Crown no 1 The Sweet and Sour Kill by Terry Harknett

Originally published by Futura Books 1974

Pinnacle version 1974

Terry Harknett (1936- 2019) was a UK author of Crime and Western fiction including the notorious Edge series. Pseudonyms include Frank Chandler, George G Gilman, Adam Hardy, Jane Harmon, Joseph Hedges, William M James, Charles R Pike, William Pine, Thomas H Stone, and William Terry.

The Crown Series had three entries

The Sweet and Sour Kill 1974

Macao Mayhem 1974

Bamboo Shoot-out 1975

The basic premise: Grandpa and Grandma Chang have closed their Hong Kong Island tailor shop for the night. Two hoods break in and demand “insurance” money. The Changs reply they have already paid it. Thugs say, too bad, there’s a new company in town, smash up the place, smash up the Changs and burn down the building. Their cop grandson Po Chang is back from a US trip. He arrives on the scene in time to run into the building and grab grandpa Chang for his dying words, …”insurance.” Now with his Australian born boss/partner John Crown they hit the Hong Kong crime underground in search of this new murderous faction moving into their city.

What we have here is violent revenge justice mixed with kung-fu b-movie action. This was originally published in 1974 so that would have been the zenith of both of those genres.

The relationship of the tough talking Australian cop and the more soft-spoken Chinese cop reminded me a bit of Big Trouble in Little China.

Po Chang is the native. He is a master of Kung Fu and is dead set on revenge as he should be. He’s angry and always on the verge of losing control but knows to stop right at the edge of the line. The story focuses mainly on him.

Crown’s introduction starts with him chugging whiskey from the bottle in a brothel. He’s not there for the ladies, he just likes to hangout. He’s an alcoholic macho Australian white guy in a foreign world where he barrels through people with zero regard to proper police procedure. He has a sad backstory where his wife and kid leave him and go back to Australia. It’s great because it’s supposed to justify his bad behavior but the reason they left is all on him. He’s the one who decided to stay in Hong Kong. Maybe to suggest a fallible nature? To give him heart? Sympathy? Eh. I just thought it was funny.

There are hilarious interactions with Po Chang and this well-off woman he met on the plane. He borrows her car and gangsters wreck it. He goes back to her apartment with Crown who proceeds to have an argument with her and then backhands her so hard that she flips out of her chair. She then immediately sleeps with Po while both make cheesy sexual innuendo jokes about outlets and getting into the right places. Post coitus there is knock on the door. More gangsters. She then gets knocked unconscious with the butt of a gun and when she regains consciousness, she spits out a couple more sex jokes and orally attacks Chang’s wang. (Hey! Good enough for them, good enough for me). And this is basically all in one chapter. Her character is comically absurd in its obviousness BUT there is some suggestion that she may have more to do with the plot than just being there when Po needs a car, a home base or to get his willy wet. Does it deliver?

This is an investigation novel worthy of a 70s cop show. It’s seedy and scummy. There is a gay cowboy bar where they use that other F word quite liberally. An uber rich American bad guy on a yacht. There are double crosses, drugs, explosions, tough violent cops, reserved violent criminals, fist fights and shoot outs and god damn kung fu. It was lots of dumb fun.

It could have used a little more kung fu though.

Crime Partners by Donald Goines

Originally printed in 1974 by Holloway House under the pseudonym Al C. Clark.

Donald Goines (1936-1974) had a tumultuous life to say the least. Though he grew up in a middle-class family in north central Detroit in the 40s, he dropped out of school in the ninth grade at the age of fifteen, got a fake birth certificate and joined the Air Force during the Korean war. It was during his time in Korea that he discovered heroin. He returned to Detroit and became a pimp and a drug dealer. He was in and out of prison for armed robbery and bootlegging whiskey. While incarcerated he became interested in writing. At first, he tried his hand at westerns, having loved watching the movies on TV when he was a kid. He came upon a novel called Trick Baby by Chicago pimp/author, Iceberg Slim and was inspired to ditch the westerns and write about the world he knew. He cranked out sixteen books in four years. Eight of them in 1974. He would shoot heroin and blast out the stories like Stephen King coked out on Christine always needing that paycheck to pay for his next fix.

Goines was murdered along with his girlfriend in their apartment on Oct 21st 1974. Both were shot five times by two unidentified white men while their two toddler children watched. To this day it is still unsolved. There has been speculation that Goines, who often included real people from the street in his books, possibly rubbed someone the wrong way. It could have also been money owed for drugs. Maybe it was a robbery gone bad? Ironically, the beginning of the book in this review, Crime Partners starts off in a similar way.

Crime Partners is the first in a four-part series featuring Kenyatta who is the leader of a black militant group.

Crime Partners 1974

Death List 1974

Kenyatta’s Escape 1974

Kenyatta’s Last Hit 1975 (finished just before his death and published posthumously)

Kenyatta is named after Jomo Kenyatta who was the Prime Minister of Kenya from 63 to 64 and then became Kenya’s first president from 64 to 78. He was an African Nationalist and led the Kenya African National Union which helped separate Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic.

The basic premise: Two hitmen team up with a black militant extremist group to take out cops and drug dealers from their neighborhood in 1970s Detroit.

The titular crime partners are Billy and Jackie. They have been recently released from prison and need some quick cash, so they decide to rob a junkie. Which, yeah, junkies are the last people with money, so it was an odd choice, but it did give the story a situation (no spoiler) to add a dimension to them to show that they aren’t just ruthless killers, they do have heart. Heads up, it will definitely make you think twice about continuing to read. It’s some brutal shit.

We are introduced to a black and white homicide team of Benson and Ryan. While investigating the junkies murder, Benson is walking around to the back of the building when a white cop tells him to freeze. Apparently, he’s never seen Benson before. He calls him racial slurs. Benson keeps his cool. He doesn’t feel the need to explain to this subordinate officer that he is not only a cop but a homicide detective. Benson’s white partner, Ryan comes running up and only then does the cop take his gun off Benson.

It's interesting that Goines used the scenario where the officer points the gun at Detective Benson to show the racial prejudice. It hits harder than if he had written a more street scenario. Like even being a cop won’t stop the hate. It’s powerful. And to add to the complexity, Ryan the white partner of Benson, is absolutely livid about the racist attitudes towards his partner. In this scene Goines shows two sides of the blue coin which I thought was fair. If this were written today it would have been heavy handed either for or against with no shades of grey.

The perspective switches back to Billy and Jackie. They need new guns. They have a connection named Kenyatta. But Kenyatta explains to them that he’s not an arms dealer and every time he sells guns to them, it’s less guns for his people. We then learn that Kenyatta is the leader of a radical black militant group whose plan is to clean up the streets of Detroit in the black neighborhoods by removing the prostitutes, drug dealers and racist cops. Kenyatta appreciates the reputation Billy and Jackie have as stone-cold killers and enlists them for a mission. The mission? He plans to erase from existence a racist cop (the one who pointed a gun at Benson). The fellas are all in.

From then on, we see the world and ideals of Kenyatta through the eyes of Billy and Jackie. They are shown love and respect and are treated like family. They meet some lovely ladies for some actual touching moments. And they murder more people. Though they don’t take out anybody who you’re going to cry over. Once again, in real life, a little too far. In novelization, just what the doctor ordered.

If this was written scholarly instead of from the street it would be considered “literature.” Though I have read where Goines is taught in some college courses. It is less a straightforward plot and more of a snippet of the landscape of urban Detroit in the 70s. The plot is there but it’s the characters that matter. And what makes me lean towards that literature moniker is that the message is open to interpretation. Nothing is spoon fed to you here. There is no clear cut, good guys versus bad guys. In Goines world it’s all shades of bad. In fact, I wonder if Goines even had a clear-cut agenda other than to give a behind the curtain view of this world.

As far as the writing goes, yeah, it’s a little amateurish, especially in the phrasing of the dialogue (not the slang- that’s perfect), but it’s overshadowed by the overall atmosphere. Also, the detective characters storyline gradually disappears. It was almost like he set out to make a police investigation novel and decided the Kenyatta plotline was more interesting, so he went that way.

I love the moral ambiguity of this.

This book is not for the faint of heart. No one was writing stuff like this. Goines was a trailblazer. On a shelf of gritty hardboiled fiction books his standout as the bleakest and unfortunately the most realistic. But he also adds a layer of heart and remorse, kinship and honor. This is must read material for anyone interested in the crime fiction genre.

Flip Through- The Art of Ron Lesser Vol 1- Vintage Paperback Artwork

I just posted a new flip through video of the beautiful book The Art of Ron Lesser: Deadly Dames and Sexy Sirens Vol 1 up on our Youtube channel (at the bottom of this post). You can snag yourself a copy over at MensPulpMags.com

Aftershock by Robert W Walker

St. Martin’s Press 1987

(Don't feel like reading? There is a video review at the bottom of the post.)

Author Robert W Walker was born in 1948, has published 44 novels and is still kicking with a brand-new mystery-thriller series released in 2024 titled Blue Vegas. Aftershock is his third published novel. While scanning his output it seems he mostly wrote horror, followed by mystery and then some other random genres like Viking and military. He wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Caine, Glenn Hale, Evan Kingsbury and Stephen Robertson.

The basic premise: LA is hit by an enormous earthquake. Underground in a secret lab a scientist couple are working on a biochemical weapon. In the middle of an experiment the earthquake topples the ceiling, they are exposed, die horrible deaths and a mutant creature is born of their robot… and the virus (???). Up top, two doctors help the survivors of the quake. A newscaster investigates. The mutant monster crawls to the surface and eats brains.

Sounds like crazy fun, right?

Well, unfortunately a lot of time is spent on the after-disaster. And normally I love disaster stories. People from different backgrounds banding together despite their differences. The cliché character that sacrifices themselves to save others. The connection we feel as our fellow humans fight for survival. When you put aside your petty differences, your political affiliations, your religion, your race and you grab that person’s hand to pull them up out of the wreckage. It touches the heart. It re-human’s humanity. We’re in this together!!

But man was this slow. The earthquake happens right at the beginning and it’s over in a blink. What we’re left with is rubble. A true disaster novel would have built up to the earthquake. You would have learned the characters and cared what happened to them as the earthquake was happening. Maybe different wild scenarios of building falling terror and struggles to survive. But nope. Just a bunch of body bags filling up Dodger Stadium.

The monster! It’s what we’re here for. The gore dripping physical description, and its hulking and stalking would fit right in with a 60s B horror movie. Bonus: The monster on the cover is pretty damn close to the description in the book. That was definitely enjoyable. Its creation is crazy convoluted but yeah, who cares, I’m not looking for literature here. It’s part machine as its the scientist’s robot that helped with the biochemical weapon experiment and then somehow it becomes a sentient organic mutant when it’s exposed to the virus. I think. From there it slowly makes its way through the miles of rubble searching for food. What it craves is human brains, of course. Why? Why not?!

And as cool as that monster premise is I feel a misstep was taken in trying to give it more depth than the story needed. Along with huntin’ for brains, it has thoughts of killing itself. It has an inner monologue, and it just whines and whines. This monster is literally sitting in its basement, crying and listening to Elliot Smith records. Ok, maybe not the Elliot Smith part but everything else, yes. It wallows in self-pity constantly. The perspective jumps around from the survivors to the monster and as soon as the narrative switched over to the monster, I would give a sigh and muscle through it. About three quarters of the way through the monster does comes to life and starts ripping out people’s spinal cords but it’s a trek to get there.

The human characters aren’t much better. There is a cheesy romance subplot between the two cardboard doctors. When they are in the story, they are either instantly falling in love and having tepid sex scenes or going on in ultra detail about medical and scientific jargon. I mean, it all sounded impressive if it’s factual but once again, audible groan when it would start up.

There is a pushy half-Japanese reporter. He’s borderline cliché but they do give him a little depth. He is completely about breaking the big story, but it does come across that he actually cares about people. He has a Hispanic sidekick who is pretty much relegated to picking up corpses and taking them to Dodger Stadium.

There are a couple characters I enjoyed. One from Mexico and the other from Sweden who are now a team of super tunnelers that travel around to get people out from the rubble of earthquakes. Two survivors from different backgrounds where huge earthquakes decimated their homes. I can’t remember if it’s their business or they just happened to be in town, survived yet another earthquake and then stuck around to help or what but either way, they were definitely the most interesting characters. Unfortunately, they are side characters and don’t last too long in the story.

It wasn’t all bad though. It was pretty gory. When that monster started ripping heads off it was incredibly descriptive and gooey. It has mad 80s flavor. It name drops Dungeons and Dragons and Tony Danza. Before the doctors become disaster doctors they are working on a cure for AIDS. Basically, the first two chapters were entertaining and then the last six were good. In full disclosure, I started skimming around the 60% mark. Between the extensive medical and science terminology and the whining mutant, I just couldn’t take it. BUT if you are a fan of virus outbreak or a depressed teenage mutant robot unsure of your place in the world, this book is for you.

Nolan no. 1 Bait Money by Max Allan Collins

Pinnacle Books 1981

Cover artist: Ed Abrams

(Don't feel like reading? There is a video review at the bottom of the post)

Max Allan Collins is a prolific writer in the pop culture world including everything from writing established comics like Dick Tracy and Batman to novelizations of blockbuster movies like Saving Private Ryan, The Mummy and Waterworld, he created the graphic novel series Road to Perdition, which was made into a movie, and music wise was in a 60s psyche garage band called The Daybreakers who had a minor hit with their song Psychedelic Siren. His list of credentials is too much to mention here but it’s incredibly productive. Chances are you have read or watched something that he has had a hand in.

My favorite Max Allan Collins creation is the Quarry series about a Marine sniper who returns from Vietnam and becomes an assassin. So, I was excited when I was at the bookstore and spotted this Nolan no 1- Bait Money as I knew from listening to the Paperback Warrior Podcast that this was Collins professional thief series inspired by Richard Stark’s Parker series.

There are eleven entries in the series so far. Nine in the original run from 1973 to 1991 and then he brought the character back in 2020 and the most recent entry in 2021. So, he’s about due for another, eh?

The basic premise: Nolan is a professional thief in hiding. Sixteen years prior he had a falling out with The Family when he killed the brother of an up-and-coming major player. Nolan is spotted by one of the crew in his hideout town and takes a bullet. Worse than the hole in his body is the family member ransacked his place and got ahold of his false identity which was attached to all of Nolan’s thief retirement money. While holed up healing with a jiggly waitress, Nolan decides it’s time to go back to Idaho and see if he can come to an agreement with his enemy to get his identity back. To save face the mobster says sure, but you owe me 100k and you have to pay me back with stolen money. Which means, one last job.

Even though the cover art on this screams over-produced Men’s Adventure (which I love- not knocking it), the writing in this is levels above the standard machismo fare. Not to say that Nolan isn’t a steel hardened bad ass though. In the story he is described as looking like Lee Van Cleef (on the cover he’s looking a little more like Barney Miller). He’s tough but not too tough. He’s not a superman but is lean and strong, consuming mass amounts of cigarettes and a stray beer here or there. He’s a working-class anti-hero. A classic John Dillinger sort.

The story starts at a mid-point with Nolan recuperating at the woman’s apartment. You have no idea who he is or why he’s shot but the story keeps moving. The plot and the backstory blend together as one wheel rolling forward. It gives the storyline an almost non-linear feel to it.

The book is filled with nefariously enjoyable criminal underworld associates. Mobsters obviously but what was more interesting were the heist world characters. A man that puts the jobs together with the quite literal name of Planner. A reckless and angry revolutionary hippy willing to do whatever to get money to buy his land far from the world. His thrill-seeking girlfriend. And there is one character in particular who Nolan must team up with that I thoroughly enjoyed and that’s Jon the comic book collector. He collects old comic strips and Big Little Books and all this lesser-known ephemera that only someone who collects old stuff would know or be able to relate to. It made me feel like Collins is one of us. He’s a fan also not just a creator. I just personally connected with it. Also, we have a giant ex-football player thug, an arms dealer who runs a vending machine company and a few henchmen with actual personalities. I imagine Guy Ritchie read some of Collins books before he made the movies Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrells and Snatch.

Collins flesh’s out his characters so well and has a gift for writing scenes so vividly that after I finished this it felt more like I just got done watching a movie than reading a book.

The pacing is quick, which is surprising considering a chunk of the book is them mapping out the robbery. Nolan is meticulous. The tension obviously rides high on will they get away with it but there are character factors rocking the boat also. Is Nolan’s team dependable? And in the world of thieves, you can only trust your accomplice so far. Not to mention Nolan still has the Family on his back and not all members got the update to not execute on sight.

Definitely one of my favorite reads so far this year.

The Sorcerers by David St John

Fawcett Crest 1969

Cover art: Jeff Jones

David St John is one of the many pseudonyms of E Howard Hunt. Others are; Robert Dietrich, Gordon Davis, and P.S. Donoghue. Hunt was a CIA operative from 1949 to 1970. In World War 2 he was in China as a spy working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which was basically the CIA before it existed. He was involved in various questionable scandals including the Bay of Pigs, the Watergate scandal (which he did prison time for), the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’etat and for all you conspiracy fans out there, he was part of the CIA’s Domestic Operations Division which would manipulate US news and publishing organizations. And since we’ve already thrown the conspiracy word in there lets also mention he may have had a hand in the JFK and Martin Luther King assignations. Normally I wouldn’t throw in rumors but this guy’s whole being was misinformation so it’s hard to actually know the truth. But when it comes to him being behind all of these tumultuous historical occurrences well, I want to believe.

The Sorcerers is part of the Peter Ward series that had nine entries from 1965 to 1972. The Sorcerers was entry no 8. Supposedly, the Peter Ward character was created as an American reaction to James Bond at the request of deputy chief of intelligence of the CIA, John A McCone. And if all of them read like this one they are essentially American propaganda for democracy. But honestly, most US spy books are or at least throw it in there to cater to that audience. This one is just a little less subtle about it.

The basic premise: CIA agent Peter Ward has been contacted by his Canadian counterpart to investigate a possible connection between Canadian embassy and NATO affairs man Waring and the Russians. Waring has been talking but it’s because the Russians have kidnapped is twenty-year-old daughter. Ward must find out if this is true and if it is, bring the girl back home. The trail leads to a black magic cult. Ward goes undercover and as he gets deeper things aren’t all what they seem.

So many things to say. First off, the first half of this was very conspiracy episode X-Files in tone and mood. What. A. Treat. I’ve watched every X-Files episode multiple times. I love that show. Unfortunately, unlike the X-Files where the supernatural is real, the black magic in Sorcerers is not. Or is it?

Fun fact: The Cigarette Smoking Man was partly inspired by E Howard Hunt.

In my eyes, the book is split into two parts. The first portion is the investigation into the missing girl. Along the trail he uncovers the black magic cult. It was idealized spy fiction with occult overtones. Lots of conspiracy misdirection from people who may or may not have something to do with the kidnapping. Lots of secret meetings with informants at night, including a romantically perfect one at midnight at the Eiffel tower shrouded in shadow. Mystery shots from the darkness. Mission Impossible type undercover work. Hypnotic serum. Microfilm. Defector spies living undercover divulging intel. Note clues pulled out of dead informant’s pockets. The Russians. The ladies. Georgetown, Geneva, Paris, and a mysterious African island. The first section of this book was everything I’ve ever wanted in a spy book. It is simultaneously grounded in reality while loosely swiveling on the ball joint of extraordinary exploitative fiction.

The second portion takes place in Africa. There has already been a conclusion to the initial mystery but now Ward is undercover…in blackface….to infiltrate and dismantle the cult. The latter portion of this book seemed rushed and tacked on to fill out the word count. It could have easily been wrapped up with the kidnapping. And even though it has a lot of action, somehow the pacing feels slower than the front half but that might have something to do with how involved the reader is at this point.

Also, the reasoning as to why the cult exists is ridiculously unbelievable. We’re talking total Alex Jones type conspiracy here. This is where the propaganda that I mentioned comes into play. The whole plot line here seems like something dreamed up to keep the more paranoid population of US citizens in fear. The Russians are converting black people to communism using anti-Christian ideals!! It’s nuts. As the cherry on top the cult is constantly smoking weed. This was written in 1969. Who else in 1969 was constantly smoking weed? You do the math. But Hunt was a master of subterfuge and misinformation with a gift of entertaining writing. And though I hate this type of stuff in the real world, if he had written it well, if it had fit seamlessly into the plot, it would have been fine, even enjoyable in its obviousness. But it wasn’t. It had zero depth. Situations and characters were thrown in recklessly. It just felt like the book was already over.

It does take the path back to the fun of the beginning for a final conclusion involving two ladies and Mr. Ward lounging around poolside drinking gooey blender drinks and getting their freak on so that was nice.

The tacky second half aside, and it’s actually only about a quarter of the back half, this book was incredibly enjoyable. I’ve stated many times, I think Hunt is evil but a great storyteller. It’s always action packed. The mystery is never obvious. The man traveled the world over, hell he was a real spy, so he knows the cultures, languages, and locations to give everything authenticity. When I reviewed the French spy Al Glenne book, I complained that there wasn’t enough Frenchness in it. The Sorcerers has so much Frenchness I was choking on my baguette. Everywhere Peter Ward goes, Hunt has been there and just nails it. After reading it you feel like you’ve been there. I loved this book and can’t wait to read the others in the series.

Pulp Fest Video Tour & Haul!! Vintage Paperbacks Galore!!

The wife and I made the trip out to Pulpfest in Cranberry Pennsylvania this year! We had never been before and were very excited to be in the atmosphere of smelly old paper, beautiful pulpy art and knowledgeable aficionados who have been involved in the world for over forty years.

I put together this video of our trip as I figured it would be much more entertaining to watch than read about. Just a heads up, we are mostly paperback book collectors so there aren’t really any pulps in the video. I mean, we own/love pulps but when surrounded by thousands of paperbacks, that’s where all the money is going.

It is a bit of a long video so if you click on the video description and scroll down there are time stamps for the sections of the video. Like if you just want to see the book haul part, click on the 19:16 next to the words “Book Haul”

Thanks! Hope you enjoy!