HYMN TIME

The original Chuck Wagon Gang (1941).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFcs-kmM5PM

FORGOTTEN BOOK: CLEMMIE

Clemmie by John D. McDonald (1958)

From the back cover of the paperback:

She was very young.

She was dangerous.

She was a girl who lived too close to the edge of violence.

She hunted trouble.

She was an exhibitionist, a body worshipper, a sensualist.

She was without morals, scruples, ethics.

She was beautiful.

She was CLEMMIE

Clementina Bennet was the only child of a rich (and probably amoral) man who simultaneously spoiled and ignored her.  When she was thirteen she was seduced by a college student.  When she was fifteen something terrible happened that remains unspoken and she was eventually institutionalized.  Now, at twenty-three, she is a fantasist living only for her whims and desires; she is incapable of being truly empathetic and thinks nothing of ruining a man's life and family.

Craig Fitz had a terrible childhood that he put behind him when he entered college, instead creating a completely imaginary background.  After receiving a wound that left him with a slight limp in the war, he met and married an English girl while recovering in London.  Back in America, he got a job with a national manufacturing company and rose to the position of production manager at one of its plants.  Thirteen years into the job, he has not moved forward in the company, nor has he really wanted to; he is satisfied with his life, his wife, their two daughters, and his work.  Known as a straight-shooter, he has earned the respect of his neighbors and his peers.  Scrimping money, Craig and his wife were able to afford a summer's trip to England for her and their two daughters kin order for them to meet their grandparents.  Alone for the summer, Craig was feeling lonely.

When a co-worker invited him out for drinks one night, things went terribly wrong.  Craig got  drunk and the even drunker co-worker was arrested and taken to jail.  That's when Craig met Clemmie, who fascinated with her youth and her sense of whimsey.  Without really realizing what was happening, Craig and Clemmie made love, probably the only time Craig was unfaithful to his wife.  Craig felt guilty but Clemmie wanted the relationship to continue, and slowly Craig slid into a life of infidelity.  Soon Craig was caught in a trap between wanting Clemmie and wanting to save his marriage.  Clemmie' philosophy was that, if one were feeling guilty, one must continue full bore doing whatever makes you; feel guilty; in doing this, sooner of later Craig's feelings for his wife would fall to the wayside.  Craig's guilt (and his wishy-washiness) were increased by his  burgeoning alcoholism, brought on by pressures at work that imperil his job and his future livelihood.

McDonald made his bones with paperback suspense novels in the fifties and sixties, but this one is more mainstream than suspense.  The question remains whether Craig can drag himself lout of the morass he has put himself in and whether he can save his marriage, or at least, his soul, or whether Clemmie will be able to destroy him completely.

The writing is good (it is McDonald, after all) but the book had an uncomfortable feel for me. I disliked the character of Clemmie for personal reasons:  I had meet too many people like her.  And Craig's absolute weakness of character set off negative vibes for me.  

Still, this has McDonald's trademark mid-century, middle America malaise all over it, and it is something he has done so well in the past.  Yet, for some reason I got the distinct feeling I was reading an Evan Hunter mainstream novel of the same period more than a John D. McDonald novel.

Your  mileage may well differ.

POGO PRIMER FOR PARENTS (TV DIVISION) (1961)

Cartoonist Walt Kelly produced this for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to answer parental concerns about the effect of television on children.  He "carefully applies concepts of mental health and child rearing embodied in the findings of the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth."  The dangers, although very real, appear to be blown out of proportion to me, but things were very different six decades ago, when McCarthyism and Dr. Fredric Wertham were still in the rearview mirror.

Your cast of characters include Mother (Pogo Possum), Father (Albert Alligator), Child (Rackety Coon Chile), and Psychiatrists One and Two (Howland Owl and Churchy La Femme).

Despite the hype, most of the recommendations are common sense ones.

I do take issue, however, with the opinion given about folk singers.

Enjoy this little bit of Pogo.  (Then, cleanse your palate by checking out one of the m any collections of Pogo comic strips.)

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102266

BBC NORTHERN IRELAND SATURDAY-NIGHT THEATRE: THE UNFORTUNATE FURSEY (FEBRUARY 24, 1990)

Poor Fursey, a simple (and perhaps simple-minded) monk in the 10th-century Ireland Monastery of Clonmacnoise.  The forces of evil have descended upon the monastery and the unfortunate Fursey cannot manage to pronounce the words of exorcism.  As a result, Fursey is expelled from the monastery, bringing with him 'a fantastic procession of cacodemons, hippogriffs, imps, furies, and other dreadfuil creatures, not to mention the gentleman in black."

One of the truly great novels of comic fantasy, The Unfortunate Fursey was published in 1946 by Irish fantasist Mervyn Wall, who return to the hapless monk two years later with The Return of Fursey.  while never a runaway bestseller, Fursey's misadventures have entertained readers for eighty years.

This radio adaptation of the first book was directed by Eoin O'Callaghan.   Christina Reid adapted Wall's novel for the broadcast.  John Hewitt stars as Fursey, while Timothy Bateson plays the Devil.  Other performers include Fenella Fielding, Richard Howell, Ann Manahan,  Birdy Sweeney, Maurice 
O'Callaghan, Gerry McSorley, Joe McPartland, Annalivia Ryan, B. J. Hogg, Louis Rolston, and Maureen Dow.

Wall (1908-1997) wrote four additional novels, but none hard the staying power of the Fursey duology.  He also wrote two plays, a collection of short stories, and a volume of history.  His day jobs saw him as a pubic servant for 41 years, including working for Radio Eireann from 1948 to 1957, and as Secretary to the Arts Council from 1957 to 1975.

Both Fursey novels are currently in print from Valancourt Books.

Enjoy this sly adaptation.

https://archive.org/details/mervyn-wall-unfortunate-fursey

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY; THE FORGOTTEN LAND

"The Forgotten Land" by Henry Herbert Knibbs  (from The Popular Magazine, February 7, 1917; never reprinted to my knowledge)

We can't recall that we have ever published a story like this in the Popular.  It is a staggering thing -- the kind of yarn you'll talk about to your friends.  You know the type of story Knibbs writes -- Western, with a good deal of sympathy for man and his four-footed companion.  There is the Westerner here, but he is placed in a setting so far removed from anything that Knibbs has ever given us that it took out breath away.  Knibbs is a poet as well as a novelist; and as we read, we had a vision of 'the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling.'  It is prophetic, but we have known prophets who have guessed wrong, and we fancy Knibbs is wrong -- at any rate we hope so.

-- editor's introduction to "The Forgotten Land"; in that issue's Table of Contents, the story is called strange and unusual, "quite the strangest so far."

Knibbs (1874-1945) never worked as a cowboy (he suffered from a lifelong respiratory ailment) but he was a popular author of western short stories, but he was a popular author of western short stories, novels, and poems.  The FictionMags Index lists over 140 of his stories, novels, and serials published over a 28-year period, as well as over 160 published poems.  He published thirteen novels and six collections of poetry; his tales were adapted for seven films.  He stopped writing, embarrassed, because in one of his Saturday Evening Post he had a horse with a gestation period of nine months; a horse has a gestation period of eleven months -- something he knew full well -- and not only was he ridiculed by his peers, he was never able to sell another story.

Long before science fiction ever gelled as its own genre, tales of the fantastic were often published in popular magazines as "strange" stories, a practice that continued until the middle or late 1920s.   Such stories carried their own cachet and were eagerly devoured by some readers.

America has been invaded, and conquered.  As far as he knew, Jack Hanley, the lone watcher of the Grey Grouse power station, might be the only American left.  The enemy had just taken the station at the bottom of the mountain, although the crew out up a good fight.  The sound of war birds filled the air.  Hanley had four freight cars of supplies the had been abandoned earlier at his station.  He was able to destroy them by plunging them off a 4000-foot cliff.  Then he saddled his horse, Candy, and took off into the wilderness, heading toward Canada, dynamiting his trail behind him.  He had only a few supplies and the American flag he had taken from the power station with him -- he was not going to gift his country's flag to the enemy.  Now he had to find a way to survive with little supplies and even less ammunition.  After nearly being killed when he was spotted by a war bird, Hanley found a cave where he and Candy could shelter for the winter.  He improvised traps for game and was severely wounded by a bear who had forced his to use almost all of his ammunition.  Both he and his horse were weak and hungry.

He had not seen evidence of another person the entire winter, but  now, with springtime here, he found moccasin tracks.  They led to a mountain lake with a thin wisp of smoke rising above it.  A girl was being beaten by a huge Indian.  Hanley had a few bullets left and fired at the Indian, Mooswa, killing him.  The girl, whose name was Bess, had been given to the Indian for protection by her father because Mooswa had promised to hide her in the deep woods away from the invaders and the plague that they had brought with them.  Yea, there was a plague and it wiped out the invaders and any remaining Americans.

Hanley, ever the gentleman and possibly the last American male alive, treated Bess with respect.  He decided that his place, as an American, was back in America where white folks came from, rather than in the woods of Canada populated by Indians.  (Casual racism was big in 1917 -- did I mention that the invaders were "yellow men"?)  He gave Bess the choice of going back to America with him.  He was her protector so she felt that he was basically her "husband," so she agreed to go with him.  (Casual sexism was also big in 1917.)

Fifty years later some Northern  Indians came across a falling apart ranch house.  There on the cot was the body of an old man who had placed an American flag over his legs before he died.  He could have been the last of the vanished white men.  Outside the house was a grass-covered grave in the shade of a wall.  The Indians knew this had to be the final resting place of a woman.

Here's the link to the February 7, 1917 issue of Popular Magazine, which also contains stories by well-known authors of the time Francis Lynde, Holman Day, Bertrand W. Sinclair, and William S. McNutt, as well as serials by B. M. Bower, Henry C. Rowland, and Roman Doubleday:

https://archive.org/details/the-popular-magazine-v-043-n-04-1917-02-07/mode/1up

OVERLOOKED FILM: DANGEROUS CURVES (1929)

Clara Bow (1905?-1965) was one of America's first film sex symbols, known as the "It Girl."  Her personality, coltish appearance, and devil-may-care lifestyle may have been more important in her film career than her acting ability; her screen presence could not be denied and she became the ultimate flapper of 1920s films.  Her personal life was a subject of much discussion and she had a reputation for various sexual indiscretions -- much of unfounded or unproven; she negotiated her first contract with Paramount to not have a morals clause,  which did not help the rumor mill.  Supposedly, she was raped by her father when she was 16 and her mother institutionalized, although she had a warm relationship with her father for much of his life.  Bow was one of the WAMPUS Baby Stars of 1924 and was engaged to marry actor Gilbert Roland in 1925.  When she finally married, it was to rancher Rex Bell, later Lieutenant Governor of Nevada.  Later in life, she had psychiatric issues and attempted suicide in 1944.  She was institutionalized in 1949 and never returned to her family when she was released.  She lived alone in a culver city bungalow for the rest of her life, latterly under the constant care of a nurse.  She died at age sixty from a heart attack.  

Bow starred with Richard Arlen and Kay Francis (in her first Hollywood film) in Dangerous Curves, directed by Lothar Mendes, adapted by Donald Davis and Florence Ryerson from a story by Lester Cohen, with additional dialogue by Viola Brothers Shore.   Bow plays Pat Delaney, an circus bareback rider who is in love with Larry Lee (Arlen), the arrogant trapeze artist and the circus's most popular act.  Lee, however, is smitten with Zara (Francis), who is just using him for what she get.  when he finds out that Zara has been messing with another man, Lee flies into a rage and beats his rival.  Unfortunately, Lee has to perform immediately after, but has lost his concentration and falls.  Lee is briefly hospitalized and soon leaves the circus, his confidence shaken, and turns to drink.  Pat finds him and convinced him to start a high wire act with her.  But Lee's talent is gone...for the moment.  Slowly the talent returns and Lee tries to convince Zara to join him in his act.  Pat flees in tears and misses her performance and is fired.  Zara runs off with her boyfriend and Lee gets drunk.  Pat disguises herself as Lee and performs his act posing as him.  Lee appreciates it.  Could this be the start of something big?

A mawkish drama made palatable by Clara Bow's presence.

Give it a try:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFFNJNQe9lU&list=PLk2PLIM4DugyCGaumm5JKhM2hj8b5d-sj&index=2 

TRUNCATED BITS & PIECES

Openers:  

I'm going you tell you the real story behind Bloodrock and how we ended up with a dead man in a bathtub.  I was right there on location and saw just about everything.  More than anyone else, at least.  I'm sure you remember hearing about it, even if you are not a regular reader of the Hollywood traces.  You also probably remember that there were some questions floating around, the big one being:  Was it just an accident, or was it murder?

So I'll tell you everything I know, and then you can decide for yourself.

-- A Murder in Hollywood by Michael Crichton writing as "John Lange," 2026

Whoa, Nellie!  A new book by Michael Crichton?  The guy who's been dead for nearly eighteen year?  And writing as John Lange, the pseudonym he used when he first started publishing when he was a medical student, eventually totaling eight basically forgettable novels under that pen name?  The last being in 1972 (Binary), three years after he made his bones with The Andromeda Strain?  Yeah, that guy.  I think the dead sumbitch published it just to mess with my my mind because I had just completed earlier this year my read of all of his published books -- fiction, nonfiction, even a couple of screenplays.  Anyway, here's this new Michael Crichton book that had flown under my radar -- one I had never heard of, published this past May.

Well, there's a good reason. Evidently he wrote it back in 1973.  By then, all his pseudonymous work had been published (eight by "John Lange," one by "Jeffrey Hudson," and one collaboration published as by "Michael Douglas").  Also by then, some confusion had begun about the Lange pen name:  it turned out the John Lange was the legal name of "John Norman," the pseudonymous named used to publish a slew of best-selling incel (before that was created) fantasy novels heavy on sex and degradation.  With two bestsellers, one Edgar Award-winning novel and at least three films in the works, it was time to retire the pseudonym and the type of action-oriented novel that went with it.  So A Murder in Hollywood became a trunk novel, never seeing the light of day...presumably forever.

But, where there's a manuscript with Crichton's name on it, there is the possibility for cash...which brings us to 2026.

Don't get me wrong.  This isn't a truly bad book.  It just not a mature Michael Crichton book, heavily influenced by his time as a student author who was having an novel filmed (the Jeffrey Hudson A Case of Need, filmed as The Carey Treatment by Blake Edwards; also the same year, his collaborative novel Dealing was filmed by Paul Williams).  It's a decent, well-plotted, snarky book.  The main problem is with the title.  There is not a murder in Hollywood.  There is one in Tucson -- the dead guy in the bathtub.  But was it even a murder?  The guy slipped, fell, and hit his head.  But if it was an accident why was the bathroom completely wiped of fingerprints.  And there may not be a single murder; there may be two.  but as the second paragraph in the book said, you will have to decide for yourself.

I am glad I read it, but I sincerely hope there are no more trunk novels lying around.  This was the fifth posthumous Crichton book published, two of which were completed by other authors.

Incoming:

• Joe Abercrombie, The Devils.  Fantasy.  "Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain  a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him.  But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters.  The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures rom them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.  Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing bit their own ambitions and comfort.  With an epic, hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side."
• Lloyd Alexander, The Wizard in the Tree.  Juvenile fantasy.  "When Mallory notices something funny sticking out of an old oak tree, she takes a closer look -- and before she knows it, she's broken a magic spell.  Arbican the wizard has been trapped in the tree for thousands of years.  All his fellow enchanters are gone.  And so are his powers!  Will he get them back in time to save Mallory's village from greedy Squire Scrupner?"  Alexander was the author of the noted Prydain Chronicles, The Westmark Trilogy, and the Vesper Holly Adventures.
• Patrick Anderson, The Triumph of the Thriller:  How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction.  Nonfiction.  What Anderson thinks works and what doesn't.  The most interesting part is where he skewers, perhaps rightly so, six novels:  The Beach House by James Patterson & Peter de Jonge, Hour Game by David Baldacci, Trace by Patricia Cornwell, The Face of the Assassin  by David Lindsey, The Eleventh Commandment by Jeffrey Archer, and The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks.
• Robert Jackson Bennett, The Company Man.  Thriller.  The McNaughton Corporation:  "They built the guns that won the Great war before it even began.  They built the airships that tie the world together.  and, above all, they built Evesden -- a shining metropolis, the best that the world has to offer.  But something is rotten at the heart of the city.  Deep underground, a trolley car pulls into a station with eleven dead bodies inside.  Four minutes before, the victims were seen boarding at the previous station.  eleven men butchered by hand in the blink of an eye.  All are dead.  And all are union.  Now, one man, Cyril Hayes, must fix this.  There is a dark secret behind the inventions of McNaughton and a was brewing between the executives and the workers.  The truth must be discovered before the whole city burns.  Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must uncover the mystery before it kills him."  Also, Mr. Shivers.  Thriller, Bennett's first novel.  "It is the time of the Great Depression.  Thousands have left their homes looking for a better life, a new life.  But Marcus Connelly is not one of them.  He searches for one thing, and one thing only:  revenge.  Because out there, riding the rails, stalking the camps, is the scarred vagrant who murdered Connelly's daughter.  No one knows him, but everyone knows his name:  Mr. Shivers."
• "Benjamin Black" (John Banville), The Black-Eyed Blonde.  Mystery, an authorized sequel to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novel The Long Goodbye, and the basis of the basis of the 2022 Liam Neeson film Marlowe (not to be confused with the 1969 James Garner film Marlowe, which was based on Chandler's novel The Little Sister).  "It is the early 1950s. Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and business is a little slow.  Then a new client is shown in:    young, beautiful, an expensively dressed, she wants Marlowe o find her former lover, a man named Nico Peterson.  Marlowe sets off on his search, but almost immediately discovers that Peterson's disappearance is merely the first in s series of bewildering events.  Soon he is tangling with one of Bay City's richest families and developing a singular appreciation for how far they will go to protect their fortune."  Black borrowed the title from an otherwise unrelated Marlowe short story by written by Benjamin M. Schutz for the 1998 tribute anthology Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe:  A Centennial Celebration, edited by Bryon Preiss.  I am hopeful that Black's book will read much better than the two previous authorized Marlowe books by Robert B. Parker.
• Steven Brust, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille.  Science fiction.  "Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille is a great place to visit, bit it tends to move around a bit -- from Earth to the Moon to Mars to another solar system -- and always just one step ahead of whatever mysterious conspiracy is reducing whole worlds to volcanic ash.  Still, Cowboy Feng's is worth tracking down.  Not only does it dish up the best matzo ball soup and Irish music in the known cosmos,  but it may be humanity's last hope for survival..."
• Michael Cadnum, Daughter of the Wind.  Young adult historical adventure novel.  "Hallgerd is the seventeen-year-old daughter of the Norwegian village leader.  A group of Danes, acting under the orders of a powerful, warring-king's daughter, kidnap her and intend to marry her to this noblewoman's son.  After a sympathetic young Dane helps her to escape, Hellgerd avenges her kidnapping by setting fire to the town and steals a small rowboat.  As she is rowing through the marsh, she meets Guk, a young hunter, along with a young blacksmith from Hellgerd's village who has come to rescue her.
• Larry Correia & Kacey Ezell, editors, Noir Fatale.  Original science fiction and fantasy anthology with thirteen tales of dangerous female archetypes.  Authors include Christopher L. Smith & Michael J, Ferguson, David Weber, Kacey Ezell, Steve Diamond, Griffin Barber, Hinkley Correia, Laurell J. Hamilton, Alistair Kimble, Sarah A. Hoyt, Mike Massa, Patrick M. Tracy, Robert Buettner, and Larry Correia.
• Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl.  Yeah, the best-selling science fantasy Lit RPG novel that has spawned seven (thus far) sequels.  Following the destruction of most of the world, Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, are force to enter "the World Dungeon, an 18-level dungeon crawl borrowing ideas from tabletop role-playing and video games."  In this first book, Carl and Donut are only on the first and second levels.  The book has been nominated for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the series is overwhelmingly popular.  This was Amy's choice for the upcoming family book club.  I may or may not have the fortitude to complete the series.
• Stephen R. Donaldson, The King's Justice.  Collection of two fantasy  novellas.  "In 'The King Justice,' a stranger dressed kin black arrives in the village of Settle's Crossways, following the scent of a terrible crime.  He even calls himself 'Black,' though most certainly that is not his name.  While the desire of the inhabitants of quiet villages to cooperate with strangers is not common in their land, people find that they have a surprising urge to cooperate with this stranger.   But this gift will not be enough to protect him as he discovers the nature of the evil concealed in Settle' Crossways.  In 'The Augur's Gambit,' a daring plan is created by Mayhem Gordian, Hieronomer to the Queen of Indemnie -- a plan to save his Queen and his country.  Gordian has the gift of reading entrails, and in the bodies of chickens, lambs, piglets, and one stillborn human infant he sees the same message:  The island nation of Indemnie is doomed.  But even in the face of certain destruction a man may fight, and the Hieronomer is loyal to his Queen -- and to her only daughter."
• David Drake, The Far Side of the Stars.  Military science fiction novel, the third in  the RCN series with Lt. Daniel Leary.  "While the Republic of Cinnabar is at peace with the Alliance, warriors like Lt. Daniel Leary and Signals Officer Adele Mundy must find other work -- like escorting a pair of wealthy nobles on an expedition to the back of beyond!  The Princess Cecile, the corvette in which they carve their reputations in letters of fire, has been sold as a private yacht, but she still has her guns, her missiles, and her veteran crew.  Daniel and Adele will need all of those things as they face winged dragons, an Alliance auxiliary cruiser, jealous lovers, and a mysterious oracle which really does foresee the future.  That won't be enough, though, when they penetrate a secret Alliance base and find a hostile fleet ready for a war that will sweep Cinnabar out of a strategically crucial arm of the galaxy.  Preventing that will involve skill, courage, and more luck than a sane man could even pray for; and it will require a space battle on a scale that a tiny corvette like the Princess Cecile has no business  being involved in."
• Loren D. Estleman, The Branch and the Scaffold and Billy Gashade.  Omnibus of two westerns.  Branch:  "Based on the true story of the West's legendary Hanging Judge!  For two decades, notorious federal judge Isaac Parker's stern and implacable justice brought law and order to the West...and made him plenty of enemies.  Over the years, he and his marshals ran up against colorful and dangerous outlaws, including the notorious Dalton Gang; Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen; the  murderous Cherokee Bill; and Ned Christie."  Gashade:  "From the ravages of the Civil War to the early years of the twentieth century, a piano player wanders the old west, singing for his supper in saloons and bawdy houses.  Along the way, he meets famous people, such as Frank and Jesse James, Oscar Wilde, and William 'Billy the Kid' Bonney, and finds that they, and others, were neither as bad nor as good as their reputations suggested."
• Bill Fawcett, editor, Bolos Book 5:  Cold Steel.  Science fiction; the cover and title page proclaim this to be "Created by Keith Laumer"; Fawcett is only given credit (in smaller type on the title page and the copyright page -- such is marketing.  Bolos are giant, almost unstoppable, war tanks controlled by artificial intelligence; they never surrender.  This volume includes a novella by J. Steven York & Dean Wesley Smith, and a full novel by Linda Evans.
• Steve Frazee, Nights of Terror.  Collection of eight western pulp stories, seven of them from 1951 to 1959.  Frazee always provided a good read.
• Alasdair Gray, Poor Things.  Fantasy novel, subtitled "Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer."   "In the 1880s in Glasgow, Scotland, medical student Archibald McCandless finds himself enchanted with the intriguing creature known as Bella Baxter.  Supposedly the product of the fiendish scientist Godwin Baxter, Bella was resurrected for the sole purpose of fulfilling the whims of her benefactor.  As Archibald's desire turns to obsession, his motives to free Bella ae revealed  to be as selfish as those of Godwin, who claims her body and soul.  But Bella has her own passions to pursue.  Passions that take her to aristocratic casinos, low-life Alexandria, and a Parisian bordello, reaching an interrupted climax in a Scottish church.  Exploring her station as a woman in the shadow of the patriarchy,  Bella knows it is up to her to free herself -- and to decide what meaning, if any, true love has in her life."   The book won both the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Award in 1992.  A 2023 film adaptation starred Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe; the film won the Golden Lion at the 80th Venice Film Festival, as well as four Academy Awards.
• G. T. Karber, Murdle Jr.:  Curious Crimes for Curious Minds.  Forty puzzle mysteries for young readers.
• Elmer Kelton, Buffalo Wagons and Cloudy in the West.  Omnibus of two western novels from a master of the genre.  Buffalo:  "For gage Jameson, the summer of 1873 has been a poor hunt.  A year ago, he felled sixty-two buffalo in one stand, but now the great Arkansas River herd is gone, like the Republican River herd before it.  In Dodge City, old hide hunters speak in awe of a last great herd to the south, but no hunter who values his scalp dares ride south of the Cimarron and into Comanche territory -- none but Gage Jameson."  Cloudy:  :In the Texas backlands of 1885, twelve-year-old Joey Shipman's father dies under mysterious circumstances.  After the death of a second man -- a farmhand and friend -- and another 'accident' that almost takes 
  Joey's life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin, Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird.  Beau, a San Antonio prostitute, an outlaw, and a sheepman become Joey's unlikely partners as the boy is trailed by the murderous Meacham, who is in league with Joey's stepmother in a scheme to take over the Shipman farm."
• J. A. Kornrath, Origin.  Horror/thriller.  "In 1906, a crew of workers at the Panama Canal unearthed something that could not be identified or explained.  Something sinister.  And very much alive...One hundred years later, a team of scientists gather at an underground facility in New Mexico to determine what this being is -- the most amazing discovery in the history of mankind -- and how it has managed to survive.  A biologist will examine its structure.   A veterinarian will study its behavior.  A linguist will translate its language.  But even the greatest minds in the world can not answer one inescapable question:  Could this ancient creature, this mockery of God and nature, actually be the ancient demon known as .. the Beat?"
• "Emma Lathan"  (Mary Jane Latsis & Martha Henissart), three John Putnam Thatcher financial mysteries.  By Hook or By Crook.  "A rivalry sealed in blood triggers a subtle and deadly revenge plot that links a powerful business and a vast estate to a double murder...John Putnam Thatcher is faced with two murders -- the result of a bitter family feud.  John Putnam Thatcher knows who the  murderer is -- but has  no proof.  John Putnam Thatcher remembers the words of a man about to be murdered.  John Putnam Thatcher is dangerously close on the tracks of a murderer." Green Grow the Dollars.  'John Putnam Thatcher's out in the field -- to harvest a crop of patent thievery, corporate scandal, and million-dollar death!  All because a newly developed tomato promises a six-month yield -- guaranteed to revolutionize agribusiness with juicy new profit.  Until the patent rights, claimed by Sloan Guaranty Trust's respected client, are challenged in court by an upstart seed company.  After one murder and a second attempt, Thatcher's got only one chance -- to find the killer, insure the patent, and nip the case in the bud!"  Murder Against the Grain.  "Before John Putnam Thatcher can recover the  missing million dollars the Russians have made as a down payment on wheat, he has to answer some rather peculiar questions:  - What was the Cuban Navy doing in New York harbor?  - Why was the Leningrad Symphony practicing on a basketball court?  - How on earth did a performing troupe of Russian otters that drink only vodka, dance the mazurka, and merrily assemble a three-stage rocket get into the picture?  -And, above all, who is the grim reaper dead set on MURDER AGAINST THE GRAIN?"
• Henning Mankell, The Man from Beijing.  A standalone thriller that spans two centuries and four continents.  "In the far north of Sweden a small, quiet village has been almost entirely wiped out by a mass murderer.  The lonley clue left at the scene is a red ribbon.  Among the victims are the grandparents of Judge Birgitta Roslin, who sets out to find the killer.  Despite being brushed off by the police, Birgitta is determined to prove that he murders wee not some random act of violence  but are part of something far more dark and complex.  Her investigation leads to the highest echelons of power and into the recesses of history where the seeds of evil deeds were planted."  Translated by Laurie Thompson.
• Tom Piccirilli, A Choir of Ill Children.  Southern Gothic.  "Kingdom Come is a decaying backwater that draws the lost, the ill-fated, and the damned.  Ever since his mother's disappearance and his father's suicide, Thomas has cared for his three  brothers -- cojoined triplets with one shared brain -- and overseen the town's only industry, The Mill.  The superstitious townsfolk look to him with a mix of fear and awe.  But Thomas suspects that not even he can protect them from the evil that's coming.  In this lyrical tale of loss and redemption, Thomas will have to face down his own tormented past if he's to stop damnation itself from conquering Kingdom Come."
• Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, The Cabinet of Curiosities.  An Special Agent Pendergast novel, the third to be published.  An ancient mass grave is discovered as workmen prepare for a new skyscraper.  The bodies link back to Dr. Enoch Leng, a distant relative of Pendergast's, and a man who may still be alive after a century and a quarter.  We are also introduced to Constance Green, who may also be immortal and who supposed threw her baby overboard during a transatlantic crossing, and to Nora Kelly, the anthropologist who would soon have her own series from the authors.
• "J. D. Robb" (Nora Roberts), Betrayal in Death, Judgment in Death, Promises in Death, and Random in Death.  Entries in the author's lengthy futuristic romance/police procedural series featuring Lieutenant Eve Dallas.  Betrayal:  It's Eve against Sly Yost, a virtuoso of music and murder and a hitman for the elite.  But there's also an unknown person involved, and it might just be Rourke, Eve's husband.  Judgment;  A cop is bludgeoned to death and his hidden secrets lead Eve to a vice-ridden private club.  Promises:  This time Eve comes face-to-face with a cop killer.  Random:  An aspiring seventeen-year-old musician has been injected with poison while at a nightclub; Eve fears there will be more deaths to come.  I started reading this series in order a few months ago and have read the first seven books so far; there are currently 63 novels  in the series so I have a long way to go.
• John Saul, Perfect Nightmare.  Horror novel.  "If you open your house to strangers, who knows what might come in.  And what they might be after.  Or whom.  Now, ponder the unthinkable and surrender to your darkest dread, as sinister storyteller extraordinaire John Saul weaves a heat-stopping tale of lurking terror and twisted intent.  Every parent's nightmare becomes reality for Kara Marshall when her daughter, Lindsay, vanishes from her bedroom during the night.  The police suspect the Mary Jangirl is just another moody teenage runaway, angry of behind left behind her school and friends because her family is moving.  But Lindsay's recent eerie claim -- that someone invaded her room when the house was opened to prospective buyers -- drives Kara to fear the worst:  a nameless, faceless stalker has walked the halls of her home in search of more than a place to live.  Patrick Shields recognizes Kara's pain-- and carries plenty of his own since he lost his wife and two children in a devastating house fire.   But more than grief draws Patrick and Kara together.  He, too, senses the hand of a malevolent stranger in this tragedy.  And as more people go missing from houses for sale, Patrick's suspicion, like Kara's, blooms into horrified certainty..."  Another riff on Saul's patented children in jeopardy theme.
• David G. Smith, Arcane Arts and Cold Steel:  Writing Sword-and-Sorcery Fiction.  This book "teaches how to write sword-and-sorcery by breaking it down to its working parts.  Drawing on a century of fiction -- from the foundations laid down by Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, to the gritty reinventions of Karl Edward Wagner and Charles Saunders, and into the 'New Edge' renaissance pioneered by Howard Edward Jones -- Smith explains how the form achieves its distinctive power on the page."  I was heavily into the genre many years ago but have not kept up with the latest developments and was interested in seeing what I might have missed.
• Nancy Springer, The Case of the Missing Marquess.  The first of ten books in the YA Enola Homes series about the 14-year-old sister of Sherlock Holmes.  "When Enola Holmes, sister to the detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers her mother has disappeared, she quickly sets off to find her in London -- but nothing can prepare her for what awaits.  For when she arrives, she finds herself involved in the kidnapping of a young marquess, and must flee the murderous villains and elude her shrewd older brothers -- all while trying to piece together clues to her mother's disappearance.  Amid all the chaos, can Enlola find he marquess and her mother?"  Nominated for an Edgar for Best Juvenile Mystery in 2007.  The book was adapted for the 2023 film Enola Holmes, the first of three films based on the series and starring Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, and Helena Bonham Carter. 
• Helen Tursten, Winter Grave.  An Embla Nystrom Investigation.  "When a little girl in the small town of Stromstrad disappears weeks before Christmas, suspicion falls on the teenage loner who last drove her home after school.  But detectives can hardly get a word out of him.  Soon, a second child disappears, and a police officer is found dead.  Detective Inspector Embla Nystrom has just returned to work after her brush with a killer, and as she searches for the missing children, she can't help but think back to the disappearance of her own childhood best friend.  could the incidents be linked?  Embla must find answers before the parents of Stromstrad take matters into their own hands."  Tursten is also the author of the Irene Huss mysteries.
• David Weber, The Honor of the Queen.  Military SF novel, the second of fourteen novels in the Honor Harrington series.  "It's hard to give peace a chance when the other side regards war as he necessary prelude to conquest, and a sneak attack is the best means to that end.  That's why the Kingdom of Manticore needs allies against the so-called 'Republic' of Haven -- an the planet Grayson is just the right strategic place to make a very good ally indeed.  But Her Majesty's Foreign Office had overlooked a 'minor cultural difference' when they chose Honor Harrington to carry the flag:  women on the planet Grayson are without rank or rights; Honor's very presence is an intolerable affront to every male on the planet.  At first Honor doesn't take it personally; where she comes from, gender discrimination is barely a historical memory, right up there in significance with fear of the left-handed.  But in time such treatment as she receives from the Graysonites does become wearing, and Honor would withdraw if she could -- but then Grayson's fratricidal sister planet attacks without warning and she must stay and prevail, not just for honor's honor, but for her sovereign's, for THE HONOR OF THE QUEEN."
• Martha Wells, The Emilie Adventures.  Omnibus of two young adult novels.  Emilie and the Hollow World.  "Running away from home and stowing away on the wrong ship, Emilie learns that the crew hopes to use an experimental engine to journey to the interior of the planet.  When the ship becomes damaged on arrival and evidence points to sabotage, they encounter the treacherous Lord Ivers, along with a strange new race.  Can Emilie and her newfound friends possibly reach the surface world again?"  Emilie and the Sky World. "When Emilie arrives in Silk Harbor, the eminent Professor Abindon warns her of something strange an potentially deadly in the sky.  On further investigation they realize it's a ship from another aetheric plane.  Join Emilie as she navigates the strange landscapes of the upper air, and the deadly menace that inhabits the sky world."  Wells is best-known as the author of the successful Murderbot Diaries.

"It's Florida, Jake.":

• Allie, a local "emotional support" alligator beloved by many has been murdered.  Allie resided in a fenced off and locked water retention pond in Garcon Point in Milton, Santa Rosa County.  Residents said that Allie had lived there for year and was no danger to anyone because the six-foot-tall fence was locked at all times.  One neighbor, Jennifer Dory, told reporters, "She was a danger to no one...little did I know that she was in danger."  Three men have been charged with entering the area, capturing Allie, binding her, and killing her with a power drill through the skull.  Include former U.S. Navy Seal Kevin "Dauber" Lacz (44), Richard Reder (57, and Jason Griffin (49).  The three men face second-degree misdemeanor "conservation" charges of violating Florida's administrative code on taking and disposing of nuisance reptiles. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said that the three were not legally authorized to determine whether Allie was a nuisance because none had valid alligator nuisance permits.  Some neighbors and wildlife advocates are demanding stiffer penalties for the three, wondering whether the light charges are due to Lacz's status as a decorated former SEAL who once worked with noted sniper Christopher Kyle.  The attorney for the three said that they had long been authorized to perform alligator removals but that their licenses had all expired.  Residents meanwhile consider the act to have been inhumane and unnecessary.

HYMN TIME

Albertina Walker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qj9o2AFa1c

THE SPIRIT (JUNE 2, 1940)

Following my Friday Forgotten Book post yesterday about Will Eisner's John Law, I thought it would be fun to look at one of the Spirit Sunday sections for the Register and Tribune Syndicate, which included a comic book insert in their Sunday newspapers.  This one, the very first Spirit Sunday section, is reprinted from the Washington Sunday Star -- please excuse the poor reproduction.

Here we see the origin of The Spirit, as Denny Colt falls into a vat of chemicals while pursuing Dr. Cobra and is thought dead.  Actually, he is in a state of suspended animation, reviving after being entombed in the Wilkdwood Cemetery.  This is when he decides to become The Spirit.  The story was written and drawn by Eisner and and provided the foundation for the long-running series.  (Note that in this first e;pisoded the Spririt did not don a mask.)

Next, we get a four-page story introducing Lady Luck, written by Eisner and drawn by Chuck Mazoujian, followed by a five-page introduction to Mr. Mystic, again written by Eisner but drawn by Bob Powell.

The Comic Book Plus website has links to most -- but not all -- of the Spirit Sunday sections from 1940 to 1952.  Great stories, great artwork, and one of the truly great comic book heroes.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=82548

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE COLLECTED WILL EISNER'S JOHN LAW

The Collected Will Eisner's John Law by Will Eisner and Gary Chaloner (a Hard Case Crime Graphic Novel, 20254) 

Will Eisner (1917-2005) was a pioneering cartoonist in the comic book industry, from his early work at the Eisner-Iger Studio to his creation of The Spirit to such graphic novels as A Contract with God,(which popularized the term "graphic novel") Fagin the Jew, and The Plot:  The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  As a teenager, he began working as an advertiser-writer cartoonist for the New York American, while also providing illustrations for pulp magazines.  High school friend and fellow cartoonist Bob Kane (of future Batman fame) suggested that Eisner try selling some cartoons to a new magazine, Wow, What a Magazine!  Editor Bob Iger bought Eisner's cartoons and, following the death of Wow after only four issues, he and Eisner opened the Eisner-Iger Studio, packaging new material for comic books, which were moving away from reprints from newspapers to original material.  At a profit of $1.50 a page, Eisner became very rich by the time he was 22.  Among the characters that Eisner originated or co-created there were Doll Man and Blackhawk.

In late 1939, Quality Comics publisher "Busy" Arnold came to Eisner with a proposal that would allow the Sunday newspaper get into the comics book boom.  Eisner, eager to produce comics for a more adult audience, sold his half of the partnership to Iger, and began to create The Spirit, about P.I. Denny Crane, who was pronounced dead after falling into suspended animation, and was interred in Wildwood Cemetery; when he revived, he put on a domino mask and became a crime fighter, one without supernatural powers.   The Spirit became the main feature of a comic book insert in the Sunday papers of the Register and Tribune Syndicate; the insert, known as "The Spirit Section," ran from June 2, 1940 to October 5, 1942.  From the 60s to the 80s, Eisner wrote a few additional stories about The Spirit.  At its peak, The Spirit ran in twenty newspaper with a circulation of five million.  In 2011, The Spirit was ranked as #21 in Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time.

While in the military during World War II, Eisner began using comics to help train soldiers, creating the bumbling soldier Joe Dope to stress the importance of preventative maintenance.  He later created PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly for the Army in 1951, and continued working on it until the 1970s.  Ever the entrepreneur, Eisner created the American Visuals Corporation to provide instructions for the government and such businesses as RCA Records, the Baltimore Colts, and New York Telephone.  

In the 1970s he became the "Godfather of the American Graphic Novel" with the publication of A Contract with God.  Others. produced at the rate of about one year, include Moby Dick, Sundiata, The Last Knight, and The Princess and the Frog.  Eisner also began teaching, publishing two books based on his lectures:  Comics and Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative.

Eisner received six annual National Cartoonist Society Awards, as well as its Reuben Award.  Other awards include the Inkpot Award and the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angouleme.  He has been inducted into the Academy of Comic Book Arts Hall of Fame and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame.  In 1998, the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were named in his honor.  He was posthumously elected into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2015.  Not bad for a scrappy Jewish boy who grew up in impoverished Brooklyn.

But enough about Eisner (I hear you say), what about John Law?  In 1949, Eisner decided to become a comic publisher, starting with four or five titles.  The first two, Kewpies (designed for young children) and Baseball Comics, had disappointing early sales and Eisner pulled the plug on the venture.  One of the proposed titles that were never published was John Law; others were Pirate Comics and (possibly) Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy (based on an early Eisner creation who had been repurposed for a role in the John Law comics).  The three John Law stories that Eisner had written were then modified to become Spirit stories by replacing John Law's eyepatch with a domino mask, get rid of John Law's pipe, and place the Spirit's gloves on John Law's hands...easy peasy, with  a few other alterations.  Eventually the original John Law stories were published, some in 1983, and others in John Law:  Dead Man Walking (2004), including some new stories by Tasmanian artist Gary Chaloner.

Eisner's original John Law had the character's father, a has-been fighter who was a patsy for the crooks in the area, witness the death of his best friend, police officer Saref, a the hands of his accomplices.  Devasted, he took his own life.  Until that point, John law had been best friends with his playmate Sand, Saref's young daughter.  Sand took her father's death hard and began to despise all police; she also blamed John Law's father, which caused a irreparable break between the two youngsters.  Sand began hanging with with the wrong crowd and eventually ran off to Europe with a notorious gambling ring.  In Europe, she became an adventuress, first betraying Nazis for money, then being seen in exotic areas of the globe with various international figures.  Back in the U.S., one of Sand's accomplices shot and killed a policeman; Sand cu ties with the killer and sent the policeman's family $50,000 by way of John Law.  Reunited with Sand, the two realize that too uch has passed since they last met, and any hopes for a romance were nonexistent.

The second story features Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy and his dog Tiger.    A being claiming to be the ghost of murdered Garfield Lox shows up at police headquarters and is given the bum's rush by Sergeant O'Cork.  It really was Lox, or at least part of him; Lox's body had been found missing his head and it was the head of the half-dead Mr. Lox that showed up at headquarters.  It was  rainy night and kindly Nubbin offered o put Lox up for the night at his room at Mr. Gibbet's house, not realizing 1) that Lox was a ghost, and 2) that Gibbet was the man who had murdered Lox.  In the end, Nubbin is nearly drowned in a flooded basement but saves himself by using his shoeshine box as a bolo, trapping Gibbet.  John Law comes through just in time to arrest the murderer.

The final original story has Ratt Gutt, a neighborhood psychopath bleeding businesses for protection money, take Nubbin's friend Tommy under his wing because stupid Tommy thinks crooks are cool.  nubbin bravely faces off against Ratt Gutt...and loses.  Then John Law arrives.  Ratt Gutt realizes that he is our of ammo and runs in fear, but John Law easily defeat him without landing a punch; Ratt Gutt is such a coward that he faints in fear.

The stories by Gary Chaloner reimagine John Law, most significantly by killing off Nubbin, who is now a ghost whom John law cannot see but Tiger can.  Also brought into the mix are two characters from The Spirit, Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic.  Lady Luck is wealthy Brenda Banks, a vigilante who operated during World War II and now a motion picture star and film studio head; Mr. Mystic was originally Kenneth Yarkovski, who is embued with magical powers.  Also created for the Chaloner series was mob boss Enzo D'Angelo, "The Angel," who was best friends with John Law when they were children -- Enzo's mother, Maria, was a surrogate mother for John; John unknowingly operates under Enzo's.  protection.  Because of Enzo's protection, crooked cop and Chief of Detectives Arnold Reznick cannot physically harm John Law, whom he fears because of his honesty and integrity, so he places John in charge of a new squad of crackpot detectives looking into strange and unexplained cases.  The new squad include accident-prone Harry Carey, an Interpol liaison fresh off the boat, first created for Eisner's high school newspaper; trigger-happy, fist-happy, bigoted "Hammer" Donovan, first introduced by Eisner in 1937; Lieutenant Oren Grey, a dapper, educated black man; and Melba Chase P.I., originally meant to be a character in the Nubbin comic book, then retooled as a private detective in "Melba, Private Eye-ful" in 1947.

The artwork in this book is outstanding, incorporating Eisner's detailed experiments in content and form.  Of particular interest is a an exquisite penciled sketch that Eisner had begun inking, a great example of the intricate work that Eisner brought to the page.

It's all here...humor, pathos, adventure, thrills, danger, and the Eisner magic.  If the John Law had been allowed to see the light of day and if Eisner had not been burdened with so much other work, John Law could have been a contender.

OUR MISS BROOKS: THE SWEATER (SEPTEMBER 18, 1949)

Hard to believe, but Ever Arden was the third choice to portray the sarcastic high school teacher Connie Brooks in this classic radio comedy; when first choice Shirley Booth and second choice Lucille Ball fell through, CBS then-chairman persuaded Arden to audition for the role.  The show first aired on CBS Radio on July 19, 1948 and ran until 1957.  The characters and all but one of the regular actors moved to CBS television on October 3, 1952, running until May 11, 1956 -- ending one year before the radio show.

In addition to Eve Arden, the cast included Gale Gordon as Osgood Conklin, the gruff high school principal; Jeff Chandler (sometimes billed under his real name, Ira Grossel, as the absent-minded and clueless biology teacher Philip Boynton, who was the object of Connie Brooks' affections -- Chandler was the one cast member who did not transfer to the television program, leaving the show after five years to focus on his film commitments; Richard Crenna as the goofy, squeaky-voiced student Walter Denton; Gloria McMillan as Harriet Conklin, Osgood Conklin's daughter and Walter Denton's girlfriend; and Jane Morgan as Margaret Davis, Miss Brook's absent-minded landlady.  Others appearing over the run of the radio program included Virginia Gordon, Gale Gordon's wife, who played Osgood Conklin's wife Martha; Leonard Smith and Eddie Riley, who played high school athletes Stretch and Bones Snodgrass; and Mary Jane Croft who played scheming high school teacher -- and Connie's rival for Boynton's affections -- Daisy Enright.  Another member of the radio cast was Minerva, Mrs. Davis's cat, whose piano sleeping would result in perfectly timed piano riffs.

In 1956, after the television show was canceled, a theatrical film was made in which Connie Brooks and Philip Boynton were finally engaged.

In "The Sweater," Conklin decides to boost morale for the school's losing football team by having one of the teachers become a cheerleader, and he felt that Miss Brooks would be a fitting candidate.  Then he discovered that a rival high school principal was voted faculty cheerleader by the student body.  Not to be outdone, he began thinking about taking the role for himself...

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meSmsnAOH0g

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: DOWN SONORA WAY

 "Down Sonora Way" by Louis L'Amour  (first published in Five Western Novels Magazine, December 1951; reprinted in L'Amour's collection Bowdrie's Law, 1984; in Texas Rangers, edited  by Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg, 2004; and in The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour:  The Frontier Stories, Volume 2, 2004)

From 1946 through 1952, Louie L'Amour (1908-1988) published 18 short stories about Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie; a nineteenth story was published posthumously in 1998.  The first 18 stories were collected in two books:  Bowdrie (1983) and Bowdrie's Law (1984); the final story was published in the collection Monument Rock (1998).   Bowdrie could have been an outlaw, but he rode a different trail.  Texas-born Chick Bowdrie was raised by Comanches after his parents were killed; there he learned to hunt track, and survive.  At age twelve, the Comanches sent him back to live among the white population.  He soon went out on his own, working for various cattle ranches and cowboy outfits.  When he was twenty-one he was shot three times in a gunfight but managed to ride away and rancher Noah Whipple nursed him back to health and gave him a job.  Months later, Whipple was murdered and Bowdrie vowed to find the killer.  He read that the Texas Rangers were advertising for men, and Bowdrie felt that he would be better off hunting for the killer if he was on the right side of the law.  From that point on, he was a Texas Ranger and was responsible for many outlaws being killed or captured.  Over a period of four years (using the internal chronology of the short stories), Bowdrie was wounded ten times and had survived at least thirty-three gunfights.  Bowdrie is feared and respected by both outlaws and lawmen alike.  The Texas Rangers preferred having him on their side rather than against them.

Tensleep Mooney was "a sure hand with a six-shooter and an excellent rifle shot."  When Al Baggs -- one of the notorious feudal Baggs family -- stole Mooney's horse, Mooney went after him; Baggs was killed in the ensuing gunfire and Mooney recovered his horse.  That Baggs was killed did not set right with the clan and two of the family members came after Mooney;  Mooney took two Baggs  bullets and survived; the Baggs boys took three of Mooney's bullets and did not.  Other members of the family went after Mooney and lost.  Then Gene Baggs, the clan's most feared gunfighter, went after Moony and "died of acute indigestion caused by absorbing too much lead on an empty stomach."  When another Baggs  member and an itinerant gunslinger well felled, it brought the dead count up to eight.  The Texas Rangers figured enough was enough, so they sent Chick Bowdrie to arrest Mooney.   Bowdrie trailed Mooney to the Mexican border, then went further into Sonora and Apache country.

Now Mooney had Bowdrie pinned down, out of water, with a bullet having grazed his shoulder, and a dead horse.  Mooney felt he would be at a distinct disadvantage if brought back to El Paso, under arrest with no weapon and with countless numbers of the Baggs clan after his hide, so he was determined not to be taken.  Mooney held the high ground and Bowdrie could not move without being shot.

Suddenly, in the distance, Mooney saw people approaching from the desert.  It was not, as he feared, Apache; rather it was a wounded man, a woman, and two children.  Farther in the distance, a cloud of dust, indicating a group of Apache following the foursome.  Both Mooney and Bowdrie were well hidden from view and could well wait safely until both groups passed, but they what would eventually happen to the white settlers once the Indians caught up to them.  So a bargain was made between the two gunfighters -- they would call a truce and try to help the family; they would renew their hostilities once the crisis was passed, supposing they both survived.

Bowdrie and Mooney had two rifles, their six-shooters, and were down one horse.  They could not get a count on the Apache; there are lest ten of them, and perhaps double that.  Plus, if things got out of hand, the Apache could sent a man back to get more reinforcements.  Things do not look gook good.

And, if they did survive, would Bowdrie be able to bring Mooney in to face justice?

An interesting tale of enemies becoming friends and what might happen afterward, set against a backdrop of overwhelming odds.

L'Amour wrote one additional tale about Tensleep Mooney, which happened to published the same month that "Down Sonora Way" saw print ("Long Ride Home" in Best Western, December 1951; collected in The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour:  The Frontier Stories, Volume 7, 2009).

OVERLOOKED FILM: THE LAST OF MRS. CHENEY (1929)

A pre-Code early talkie with Norma Shearer her most glamorous and Basil Rathbone at his most dashing.

"[T]his witty and stylish caper follows a clever jewel thief posing as a wealthy widow to infiltrate London's upper crust.  Directed by Sidney Franklin and adapted from the hit stage play [by Frederick Lonsdale] features an all-star ensemble:  Basil Rathbone as the elegant Lord Dilling, George Burraud, Herbert Bunson, and a delightfully sharp Hedda Hopper.  Brimming with high society intrigue, snappy dialogue, and a dash of romantic suspense, this [...] is a must-watch for fans of vintage crime comedies and old Hollywood elegance."

The screenplay by Hanns Kraly, who received an Academy Award nomination for his script.  

The original play, directed  by Gerald du Maurier, opened on September 22, 1925 and ran for 385 performances.  The original cast included du Maurier, Gladys Cooper, and May Whitty.  a revival opened in June 1944 and subsequently toured the provinces until the following May.  It was adapted flour times for the screen:  first in 1929; again in 1937 with Joan Crawford, William POowell, and Robert Montgomery; a third time in 1951 as The Law and the Lady, starring Greer garson; and finally in a 1961 German production featuring Lilli Palmer.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RuXxoq31PY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIMMY DEAN!

Jimmy Dean (1928-1210) was more than just sausage.

"Big Bad John"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnnHprUGKF0

"The Cajun Queen"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OHFTsIC664

"Little Bitty Big John"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnoAHUInimw

"Steel Men"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gipzQr0k9zA

"I Won't Go Huntin' with You Jake"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9JE5SHQOrE

"Thumb Pick Pete"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntQeLBy3EQI

"Little Black Book"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW-x-jmZwYg&list=PL1oD03rdOxhkCTBk81lGVPda5jt8FX2lC&index=11

"To a Sleeping Beauty"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbAT7n_4ock

"This Old House"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ajQj7610PQ

"The Farmer and the Lord"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ajQj7610PQ

"Harvest of Sunshine"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ajQj7610PQ

"PT-109"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiSpUMH8QII

"The First Thing Ev'ry Morning"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lrNzIz4u98

"Shutters and Boards"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbgOR80t0nY

"Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKRHIuc20RE&list=RDSKRHIuc20RE&start_radio=1

"Under the Sun"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgC7FR7CAtI&list=RDSKRHIuc20RE&index=10

"Striker Bill"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kmj17Dap9s&list=RDSKRHIuc20RE&index=29

Making a regular appearance on The Jimmy Dean Show was Rowlf the Muppet.  (This was the first national exposure of the Muppets.)  Here, Jimmy and Rowlf sing "Side by Side":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-g33NHPnHY&list=PLVqy5UJS5ir07M6a6r1kPebEA5nQyK7qc

FORGOTTEN BOOK: DEAD AND GONE

Dead and Gone by Andrew Vachss  (2000)

In addition to being a child protection consultant and an attorney exclusively representing children and youths, Andrew Vachss was a crime author best known for his series of 18 novels about Burke, an urban vigilante.  I was a big fan of Vachss and of Burke back in the day, but stopped reading him in the late 90s -- no particular reason, just that other, newer authors were taking up my reading time --  but when I came across a copy of Dead and Gone I knew it was time to re-anew my acquaintance.

Burke is a one-named urban warrior, living off the grid in an abandoned building.  He has a group of friends -- a "family" -- of like-minded individuals who help support and protect each other and ignore many of the laws of society.  Burke can be a thug for hire, and he has killed, but he retains a strong ethical grounding.  Burke's main grievance -- something in common with the author -- is with child abusers and the society that allows the abuse to continue, which provides most of the themes for the novels.  Burke's closest friend is his dog, Pansy, a Neapolitan mastiff, 150 pounds of war dog, who has been his companion for nineteen year.

As we open, Burke has been hired to facilitate a trade of money for a kidnapped boy, the son of Russian immigrants.  The boy had vanished ten years before, with not trace, no body, and no ransom note.  Burke has been selected to make the deal because of his reputation in the underground.   He meets the boy and three men in a dark, isolated location.  The boy pulls a gun and shoots Burke, although Burke has enough time to release the latch on his trunk, releasing Pansy.  Pansy attacks the boy and rips out his throat, while Burke manages to shoot one of the other men.  But Burke is badly wounded and is about to pass out when one of the men shoots him in the head, while the other shoots and kills Pansy.

Burke wakes up in a hospital, badly injured and near death.  Slowly, recovers, but he has changed physically.  His injuries and his head wound (which grazed his brain) has altered his looks.  He knows now that the purpose of the meeting was not to free the boy, but to kill him specifically.  Why?  And who?  Add to the mystery is that an awful lot of money was involved in the setup.  Whoever wanted him dead would not stop until he was assuredly dead.

Perhaps Burke's greatest motivation here, in addition to his survival, would be echoed 14 years after in the film John Wick:  They killed his dog!  Someone's is going to die!  Can't blame him; after reading about ten of the Earlier Burke novels, I had grown to love Pansy.

Following a trail from New York to Chicago to the Pacific Northwest, Burke encounters pedophiles (naturally), neo-Nazis, abortion clinic bombers, and a sort of glorified Epstein Island -- a nation created to protect the worst of the worst of abusers.  Along the way, he is joined by his "family," as well as a Black gay pilot he had rescues in Biafra, a childhood friend who specializes in seeing patterns where others only see banks, and a Russian-speaking Cambodian named Gem, who becomes his "wife."

Dead and Gone marks a turning point for Burke.  In the end, he is forced to abandon New York and move west.  Where this journey will take him, I have no idea.  Or won't until I read the later books in the series.

This is a disturbing book, even more so than earlier entries in the series.  Through a series of flashbacks, we get to see Burke as a child, and the horrors that he endured to make him the warrior he has become.  Not an easy read, but an important one for any person who feels rage about the disgusting prevalence of child abuse.

In addition to his Burke novels, Andrew Vachss (1942-2021) has written the Cross series, the Aftershock trilogy, and ten standalone novels (including a tie-in in which Batman battles the child sex trade in Thailand), as well as three collections, ten comics and graphic novels, three plays, and to non-fiction books.  He has been an outspoken advocate for children's rights and has appeared on numerous television programs and has authored many articles, including many published in Parade magazine over a thirty-plus-year period.  He was tireless in his pursuit of juistice.

ADVENTURES BY MORSE: A COFFIN FOR THE LADY (JANUARY 4, 11, & 18, 1945)

Carlton E. Morse (1901-1993) was a popular radio writer who gave us such programs as One Man's Family and I Love a Mystery.  Shortly after NBC cancelled I Love a Mystery in 1944 (which would bounce back four years later under the title I Love Adventure), Morse created Adventures by Morse, a syndicated adventure series that ran for a year, from October 26, 1944 to October 18, 1945, consisting of eight serials of from three to ten half hour episodes each.  Morse produced, directed, and wrote each of the 52 episodes.  The series featured Captain Bart Friday, a globe-trotting San Francisco private eye, and his sidekick, Texan Skip Turner.  Murder, kidnapping, and espionage were run of the mill subjects for the pair, with the occasional secret Nazi base, snake worshipper, and voodoo thrown in.

In  the three-part "A Coffin for the Lady," Captain Friday's San Francisco office is contacted by an Army Intelligence officer who is "looking to hire a pair of operatives for a mysterious mission.  Transported to a small, isolated cove off the coast of Canada, Friday, Turner, and a Major Lawrence find a speedboat waiting for them, which they use to get to Marmaduke Island.  Warned by Lawrence that the duo will need to be 'ready for action' at any given moment, three hours pass, then, suddenly, an Amy GI appears out of the underbrush carrying a heavily bound and gagged woman in his arms.  Friday and Turner quickly observe that the man has been mortally wounded -- a knife sticking out of his back -- and his last words before dying are to instruct men to get the woman to shore immediately."

Over the course of the series, Bart Friday was played by Elliott Lewis, David Ellis, and Russell Thorson, while Jack Edwards and Barton Yarborough took the role of Skip Turner; "A Coffin for a Lady" most likely starred Lewis and Edwards.

Enjoy.

"A Coffin for The Lady" Part 1  ("The Adventure Begins"):

https://www.oldradioworld.com/media/Adventures%20By%20Morse%201945-01-04%20A%20Coffin%20For%20The%20Lady%20Part%201.mp3

"A Coffin for a Lady"  Part 2 ("The Conversation in a Casket"):

https://www.oldradioworld.com/media/Adventures%20By%20Morse%201945-01-11%20A%20Coffin%20For%20The%20Lady%20Part%202.mp3

"A Coffin for the Lady" Part 3 ("The Deepest Grave in the World"):

https://www.oldradioworld.com/media/Adventures%20By%20Morse%201945-01-18%20A%20Coffin%20For%20The%20Lady%20Part%203.mp3

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE MOST HATED MAN IN LONDON

"The Most Hated Man in London" by Patricia Moyes  (first published in The Evening Standard, March 16, 1963, as "Murder! -- With Five Bob's Worth of Human Misery"; reprinted thereafter under the present title in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March 10, 1980; in London After Midnight, edited by Peter Haining, 1966; in Moyes' collection Who Killed Father Christmas?, 1996; and in Metropolitan Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards, 2024)

There was a time when many British newspapers published fiction, both original and reprinted, among them The Evening Standard of London.  Brief stories, to be sure, and many of those that were reprints were abridged.  The Evening Standard, a daily, began in 1859 as a sister publication to The Standard (which folded in 1916); it is still being published, but, alas, evidently with no fiction -- according to the FictionMags Index, the latest date the paper published fiction was in 1999.  The earliest piece of fiction published in the paper was the serial "Dear Acquaintance" by Rosemary Rees with installments six times a week through at least the entire month of January, 1929; daily offering of short fiction (at least according to the FMI) began in 1932 with reprints from Holloway Horn, Arthur Morrison, Barry Pain, Frank R. Stockton, James Stephens, H. G. Wells, H. E. Bates and Edgar Allan Poe, among others.  Original stories began appearing sporadically and increasing in 1933.  There were long periods of months, and even years, in which the paper published no fiction, possibly due to a change in editorial tastes or to perceived customer reaction,  but through the 40's 50's, and the early 60's, the fiction kept bouncing back.  The last piece of fiction mentioned in the FMI was "A Giant's Robe Upon a Dwarfish Thief" by Michael Innes (December 28, 1964).  It should be noted that the newspaper published at least four doorstop anthologies in the 1930s -- two of general short stories and two of "Strange Tales"; this was followed by two volumes of detective stories in the early 1950s.

Patricia Moyes (1923-2000) was a British mystery writer best known for her 19 novels about  C.I.D. Inspector Henry Tibbett and his beloved wife, Emmy.  She served as the personal assistant for actor Peter Ustinov for eight years, co-wrote the 1960 filmscript for School for Scandal, and translated the 1940 Jean Anouilh's play Leocadia as Time Remembered (which received several Tony Awards for is Broadway production with Richard Burton, Helen Hayes, and Susan Strasberg).  Over her career, Moyes wrote about twenty short stories, about half of them for the British newspapers in the early 1960s; by necessity most of them were very short.

"The Most Hated Man in London" is a brief puzzle story.  The title character is Max Scotland, a disreputable moneylender and blackmailer who enjoyed squeezing out every bob he could from his victims.  Max conducted all his business from his office, which was guarded by a gatekeeper -- a very reliable "old soldier" named Potts -- there was no way to go in or out of Max's office without being seen by him.  Max Scotland kept scrupulous records, as well as an appointment diary.  His diary for that recorded three appointments.  The last person with an appointment claimed that he went in to discover Max's body, his opened safe, and burned papers, and raised the alarm.  The second person claimed she also found the body, panicked, and left the scene immediately, leaving a blood-stained footprint.  That left the suspicion to fall on the first appointment.  But did he do it?  By paying attention to each of the statement from the three suspects and the guard, the unnamed Chief Inspector who was called to the case was able to immediately discover the culprit.

A minor story, five pages long, with a conclusion most readers should have worked out, but probably didn't.  Clever, but not earth-shattering.  Entertaining, but slight.  To read Moyes at her full powers, read any of the Henry Tibbett mysteries.  You will be glad you did.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: MICHAEL SHAYNE: BLOOD ON BISCAYNE BAY (DECEMBER 2, 1960)

Michael Shayne was a popular fictional private eye created by "Brett Halliday" (Davis Dresser, 1904-1977) in 1939.  Dresser wrote fifty books about the character; sine 1958 another 27 novels were published in paperback ghost-written by a string of writers.  Shayne was featured in twelve films from 1940 to 1947, seven starring Lloyd Nolan, with the remaining five starring Hugh Beaumont.  Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a 2005 film, was based on a Shayne novel but did not featured the character.  From 1944 to 1953, there were three separate radio programs about the character:  Michael Shayne, Private Detective, starring Wally Maher; The New Adventures of Michael Shayne, with Jeff Chandler; and The Adventures of Michael Shayne, featuring at various times Donald Curtis, Robert Serling, and Vinton Hayworth.  Prior to the Michael Shayne television program which began in 1960, there was a failed 1958 pilot featuring Mark Stevens.  Michael Shayne lasted for 32 episodes (September 30, 1960 through May 19, 1961).  It starred Richard Denning (Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Flying Doctor, Hawaii Five-O, and both the CBS and NBC versions of Mr. and Mrs. North; Denning also played opposite Lucille Ball in radio's My Favorite Husband, the precursor to television's I Love Lucy.  From 1956 to 1985, Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine (later retitled to Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine) was one of the more successful crime digests, lasting for 337 issues, each featuring an adventure of the character; the magazine used "Brett Halliday" as a house name, and the stories were written by Sam Merwin, Jr, Richard Deming, W. Ryerson Johnson, Robert Arthur, Robert Terrall, Michael Avallone, Dennis Lynds, Frank Belknap Long, Edward Y. Breese, Max Van Derveer, Bill Pronzini & Jeffrey M. Wallman, David Mazroff, George Warren, James M. Reasoner, Lyvia J. Washburn, Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet, and a number of thus far uncredited authors.  From November 1961 to January 1962, Dell Comics released three issues of Mike Shayne Private Eye.

Blood on Biscayne Bay (1946) was the fourteenth book in the series and the basis of this episode, the ninth in the television program.  "Shayne is hired to sell a valuable pearl necklace and use the proceeds to pay off a gambling debt.  When Shayne opts to pressure the gambling club owner into turning the IOU over to him for free, he is surprised when his client reacts angrily.  Mike learns that the gambling debt was only a ruse.  His pretty client is up to her eyeballs in blackmail and murder with suspects that include her brother-in-law, the casino lawyer, a former boyfriend and a sleazy divorce attorney." 

Also featuring Jerry Paris as Tim Rourke, Patricia Donahue as Lucy Hamilton, Herbert Rudley as Will Gentry, Gary Clarke as Dick Hamilton, with guests Mona Freeman, Gilbert Green, Burt Douglas, Harry Bartell, Robert Knapp, Tracey Roberts, Dinah Anne Rogers, Harry Cooper, Tipp McClure, Laurence Haddon, Maidie Norman, and Charlott [sic] Knight.  Directed by Paul Stewart.  IMDb lists the writers as William Levinson and Richard Link, while Wikipedia credits Ted Leighton  -- turns out "Leighton" was a pseudonym used by the pair, sometimes when their work was substantially rewritten by other hands.

Enjoy this episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OByve8Yh4no

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TONY BENNETT!

Tony Bennett (1926-2023).  Do I need to add anything?

"I Left My Heart in San Francisco"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6DUwMnDxEs

"I've Got You Under My Skin"  (with Lady Gaga)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyTa_gJkYwI

"Body and Soul"  (with Amy Winehouse)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OFMkCeP6ok

"I Get A Kick Out of You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddyta-g8K-w

"For Once in My Life"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T6Yl5iBwhM

"Fly Me to the Moon"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJuZUBJtWUo

"Stranger in Paradise"  (with Andrea Bocelli)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFrUsa5SUv0

"Night and Day"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXND_pDkpts

"New York State of Mind"  (with Billy Joel)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1k9YlR_9S4

"The Very Thought of You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLuFKaXEI1Y

"The Lady Is a Tramp"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBXBSORQVlg

"Because of You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-4zvArJDGg

"I Can't Give You Anything But Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-koDEArDdc

"It Had to Be You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ1I3ZmEozQ

"Sing You Sinners"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Y9eiCH_nY&list=PL-f5sU8-_h3c5pT63xYhQbYrRLY9KWmDr&index=18

"Chicago"  (with the Count Basie Big Band)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1VqrkVXJrE&list=PL-f5sU8-_h3c5pT63xYhQbYrRLY9KWmDr&index=19

HYMN TIME

 From 1913, Homer Rodeheaver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAgun-X58kE