The Cage by Talmage Powell

The Cage by Talmage Powell
Avon G1346
Copyright 1969

Sykes touched his bleeding ribs. "That's good. Let him pay! Let the sun, the flies, and the buzzards have him, while me and you tear up a Mexican town with his five thousand dollars!"

Webb Cameron returns to his ranch after a tiring day of pole-setting and wire-stringing to find his wife brutally beaten, raped, and left mentally in a vegetable state. Showing no signs of improvement and unable to control his wife, Cameron builds a cage to keep her from harming herself. Vengeance is on his mind and the trail that is left by the culprits leads into the sun-scorched badlands. With no one to tend to his wife, Cameron locks her in the caged wagon and heads out after them. He believes that if she confronts those who ravished her, she will be will be cured and return back to normal. So his journey begins and along the way we meet a down-and-out prospector, an obscure couple what has a few skeletons in their closet, a band of half-starved renegade Indians, and the two mean bastards that Cameron is pursuing.

This is more than a revenge Western novel. There are some complex characters at play here and a shock or two awaits the reader during Cameron’s hunt for the abusers of his wife. Little subplots are in the novel. Lost honor and brutal survival are hopelessly demoralizing the not-so-merry band of Indians. The ranch couple goes along with Webb Cameron, not to help him, but mainly to restore a personal dignity that was lost. Whenever the story shifts to the villains, Sickly Sykes (who is white) and Columbus George, (who is black) it gets kicked up a notch. They are ruthless and savage boys lacking any sense of humanity, but they will arouse the attention of the reader. The main character Webb Cameron was the least appealing to me, but the others compensate plenty for him. Written in 1969, “The Cage” is a bit different from your traditional Western novel. I liked it – a good dusty story, merciless action, and an excellent ending. Not bad for a 127 page Western novel.

And written by the author that gave us those wonderful PI Ed River novels.

The Long Night by Ovid Demaris

The Long Night by Ovid Demaris
Avon T-372
Copyright 1959

Their Buick was at least five years old. These boys weren't doing so well. That's the first place the hood spends his loot. A big flashy car. Next on the list is the big sparkler on the little pinkie. These characters had neither.

He's an ex-Marine who went through hell on Tawara. Then for 9 years he was a LAPD Vice cop until he got kicked out after beating up a hood who he caught in his ex-wife's bed. The last 4 years he's been a P.I., who specializes in locating delinquent debtors and squeezing them to pay up. When it comes to women, he's a "legs and buttocks" man and he doesn't mind getting his "biological needs" from a $5 whore or a classy pickup in a bar. His name is Vince Slader and he's on a hard case, getting little sleep, that involves clearing himself from a murder rap.

The Long Night has a unique start. Slader is in front of a Senate Crime Committee hearing, sassing it up against two powerful senators. It seems that the private eyes in LA have been getting a bit out of control and Slader is the committee's poster boy. He leaves the hearings with warnings that they will be watching him and he better keep his nose clean. Like that's going to happen. Slader is hired by a scumbag casino owner to find a guy called Ben Russell. Russell has a $28,000 gambling debt and Slader gets a percentage if Russell pays up. Russell also has a young wife who has plans of her own, and those include a life insurance scam. Of course P.I. Vince Slader gets caught in it. He first gets setup to be murdered and burned to a crisp in Russell's car, the idea is that the authorities will believe he was Russell. Slader gets banged up pretty bad, but survives. Next he walks in on Ben Russell's actual murder and here is where he gets pegged as the murderer. Along with Mrs. Russell's motives to get her husband's life insurance money, elements of the local crime organization have an interest in this case. So besides the Senate Committee, Slader has thugs and cops after him now.

As for a plot, there is really no new ground breaking in this one. It's your typical P.I. being played for a patsy story. But that's OK, it still was an enjoyable read. The Senate Committee angle in the story was different and refreshing. Slader has an ex-con as an assistant called Emilio Caruso, who he kiddingly refers to as his "little wop." I liked the guy, unfortunately he doesn't make it through to the end of the novel. There is a good dose of explosive (and descriptive) gunplay in The Long Night. One of the best takes place in the desert outside of Las Vegas, with Slader having some fun with two hired killers. Slader plays the ladies throughout the story and even with his rough mug, they are attracted to him. He even gets serious with a redhead who helps him survive in the end.

Reading the The Long Night, I was wondering if Ovid Demaris was trying to make a Mickey Spillane type of novel here. It's close, but the narrative is less hardboiled and the ending fell a little flat. As for P.I. Vince Slader, I liked him. And with more appearances in novels and a little more development, he could of had a future. The Long Night is a good P.I. crime mystery, and it came darn close to being a very good one. As Maxwell Smart said, "Missed it by that much."

Here is a taste of some lines that Slader spouts about the fairer sex:

I turned and looked her over closely. Her looks were better than average for a barfly, but nothing to get worked up over. She was stacked, and dressed to prove it. I ignored the cleavage. There was nothing there I hadn't seen before.

She led me into the room, and the calves pumped and the buttocks shook. I didn't know where to look.

There are only two approaches to women - sweet and tough. And ninety percent of the time the tough will get you farther, quicker than sweet.

I have never felt much compunction about sex anyway. Women have been conveniently relegated to the role of machines for fornication. This is a hard-boiled attitude, and, like all such attitudes, it's microscopic and bigoted.

Find Eileen Hardin - Alive! by Andrew Frazer

Find Eileen Hardin - Alive! by Andrew Frazer
Avon T343, Copyright 1959

I had taken a man's life. Not in cold blood, but I had taken it. I waited for the first pangs of remorse. They didn't come.

Some fictional private eyes are lucky enough to have long careers and go down those mean streets in many novels, other excellent ones made an appearance is just one or two paperbacks. And this is the case with P.I. Duncan Pride in Find Eileen Hardin - Alive! Of course if you are a busy and prolific author, you most likely have many projects going on at once. And I would like to believe that this is the reason why Pride only appeared in two novels. The author Andrew Frazer is really Milton Lesser, or better known as Stephen Marlowe the creator of the successful Chester Drum series. And even with the Drum novels, Stephen Marlowe seemed to be a tireless writer and for decades filled up his large bibliography with a steady stream of quality work.

The history behind P.I. Duncan Pride is a darn intriguing one. He was an All-American quarterback at Wynant College located on Long Island. Big man on campus, beautiful girls in his arms, and first round draft pick of the L.A. Rams. He held the world in the palm of his hands. Well, that was before the West coast mob confronted him on the eve of his NFL debut with an offer to shave off points in the game. He refused, the mob lost money, and Duncan Pride got this legs broken in three places which ended his football career. So what is a big, tough, college graduate gonna do to earn a living? Not an accountant, not an architect, not a shoe salesman -Duncan Pride applies for a license and picks up a gun to become a West coast private eye. And as an avid reader of crime mysteries, I'm glad he did.

Find Eileen Hardin - Alive! starts with Duncan Pride returning East to his Alma mater, called in by his ex-college sweetheart Marjorie to locate her missing stepdaughter. Marjorie married Pride's college coach Ward Hardin (the father of Eileen) and her disappearance is tearing him up. Of course this is not a simple missing persons case. Pride's investigation runs into switchblade pimps, whorehouses, mobsters, addicts, and crushing intimate family secrets. The novel has an excellent mystery plot that has numerous twists that have you guessing what is the real reason behind having Pride hunt down Eileen Hardin. Questions I kept asking myself-Why are so many people interested in located her? And what in the past has caused this girl to flee? There is plenty of sexual tension throughout the novel, mostly between Pride and Marjorie. Pride has a sense of loyalty and respect for his college coach and Marjorie is making it tough for him. This strain bogs him down a little, but once he is in the dark alleys or sneaking through the back doors of NYC tenements, we realize Pride is in his element. Stephen Marlowe didn't make this into a basic P.I. novel, it has a quality complexity to it that has Pride wondering where this investigation is going. And even with being paid to lay off the case, getting knocked out a couple of times, shot at, and having to kill a man himself-he is determined to find Eileen Hardin.

To be honest when I starting into the first few pages, I almost quit on this one. I wasn't in the mood for this "P.I. returns his old college" storyline. I'm sure glad I continued. It quickly turned into a fine noir tale with many suspenseful hardboiled episodes. Four are standouts that have Pride lurking and hunting in a violent pimp's pad, an abandoned oyster cannery, a curious Men's health club, and a wonderful airport scene near the end that reminded me a bit of the ending in the Steve McQueen movie "Bullitt." A well-written and adventurous P.I. novel, that takes off and slams down to an exceptional conclusion.

Just one thing that lightly dated this paperback, and that is Pride's interaction with the college kids. You have your 1950s stereotypical crewcut boys here. In one scene you have Pride handing one of them a gun to watch over a suspect he has locked down in a motel room for a night. I kept thinking of Archie of Riverdale with a gat in his hand. But the college boys have no importance in the plot and their role is very minimal.

The other novel that Duncan Pride appeared in is called The Fall of Marty Moon, written in 1960. Marty Moon was the muscle who put out the order to have Pride's legs broken when he was a rookie with the L.A. Rams.

Night Cry by William L. Stuart

Night Cry by William L. Stuart
Avon 801, Copyright 1948

There is nothing like picking up a novel that you don't expect much out of and be blown away by it...

The barriers that had held his emotions broke and thoughts came flooding at him, released. They had escaped and now they would burrow and work, reappearing briefly and scuttlingly, like rats in an alley.

Hard-nosed cop Mark Deglin just got passed over for the big promotion, and has been carrying a chip on his shoulder since. Mark plays it tough and the press loves him. During a murder investigation he visits a possible suspect, war hero Ken Paine. He gets a little too rough with the guy and Deglin accidentally kills Paine. Immediately after he learns the guy had nothing to do with the murder. He covers up what he did by first disguising himself as Paine, then dumping the corpse in the river and make it look like the guy flew the coop. Paine can't be located, so the cops make it a missing persons case and guess who gets assigned to find him-Mark Deglin. Paine's girlfriend, the beautiful Morgan Taylor, gets involved in the story and she doesn't believe Paine vanished and left town. To insure he is not connected to the disappearance, Deglin comtemplates another murder; but morally weakened, he can't go through with it. Good police work by others lead to the body being found and Morgan is now the suspect in the Paine murder. Pitted with anxiety and hagridden, the weight is too much for Deglin. Unable to escape emotionally, he realizes he must do what is not in his nature-throw his cards in and make his final play.

This is classic crime fiction and contains everything that is great about the genre. Wonderfully written by William Stuart, with a dreary autumn NYC as the setting. The streets are dark and the pages are full of fog, rain, and shadows. From the precinct houses, to the drab bars, and with the stench of the riverfront warehouses in the air; we are rewarded with a psychological noir thriller that grabs you from page one.

After a moment, the body came out of the water, slowly, oily with viscous mud, the dirty water cascading back from its blanket shroud. Deglin felt his stomach revolt, and he caught the vomit in his mouth, held it and swallowed convulsively.

Mark Deglin descends down a nightmare journey, as Paine becomes a man who will not stay dead. Ken Paine remains one of the main characters throughout the story, even though he is killed in the first few pages. It's haunting, with the police searching the city for Paine, and the Morgan girl waiting for him to show up; while all along Deglin knows he's at the bottom of the Hudson. This, along with its noir atmosphere, brings an eerie element to the novel. What starts as a simple cover up, slowly torments Deglin to a point of anhedonia; which at the end, the burden of guilt becomes unbearable when he realizes he has fallen for Paine's girl. He can't let it continue, he must get out....

One of the best books I read this year!
( and it was written 60 years ago)

Of course this novel was so good that Hollywood grab it immediately and Otto Preminger produced and directed the film noir classic, "Where The Sidewalk Ends." (1950) Dana Andrews portrayed Mark Dixon (changed from Deglin) The film starts the same as the novel, but then curves a bit from there. (The film was excellent, but of course the plot in the book is superior)

In 1958, Kraft Television Theatre aired "Night Cry", with Jack Klugman as Mark Deglin. I don't know if this was more faithful to William Stuart's novel, I would love to see it sometime.

The Radio Program "Suspense" aired "Night Cry" on 10/07/1948, with Ray Milland as the rogue cop.

Dial Press, NY (1948) published the first edition in hardcover.

Paperback editions were published by Avon.
Avon 186 (1949)
Avon 597 (1954)
Avon 801 (1958)

Stool Pigeon by Louis Malley

Stool Pigeon by Louis Malley.
Avon 551, Copright 1953

Whenever I find a hardboiled paperback that takes place during the Christmas season, I set it aside and save it for December to read. This is one of my favorites.

The setting is Little Italy in Manhattan and Detective Vincent Milazzo grew up in these tough streets. Someone blew the brains out of small time hood Tony Statella's head and guess who gets the case. It leads the Homicide Detective through hookers, rapists, junkies, dirty cops, dirty picture takers, stoolies, ex-cons, street punks and the neighborhood mob. This is all on Christmas Eve-talk about putting a damper on the festive season!

Reading, we discover that Detective Milazzo is also on a journey. One that starts with him telling himself, "He was getting tired. If they push too hard he'd tell them where they could stick his badge." Will he climb his way out of the urban filth, with its broken people in their dilapidated tenements?

Malley's creates a bleak, dirty and depressed setting for the streets of Little Italy in the early 50's. He does it so well, the reader wishes for snow to come to clean the place up.

This is an excellent novel.