East of the River (The Gunsmith #328) by Robert J. Randisi writing as J.R. Roberts (Western series)

Clint Adams, better known as the Gunsmith, knows he's in for trouble whenever he goes east of the Mississippi, but a high-stakes poker game in Ajax, Indiana, is too good to pass up. When he finds it's been called off, he's irked, but you can't reasonably expect to receive a telegram when you're constantly on the move. His ersatz host recommends the nearby town of Dexter, where Clint gets himself embroiled in a Deputy U.S. Marshal's search for evidence against some local bank robbers.

I don't know what money Clint lives on; he doesn't seem to be selling guns like he did in the earlier books in the series. [Update: see author comment.] But he helps out at least 3 people in this story and sees not a cent from any of them, apart from the occasional free beer or roll in the hay. But suspension of disbelief notwithstanding, author J.R. Roberts (in reality Robert J. Randisi) has produced yet another entertaining page-turner with East of the River.

Roberts/Randisi has a very visual style that could easily translate to the screen. The author even changes perspective often during action scenes — as if he were editing the program "in the camera," so to speak — which keeps the mind alert. In general, he doesn't linger on a scene; he has his characters tell us what we need to know, and he moves on. I read the whole of East of the River in about ninety minutes.

Which brings me to my only complaint regarding this book: it's just too short. The story is thin and wouldn't stand for much expansion, but calling East of the River a novel is a stretch, even compared to other entries in the series. The large type, wide margins, and the fact that all the chapters begin on the right-hand page (very often leaving a blank facing page) all suggest that even the publisher had a hard time getting it to look like a book worth paying six dollars for. And there may lie the issue in a nutshell: I don't usually pay full price for books, but when I do, I want to feel I got my money's worth.

Luckily, Randisi is an always entertaining and sometimes even innovative writer. Possibly in response to those readers of series Westerns who complain that the obligatory sex scenes get in the way of the story (or even stop it cold), in East of the River he has cross-cut a scene of one kind of action with a scene of another kind, folding them together like the cards in a shuffling deck. Just one more reason that The Gunsmith is my favorite Western series.

House Dick by E. Howard Hunt (Hard Case Crime)

In 1972, E. Howard Hunt was arrested for his part in the Watergate Hotel break-in, but in 1961, Hunt was still working for the CIA's anti-Castro operations (specifically the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion) and writing crime novels under pseudonyms — novels like House Dick, which was first published under the name "Gordon Davis." (The fact that the Watergate is name-dropped on page 18 is just a coincidence, right?)

Pete Novak is the house detective at the Tilden Hotel in Washington, D.C. Mostly his job consists of boring activities like the one he's confronted with this morning: Julia Boyd insists her jewelry has been stolen and wants Novak to find it. But things get a little more interesting when Julia's husband, Chalmers Boyd, suggests to Novak that his wife "suffers frequent delusions" and to not bother doing anything about it.

Novak is going to find things even more intriguing when other connections pop up with a young blonde also staying in the hotel, her mobster husband, and a private physician with unconventional prescriptions. Somebody's going to end up very dead, and this dick will stick his nose where it doesn't belong.

Author Hunt offers, at the very least, a seemingly original conceit in his protagonist's occupation. However, this does not save House Dick from its ultimate fate of being highly forgettable. Novak stays on the move for most of the novel, offering the pretense of action, but mostly seeming not to do much at all until near the end. The solution is no surprise. There's little here that hasn't been done better elsewhere. It would be safe to say that I was bored. I don't usually like to make such harsh pronouncements, but there you have it.

Nitpicker's Note: Maybe note paper needs to remain "stationary" when you use it, but you still have to buy it in the "stationery" department. Also, a hotel should offer some peace, but rooms should not be "quiet easy to find."

Daemon by Harry Shannon (Night of the Daemon; Night trilogy)

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form in the Spring 2008 issue of Dead Reckonings. Copyright 2008.

Previously published as Night of the Daemon in an ultra-limited edition of 200 copies — and now in a more affordable format for the rest of us — Daemon is the third in author Harry Shannon’s pulp-inspired (but otherwise unrelated) trilogy that began with Night of the Beast and Night of the Werewolf. Knowledge of the prior two is not necessary to get full enjoyment out of this combination military thriller–horror–mystery set in Las Vegas.

Jeff Lehane worked black ops in Iraq, then called it quits, but assents to help his ex-wife Heather with security at a rap-rock star’s concert. There, Lehane meets up with a tall figure in a skull mask who knows him and taunts him as he kills Heather. Lehane dispatches the stranger but later finds out that Heather’s corpse was snacked on at the morgue. Something from Lehane’s past is coming back for revenge, so he gathers up his old team (most of whom were on the security detail) and sets out on the hunt to get before it gets him.

Though the blend of genres is jarring at first (military fiction is usually grounded in hard reality), Shannon executes Daemon’s combination with skill, making the ghoulish eater of the dead just another target in the lives of this well-trained team of professional killers.

It helps that Shannon really knows how to create suspense, such as in one scene from the ghoul’s point of view. It lies in the back floorboard of a woman’s car, awaiting an opportunity to attack. The woman is unaware, but other things threaten its plan, so it strategizes. Scary stuff, a ghoul that can restrain itself until the right moment and adapt to its situation.

The beginning of Daemon feels slow, but in retrospect this is deliberate, as Shannon has a good deal of plot detail and character back-story to dish out before the novel really begins moving. Once all the pieces begin to come together, however, there’s no stopping Shannon’s prose as it muscles up to the rocketing, blood-drenched finale, assuring that Shannon ends his trilogy on a high point.

Guest Blogger: Joe R. Lansdale, author of Vanilla Ride

Today, I have the honor of welcoming author Joe R. Lansdale to the pages of Somebody Dies. Joe has been one of my favorites since 2002, when I stumbled across a used copy of Savage Season, the first novel in Joe's series featuring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine.

Actually, Hap and Leonard are part of the reason Joe is here today. But why don't I shut up and let the man tell you about it himself? Over to you, Joe.

Thanks, Craig. Glad to drop in on your site, and I'm here for shameless promotion. My new book Vanilla Ride is coming out. It's a Hap and Leonard book, and the first in about eight years. I'm so excited by it, I'm writing another Hap and Leonard book right behind it, and maybe another behind that. I'm glad to be back with the characters, glad to hear Hap's voice.

I'm also pushing the fact that I have a new collection out from The University of Texas Press. Sanctified and Chicken-Fried: The Portable Lansdale has one new story in it, and a different arrangement of older stories, and two novel excerpts, and a nice introduction by Texas writer, Bill Crider.

I've been asked why would I do a collection that covers stories in other collections, except for that one. The reason is those collections are sold out and new readers come along everyday that don't have access to the old ones. I have a really cool retrospective collection coming out from Tachyon Publications, titled The Best of Joe R. Lansdale, and it's a wider view of my career, but the point is, Tachyon readers may not be as aware of my work as others, so I'm hitting a somewhat new audience. [Note: In 2011, Tachyon will also be publishing a supernatural-noir anthology edited by Joe called Crucified Dreams.]

Three years from now, a brand new collection, including two or three stories that will never be printed again by me. The owners of these stories are franchise series I wrote a story for and got permission for a one-time reprint. They may reprint it, but I'll be done. That will make that collection unique unto itself, like the limited Writer of the Purple Rage which had two Batman stories I wrote contained in it.

Having done that, I'll probably write less, or no more of that kind of business, as I want to own the stories I write. Too much love and energy goes into them.

Since I'm doing a commercial, I should add that the short story collection from University of Texas Press is a small printing, and it's going fast, so if you do want one, better jump. Thanks.

And thanks to you for dropping by, Joe.

I know I'm looking forward to getting all these books, especially Vanilla Ride. If readers are unfamiliar with the series, all the previous books, starting with Savage Season, have been rereleased by Vintage in trade paperback and for the first time on audiobook! Also, be sure to pick up a copy of Son of Retro Pulp Tales, since it's equally as good as the first, Retro Pulp Tales. Looks like there's a lot to look forward to, folks, and a little something for everyone.

Thanks once again to Joe R. Lansdale for dropping by to tell us about his books, and thanks to you readers for your support. Anyone needing more incentive can go read the page of Lansdale reviews I've written over the years. Or just pick up one of his books and start reading. I can just about guarantee his unmistakable voice will hook you right away.

Heavenly Hands (Shelter Western series #27) by Paul Lederer writing as Paul Ledd

Following a morning ménage à trois, Shelter Morgan interrupts his vacation and heads out to California on his latest assignment for General Pomfret and the U.S. government: to stop a band of primarily ex-Confederate outlaws who are raiding settlements.

On the train, Shell meets a beautiful widow named Tabatha Saint and is more than somewhat taken aback when she states her late husband was killed by none other than Shelter Morgan! Good thing Shell had already decided to go undercover with the name Jim Crook and infiltrate the gang from within, or this relationship might have gone nowhere.

It turns out the leader of the outlaw gang is operating under Shelter's name. "Why" is a question Shell will have to find the answer to much later on. But it's an intriguing one, with an eye-opening view into Shelter's past.

It wouldn't be entirely amiss to assume that author Paul Ledd (pseudonym of Paul Lederer) was getting tired of his Shelter Western series by the time he wrote the 27th book, Heavenly Hands, especially since he would write only three more Shelter Morgan novels before handing the series over to Robert J. Randisi, who would finish it with three more.

Ledd sometimes seems more interested in being provocative than in giving the reader a full-bodied story, but Heavenly Hands is still a decent read. There's plenty of bullets and bloodshed along the way, with Shelter befriending an Indian after he refuses to mow down a tribe in cold blood. Shell's relationship with Tabatha is also interestingly written. The story is slow in parts, but with an action-filled double finale and a mind-boggling shocker of a twist, the destination is well worth the trip.

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (edited by Rusty Burke, illustrated by Greg Staples)

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on The Green Man Review. Copyright 2009. Reprinted with permission.

Robert E. Howard wrote short stories during the heyday of the pulp era, mostly for Weird Tales, from 1924 until his death by suicide in 1936 at age 30. Howard wrote in various genres, but he is now best known for his stories popularizing the fantasy subgenre "sword and sorcery," and especially the hero he created, Conan the Barbarian. His range of talent, however, is becoming better known, as pulp-era fiction regains a modern readership. Del Rey Books is doing their part to keep his name in front of book-buyers with their affordable trade-paperback collections of his work, of which The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard is only the most recent.

Compiler and editor Rusty Burke has done a great job putting these 40 stories and 20 poems in an order that makes sense, and not just in a chronological or other arbitrary order — the pieces that "belong" together and actually have some connection to each other appear one right after the other. This gives The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard a smooth flow that I've rarely experienced with a short story collection, and certainly not one of this breadth. The evocative black and white illustrations of Greg Staples heading each story, with an additional handful of full-page images, are the perfect accompaniment to Howard's otherworldly tales.

Howard's skill at blending genres — he wrote fantasy, Westerns, historical fiction, even boxing stories — merely showcases the fact that horror can happen in any situation or environ. "Rattle of Bones" features Howard's 17th-century Puritan hero Solomon Kane. Kane and Gaston L'Armon enter a tavern for the night and discover there's a good reason it's called "The Cleft Skull." This story has suspense, death, and insanity portrayed with skill, and it really let me know what I was in for, in a way that the opening tale "In the Forest of Villefere," a werewolf tale followed by the better "Wolfshead," did not. ("Red Shadows," the novella in which Solomon Kane first appeared is not included, but Kane fans have Del Rey's The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane to satisfy them.)

"The Dream Snake" stands out as a particularly well-done pure horror story in the classic told-by-the-campfire vein. That is, its ending is entirely predictable and, in fact, inevitable from the beginning. But Howard's portrait of a man in the grip of an intense lifelong fear (from a horrific recurring dream) is utterly believable. A well-performed reading of "The Dream Snake" could be the highlight of any Halloween night storytelling session.

An unexpected highlight of this collection is a selection of Howard's Lovecraftian horror. H.P. Lovecraft was Howard's friend and mentor, and they corresponded by mail for years. Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu" is immortalized in Howard's "The Children of the Night" as one of "the three master horror-tales" — along with Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Machen's "The Novel of the Black Seal" — that "touch the true heights of horror." (Pick up a copy of Horror: 100 Best Books to read Howard's opinion of another favorite horror novel, James Branch Cabell's Something About Eve.)

Howard's confidence is astonishing, as he boldly makes his own additions to the Lovecraft canon (Von Junzt's Nameless Cults, poet Justin Geoffrey) that have become as much a part of the Mythos as Lovecraft's own works. But even as he adds to another author's world, he remains firmly in Robert E. Howard territory, and these tales are just as enjoyable with no prior appreciation for such "Yog-Sothothery" (what Lovecraft called the practice of Mythos-sharing, which he supported).

Having long been enthralled by tales of rare books and their supernatural effects on unassuming readers, I was deeply engaged by these stories (including "The People of the Monolith," "The Children of the Night," and "The Black Stone" among others), especially by the fact of their tangential relationship to one another. One story may make a passing mention of a character, while another focuses more deeply on another aspect. Pict king Bran Mak Morn searches for the same Black Stone in "Worms of the Earth," and the poem "The Symbol" describes it with a tone reminiscent of Shelley's "Ozymandias." Read all together, they immerse the reader in a fascinating otherworld in a way that would be impossible encountering the pieces individually. Later, in the section devoted to horrific Westerns, "The Hoofed Thing" is a marvelous mix of Lovecraftian fiction and the Old West. Though somewhat weak in believability, it remains exceptionally effective. Some of the four unfinished "Miscellanea" pieces add more interesting information in this vein, but they are otherwise frustratingly incomplete.

No collection of Howard horror would be complete without "Pigeons from Hell," the novella Stephen King called "one of the finest horror stories of our century" in Danse Macabre. Some may know it from its adaptations to other media, from an episode of the Thriller anthology TV series to a recent graphic novel (scripted by Joe R. Lansdale). The concept seems laughable, but Howard manages to make it truly terrifying with an ending that's actually surprising. "The Cairn on the Headland" and "People of the Black Circle" "glow with the fierce and eldritch light of Howard's frenzied intensity" (to use another apt King reference). Howard seems to be at his best at this kind of tale, where men awaken to find themselves turned into the superhuman warriors they once were long, long ago.

Not only does Howard write gripping tales, but he also uses the English language with a skill I've not yet seen in genre fiction. His vocabulary range is immensely impressive, and I've never seen so many semi-colons all in one place — and used with such skill. Howard picks his words with a master's touch, making unconventional choices that still retain easy readability:

Some distance behind him loomed the green, rank jungle, thinning out to low shrubs, stunted trees and tall grass. Some distance in front of him rose the first of a chain of bare, somber hills, littered with boulders, shimmering in the merciless heat of the sun. Between the hills and the jungle lay a broad expanse of rough, uneven grasslands, dotted here and there by clumps of thorn trees. [p. 111-112, "The Hills of the Dead"]

Not difficult language, by any means — merely the right word for the purpose. One never gets the sense that such and such a word was "good enough," but that only the perfect one would do to set the proper mood. Yet his descriptive narrative style flows smoothly even as it speaks poetically.

Horror fans who tend to eschew modern poetry need not skip Howard's verse. There's a lot here to appreciate. It is written in an older style that any student of literature will find familiar. This makes it highly approachable, as does its often horrific subject matter. "Up, John Kane!" was especially memorable with its folk-ballad rhythm, and the refrain of "Will ye come, will ye come, John Kane?" "Remembrance" is similarly effective telling of a haunting in 14 lines. "Dead Man's Hate" shows how not even death can staunch some men's lust for revenge. "The Dweller in Dark Valley" sets a palpable atmosphere and then explains it with a twist. And that's just a handful of the 20 poems that act as palate cleansers of a sort to The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. Interspersed throughout, they only add to the total effect.

For the Howard completists, the editors have included an exhaustive rundown of how the versions of the pieces published in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard are different from their original sources, from the placement of commas to the cleaning up of misspellings and further. I was for some reason enthralled by this information, mostly because it shows that Burke and company are fans and scholars who want nothing more than to present Howard in the best possible light. Their choice to use en-dashes instead of em-dashes throughout is mildly irritating, but the text is otherwise nearly pristine.

As a final note, I would just like to mention that, while I was reading this book for review, a severe ice storm hit our community that knocked out the power for nine days. During this difficult time, it was nice to have Howard's wild tales nearby as a small bit of escapism after the kids were asleep, before we crawled into our cold bed for the night. I've found myself returning to them during this economic downturn, as well. Howard's work allows my brain to get away from daily concerns in a way I've not experienced before. His breadth of imagination combined with his expert use of language (two things rarely found in the same individual) showcase a highly literate, action-oriented pulp style that is bound to appeal to all readers of intelligent genre fiction.