I always greatly appreciate reviews of the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY issues and ART OF RON LESSER books I co-edit with Bill Cunningham, and the Men’s Adventure Library books I co-edit with Wyatt Doyle. Even just a short one-sentence review on Amazon and Goodreads is a big boost for indie writers and publishers like us. So, as I read new books, I often post reviews there myself. Noting that many writers, editors, and publishers I admire use their blogs for reviews, I decided I should also start posting my reviews on the MensPulpMags.com blog. Here, in no particular order, are 10 recent reads that I highly recommend…
The subtitle of the novel GUNPOWDER BREATH is “A Novel in Three Gunfights.” That’s accurate but very understated. The three “gunfights” are each wild, crazy gun battles in which the main character—an aging, amoral, drug-fueled mercenary named Dick Mulligan—is pitted against dozens of even worse, better-armed gangsters.
Each gunfight is so full of bullets and blood and non-stop action that it could easily serve as the climactic scene. But the second and third gunfights both outdo the preceding one in the level of violence and the level of sardonic humor—elements the author is amazingly adept at writing. The author also writes the excellent “Bloody, Spicy, Books” blog (https://bloodyspicybooks.blogspot.com/), where he posts reviews of vintage and new action/adventure novels. He doesn’t reveal his name on the blog and used the pseudonym Kilroy for GUNPOWDER BREATH. In comments on the blog, he hints at being involved in the movie business, and the novel definitely has DNA from over-the-top grindhouse flicks and Quentin Tarantino films.
THE BRITISH TV DETECTIVE & ESPIONAGE CASEBOOK by Paul Bishop
I’ve done a number of previous posts on MensPulpMags.com about the multitalented novelist, pulp culture historian, podcaster and blogger Paul Bishop. He’s so prolific, he’s hard to keep up with, but it’s definitely worth trying. THE BRITISH TV DETECTIVE & ESPIONAGE CASEBOOK is the second excellent book in Paul Bishop’s “Casebook” series, which also includes THE SIX-GUN JUSTICE CASEBOOK. It provides insightful background on over 50 old and new British television shows that feature detectives and spies.
You’ll probably know some of the most popular shows that have aired in the US on PBS or major streaming channels, like DEATH IN PARADISE and SLOW HORSES, but Bishop’s comprehensive purview includes many you either were dimly aware of or never heard of. If you’re a fan of the detective and espionage genres, THE BRITISH TV DETECTIVE & ESPIONAGE CASEBOOK is a must-have, just as his SIX-GUN JUSTICE CASEBOOK is a must-have for fans of Western novels, TV shows and movies.
BATTLEBORN MAGAZINE #1, featuring various writers, edited by Sean CW Korsgaard
If you’re a fan of tales about Conan the Barbarian and other sword and sorcery characters, BATTLEBORN MAGAZINE is literally made for you. It features new S&S-style fiction by both up-and-coming writers and established authors, like Schuyler Hernstrom, known for his Mortu and Kyrus stories THE EYE OF SOUNNU, and C.L. Werner, who has written for Marvel Comics and the WARHAMMER series.
I especially enjoyed Werner’s unique tale about a Japanese Samurai warrior facing off against a powerful, foul-mouthed demon, “Blood of the Oni.” The non-fiction highlights include a fascinating article about the bloody World War I Battle of Belleau Wood written by award-winning writer Sean CW Korsgaard, who has worked for leading publishers of science fiction and fantasy like Baen Books and ANALOG and is Editor-in-Chief of BATTLEBORN. Another highlight for me is pulp historian Morgan Holmes’ article about the beginnings of the sword and sorcery genre in the “Weird Pulps.” BATTLEBORN is a lovingly curated new magazine that should become a favorite of S&S fans.
DIAMONDS IN DENVER by Terrance Layhew
This is Terrance Layhew’s second novella featuring former World War I pilot Mitch Mayhew. The title of the first, UNWANTED PASSENGER, is a reference to the main female character in the series, Kathleen Dumont. She’s an attractive young woman he agreed to fly to San Francisco. Mitch quickly finds out it’s a perilous assignment. She’s being pursued by armed thugs hired by her former boyfriend. He wants a million-dollar diamond necklace she is carrying. She says it’s hers. He claims it’s his. On the way to San Francisco, Mayhew’s plane is shot down by the boyfriend’s henchmen.
Mitch and Kathleen survive but are taken prisoner and held captive in a wilderness shack. They manage to escape and make their way to Denver, closely pursued by the bad guys. In DIAMONDS IN DENVER, Mitch and Kathleen work together to elude their dangerous pursuers and figure out how to get to San Francisco with the diamonds. Like the previous novella in the series, it’s a fast, fun, well-written pulp style adventure.
ASSASSINS OF MEXICO by John G. Bluck
This is the sixth novel by John G. Bluck that features Kentucky Deputy Sheriff Luke Ryder. In a previous volume of the Luke Ryder series, when Ryder crossed paths with members of a Mexican drug cartel controlled by Mateo Guerra, he killed Guerra’s nephew—with a crossbow! In this one, Guerra sends two sicario hit men to go to Kentucky to kill Ryder.
When Ryder is assigned to take a KGB defector to Washington state, the assassins follow them across the country. The KGB defector asks Ryder to take side trips to several national parks he wants to see on the way to Washington. Along the way, the sicarios make multiple attempts to kill Ryder, culminating in an excellent action scene in Yellowstone National Park. Author Bluck makes Luke Ryder both a likable regular guy and a different type of action “hero,” whose adventures are creatively unique in the realm of detective thrillers.
Chuck Dixon is one of the world’s most talented and versatile living writers of action/adventure comics and novels. His novel GUNS OF MARS, although inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars novels, is grimmer, grittier, and more hardboiled than ERB’s Martian tales. Dixon’s story is set a thousand years after Carter’s adventures.
The Martian seas have dried up and turned into parched deserts. Most remaining water is bound up in polar ice. The once great Barsoomian cities are ruins inhabited by small bands of warring tribes and vicious outlaws of various races. One of the two main characters in Dixon’s story is a Thark named Kal Keddaq and, in an interesting twist, Dixon tells the first part of the story from Kal’s point of view. The other main character is a nameless human bounty hunter. He’s trying to capture Kal for a reward offered by the father of a female Thark that Kal dallied with, then deserted. After trying to kill each other in several encounters, Kal and the bounty hunter are forced to fight together against other Martian rogues and monsters. It’s a rip-snorting, fresh take on Barsoom by a modern grandmaster of action/adventure.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO GREAT NECK by Josh Alan Friedman
Josh Alan Friedman is both a writer and a musician and I am a fan of both his books and his music. His latest book, ALL ROADS LEAD TO GREAT NECK, is an amazing and truly unique book. It weaves threads of real history into a mind-blowing, time-hopping tale about a troubled teenage hippie and various other characters whose paths cross his in Great Neck.
I especially loved Friedman’s vivid chapter focusing on Leslie West and his band Mountain, and the famed Fillmore East. His insightful observations about the rock music and guitar players of that era reflect the fact that—in addition to being a prolific writer—he is also a highly talented musician and guitar virtuoso. ALL ROADS gets 5 stars and 3 thumbs up from me. This new novel and other excellent books and CDs by Josh are published by Wyatt Doyle’s NewTexture.com imprint.
BLOOD ON THE WIRE by James Reasoner
James Reasoner is a New York Times bestselling author who has penned more than 400 Western and historical novels. BLOOD ON THE WIRE: THE LEGEND OF JOHNNY COLT, BOOK 1, is his first novel in a series featuring the character Johnny Colt. In the opening, thugs working for a land baron who has shut off access to a crucial water source ambush a group of cowboys who work for small local ranchers. Those not killed immediately are strung up dead on the barbed wire fence as a message.
That initial “blood on the wire” opening leads to a fast-paced tale in which Johnny gets recruited as a Texas Ranger by his uncle, Esau Parker. Esau is a tough-as-nails Ranger Captain who assigns Johnny to go undercover to find out who the bushwhackers were. Over the course of the story, Johnny faces other deadly situations, matures significantly, solves the mystery of who the shooters were, and encounters a young woman who becomes his first love. To me, BLOOD ON THE WIRE is in the classic epic Western tradition on the level of writers like Louis L’Amour.
COME SPY WITH ME by Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens
I have loved virtually every book by New York Times bestselling author Max Allan Collins—especially this inventive tour-de-force. In the alternate literary universe created for it by Max and co-author Matthew V. Clemens, the James Bond novels written by Ian Fleming were based on the exploits of a real British spy named John Sand, not a fictional character. COME SPY WITH ME is the first of a series of novels about John Sand and picks up shortly after Sand has retired from the spy business and married Stacey Boldt, a beautiful, brainy and wealthy woman.
The plot begins when President John F. Kennedy recruits Sand for a secret mission to save the life of the president of a Caribbean island. Along the way, Sand and his wife meet with various people who were famous in the early 1960s, including JFK, Frank Sinatra, and Fidel Castro. It’s all great, glorious fun for fans of old style spy novels and, in my humble opinion, much more Bond-like than the recent Bond movies. This novel hooked me on the John Sand series and I have since read, enjoyed, and highly recommend the next two: LIVE FAST, SPY HARD and TO LIVE AND SPY IN BERLIN.
REVOLUTION IN 35MM, edited by Andrew Nette and Samm Deighan
I’ve done several posts on this blog about Andrew Nette, co-editor of REVOLUTION IN 35MM. He’s one of my favorite pulp culture historians and novelists. This latest book of his, co-edited with Samm Deighan, is a well-researched, well-illustrated book that’s a must-read for anyone who is a fan of politically-oriented films and filmmakers or anyone who wants to learn more about them. Its subtitle—POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND RESISTANCE IN CINEMA FROM THE ARTHOUSE TO THE GRINDHOUSE, 1960–1990—accurately describes its scope. It discusses films made in various countries that involve post-World War II revolutions and revolutionaries.
The majority of those covered were most commonly seen by Americans at theaters that featured cutting edge foreign and “art” films or low budget “grindhouse” movies, or on VHS tape editions. Some, like THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966) and ZABRISKIE POINT (1970), are well known. But the majority are not, especially to American viewers. One example is “Poliziotteschi Cinema”—bloody, hardboiled Italian gangster movies from the ‘60s and ‘70s. REVOLUTION IN 35MM is a great resource for anyone who is a fan of politically-oriented films and filmmakers or anyone who wants to learn more about them.
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