Joyride- Ronald Francis Patrick/ Stephen Crye

Today we are going to be talking about Fathom Press’s recent reissue of an obscure and much coveted horror classic, Joyride by Ronald Francis Patrick, originally published under the pseudonym Stephen Crye by Pinnacle Books in 1983.

Written review below. Video review here:

Pinnacle Books was the mainstream publishing wing of sleaze/softcore publisher Bee-Line Books. Pinnacle is one of my favorite publishers from the 70s and 80s as they cranked out all kinds of fun and exploitative pure pulpy genre fiction so it’s no surprise that they were responsible for giving the world Joyride which is nothing but guiltless fun.

Following the release of the movie Halloween in 1978 the horror movie market was flooded with seemingly supernatural maniac killers out for horny teenage blood. Yes, I know there are many movies before Halloween that one can posthumously credit as a slasher film, the Hershal Gordon Lewis movies, Psycho, the Giallo films, and definitely my beloved Black Christmas, the direct inspiration for Halloween itself. But to me, just my opinion here, all of those movies were steps up a mountain that led to the top and at the top is Halloween where all of those influences converge into one and exploded into a prism in which all of the slasher genre that followed is directly related back to. The slasher template had unknowingly been created and as the 80s rolled in the genre was now exploited to maximum impact for monetary returns on motion picture investments by every low-budget producer out there. And what a moment it was for horror fans. How can such a basic premise repeated over and over be so enjoyable? Like a Ramones riff, the brilliance is in its simplicity and execution and there is no reason to stray too far from the formula. Other than Michael Myers from Halloween who was just born bad, the standard trope of the slasher killer is at one point they were wronged or felt that they were wronged. Years go by and the victim of yesteryear is now an unhinged adult set on revenge, either to the exact people who scorned him or to stand-ins like in Joyride where as a teen he was bullied and now that he is an insane adult, any teenager will do.

As many fans of vintage horror paperbacks have come to realize, a slasher novel is as rare as the killer actually being dead at the end movie. Why is this? In the introduction to this edition of Joyride, Will Errickson from Too Much Horror Fiction Blog and co-author of the horror reference book Paperbacks From Hell, tries to answer this mystery. Which we will leave untouched here as to not steal the man’s accolades. What I will mention from the introduction though is Ronald Francis Patrick’s background; he was born in Richmond Indiana in 1950 and died in 2004 at the age of 54. Will states in the introduction, “it seems he and perhaps his family worked in the funeral business” which is indeed the setting for Joyride. Patrick also worked as an editor in a publishing house which released genre fiction (probably Pinnacle). He wrote one other novel, Beyond the Threshold in 1978 which also has a funeral home setting and a lead mortician character. There is a bit more info in the intro, some speculating and conclusions drawn from Will in which he received by talking to a friend of Ronald Francis Patrick. There is literally no info online about the author so the material in Will’s intro is invaluable.

Let’s talk about the cover art real quick here. The original is boss as fuck and in an unprecedented move on the publisher’s part, the scene is actually from the book. Rare but not impossible in the case of vintage horror. The artists were two Serbian illustrators, Sonja Lamut and Nenad Jakesovic.

The new Fathom Press edition cover art is glorious in its own right with its foreboding blue and blood red stormy sky as the ominous killer Cleats hovers over the open grave. It is painted by Stephen Andrade, yes painted by hand, and guess what? Also, a scene from the book. I appreciate the directness. We’re two for two here.

So now lets talk about the contents.

The book starts with a chapter of our deformed antagonist killing a dog.

I’m sure it was terrible. I didn’t read it. Justin from Fathom Press warned me it was there and that I should probably skip it as he knows my disdain for animal abuse in books. Trusting Justin’s judgement I skipped. I’m assuming it’s supposed to be an absolutely wicked scene to set up just how soulless our killer is. Having not read the scene I didn’t have the killer introduction and I think that made the book more enjoyable. Because in the next chapter when the two car loads full of high school kids pull up to the cemetery gates, I have no idea what fate awaits them. Well obviously, I know they will be slashed but it is more mysterious this way and less of an inevitable countdown. Also, the shock of the first kill isn’t wasted upon a defenseless dog which is only sickening but a human making it more relatable. The killing of a human being puts me in the place of the character and I am now in the story. The killing of the dog is watching from the outside. What I am saying here is two things, 1- skip the first chapter. 2- if you are a horror writer don’t kill animals in your stories. Shit sucks.

So, once again, our story begins with two car loads full of teenagers looking for somewhere to party after their high school graduation practice. They pass by All Saints Hill Cemetery and see a perfect prospect. It’s a massive place filled with many isolated spots and no prying eyes. We meet the kids and get a whiff of their personalities. If you’ve ever seen the 1988 movie Night of the Demons it was very similar to that. The group is an unlikely pairing of jocks, rebels/criminals, virgins, sluts, nerds, a kid and some fat guy named Twinkie.

And right off the bat we get our first kill. One of the girls is a goody goody who knows they shouldn’t be trespassing and after a brief argument with her mismatched friends she has decided to leave and walk the few miles back into town. But when she gets to the gates they are now chained and locked. Even though it will out her friends she goes to find the cemetery warden to let her out. She comes upon a shed with a light on inside. She knocks. There is no answer. What’s this in the bushes? A mutilated dog! She screams and the shed door bursts open. Standing at the threshold is a giant man holding a sickle—that guy on the cover!—who is referred to as Cleats. Because of the shoes he wears. Is there urban lore background of the spooky disformed guy who lives at the graveyard that the kids set up? No. Who has given him this nickname? We don’t know. Look, it doesn’t matter. His name is Cleats and kills kids. Let’s go. She takes off running as he stalks after her and we are balls deep in slasher territory and it just feels so right. She makes it to the fence and tries to climb over. He catches up with her and chops off her head. Pure gore fest goodness.

And so it begins.

What more is there to say? It’s a perfect slasher. You know the formula. A couple goes off to fornicate. Slashed! Kids go snooping where they aught not. Slashed! Kids partying. Slashed! Kids running. Slashed! Kids fighting back. Slashed! The kills are creative and elaborate with pretty much a different instrument of destruction used for each execution. The suspense is built in their ability to try and survive. Another tick on the list of slasher tropes is that you know one of these kids is walking out of here. Which one will it be?

We do get a different take on the slasher backstory that moves away from the movie template though. Usually, a slasher is very linear. We start off the movie with the injustice—the spark that created the monster—but in Joyride we get interposing snippets of what made our man Cleats lose his shit. His backstory is obvious and somewhat basic. He was an outsider in high school who had a crush on the popular girl. He is picked on by bullies, an accident happens that disfigures him and his life is ruined. It’s very similar to the plot of the 1986 slasher movie Slaughter High. Only in Slaughter High the killer gets revenge on the kids, now adults, who caused the accident and in Joyride the killer believes one of these new kids to be someone from his past. It’s also interesting to note that while I was reading movie comparisons kept popping in my head. This scene is like the scene in so and so movie etc. But as I went to write up the actual review I saw the dates on everything and Joyride came first in almost every scenario. So not only is this one of the rare slasher books, at the time, Joyride was also fresh and groundbreaking in that it had new takes on tropes before they had been done to death.

As for the reading experience; the best part about this book is that it’s exciting. It never becomes dull or has any flat spots. It moves at a consistent pace and even though there isn’t much of a plot there, you really don’t need one. The slasher is less about narrative and more about tapping into that primal fear of survival. These are characters who live in the safety of the suburbs, there are no giant predator attacks, no sharks or lions, they don’t live in a warzone or the ghetto, so their fear is fun—what if there was a Boogeyman? The atmosphere is also on point, it’s a graveyard, it’s constantly raining, it’s nighttime, they are locked inside. It definitely tapped into that nostalgia of being a teen and doing things you weren’t supposed to be doing. There are a couple scenes in Cleat’s house which is located in the graveyard. It is a stagnant and repugnant giant Victorian house with corpses at dinner tables. The kids are appropriately stupid kids but at the same time resourceful. I saw some mild complaints online about the dialogue reactions; “Oh my God! No! Please! Don’t kill me!” Etc. What do you want them to say?? It didn’t bother me at all and felt pretty realistic.

Overall Joyride isn’t just a copy on the slasher movie genre, it’s better than a lot of the slasher movies I’ve seen. Some of my favorites include Killer Workout, Iced, Slaughter High, Tourist Trap, Rush Week and of course the two classics Black Christmas and Halloween and I think Joyride is worthy of being on that list. It’s hard to believe this was never made into a movie. It feels like one. If you are looking for more of that good ol classic slasher this is it. This book is quite literally a Joyride. Which would be the only explanation for that title because it doesn’t really make sense.

Savage Night by Jim Thompson

Video review here. Written review below.

Jim Thomspson was born James Myers Thompson in Oklahoma in 1906.

Oklahoma…1906…that would put him close in location and age to one of my favorite musicians and human beings of all time, Woody Guthrie.

I immediately stopped my basic author bio search and looked to see whether the two had ever crossed paths and sure enough they did. In fact if it wasn’t for Woody Guthrie, the world might not have know Jim Thompson. But more on that later.

This is a very dark and romantic background and the exact thing you want to be true after reading a Thompson book.

He was born in an apartment above the Caddo County Jail in 1906. His father “Big Jim” Thompson was a former teacher turned county sheriff. It didn’t last long though as after being accused of embezzlement he took off for Mexico until 1910 when he reunited with his family in Oklahoma City and then onto Fort Worth Texas.

At the age of 19 little Jim Thompson would sometimes work the oil rigs with his father. He was also a bellboy at the Hotel Texas where he would do shady side hustles for guests such as procuring prostitutes, drugs and liquor as this was during prohibition. Unfortunately, he got high on his own supply and joined the non-exclusive club of alcoholism by the time he was 19.

From here he hits the rails as a hobo, a vagrant rail rider. You were probably hoping that this was where he met Woody who did lots of train hopping himself but unfortunately, no.

At the age of 23 he enrolled at the University of Nebraska in 1929 but then dropped out in 1931 due to the Great Depression.

In 1935 he sold his first story, The Strange Death of Eugene Kling to True Detective for the November issue.

Also, around this time is when he joined the Communist Party.

And here is where he is introduced to the hard travelin’ man himself, Woody Guthrie. They had a similar…comrade by the name of Bill Cunningham. No, not our beloved Bill Cunnigham of Pulp 2.0 and Men’s Adventure Quarterly fame! This Bill Cunningham was a Marxist economics professor and fellow “true crime” writer.

He was the director of the Oklahoma Federal Writers Project (alongside Louis L’Amour) but due to his Communist affiliation he was fired.

In 1940 he moved his family to San Diego where he scraped plaster for an airplane manufacturer where he was again investigated for his communist ties.

In 1941 Thompson travels to New York City and meets up again with Woody. He tells the Woodster about a novel he is working on. Woody is intrigued and shows it off to some more of the leftist crew to where it will end up in the hands of the founder of Modern Age Books who in March 1942 would publish Thompsons debut novel Now and on Earth.

Now and on Earth (1942) was a semi-autobiographical novel about Thompson’s time during WW2 when he worked at the airplane manufacturer, alcoholism, family dynamic and the plights of the American worker.

His next novel, Heed the Thunder (1946) is similar in that it would be described as general fiction or the dreaded literature descriptor. The kind of books that say “A novel” on the cover. Which, too each their own but that’s usually an automatic pass for me.

Thankfully for us genre fiction fans here is where he starts writing the good old stuff. The gritty crime novels that he would be known and celebrated for. His next book is Nothing More than Murder (1949)

And that’s enough for this bio. There have been books written about Jim Thompson, his life, his books and his influence on popular culture so if you want to know more check out:

Savage Art: A biography of Jim Thompson (95) by Robert Polito

Jim Thompson: Sleep with the Devil (91) by Michael J McCauley

Difficult Lives (93) by James Sallis. This book was released on Gryphon Books who is owned by our Youtube comrade Gary Lovisi. The book also contained biographies on David Goodis and Chester Himes. It looks like it was rereleased in 2025 by Penguin Random House.

Savage Night by Jim Thomspon

Our protagonist is Carl Bigelow. He has just gotten off the bus at Perdale, a small town ninety-five miles from New York City. The story is told in first person narrative, so we get all of Carl’s inner monologue and The Man is on his mind. The Man, (Capital T, capital M) has hired Carl for a job. It appears that Carl is a hitman and he is in town to knock off Jake Winroy. Winroy was involved with some corrupt members of the government and some nefarious mobsters, including The Man, and he has been running his mouth. Carl’s job is to arrive in town undercover as a student at the local college. He is to rent a room at the Winroy’s house, who have recently opened it up for boarding. The murder should look like an accident, so Carl is to gain everyone’s trust, wait months before making the murder occur and then keep on living his life in Perdale after the “accident.”

This novel is so much more than it seems on the surface. While I was reading it I was like, this is cool, it reminds me of the Orrie Hitt Widow novel I just read; very sleazy with every character covered in moral grime.

And then I finished it.

Closed the cover.

Mouth agape.

This book is a mindfuck. Every time I hear someone talk about Jim Thompson, they say he was bleak, depressing, depraved and nihilistic. That’s what I was ready for and yeah, it was in here, but it wasn’t any different than other books from this genre and era. What got me was the oddness. Whenever I thought I understood the main character’s personality it would change. The reality in the story would become surreal but not dreamlike or trippy, just a little off.

Carl, our main character, is five feet tall. For perspective; 2 inches taller than Danny Devito but I imagine him more like Malcom in the Middle as people are always mistaking him for a kid. He also has woman falling over him. He low key brags at the beginning that the week prior he banged three ladies in a week and the lust continues into this new situation. And no offense to the smaller stature guys out there, I’m sure they can get it in, but I just don’t see that happening at that rate. He is also cold and hard but panics in a second. He is frightened often but can be mean and intimidating also. When an older couple invite him over for dinner, the woman tells him that she wishes they had a child just like him. This grown man, who is a hired killer, almost cries and then daydreams that they are his parents.

There is a woman in this story who is missing half of her leg. At the bottom of the partial leg is a baby sized ankle and foot. Ok, and?? Not a big deal, people are born with deformities. But it goes to a place that reminded me of the little man in the first King in Yellow story.

Those are just a few examples, but the book is littered with them. It’s weird!

It is going to be difficult to talk about without spoilers so if you haven’t read it yet and absolutely plan on it, don’t read any further because even the most minor spoiler would change your perception of the narrative.

Upon arriving at Winroy’s place we meet Jake Winroy’s wife Fay, who after about five min of talk is ready to fall into Carl’s bed.

Settled into his room at the house Carl Bigelow pulls out his copy of True Detective Magazine. There is an article all about a vile serial killer named Charlie Bigger. AKA Little Bigger because of his small stature. The novel isn’t vague about it either. Our main character is Little Bigger. The article is written in this fantastical and sensational way. Which is how those articles were written but what makes it odd is the man it’s about is reading it and basically saying, yep. All true. My opinion at this moment was that it was a little cheesy.

We also meet the other lodger, Mr. Kendall. He comes off as flamboyant and for a second I thought he might also have it for Charlie. He is older and works at the bakery across the street but he used to be a teacher at the college. Charlie’s first instinct about Kendall is that he works for The Man and was sent here to make sure Charlie is doing his job. Or maybe he is another hired killer from someone else. Or maybe the guy is just a guy. Charlie can never make up his mind. Either way the motives of the mysterious Mr. Kendall creates suspense.

Fay Winroy is so enamored with Charlie Bigger that she is willing to help him take her husband Jake out. Once again, this isn’t anything that hasn’t happened in hundreds of noir novels but what’s weird is that it’s never talked about. There is no build up to the decision. No scenes of Charlie talking her into it. It just is.

We have one scene with The Man. He is really built up to be this larger-than-life gangster. In bed with Senators, businessman, street tough hoods and hitmen. There is no escaping The Man. Before the man found out about Charlie Bigger no one knew who he really was. He was considered a crime folktale legend .

The bulk of the novel is Charlie being paranoid. He constantly flips on who to trust. He hooks up with Ruth and has actual feelings for her as he sees himself in her disabilities.

The climax comes out of nowhere and smacks you upside the head. While you are recuperating and trying to get your bearings someone sticks a tab of acid in your mouth, gets behind you and starts pushing you out the door.

Amazing.

https://flatwaterfreepress.org/nebraska-noir-legendary-crime-writer-forgotten-man-in-home-state/ https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=TH013 https://fwtx.com/culture/jim-thompson-lived-hard-and-wrote-even-harder/ https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/nebraska-noir-crime-writing-giant-jim-thompson-forgotten-in-native-state/

Death in Ecstasy by Ngaio Marsh

Originally published in 1936

My copy is the Jove edition, 3rd printing from 1983

Cover art by George Ziel, born Jerzy Zielezinski, a Polish Holocaust survivor, who is most well-known for his crime and gothic paperback covers.

The Fourth in the Inspector Allen series.

Written review below. Video review here:

It’s December, pouring rain and cold in London. We’re in the fictious neighborhood of Knocklatcher’s Row outside the building that contains The House of the Sacred Flame. Our inquisitive and bored reporter Nigel Bathgate decides that tonight is the night he’s going to knock on this door and see what this place is all about.

A man dressed in ceremonial robes answers the door and lets him know that it’s a member’s only club. Nigel is slightly deterred and starts asking what The House of the Sacred Flame is all about. The man gives vague answers and tells him to make an appointment if he really wants to know. A knock on the door sounds behind him. The man quickly turns to open the doors and two men in the same attire exit followed by a man who appears to be a priest. Nigel slips in while the door is open and we get to attend the ceremony.

There are seven attendees of the service, two acolytes and the priest. Everyone is dressed in the robes, esoteric rites are spoken, and Nordic names are dropped. It seems to be an amalgamation of occult ideals and Northern paganism.

The initiates are in a circle around the priest. There is a chalice of wine that is passed around the circle ending with a woman in the middle of the group. She drinks, starts having spasms and falls dead to the floor. Nigel runs up to the body, it looks like murder, so he calls his good friend from Scotland Yard Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn who arrives with the cavalry. The doctor on scene gives a diagnosis of murder by poison. Now that it is official, Alleyn has started interviewing the members of the House of the Sacred Flame and our investigation begins.

There really isn’t much to the set-up and the mystery, which is what we paid our ticket for, is in full swing by chapter two. It’s the classic whodunit structure of a group of people in a contained area, each with hidden backstory that is unveiled slowly throughout the investigation that throws shade in every direction. Red herrings and possible motives sway the possibilities, but nothing is unfair. It’s all fair play mystery and if you are paying attention Ngaio Marsh puts it all there right in the open as the narrative moves forward.

Atmosphere wise there is a dark thread of heroin addiction to give the story a desperate and gloomy feel. Now add in constant thunderstorms, the cultish occult temple, and a book on how to make poison and this beautiful cover art by George Ziel and you’ve got a perfect mystery setting in your mind.

The suspects include a highly questionable cult like priest, a rich businessman from the US, a French snoot, a young hip couple, a few true believers, a bitter old woman and some servants with an astute attention to detail which make for a great list of suspects.

I don’t know if it was the mood I was in or what, but I did find it a little hard to get into. As the story entered the third act, I was definitely all in but felt the initial kick off didn’t completely grab me. Also, I knew nothing of this series going in. I didn’t even know it was a series. By page fifty I had to stop and google who the principal detective was. It felt like Nigel the reporter was our independent Sherlock Holmes solving mysteries for his own satisfaction. He was a bit eccentric and very inquisitive. But as the narrative progressed, it seemed that Detective Alleyn was the principal. It becomes obvious as it goes on that Alleyn is the main character, but it had a misplaced feeling at the start as I wasn’t sure whose eyes we were looking through.

If I was going with a grade I would give it a C+/B-.

Ten from Infinity- Ivar Jorgensen (Paul W Fairman)

Ivar Jorgensen is actually Paul W Fairman. Pulp fiction writer from the 40s to the 60s. Also, apparently a fisherman. He was an editor for If, Amazing Stories, Fantastic and the Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He wrote the short story “Deadly City” which they based the movie Target Earth from. His short story “Cosmic Frame” was the basis for the movie Invasion of the Saucer Men. And his short story “Brothers Beyond the Void” was made into the Twilight Zone episode People Are Alike All Over.

Ten from Infinity was his fourth novel and was published in 1963 by Monarch which was the paperback subsidiary of Charlton Comics.

Cover art by Ralph Brillhart

Written review below. Video review here:

I read the novel he published right after this one, The World Grabbers which came in second place on my best of 2023 video. I don’t have a dedicated video review of it since I read it before starting the channel but there is a blog post review of it. Hmm maybe I should go back and record videos for the reviews I did before the channel.

NYC: early 60s.

Dr Frank Corson- leg man and ER doctor down at Park Hill Hospital. He’s just an intern so he doesn’t have money yet.

Rhoda- leg owner. Girlfriend. Owns apt and car.

William Matson- man with two hearts and no ID who gets hit by a cab and taken to the hospital to be treated by Dr Frank Corson.

Les King- freelance news photographer who gets shot of Matson right after he gets hit. He smells a big payday with this story.

Senator Crane- pompous and egotistical senator who is angry he wasn't invited to the secret meeting.

Brent Tabor- spy. The man in charge of handling this ten-man alien fiasco.

John Dennis- Android number ten. Point man for the aliens. Hypnotizer who likes to make mannequin-like love to ladies.

The introductory chapter introduces us to the strange man known as William Matson. William was hit by a NYC cab while trying to cross the street. He is rushed to the hospital where intern Dr Frank Corson checks out his injuries. Ok, this is strange, this man has two hearts. Whatever my shift is over, I can’t stop thinking about my dynamo leg lady girlfriend Rhoda, I’m going home. Rhoda picks him up. Frank is just an intern. He doesn’t have a car and his apartment is a shithole. Rhoda doesn’t mind but it embarrasses the hell out of Frank.

We jump to spy guy Brent Tabor listening to Senator Crane throw a fit about not being allowed into the secret meeting. The PEOPLE voted for him; Tabor is just a government bureaucrat. How dare he not be allowed in. Senator Crane sneaks a secret tape recorder in the room of the secret meeting.

At the meeting Tabor debriefs the heads of various government organizations. They have found eight identical men who are now all dead. The men have two hearts, oversized kidneys and synthetic blood. We think they are of alien origin, and we fear there might be an invasion in Earth’s future.

As he listens to the tape we get a wonderful little monologue where he goes on and on about how the people chose him not these spies and military guys. He thinks they are fools for thinking it extra-terrestrial. Obviously, it’s the Russians. Tell you what, whether this book is good or bad I'm giving it one mark higher for portraying this politician as they truly are. Self-obsessed. Narcissistic. Obvious and basic.

“One thing you have to realize about the American public- or about any mass of humanity, for that matter- a thing of importance has to be presented dramatically. This, in a sense, was the duty of the elected public servant- to recognize this somewhat childish failing of the average intelligence and make allowances for it. You can do this of course, Senator Crane told himself, when you love the people.”

Dr. Corson is at Rhoda’s apartment but can’t stop thinking about the man at the hospital. He goes back and the man is there. Still the same still weird. And what would you do if you were a doctor and found an impossible anomaly in a patient? Invite him to come and live with you at your apartment of course.

We are now introduced to John Dennis. He looks and acts exactly like two-heart William. Dennis stops by photographer Les King’s place to buy the photo he took of Willam after the car accident. Les recognizes his face as not only the exact same in the photo but of a man who went missing several years ago. He sells him the photo and the man leaves.

Les King stops by the hospital. He wants Corson to team up with him as he thinks he has a big story. Corson is reluctant at first but also embarrassed his girl makes more money so he's in.

And there is our plot. Who are these mysterious identical men? Are they from space? Are they Russian spies like the Senator thinks?

The Ten from Infinity have hypnotic powers and lets just say John Dennis uses those powers to…further study the relations of human beings, in particular Rhoda. Hope you guys like awkward and uncomfortable android-like sex scenes because you’re gonna get ‘em.

And from here on out we basically just have the Senator trying to sandbag Tabor.

Tabor trying to hunt down the mystery men.

Dr Frank upset that his little Rhoda has become distant.

Rhoda absolutely emotionally torn from being logically disgusted but emotionally manipulated to passion. Not cool.

Not too much interesting happens in this one unfortunately. John Dennis appears here and there when he wants something. Tabor the spy investigates but there really isn’t any new discovery past the info drop in the second chapter. It wasn’t really that exciting but it wasn’t boring either. Pure middle of the road. The previous book I read from Fairman, The World Grabbers had a blurb on the cover that stated “A dramatic, suspenseful novel inspired by the popular TV show One Step Beyond.” And they really hit the nail on the head with that one. I was hoping for more like it with Ten from Infinity and though it definitely had that vibe it was one of the more average episodes.

A Killer's Kiss- Hal Ellson

 He pressed down on the gas. Night covered the desert in immense darkness. Thankful for its protection, he still didn't feel safe. Someone was following him, and he drove faster till the car began to shake. The feeling remained. Whoever was in back of him was gaining ground. No lights showed on the road behind, but that didn't matter.

 He pressed harder on the gas, and the whole structure of the car responded with a violent shudder. Behind him in the dimensionless blackness, the other car roared nearer. And then it happened. He couldn't say how. More, he was aware that the idea was completely irrational and unacceptable, but it stuck. He had no means of shaking, disassembling it.

 Behind him, a dim image formed, a face with nebulous features. By some trick, the one who had been following him had gotten to the car, was sitting in back of him now, and waiting for him to turn. But he would not turn. Suddenly, he knew why. That was the object of the one behind him, to divert his attention from the road.

 A split second of negligence, and he'd be off of it, and mangled in the wreckage of the car. "He wants me to die," Luis told himself.

Written review below. Video review here:

 Today, I'm going to discuss a very odd noir, something that I was not, not expecting, and it is A Killer's Kiss by Hal Ellson. This was a Valentine's Day present from my wife. Get it? It's romantic. So, as you can see, it looks like a femme fatale noir. I'm going to read off the blurb here because I just wanted to show you that that's how it's marketed, and it's not what it is.

  “A woman's voice in the next room calling his name softly. A note slipped underneath the door. This was Luis' introduction to Francine. She was beautiful, lonely, and she wanted one night of fun in the little town with no questions asked."

 "Downstairs in the lobby, waiting, was the detective.

  “Luis knew that the escape he had planned so carefully in prison had reached a dead end. Still, one prison dream was now within his grasp. He opened the door to Francine's room."

 Killer's Kiss is a paperback original, originally published by Hillman Books in 1959, and I could not figure out who that cover artist is. I looked and I looked. If anyone out there knows put it in the comments because that artist should get credit; it is one hell of a beautiful cover. I would pick that up in a second if I saw it in the store.

 The author, Hal Ellison, was an American author, and he is 100% not Harlan Ellison.

 I, like many other people, many comments that I saw online, just assumed that it was a kind of working pseudonym of Harlan Ellison, and it is not. And interestingly enough, Harlan Ellison credits Hal Ellison as the inspiration for writing his very first novel, Web of the City. So, our author here, Hal Ellison, worked at Bellevue Hospital, Manhattan, New York City as a nurse's aide.

 He also spent time as a social worker and a recreational therapist. He worked with lots of misguided youth. He took their their tales of woe, their ne’er-do-well shenanigans, and he penned many juvenile delinquent novels. In fact, he is claimed to be one of the best to ever do it.

 And though Killer's Kiss is my first Hal Ellison penned book, I would surmise that those juvenile delinquent books have a very realistic and sympathetic viewpoint of the kids, and not the usual kind of exploitation of that genre, as A Killer's Kiss really explores the humanity of the “bad guy.”

 So, our protagonist, I guess, or the focus of the story here is Luis Santiago. He's on a bus. He was recently released from prison, and he just stabbed some guy a couple pages before the story starts. He's taking the bus to go to his brother's house. We are somewhere in Mexico.

 He gets to his brother's house. Luis' brother is not happy to see him. We hear a woman call from back in the house, "Jesus, who's there?"

 Jesus replies, "No one."

 Luis is gutted here.

 "That's who I am to you? I'm no one?" No one. To my family. His brother asks him why he needs the money, and Luis states that he wants to go to the US border. He hands him enough money for the bus and tells him to never come back. Back in town, Luis realizes that he is absolutely alone in the world.

 He was desperate before, but now it's almost as if he doesn't care what happens to him. He goes to a bar. He's paranoid. "Is that man staring at me?" Another man bumps into him. It's a man wearing a cowboy hat, and his eyes are drunk and blurry. He's friendly, though, or maybe he's just pretending to be friendly to gain Luis's trust.

 Right away, we see the inner workings of Luis's mind. He's constantly looking over his shoulder, seeing enemies in strangers' faces. He knows the police are after him. He wants to run, and he's in the process of running, but he also meanders. In his mind is the battle between giving into his inevitable fate and his will to survive.

 The man in the cowboy hat invites Luis to come join him and his friends, and Luis is sure that this will end in a lynching, but he has no one. He is nothing. He starts to walk out the door with the man and his friends, resigned to his fate, and the man simply turns around and states, "They won't let us gamble in here."

 A dozen men pile into the cars. At first, they're boisterous and drunk. They drive and drive. They drive out to the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden, the further they get out of town, the less they start talking. Luis starts getting it into his mind these people are out to get him.

 They're going to take him out in the middle of nowhere, shoot him in the head. The scene is written beautifully. Ellson has us out in the endless night of the desert, the pitch blackness. Luis's character is very high-strung. He's very nervous. He doesn't seem to mind so much that he's already killed a man, but the stress of him getting caught for it overwhelms him.

 You feel at any moment that the smallest thing could set him off. He's on the sharp edge of a razor blade, slowly sliding to his ultimate demise. They arrive at the house. Everyone gets out. He's sitting in the car. Finally, the guys come up to him like, "What are you doing?"

 They go inside the house. They start gambling. Everyone's drinking, having a good time. Luis is winning and losing. In the final bet with the man with the cowboy hat, he pushes it all in for the final bet and Luis doesn't want to look weak in front of all these other guys, so he pushes it all in also.

 He loses. And the guy with the cowboy hat who's been so friendly to him the whole time is still just like, "Hey man, you win some, you lose some. But why don't you come back next time? Hey, maybe you'll win next time." The man gets up, goes out to the desert to take a leak. Luis follows him.

 You know he's going to kill him to get that money. He goes out there, and the man begs for his life. And you see the first moment where Luis is human. There are lots of comments in this book about what makes a killer, what makes people do what they do. Are they born this way? Or is it something that happened to them?

 The character of Luis is very complex. Here is this man who's been friendly to him the whole night, and you think he's just going to get it. But Luis spares his life. He does rob him though, so he's got all this money now. Then Luis just walks out into the desert. He knows that there is this mountain that he can go hide out in.

 And this is where it starts getting kind of weird. I mean, the desert at night scenes were kind of surreal, and being in Luis' head and the paranoia and just everywhere you go, everyone is looking at you. Are they watching you? While he's up in the mountain, he's in his cave hideout, he looks down, and it looks like there's a man down there in the middle of the night just staring up at him. He's already paranoid, but he's like, "All right, whatever, I'm just gonna go to sleep."

 He has nightmares of scorpions crawling all over his body, and they relate the scorpion to a creature just doing what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to be metaphoric, I believe. He wakes from this dream and looks straight forward to the entrance to the cave, and there's light out there now, and he can see that there's a shadow of a man standing at the entrance of the cave beckoning him.

 He panics, jumps up, and runs further on down inside the cave. He gets lost has this mental breakdown, and then finally finds his way back out. Down in the ravine is the wagon, and there's the man that he thinks saw last night. Or was it? Is this the same man who was standing outside of the cave?

 He offers the old man money for a ride into town on his wagon, and the old man just simply states that the ride is free. This part of the book and the way that these little scenarios happen, it reminded me of a very dark version of the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou movie.

 I know there's probably other examples, but that's just the first thing that came to mind. Where he meets these people, they're kind of off, and he has spiritual and philosophical encounters with them. So, we get this really surreal chapter of this old man taking him to his home where they meet up with his grandson, and neither say much of anything.

 The silence of the old man and the grandson makes an already secluded area feel even more empty. The boy takes him to a hotel that's really close. Now we're back in society though still remote. The hotel owner is not thrilled to see Luis show up with no bags and no car. Luis goes upstairs. The room is pitch black.

 He tries to sleep, but it makes him feel like he's back in prison. He dreams of footsteps outside of his door, the guard walking down the hallway, and then all of a sudden there's gunshots outside. He thinks it's part of the dream when he wakes up, but no, there's actually someone shooting off a gun outside.

 The hotel is isolated, but there is a tourist couple, an American tourist couple there, who basically just get annihilated down at the bar all night long. One night, Luis goes down to the bar, and the man is already passed out. He strikes up a conversation with the woman, and they end up going up to his room.

 But in the midst of getting it on he stops two minutes in and gets up. He's just not feeling it. He's a very detached human being. He looks down and sees she has passed out. He goes through her purse, grabs the keys, goes and steals her car, and drives out to the mountain.

 We get this very surreal highway trip. He thinks that someone is following him. He imagines someone in the back seat. It's very Twilight Zone. It's very David Lynch. He wrecks the car, and he starts walking towards the mountain.

 I don't want to tell you the whole book because that's no fun so hopefully that sells you on it. It does get even more weird. The next part is one of the weirder ones, where he is out in the desert and he finds this drinking hole. And he looks up, and there's a woman standing up in the rocks, but she's not moving. And then all of a sudden, there's a man who comes up to get water.

 Luis looks up, and he sees that the woman has moved. The man comments that it's a statue called The Lady of the Cave. And Luis says, "It can't be a statue. I just saw her move." And the man's like, "Yeah, she does that sometimes, and she also smiles at you." Then the man starts walking off into the desert, and Luis doesn't know what to do, so he just starts following.

 These scenarios are very minimal in dialogue. Luis is very paranoid and very conflicted on what to do with these situations. You don't know when he's going to kill one of these people or when he's just going to walk off.

 The climax happens at a new hotel. This one is in a small village. There is a man that Luis thinks is a police officer who's out to get him. There's a woman in this, but he doesn’t care about her whatsoever. She's not a femme fatale. She also has a very complex, depressing story going on. She's an American woman on vacation in Mexico.

 It gets very dreamlike where even Luis questions if any of this has really been happening. Heads up, it's not a dream, I'll just put that out there because if it was I would tell you because it-was-all-a-dream scenarios are the biggest rip off in storytelling.

 So, it's definitely real, but Luis wonders if he's dreaming. There are these psychological cat and mouse kind of conversations with him and the man that he thinks is a cop, and we also get perspective from this man. We get lots of philosophical musings on what it is that makes killers kill, what it is that makes people who they are, and then they relate it to how the scorpion is a killer, but it's just its natural instinct.

 When I was reading this, I was like, you know what this reminds me of? It's like The Stranger, by Albert Camus but for working class people. It's very noir in style. It could almost be an old 50s black and white movie but one of the rare and off the beaten path movies.

 It has so much feeling in it that is very unreality. I think if you like stuff like Lost Highway or any David Lynch really or if you’ve ever seen Daughter of Horror, it’s like that.

 It's smart. It's psychological and makes you question as to why people actually do the things that they do and if there's any control in it. So, I say yes, go check this out. They're available online for not too much. They're like $12 to $20. And now I'm really looking forward to reading one of his juvenile delinquent books.

Adventure in the Skies! Aviation Pulp Fiction

Hello friends and welcome to the Book Graveyard, where we talk about all things vintage genre fiction. In this installment I wanted to talk about some pulpy aviation fiction that I’ve read and do a general timeline of the sub-genre in comparison with the history of flying and what was happening in the world. What attracts me most about these stories is that it’s a world of the past. Not only is it exciting adventure pulp but it is historical. The pilots of these first planes became the equivalent of the dime novel cowboy.

Timeline:

December 17, 1903: The Wright brothers become airborne—briefly

“Flying from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled, sustained flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft. Each brother flew their wooden, gasoline-powered propeller biplane, the “Wright Flyer,” twice (four flights total), with the shortest lasting 12 seconds and the longest sustaining flight for about 59 seconds. Considered a historic event today, the feat was largely ignored by newspapers of the time, who believed the flights were too short to be important.”- From the History.com website

1914: World War One accelerates the militarization of aircraft

World War I became the first major conflict to use aircraft on a large scale, expanding their use in active combat. Nations appointed high-ranking generals to oversee air strategy, and a new breed of war hero emerged: the fighter pilot or “Flying Ace.” - From the History.com website

The Flying Ace pilot phenomenon is everything in aviation pulp fiction and the first two stories I will be talking about featuring Flying Aces.

The Flying Ace sensation is what inspired many of the war aviation pulps to take the archetype pulp hero character and mixing him with real world figures like Germany’s Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen or as you probably know him - thanks to Snoopy- The Red Baron.

Two of the planes which are featured in the G-8 issue we will be talking about are the Blériot (BLAIR-ee-oh)SPAD S.510 and the Fokker Dr. I. (fock-er dray-deck-er)

The Red Baron flew the Fokker Dr. I triplane which was a German plane based off of the British Sopwith triplane. The first Fokker Dr. I appeared over the Western Front in August 1917. Pilots were impressed with its agility, and several scored victories with the highly maneuverable triplane. Von Richthofen scored 19 of his last 21 victories were achieved while he was flying the Dr. I. By May 1918, however, the Dr. I was being replaced by the newer and faster Fokker D. VII (7). - From the National Museum of the United States Air Force

Since the United States entered World War I without a combat-ready fighter of its own, the U.S. Army Air Service obtained fighters built by the Allies. After the Nieuport 28 proved unsuitable, the Air Service adopted the SPAD XIII as its primary fighter. By the war's end, the Air Service had accepted 893 SPAD XIIIs from the French, and these aircraft equipped 15 of the 16 American fighter squadrons. Today, Americans are most familiar with the SPAD XIII because many of our aces -- like Rickenbacker and Luke -- flew them during WWI. - From the National Museum of the United States Air Force

1918: World War ends and with all of the surplus of planes built for the war governments use the planes to start carrying mail. In the Mitch Mayhew book, Unwanted Passenger that we will be talking about Mitch is a pilot that works for an agency that has an airmail contract.

The now skilled battle pilots with no more use for their fighting flying skills bring the excitement back home with barnstorming daredevil air shows.

May 1927 Charles Lindbergh- solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. This is big news in the world and was prime for pulp adventure. One man defeating all odds and in the face of danger comes out at the end a hero.

August 1927 Air Stories is the first aviation pulp published- pulpmags.org

1930s-40s Passenger airlines existed but were only accessible to the wealthy. A trip from New York to Los Angelas cost half the price of an automobile. - From the National Museum of the United States Air Force

1940s-70s non-scheduled airlines first appeared in significant numbers in the United States after the Second World War, as returning pilots purchased discount surplus planes from the government and set up their own uncertificated air services under the non-scheduled charter service exemption in the 1938 Civil Aviation Act. Low overhead and fewer regulations allowed the non-scheduled airlines to offer considerably lower fares than the national scheduled carriers, inaugurating the immensely popular air coach service which attracted millions of Americans unable to afford tickets on the regular airlines. Though the regulatory actions of the Civil Aeronautics Board ultimately extinguished the burgeoning non-scheduled industry, the idea of cheap, efficient air transport endured and by the passage of the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act nearly all civil airlines had transitioned to an air coach model. - Wikipedia

This is where our final story comes in with our protagonist working for Air cargo and independent transport service. This is like a wild west time for pilots. Think Han Solo archetype: loner adventurers taking odd jobs that cross the lines between legal and illegal who themselves are morally grey anti-heroes.

The first story we will be talking about is the very first issue of G- 8 and his Battle Aces which was originally published October 1933. The series was a re-imagining of sorts of the aviation pulp series Battle Aces which ran from 1930 to 1932. The publisher was Popular Publications which was created by Harry Steeger and Harold Goldsmith.

In 1931 rival publications Street and Smith had extreme success when it released the first issue of The Shadow. Jumping on the bandwagon Popular Publications came up with its own pulp hero characters; The Spider and G-8. The Spider was a crime fighter similar to the Shadow but G-8 was something different. It took Popular’s literal high adventure excitement World War One Battle Aces and added in the pulp hero element but instead of a vigilante crime fighter he was a Flying Ace super spy.

The series had 110 issues. Each issue was a single contained novel, and each issue was written by Robert J. Hogan.

Hogan was a prolific pulp author who wrote the series G-8 along with the yellow peril pulp title The Mysterious Wu Fang and a vigilante crew pulp series called Secret 6 which I had not heard of until researching this video and looks to be a proto-men’s adventure series that almost sounds exactly like the A-Team. After the pulps he mostly wrote western fiction.

G-8 and his Battle Aces #1 The Bat Staffel (German for squadron)

Our introduction to G-8 is him being held prison in the Freidburg Castle in Germany awaiting his execution. The Germans think he is a common spy but if they knew he was the legendary thorn in their sides, G-8 they would lose their minds. Unbeknownst to them this moderate size young pilot is not only the super spy known as G-8 but he was captured on purpose in order to get close to Herr Docktor Krueger the German’s diabolical idea man.

After some fast talking G-8 gets taken to Herr Docktor where he tricks him into divulging his master plan. And what is his master plan? Well, inside of an enormous mountain that had been sealed off for years, Herr Docktor has found the mythical giant poisonous bats. He intends to dig a tunnel from the mountain to the edges of France where he will send the bats out over the countryside, spraying their poison and killing millions. And from there, world domination. Obviously.

In a scene straight out of Indiana Jones G-8 escapes through a hole in the ceiling after throwing the poison gas that was to kill him against a wall.

He gets to his SPAD and takes off. But what’s this? He spots two other SPADS flying around. He can see from the insignia that they are US forces. No time to think though because a small squadron of German Fokkers are headed their way. We get a great dog-fight scene and the introduction of the two co-stars of the series, Nippy Weston and Bull Martin.

From here we get G-8, Nippy and Bull going up against the Germans. We get some Mission Impossible makeup, costumes and undercover work, tons of sky-high fighting action, and some serious James Bond villainy.

I know it’s been said many times before but everything we love in our post WW2 story telling started in the pulps. I mean just here in this first issue of G-8 we can see the influences on Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, James Bond and even Snoopy.

G-8 is a good title for people who aren’t necessarily into aviation but wouldn’t mind a little of that flavor in the story. It is very much a hero pulp and over the top. I mean, Germans controlling giant bats to rule the world isn’t exactly historical fiction. I think this makes G-8 standout amongst some of the other aviation pulps. Like I have read some stories in the Lone Eagle series, and they are rooted in reality; less fantastical than G-8. In fact, I would say that G-8 is geared toward a young adult audience though still completely enjoyable for old adults, like us.

Next up I wanted to talk about the Mitch Mayhew series written by Terrance Layhew. These are two modern day pulp stories in the tradition of classic adventure pulp fiction. Available for purchase here!

First off, I want to take a second to gush on the look and packaging of these books. They are published by Veritas Entertainment. There are two Veritas Entertainment companies. One did the Bob Dylan movie etc. This Veritas Entertainment is an independent publisher, promotor and film producer out of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

You will notice that they are published in not-dead-at-all mass market paperback size. I love the page count on these. One is 84 and the other is 104. I could read a hundred of these things. They completely nailed the look of pulp adventure. They seem like something from the past. Like I’m going to open it and there is going to be a Babe Ruth baseball card folded up inside a Liberty Bond as a bookmark in there.

Unwanted Passenger is the first in a series starring Mitch Mayhew, former WW1 pilot now turned mail carrier. But not a mailman. Think more like an independent trucker that takes what hauls he can get. So, as you can see per our history lesson, Terrance did his homework also as the history is on point which makes this even more enjoyable.

Mitch is hired by the Chicago DA to fly to Denver to deliver a certified envelope containing the evidence needed to put the Meadows Gang behind bars. Mitch has a bit of curmudgeon in his coffee and is not really thrilled about making the extra flight to Denver but the man who owns the delivery service says tough titties, you’re doing it, and by the way, you’ll be taking a passenger.

The unwanted passenger on this trip is Kathleen Dumont, beautiful and mysterious and nothing that Mitch wants to deal with.

We jump into Mitch’s DH-4 Liberty plane and head to our first stop in Omaha. We get some Han Solo vibes as Kathleen tries to start up a conversation. I like the reluctant romance and it’s no surprise as I know Terrance is a big fan of Romancing the Stone.

Back in the air to Denver Mitch spots a German Fokker headed his way. Strange but not impossible. Some US pilots prefer the Fokker. But then machine gun fire explodes and Mitch has to use evasive maneuvers, putting his WW1 experience to use. Unfortunately, his DH-4 has been converted to civilian use so no more gun turrets.

This has to be the Meadows Gang who got wind of him carrying the evidence to put them behind bars, right? Who else would be taking shots at a mail carrier?

And there is the set up. It doesn’t all take place in the air; we get some exciting action down on the ground in the Rocky Mountains. The pacing is quick and workman like. Terrence did a lot of work to not only get the historical aspects right but terrain detail, flying know-how, and artillery and he writes it all with punch perfect pulp flavor that would have fit right in with any of the Adventure pulps from back in the day.

The sequel or second installment finds us in Denver Colorado. It would seem Mitch makes it out of the first one alive. That’s good news. In this one we lean more into the ground adventure and criminal underworld. Every character is resourceful and it’s not forced. Though this was written in our modern times, I believe, the characters draw heavily from 80s action-adventure movies. Think Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Damsel in distress but not really.

These books are so much fun and a testament to modern day writers still having the pulp chops.

The last book I wanted to talk about is:

The Wrong Side of the Sky by Gavin Lyall

First published in 1961 by Hodder and Stoughton and then published by PAN in 1966. This is the 7th printing.

Gavin Lyall was a British journalist turned author. In 1951 to 1953 he served as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force. Drawing on his experiences in Libya and Greece to write his first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky. It was a hit and he quit his day job to become a full-time author cranking out aviation flavored action-adventure novels.

The Wrong Side of the Sky starts in Greece. It’s never stated but from the historical aspects mention in the narrative I would say it takes place when it was written in 1961.

The story is written in a first-person narrative told from our man, Captain Jack Clay, a pilot of a Douglas DC-3 who works for the transport service, Aircargo. He has a copilot that is more like a coworker than a blood brother which emphasizes his solo nature.

While on the ground he spots a Piaggio 160 Italian twin-engine plane whose pilot is so slick that it could only be one of a few pilots he knew that had that skill. Later in the bar he walks in and is not surprised to see his friend and former co-pilot from the war, Ken Kitson. Kitson has been working as a private pilot for the Nawab of Tungabhadra. It looks like the job pays well because Clay describes Kitson as “dressed like the inside of a millionaires wallet.” Good line!

After a few drinks Ken spills the beans on what the Nawab is doing in this part of the world. We get a backstory of extreme violence and stolen jewelry. It’s an entertaining story but Clay has other things to worry about. Mikkos the local shipping agent wants Clay to take a shipment to Libya. Tonight. Clay knows when something is rotten, so he requests more money. Flying an illegal shipment of guns to Libya is a risk that he should be paid for.

This book, the narrative, the plot, the writing style is rich; a heavy and thick craft beer. You can’t just chug this like a 12 pack of High Life. It’s tough, colorful and muscular, packed full of verbal protein. The glass is poured to the brim so you have to go slow not to spill it. Sometimes I'd have to read a paragraph twice but it was never a bummer. It was always worthwhile.

There is so much going on in this book that even if I did a regular full-length review, I wouldn’t be able to properly lay it all out so I’ll just list some of the facets of the story. We have obviously lots of sky aviation action. Foxy ladies including a woman described as looking like a middle eastern version of Salma Hayek. We travel from Greece to the Libya and over the ocean to tiny islands. There is treasure hunting. Smuggling. Violent gangsters and corrupt cops. Shootouts. Prison breaks. Murders. History. Conspiracies.

Speaking of Romancing the Stone there is a scene almost exactly like in the movie where they come upon a wrecked plane in the jungle completely taken over by the environment. This book is romantically adventure. It’s hardboiled, tough-talking and full of so much macho that a bullet would bounce off of it’s iron hard nuts.

In a way it reminds me of the 1947 Alan Ladd movie Calcutta where he and his pal William Bendix are pilots whose friend is murdered and it leads the duo into a crime filled underworld of international jewel thieves and nefarious femme fatales. Actually yeah, if you want the film version of these kinds of stories go hunt that down. It’s one of my favorites.

Riptide by Donald Cheatham

Published by Zebra in 1984

This is the Fathom Press re-issue from 2026

Yes! Another hard-to-find 80s paperback is back in print from Fathom Press. Release date today! May 22nd 2026. With new cover art by Stephen Andrade.

Where to begin with Riptide?? I randomly picked up the original about 8 years ago in a used bookstore in Arizona. I don’t remember which one. Probably Book Maze in Mesa. I paid a couple bucks for it. Two dollars for a ticket on the Riptide roller coaster of insanity. This is one of the wildest books I’ve ever read.

When I made my top ten 80s horror paperbacks video I put this book at the top. Number one. But looking back that was probably unfair as this isn’t necessarily a straight horror book. In fact, when I shared the video to the Retro Horror Paperback Art group on facebook one person commented, it’s supposed to be a top ten horror list not a top ten schlock list. Comments like that usually launch nuclear bombs in my brain but for once I had to give it to them, they weren’t wrong. Riptide IS schlock. It’s not groundbreaking, hell, it mentions the movie JAWS multiple times. It knows what it’s doing but I get the impression that Donald Cheatham really meant it when he wrote this. He didn’t sit down to write, Microwave Sharks, or Sand Sharks or even Sharknado – which, BTW, I wouldn’t be surprised if Riptide wasn’t an inspiration for that movie- Donald Cheatham sat down to write an exciting Gulf Coast tale about the small beach community that he knew and lived in, killer wildlife, and a natural disaster that is always looming over the ocean side residents of Florida. Riptide isn’t JAWS but it’s not Cruel Jaws or The Last Shark either. It’s its own thing and it’s ridiculous and bloody and horny and most importantly it is not self-aware which makes all of the craziness charming. Other than some articles in his local newspapers Donald Cheatham didn’t write anything else besides this book. And let me tell you, this is B-book royalty and though I probably wouldn’t put it at the top of my 80s horror paperback book list if I did it again, it would definitely get the number one spot on my top ten absolute fun list.

Our hero in Riptide, and I use that term in the loosest possible sense, has a backstory that sounds like it would have been an action-packed crime thriller best seller. Michael Stark was a St Louis cop who took on a sniper serial killer in a long and drawn-out manhunt. The killer was someone from his past who was now massacring innocent people in St. Louis for a wrong he believes Stark did to him. The sniper’s body count is hilarious and gives you a little taste into what is to come; pregnant women, children Etc. Stark has a downtown shootout with him near a floating McDonald's on the river. St Louis people…did you really have a floating McDonald’s in the early 80s?? Tons of innocent bystanders get killed. It reminds me of the movie Demolition Man. The case and publicity ruin his life, so he leaves his family and moves to Florida to take this easy job as a detective in the small beachfront town of Surfside.

So basically, Riptide is the after-story of the tough as nails cop who went one-man-army against a psycho killer who is now taking it sleazy in big titty bikini land, sort of battling a giant tiger shark and surviving a devastating hurricane.

A huge part of what makes Riptide so fun is you never where it’s going. There are so many avenues this goes down that will make you literally say, “wait, what?” out loud.

So normally when I do reviews, I do an in-depth set up, talk about the general plot and then what I thought about it. But with the way Riptide plays fast and loose I feel like it might be better to give a little sample of what this book has to offer. I mean the basic set up is- ex St Louis-super cop gets new position in beach town, meets a plethora of smoking hot to trot ladies that he must navigate through, he has to catch a rapist on the nude beach, and there is a giant tiger shark eating people but in the end it doesn’t matter because a catastrophic hurricane is about to kill ninety thousand people. And we’re there for all of it. Crime, horror, sleaze and disaster novel all rolled into one.

Right away we get our first shark kill. A man sitting on the edge of a dock, completely out of the water is attacked when a rushing explosion of sharp-teeth shark-mouth chomps down on his leg and drags him in; a gurgling scream reaches no one’s ears from under the surface of the water.

Our hero Stark shows up at his new Surfside precinct. Yes, our hero’s name is one letter off from the word shark in a book about a killer shark. Stark is taken aback that not only is his superior Liza Sallings a woman, but she is also incredibly hot. You are probably wondering about her bra size. Well don’t worry because Cheatham lets us know it’s a 36D. These first two chapters are the perfect introduction to this book. Here is what’s on the menu, insane shark attacks and porn stars playing the roles of professional career women and neither ever lets up.

Let’s take a quick look at a small sampling of the insanity:

A shark chomping off a person’s head

A bus full of the elderly drowned

Hurricane winds blowing people’s skin right off their bodies

A guy riding a shark

A hurricane orgy with a death count

Undercover at the nude beach

Shark-Stark staring contest

Fires, floods, tan lines, no tan lines, hammerheads, hangovers, legs, pubes, killer pebbles, orgies, guns, tiger sharks, Jaws references, snakes, boobs, police work, bikinis, mothers and children eaten by sharks, incest twins eaten by sharks, cheating wives eaten by sharks, tourists eaten by sharks who are then immediately eaten by a bigger shark, and surprisingly lots of factual information on the ocean, sharks and hurricanes.

I’m going to go a little more in depth from here on out. If this book sounds like something you want to read already, stop reading right now and go buy it from fathompress.com. If you want to hear a little more and don’t mind lite spoilers- as if you could spoil this- stay tuned because there is no way I am not talking about the nude beach scene. I have to tell someone. It’s one of those things.

So, after we get our character introductions, we get Sallings in the world’s smallest bikini driving her and Stark in her yacht/houseboat out to a shipwreck crime scene. We get Stark watching ladies play with their pubes on the nude beach through binoculars from his 20th floor condo. Of course we get interspersing shark attacks throughout all of this. Stark and Sallings start to put together that there is a very big shark behind all these gruesome ocean events. Stark goes out with Sallings and meets a group of her hot younger friends who all want him. Being the good guy that he is he only takes one home. Stark finds a dead body on his first trip to nude beach. When he goes to see the medical examiner to discuss the body, surprise, it’s a woman and she is flirty and pretty hot. She suggests Stark go talk to this shark expert who happens to be in town. You all aren’t going to believe this. Are you ready? It’s a woman and she is smoking hot. She is wearing a thin little low-cut dress and much to Starks’ delight he could see that she was suntanned but didn’t have any bathing suit marks. Hello nude sunbathing Dr. Shark Expert!

From the very first chapter the looming threat of this giant hurricane is approaching. We start to get chapters from the Weather Institute perspective. I’m no meteorologist but Cheatham drops a lot of technical weather data here that sounds completely legit. Also, because it’s his style, there is a young woman who works at the institute trying to get her male co-worker’s attention by not wearing a bra to work. It’s insane! It is literally a sentence about her not wearing a bra at the end of a paragraph about the oncoming hurricane.

During the hurricane finale there are many inventive and hilarious kills but one of my favorites is there is a group of beach party people who decide to have a hurricane party which then turns into an orgy. While a man and woman are going at it, a hurricane wind blows the door off the building and the man who was on top goes right into the cement wall but the woman who is so in the moment doesn’t notice and keeps thrusting her pelvis in the air even after the man is gone.

The hurricane in this book is where I believe Sharknado might have got its premise. Obviously, the town floods during the storm and now we have killer sharks swimming through the streets. Now at the time this was written I don’t know if this was an original idea or maybe a Florida urban legend but in reality, this is something that is extremely rare. And they don’t go around munching people. I saw a few articles about it online. It actually has a bigfoot type legend around it. Google “hurricane shark” and you’re in for a treat.

And finally the undercover at the nude beach scene.

Though our focus has pretty much been on this dang shark eating people up and Stark meeting ladies for some reason we now have our Police Chief yelling at us about catching this rapist on the nude beach. Um. Ok.

Stark and Sallings need to take care of business, and first order of business is heading down to that nude beach to look for clues. You can’t be walking around in your clothes on nude beach asking questions; everyone will know you are cops. So, you must go undercover as nudists. AND it’s going to be a rough job, so you better take super sexy Hispanic officer, Juanita Hernadez.

Down at the beach Hernandez pops it all off and starts piling suntan lotion on. Stark goes next. She starts rubbing oil on him, including a close up of his backside. Sallings is next. The carpet matches the curtains. We take a second and admire all three bodies. Wait isn’t this a book about a killer shark?

While naked and combing the beach looking for clues, a group of dolphins is spotted and mistaken for sharks. But wait! A little boy watches a giant shark jump out of the water and eats a dolphin. A little girl is sitting in the water smacking it with her shovel to get the dolphins to come to her. Hold on! Hold on! Stop the review. What the hell are children doing on the nude beach?! Did the author forget where he was? Yes, he did because Stark happens to notice the shadow of the giant shark heading for the little girl, so he grabs her and scoops her into the air as the shark comes almost completely out of the water and on to the beach. Yes, naked Stark swinging and swaying holding a five-year-old girl in the air while a 20-foot tiger shark is snapping its jaws trying to get a delicious human in its mouth.

Stark puts the girl down and starts hitting the shark with a piece of driftwood. Still naked, mind you! And then throws a couple rocks. This makes the shark angry. It slides back into the water. But as Stark is walking down the beach they notice the shark is following him. Back and forth. Now it’s personal! The two stare each other down. Eyeball to Eyeball. Finally, Hernandez shows up with the bathing suits and automatic rifles but it’s too late the shark has swam off.

Need I say more?! Go buy this book now!