectively.It is a grand, over-the-top tale that showcases a world where machines are looked upon with fear by the average citizen and those scientist who can master them considered heroes of mythic proportions.
Agatha Clay, an orphan college student in Transylvania, is being raised by her aunt and uncle and has no knowledge that she possesses the Spark.Her only clue being that she often awakens from deep sleeps in her uncle’s workshop surrounded by tools and bizarre, unfinished, “cranks.”These are robot-like inventions that come in all sizes and shapes with a variety of functions.Eventually, her secret ability begins to assert itself and she comes under the scrutiny of Baron Wulfenbach, one of the most powerful political scientist in all the world.He ultimately brings her aboard his city-size airship and there she meets an assortment of characters, both human and half-human, along with a talking cat with attitude and the Baron’s handsome young son, Gilgamesh.
The boy is keen enough to realize Agatha has the Spark and suspects her talents are greater than most others known to his father.At the same time, the great ship is coming other attack by an alien entity from another dimension and in the end, there is a climatic battle wherein Agatha, using her gifts consciously for the first time, helps Gilgamesh save the day.But not before she uncovers other mysteries of her past and her parents.In the end she is forced to steal an airship and along with her pal, the feisty talking cat, makes good her escape, thus ending the first part of her saga.
At 319 pages, “Agatha Awakens” is a whopping chunk of madcap, graphic fun and action galore.Although the first hundred pages display a roughness to the depiction of the characters, it is easy to reconcile this was the first year’s worth of pages and the artists were gradually beginning to know their characters.By the second hundred pages, the art settles into an easy, cartoony style that is part manga, without being overly exaggerated, and typical Saturday morning fare.I particularly liked the use of coloring, which has been redone for this collection.It shifts from the duotone and sepia when detailing earthbound city scenes and then explodes with a vibrant rainbow palette upon arriving at the giant airships that cruise majestically through the sky.
Agatha and her supporting cast of characters are fresh, original and fun.This beautifully produced hardcover is like nothing else I’ve read in graphic form and it truly impressed me a great deal.If you are a fan of American manga, sci-fi or steampunk, you are going to love “Girl Genius – Agatha Awakens.”Take my advice; get two copies, one for yourself and another for your pre-teen kids or grand kids. They’ll eat it up.
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
THE CATER STREET HANGMAN by Anne Perry Published by Ballantine Books 2008
Tales set in the Victorian Era are odd creatures, particularly when one tries to identify whether or not they are Pulp. Using the thumbnail description for New Pulp that I do, most Victorian mysteries and even adventures do not contain most of what’s needed to be called Pulp. Even those intentionally venturing into that era of contradictory morals and inhibitions attempting to craft a New Pulp tale from the rich, though nearly strangling history and knowledge of society of that era often struggle with striking a good balance between what Pulp demands and what the Era signified.
Anne Perry did not write THE CATER STREET HANGMAN with any intentions of it being New Pulp. The reason I read it, however, was that many readers of New Pulp, including some of you reading this review this very minute, have been after me for awhile to check out Perry’s Charlotte and Inspector Pitt series of Victorian era mysteries, telling me that this series featuring a young socialite in Victorian society reluctantly encountering and teaming up with a gruff, rather ruffian Police Inspector most definitely qualified as a success in that wild effort to blend Victorian Era and New Pulp sensibilities.
Well, if her first novel in the apparently extremely popular series is any indication, a lot of you were slightly off.
THE CATER STREET HANGMAN is the story of the first meeting of Charlotte Ellison, a daughter of a moderately well to do well placed family in Victorian society and the gruff, rather ruffian Police Inspector Pitt, injecting himself into the lives of the Ellison family due to the murders of several young women in a serial style near the Ellison home. As the mystery unfolds with the practiced, plodding diligence of a Victorian matriarch relating all her forgotten loves, Perry also gives a fantastic glance into the inner workings of a family and a neighborhood during this era. She shows the veritable caste system that existed while simultaneously illustrating how people, particularly young adults, bucked and pulled at the system, trying to sow oats while staying between the rigid lines set for them. She uses the Ellison girls, Charlotte and her two sisters, to do this throughout the book and does it quite well.
Charlotte by far is the most engaging character in HANGMAN. Clearly born in the wrong time, she is headstrong, plain spoken, and uncomfortable being restrained by frills and lace. When faced with Inspector Pitt, however, she relies on the trappings of her society to protect her from strange feelings she has for him, revulsion bordering on attraction. By the time the mystery is resolved, she still resists the urge, the draw to Pitt, but it’s clear that will not last much longer.
Now, having said all that, notice I barely discuss the mystery (it’s paper thin and lost in the societal machinations and moanings and its solution is telegraphed way early) or any action (almost a total lack thereof, honestly) that the book contains. The plot is solid enough, but moves at a snail’s pace. As mentioned previously, the truly interesting character of Charlotte stands out from the other Victorian shades around her, so there’s not a lot to draw a New Pulp reader in via the characters. Pitt’s likable enough, but the tension between he and Charlotte is pedestrian at best.
A decent read if you’re interested in traditionally written Victorian mysteries? Yes. New Pulp? Not for this reader.
THREE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF HANCOCK’S HAT- Perry’s grasp on the Victorian Era earns it at least that much.
The production of Walt Disney’s take on The Lone Ranger began about a week ago and now we have our first glimpse of the famous masked man and his Native American sidekick. In case you forgot, the Ranger is played by Armie Hammer (J. Edgar) and the guy under the war paint is Johnny Depp, whose casting as Tonto two years backs helped make this movie a reality.
This is a clear departure from the more traditional blue fabric outfit the Ranger has been depicted in since the radio series began in the 1930s. The Ranger’s outfit has gone largely unchanged in comics, serials, television and tons of merchandise so this will help set it apart from what has come before.
Despite production nearly being derailed because of the inflated budget, it was retooled and finally green lit some months back. The official synopsis reads: Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Armie Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justice-taking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.
The movie is being directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the team that worked magic with Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Meantime, Depp will next be seen as Barnabas Collins in Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows, coming in May. He has been attached to numerous projects, playing one pop culture icon after another and most recently has been attached to a big screen adaptation of Kolchak the Night Stalker, based on Jeff rice’s novel and the ABC series featuring Darren McGavin.
Whew, finally. After years of pleasant labor, I’ve gotten through all 182 original Doc Savage stories (counting THE RED SPIDER) and here we are with the very first novel, from the March 1933 issue. This started the saga of the pulp’s greatest adventure hero, which ran for sixteen years and (beginning in 1964) was eventually completely reprinted by Bantam Books. The story itself is well enough known that I think we only need a brief summary. Clark Savage Senior has died of a mysterious ailment called the Red Death and his son Clark Jr (Doc) has returned to New York to summon his five best friends to both investigate the father’s death and to begin their lifelong crusade to travel the world, helping those in need and punishing those who deserve it. The six men end up in the Valley of the Vanished, in the Central American country of Hidalgo. Here a lost city of purebred Mayans still survives, guarding a legacy of an immense treasure of gold which Doc must earn to finance his life mission. During the course of the story, of course, there are plenty of spills and thrills, close calls and pitched battles, which will be Doc’s lifestyle until the last time we see him in 1949. Lester Dent does a fine job setting up the series without making it seem crowded or awkward. His style is already distinctive, but it doesn’t have the occasional whacky touches which will give the series some of its screwball charm. At times, Dent gets a wee bit TOO purple, and his writing is choppier than it will become, with many! exclamation! points! and one-sentence paragraphs. Still, a totally enjoyable read and a great start (although I think Dent and Doc both hit their peak in 1934). The Doc Savage series was worked out in meetings between Dent, editor John Nanovic and publisher Henry Ralston. It’s amazing how many details are here right in the first few pages that will continue until the end of the series. The appearance, personalties and mannerisms of all five aides are dead on target; Johnny doesn’t have his annoying habit of unreasonably obscure words yet, Monk and Ham are not as slapstick as they will become, yet all five are recognizable from the start. Doc’s strange upbringing and wide range of skills, his trilling, the mysterious Fortress of Solitude, the daily two-hour exercises, the Mayan gold with King Chaac and Princess Monja on hand, the headquarters on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building… all are right here. Some important things will be added in the next year or so. Pat Savage, the Crime College, the code against killing and the mercy bullets, the Hidalgo Trading Company, Habeas Corpus. All these will enrich the series immensely, of course, but the first story gets underway fine without them. There’s also the first of many masked super-villains, Kukulcan the Feathered Serpent. This is an outsider wearing a snake hood and outfit made from an actual boa constrictor (its tail dragging behind him) who gives the Mayan warrior sect their orders, and who is behind the hideous Red Death. Let’s check out a few annotations for the record. Doc is introduced in a wonderful piece of writing. A lurking assassin in another skyscraper sees what looks like a masterful bust of a handsome man carved in hard bronze. Then, “the bronze masterpiece opened its mouth, yawned – for it was no statue but a living man!” We get the familiar mantra that “the big bronze man is so well put together that the impression was not of size, but of power.” Doc is described as being six feet tall and weighing two hundred pounds (impressive enough for a guy in 1933). Yet this is immediately contradicted. Renny is said to be four inches over six feet tall, and when Doc stands next to him, he’s clearly taller and heavier. (“It was only then that one realized what a big man Doc was. Alongside Renny, Doc was like dynamite alongside gunpowder.”) Ham is mentioned as having “a distinguished shock of prematurely grey hair.” (Will Murray used this and few ambiguous remarks in the series to describe Ham as white-haired.) In nearly every description, though, our fighting lawyer is said to have jet-black hair, “straight as an Indian’s” and I can only conclude that Theodore Marley Brooks is not above liberal use of dye to look younger. The shameless old rogue! It’s also stated that not only did Monk frame his pal for stealing hams back in the war, but he was court-martialed and convicted. I always thought Ham managed an acquittal and it’s odd to think an officer could be convicted of stealing Army property and retain his rank… maybe it was during a tough period in the war where his services were considered so needed that the charges were somehow dismissed? Doc himself is much more relaxed and open with his feelings than the poker-faced stoic Mr Spock he will soon become. He grins, chuckles and tells his friends “Dry up, you gorillas!” then assigns Monk to join Ham since “You two love each other so.” The bronze man also has no compunction about taking life when necessary (“He did it – chopped a blow with the edge of his hand that snapped the Mayan’s neck instantly.”) Doc isn’t pulling his punches at this stage, and his fights leave as many enemy stone cold dead as they do stunned. (Ham also skewers a few foes with his sword cane, the anesthetic coating still in the future.) And if you had reservations about the way the bronze man killed a polar bear with his bare hands in THE POLAR TREASURE, check this out: “His left arm flipped with electric speed around the head of the thing, securing what a wrestler would call a stranglehold. Doc’s legs kicked powerfully. For a fractional moment he was able to lift the shark’s head out of the water. In that interval his free right fist found the one spot where his vast knowledge told him it was possible to stun the man-eater.” Yes. Doc Savage punches out a shark. If it wasn’t right there on the page in black and white, I don’t know if I’d believe it either. The bronze man has a remarkably fair-minded comment (for 1933) when his friends suggest that he owns the Valley legally and can just take it by force. “It’s a lousy trick for a government to take some poor savage’s land away from him and give it to a white man to exploit. Our own American Indians got that kind of a deal, you know.” (From Missouri, Lester Dent always showed respect and sympathy for Indians and almost always used individuals in his stories who were educated and shrewd.) There is also a brief comment that gives support to those who like to think Doc retired after 1949 to go live in the Valley of the Vanished permanently with Princess Monja as his wife. “It was with genuine unwillingness that he had resolved to depart at once. This Valley of the Vanished was an idyllic spot in which to tarry. One could not desire more comforts than it offered.” He tells King Chaac, “I would like to remain here – always.” But his life’s work has just begun and we, who would otherwise have been slaughtered by all the monsters, masterminds and mad scientists Doc defeated, should be grateful he decided so. I have always thought that Clark Savage Sr and his brother Alex brought back Mayan brides from their time in the valley, and this explained the distinctive bronze color of both Doc and Pat. (Growing up in Canada, Pat certainly wasn’t exposed to a “thousand tropical suns.”) If Doc was half-Mayan, it would explain why King Chaac would be so agreeable to supplying him with the tribe’s wealth and trusting him to defend the Mayans when needed. And it’s a pleasant thought that, nearing fifty and finally wearying of his mission, Doc returned to his spiritual homeland to find Monja still there and still unattached; and that somewhere in the Valley of the Vanished, the bronze man died a natural death at an advanced age and is buried peacefully beside his princess.
A Review of Raymond Benson’s THE BLACK STILETTO by Andrew Salmon
Raymond Benson’s The Black Stiletto (Oceanview Publishing) has a lot going for it but the sum is not quite equal to the parts that make up the novel.
The set up is an intriguing one. Judy Talbot is an elderly woman stricken with Alzheimer’s disease and slowing dying in a hospital. Her son, Martin, is given access to some of her personal effects as he awaits the inevitable end of the woman who raised him. Going through these papers he learns that his mother was a masked vigilante known as the Black Stiletto in the late 1950s and find diaries – the first of which relating her origin and early adventures.
The novel then branches off into three distinct storylines. We follow Martin as he uncovers his mother’s secret lair and costumes, reads the diary and gets bogged down in losing his job, hassles with his ex-wife and his own daughter who seems to have inherited her grandmother’s independent streak. Interspaced with this are the diary entries themselves as we see thirteen-year-old Judy suffer at the hands of her abusive stepfather, run away to New York and begin training as a fighter – picking up skills which will serve her well when the time comes to fight crime. The last storyline concerns the release of an ex-mobster who spent 50 years in prison courtesy of the Black Stiletto and is looking for a little payback in the modern day.
There’s a lot of material to work with here and most of it is interesting. However Martin’s job loss and trials with his daughter come across as needless padding. Judy’s story is where the book really shines although it is not without its shortcomings. There’s a heavy theme of chauvinism here and it’s a testament to her character that she is able to break down barriers, live and train in a all-male gymnasium and hold her head up in what was then a male-dominated world. She also gets a solid base of fight training which takes years and adds credibility to her decision to hit the streets and fight crime. She’s young and she stumbles out of the gate, falling for and eventually living with a mobster. When he is taken out, Judy is looking for revenge and the Black Stiletto is born. Media sensation, crime fighter hunted by the police, champion of the people… these elements are all present and the first person account of the birth of a costumed vigilante make for some interesting reading. When she tosses off a “courtesy of the Black Stiletto” you know the author is giving a nod to the Domino Lady.
It all sounds like fun stuff and, for the most part, it is, but the scenes from the 1950s rang utterly false to this reader. Aside from tossing in old song titles Judy hears constantly, the flashbacks read like modern day prose. I never felt like I was in the 50s reading these sections and that is a major failing of the book. Coupled with the padding I mentioned above and the novel, although short, begins to bog down. Also, as this is the first of a projected series, not a heck of a lot happens for the first 100 pages. This is no lean and mean pulp gripper but rather 266 meandering pages with occasional highlights.
Judy’s story is a compelling one. Watching the ruthless old ex-con drawing closer to a now helpless Black Stiletto in the modern day keeps you turning the pages. However a lack of pace and the author’s inability to capture the 50s authentically take away from what could have been a captivating take on the classic pulp hero.
I give The Black Stiletto a cautious recommendation as it pushes the New Pulp envelope. Hancock’s Yesteryear does it better but that doesn’t mean than Benson’s book shouldn’t find an audience. This reader found it an interesting read and others may find some of what I though detracted from the story riveting, which is why I recommend giving the novel a try. It’s no classic but it does come at the pulp hero from a different angle and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The E-Book edition of Bobby Nash’s novel, Deadly Games! is available from Smashwords at the discounted price of $1.50 (that’s 50% off normal cover price!) from March 4th through March 10th. After March 10th, the E-Book will return to its normal $3.00 price.
They Played The Most Dangerous Game Of All! And Death Was Only The Beginning…
Six years ago, Police Detective John Bartlett and journalist Benjamin West were instrumental in the capture of notorious master criminal Darrin Morehouse. Their story played out in the media, rocketing both Bartlett and West into local celebrity status.
Today, Morehouse, still a master game player and manipulator, commits suicide while in prison. His death initiates one final game of survival for the people Morehouse felt wronged him the most. At that top of the list are Bartlett and West, who must set aside their differences to save the lives of Morehouse’s other victims and solve one last game before a dead man’s hired killers catch them and his other enemies.
Deadly Games! is a fast-paced action/thriller featuring action, suspense, murder, and the occasional gunfire from Author Bobby Nash, the writer of Evil Ways, Domino Lady, Lance Star: Sky Ranger, and more. You can learn more about Deadly Games! at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/101814
