FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE FURY AND THE TERROR

The Fury and the Terror  by John Farris, 2001

This is the first sequel to the author's bestselling horror novel The Fury, which was published twenty-five years earlier, sold more than a million copies, and was made into a major film starring Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving in 1978.  Farris has since published two further sequels:  The Fury and the Power (2003) and Avenging Fury (2008).  Knowledge of the first book is helpful, but not essential as the significant background details are revealed over the long course of The Fury and the Terror.

I mention the long course of the book because it is a sprawling work covering an array of themes.  Although set in contemporary times (with many cultural references to date it), it portrays an America just bursting with people with newly-found psychic powers who are hiding behind the scenes.  Two opposing political groups are vying for supremacy.

MORG is a secret paramilitary group with unlimited funds and power that is working to subvert the Constitution and brings about a Fascist rule; it is run by the unscrupulous Victor Wilding, the lover of First Lady Rona Harvester.  The two have managed to "brain block" Rona's husband, the President, who now sits in a vegetative state in a secret location, supposedly recover from a stroke.  Wilding is actually a psychic doppelganger of Robin Sandza, a powerful teenage psychic who was thrown from a roof to his supposed death by his father at the end of the first book.   Robin lives, however, also in a forced vegetative state; if Robin dies, then Victor, as his doppelganger, would also die.

The other political is organized by the Director of the FBI and opposes MORG.  Both groups are evil and often resort to violence and murder to achieve their ends.  The director's son, using the name Geoff McIntyre, has been tasked to seduce young Eden Waring, who, unknown to her, may become the next Avatar, the powerful leader of psychics of many stripes and powers around the country.

The current Avatar, Kelane Cheng, had been captured by MORG and was being taken to their secret base in Plenty Coups, Montana, when she managed to psychically take over the controls of the airplane and crash it into a college graduation ceremony in Northern California.  The Valedictorian at the ceremony happened to be Eden, who suddenly had a vision of the impending air crash, and managed to get most of those present to safety.  Eden now finds herself on the run from both covert groups, as well as from confused citizens demanding an explanation.

Tom Sherard is a former South African big game hunter who had been married to the Avatar before Kelane, Gillian Bellevar, the daughter of rich and influential parents.  Now, here's where it gets tricky.  Gillian was the "psychic twin" of Robin Sandza.  Robin's father, Pete, impregnated Gillian in Robin's stead and Gillian gave birth to a baby girl, who turned out to be Eden.  Gillian's memory of the whole thing was psychically blocked.  Gillian was assassinated in a hail of bullets in front of Tom, who also bore the scars of the assassination attempt.  Now that Eden nis on the run, her grandmother, Katherine Bellevar, has asked Tom to find Eden and bring her granddaughter to her for safety from MORG.  And, yes, there is a history between Katherine and Rona.

Just to make things interesting, the country is still reeling from a nuclear attack that wiped out Portland Maine, secretly orchestrated by MORG.  Rona and Victor plan to release another nuclear device over the next few days in Madison, Wisconsin.  A shift in prevailing winds have forced them to shift their target to Nashville, where Garth Brooks will be performing to a crowd of over 70,000.  Can Tom, Eden, and a kick-ass high-fashion Somali-Chinese supermodel stop the explosion in time?  And can Eden's reluctant doppelganger (yes, she has one) aid in the defeat of MORG?

There's psychics galore, shape changers, ghost and revenants, time travel, other dimensions, incest, prophecy, and the Good Lord knows what else.  It's a lot to pack into some 500 pages of small type.

Confused?  Join the club.  But somehow it all makes sense.  Sort of.

An exciting, wide-ranging extravaganza that is hard to put down, with just a few (very few) hints of snark in the writing. 

John Farris (b. 1936, and still alive; he'll be 90 this month) is a best -selling author of horror, suspense, and /southern Gothic novels.  His first novels, beginning when he was 19, were crime and hardboiled mysteries.  His first bestselling novel, written when the author was twenty and published two years later, Harrison High (think Peyton Place set in a high school), was filmed as the Dick Clark vehicle Because They're Young in 1960; any problems with the film can be forgiven because it also starred Tuesday Weld.  From 1968 to 1974, Farris published five other Harrison High novels as paperback originals.  When Michael Calls, published in 1967, gave Farris a solid foothold into the horror/thriller genre.  It was filmed as ABC Movie of the Week starring Ben Gazarra, Elizabeth Ashley, and Michael Douglas in 1972.  The Fury, with its plethora of psychic intrigue, made the bestseller lists in 1976 and was the basis of the noted 1978 Brian DePalma film.  Among Farris's other bestselling books are All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By, Shatter, The Catacombs, The Uninvited, and Son of the Endless Night.  Despite some of his work being flamboyant, it is uniquely effective.  In 2001, Farris was presented with the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.  Although he has not published a novel since 2009, he did script a 2019 film, No Sin Unpunished.

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: DR. WATSON MEETS SHERLOCK HOLMES (1954)

 Come back to the beginning.  The game is afoot!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was a 1954-54 joint British and American venture starring Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes and Ralph Richardson as Dr. John Watson.  This episode was the first of sixteen produced, although only twelve were aired in England; the show was aired in the UK on the BBC Light Programme, and in the United States on the ABC network.

The series was produced by Harry Alan Towers and was directed by Val Gielgud, Sir John's brother; Val Gielgud would occasionally be featured on the series as Sherlock's brother, Mycroft.  The series was scripted by John Keir Cross.

This first episode, depicting the meeting between Holmes and Watson, was based on the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, and on the first Holmes short story, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" (also known as "Charles Augustus Milverton," "The Blackmailer," and "The First Case").  It first aired in the UK on October 5, 1954, and in the United States on January 2, 1955.  (Sir Arthir Conan Doyle based the short story on the real-life villain Charles Augustus Howell, an art dealer who preyed on many, including famous artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Howell died in 1880, his throat slit posthumously and a coin inserted in his mouth -- he may or may not have been still alive when his body was found, accounts differ.  Officially, the police concluded that he died of "pneumonic phthisis," which determination avoided a public inquiry; the circumstances of his death have never been satisfactorily explained.  According to scholar Richard Lancelyn Green, Doyl's short story was also inspired by the A. J. Raffles short story "Willful Murder" by Doyle's brother-in-law, E. J. Hornung.)

Also featured in the cast were Philip Leaver as Middleton, John Cazabon as Inspector Lestrade, Norman Claridge as Stamford, and Monica Gray as "the woman" -- not, mind you, The Woman, whom as we all know was Irene Adler; her appearance was to wait until the next episode of the series, "A Scandal in Bohemia," in which she was played by Margaret Ward; I'll try to bring you that episode shortly.

In the meantime, enjoy this bit of Holmesian history, mystery, and deduction:

(2739) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. Watson meets Sherlock Holmes - John Gielgud - 1954 - YouTube

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE LADY FROM YESTERDAY

"The Lady from Yesterday" by Jeremiah Healy  (published in the MWA anthology Blood on their Hands, edited by Lawrence Block, 2003)

Jeremiah Healy (1948-2014) was a lawyer, academic, and crime novelist best known for his character John Francis Cuddy, a Boston private investigator.  As "Terry Devane," he also penned three legal thrillers and one short story featuring defense attorney Mairead O'Clair.  "The Lady from Yesterday" is one of at least three short stories to feature Lauderdale "tennis bum" and private eye Rory Calhoun, (whose mother had a thing for the mid-20th century actor).

Calhoun is approached at the Lauderdale Tennis Club by Monica Lewis, an veteran exotic dancer whose career is on the downswing due to age and gravity.  Monica is the primary suspect in the murder of Tara "T.N.T." Tate, an up-and-coming dancer at the Cottontails, the "gentleman's club" where both worked.  The night before Tara was killed, she and Monica had gotten into an argument, during which Tara had scratched Monica on the arm, leaving Monica's DNA under her fingernails.  That, plus the fact that Tara was bucking for the top spot at the club, replacing Monica, provided enough  motive to convince the incompetent detective in charge of the case that Monica was guilty.  Monica wanted Rory to investigate and prove that she did not murder Tara.  Rory felt uneasy because it was still an open case with the police and turned Monica down.

The following day, the newspaper headline read SECOND DANCER'S DEATH SOLVES FIRST.  Monica was presumed to have hung herself either out of guilt, or because the police were closing in.  Rory went to see the cop in charge, who was all too willing to have everything tied up in a nice, neat package.  Because of his own feeling of guilt, Rory decides to investigate.

After talking with Rocky, the hard-shelled female owner/manager of Cottontails, Rory up with three people he wanted to talk to:  "The Professor," a steady customer who would come not just to ogle, but to stare at Tara; Lacey Peevers, another dancer at the club, who would most likely taken over Monica's spot if Tara had not arrived on the scene; and Tara's husband, Barry Cardiff, who did not want Tara dancing at all, resented when she went on tour throughout the South, and had to stay at home taking care of his invalid mother while Tara was off shaking her booty.  Rocky also told Rory that Tara was saving every bit of money she could to build a nest egg and retire from the business and that Tare had told she had almost accrued enough money for that purpose.

The Professor turned out to be Jason Nolan, an English teacher at the local college, and who claimed to appreciate exotic dance as an art form and quoted various works of literature to prove his point.  He told Rory that he suspected Tara's murderer was actually Lacey Peevers.

Lacy Peevers turned out to be a young mother devoted more to her infant son than to her dance career.  She suspected the Professor.

Barry Cardiff was a man who, despite everything, still loved his wife.  He suspected that Tara was having affairs while she was on the road -- sometimes for a month or more -- and that he had recently learned that Tara was turning tricks and filming herself with unsuspecting men for blackmail; he gave Rory a recording marked TARA DOES FRANK that he had found hidden in her bureau after she had been killed.  Cardiff also resented that Tara refused to help him care for his mother, who was basically a vegetable for the past two and a half years but showed no sign of dying.  But Cardiff had loved Tara deeply.  He thought Monica was the person who had killed her.

The case seemed to be leading nowhere, and Rory's obsession with it was affecting his concentration on his tennis game.  While Rory was trying to limber up, Don Floyd, an eighty-year-old tennis pro, noted that Rory was concentrating too hard on his first serve.  He said, "Rory, when I can't ever get the first one in, I generally try to focus on the second service."

Bingo!  The second service!  Rory suddenly knew which of his three suspects was guilty...

An interesting story, but very flawed.  First, we have to accept that the murderer was one of the three suspects, leaving out anyone else Tara might have met or blackmailed while building up her cash reserve, and that includes the anonymous "Frank" from the porno tape.  Also, Monica was a heavy drug user, with track marks on her arms.  She had worn a long-sleeved blouse when Rory had met her, so he didn't notice, but I find it hard to picture a stripper being able hide such track marks while performing.  And, Rory's solution to the puzzle was just a guess, nothing more.  He had to set a trap to be sure.  And the denouement to the story was very unsatisfying, leaving Monica as the murderer in the eyes of the public, and not clearing her name -- which is what she had wanted Rory to do.

Basically, a by-the-numbers story that clearly shows that Healy expended his energy and talent far more his stories about John Francis Cuddy that Rory Calhoun.  Is it still worth reading?  Yeah, I think so, but just don't expect a Cuddy-like plot or experience.

Jeremiah Healey was an interesting character.  He approached his writing career much like the lawyer he was, examining pros and cons and building a case from the ground up.  He had researched the novel market and learned that some 70% of novels at the tine were bought by women so he deliberately shaped the Cuddy character to appeal to that market, while retaining many of the private eye tropes that have made the genre so popular.  He attacked issues of the day,  but not in a hardboiled manner -- more like soft-boiled with a hard edge.  During interviews, he laid his many books in front of him, using them as props and evidence, picking each on up as he pointed out plots and themes in each; the attorney in him was selling his entire career and not just his latest release.  As a law professor at the New England School of Law, he prided himself on being a hard-ass, wanting to push his students to be the very best they could be.  Healy was personable, generous, and had a great sense of humor.  I remember him taking newly published, first-time author Brendan DuBois aside and giving him useful career tips (DuBois, who was a talented writer from the start, went on to have a long career, publishing 29 novels, until his own personal demons derailed it in 2024); Healy also gave his time, support, and knowing advice to many other writers.  He served as president of the Private Eye Writers of America  (travelling the roads in his Volkswagon, dubbed "PWI-One") and the International Association of Crime Writers.  I did not know him very well, but I liked him a lot.  He survived a bout of prostate cancer in 2003 (about the time of the writing of "The Lady from Yesterday," which may have affected the quality of the story -- my speculation only).  I was surprised and saddened when I learned that he had committed suicide at age 66 in 2014.  He had evidently been suffering from depression, a disease that can destroy the best of us.

OVERLOOKED FILM: KING OF THE ZOMBIES (1941)

Let's close out the month with a zombie spy comedy flick.

A transport lane has engine trouble and is forced to land on a mysterious Caribbean island.  the passengers take refuge in a mansion run by the evil Dr. Mikos Sangre (Henry Victor, Freaks, To Be or Not To Be, Tiger Bay; the role was originally designed  for Bela Lugosi, then Peter Lorre, Victor was the third choice), who controls a host of zombies through voodoo.  Sangre is a German spy who had previously captured a US Admiral (Guy Usher, The Penguin Pool Murder, Charlie Chan at the Opera, Bells of Capistrano) and was trying to pry military secrets out of him.  The pilot of the downed plane was James "Mac" McCarthy (Dick Purcell, Captain America, The Bank Dick, The Case of the Velvet Claws; he died of a heart attack at age 39, and at least one film historian has suggested that the strain of filming Captain America was too much for his heart).  Also on the plane were passenger Bill Summers (John Archer, Guadalcanal Diary, White Heat, Destination Moon), and his valet, Jefferson Jackson (Mantan Moreland, perhaps best recognized as Birmingham  Brown in the Charlie Chan films, also a veteran of vaudeville and "race" movies, Moreland appeared in Spider Baby, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery, and Mr. Washington Goes to Town, among many others).  Moreland deservedly got third billing in King of the Zombies, right behind Dick Purcell and eye candy Joan Woodbury (Charlie Chan on Broadway, Brenda Starr, Reporter, The Ten Commandments);  Moreland's third billing was a testament to his popularity during the often close-minded 1940s.  Also in the cast were cute as a button Marguerite Whitten (the movie's Afrro-American eye candy, if you will), Leigh Whipper, Madame Sul-te-Wan*, Laurence Criner, Patricia Stacey, and James Davis.

SPOILER ALERT:  The villainous Dr. Sangre gets his comeuppance at the end of the film...but you have probably figured that out already,

Directed by Jean Yarbrough, who helmed five Abbott and Costello films and the Abbott and Costello television show, five Bowery Boys films, and a number of classic B-horror films, including The Devil Bat, She-Wolf of London, and House of Horror.  The film was scripted by Edmond Kelso (Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts, The Mystery of the Hooded Horseman, Revenge of the Zombies).

A fun flick for its time, but not suited for one with high PC standards.  Watch it for Mantan Moreland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXvtb_JNH5U

* the "T" is capitalized on her IMDb listing, but is lower case on the film credits

TODAY'S UNFINISHED POEM

a Choose Your Adventure poem...sort of 

STRAIT TALK

Pass me the booze,

Please pass me that booze;

I'm having a hard time with the Strait of Warm Ooze.

Have you heard the news?

It's not 'Merican Flag Blues;

It's green and it's slimy, that Strait of Warm Ooze

The choice he did choose

Allowed kismet to come throughs;

An ill-gotten plan was the strait of Warm Ooze.

Narcissus had an ego as big as his shoes.

A look in the pool paid the poor guy his dues.

It suspiciously sounds like...the Strait of Warm Ooze.

His cankle do swell and his hands they do bruise

With discoloration and unnatural hues,

But they can't hold a candle to Donny's Strait of Warm Ooze.

[You can complete the final verse yourself using any three of the following words:

Fool, Ghoul, Pool, Stool, Tool, Uncool.

Have fun!]

HYMN TIME

From 1951, Clara Ward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TRiikf8Cvg

UNCLE SAM QUARTERLY #5 (WINTER 1942)

America's 250th anniversary is coming up and there are many ways -- both appropriate and non-appropriate -- one can celebrate.  You could take a trip to the Reflecting Pool and count the dead ducks, but that's not appropriate at all, in addition to being very sad.  Or, could read this comic book featuring "The World's Greatest Hero,": Uncle Sam!  Uncle Sam was a superhero created by the great Will Eisner; he made his debut in Quality Comics' National Comics #1 (July 1940), and continued to 1944.  Uncle Sam was the spirit of a slain patriotic soldier from the American Revolutionary War; and would appear whenever the country needed him -- and the country needed him in the early Forties.  His sidekick is Buddy Smith.  Uncle Sam's mystical powers included superhuman strength, speed, invulnerability, some ESP, and the ability to change his size and also to transport himself and others to "the Heartland"  His powers were dependent on America's patriotism; if America loses its sense of patriotism, then...poof!

The character came under the aegis of DC comics in the 1950s and has been used sporadically in different guises and with different backstories. 

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" (Death, Pestilence, War, and Famine) "are once  more loosed upon the land!!!  The thunder of their hoofbeats is the roar of the cannon --- their mad laughter is the roar of falling bombs!!  Who can challenge their triumph?  Who -- but Uncle Sam!  The spirit of a people who will never be conquered!!"  Heeding the call, Uncle Sam and Buddy head out in their private plain to Lua Island kin the South Pacific, where a small company of marines have been holding out against a terrible force.  Uncle Sam uses his skills and ingenuity to defeat a Japanese invasion and send whatever enemies he and buddy have not killed back to Japan.  The Four Horsemen are in retreat from Uncle Sam!

"Murder!"  Uncle Sam and Buddy pit themselves aginst the fiendish "Dart Killer."  No one knows who he is or why he kills.  "Uncle Sam gives warning...clues will be many and suspects will be numerous...but think...before you name the villain!"

Now let's take a brief break from Uncle Sam's adventures for "Heroic Exploits of the War:  Attack on Dieppe," a true war story.  For six pages, British, Canadian, and American troops give what for to the Nazis.  Yay, us!

"Pottsy McGraw and Cloutin' Clammy" are two bootlegging thieves who have stolen almost all the rubber tires in the city and are expecting a jackpot price.  Of course tires are not just tiers; they are a vital part of the country's war products.  As such, Uncle Sam is determined to stop the bootleggers.  Cloutin' Clammy is a strong as a gorilla and he soon makes mince meat of a  barrage of cops and guards trying to stop the pair.  Uncle Sam knocks him out with one punch, b ut as he's doing so, Pottsy McGraw is aiming a machine gun at him.  But wait!  Buddy leaps onto Pottsy's back to spoil his aim, but a bullet hits Buddy instead.  Uncle Sam picks up Buddy's body and races him to a hospital, leaving the two villains to get away with a large supply of tires.  With Buddy recovering, Uncle Sam is back on the chase.  Pottsy and Cloutin' Clammy are selling the tires to a low-down, dirty Nazi scum hen Uncle Sam comes in with fists a-blazing.  Uncle Sam knocks out seven (by my count) Nazis, as well as Cloutin' Clammy, while Buddy (who left his hospital bed to get in on the action) clonks Pottsy of the head.  Pottsy realizes that he was a foo to fight against Uncle Sam -- no one can beat him; Pottsy decides to join the army when he gets out.

"Iron" is a brief text story in which Nazis, as usual, get the short end of the stick.

"The Secret of the Wax Museum"  Dastardly villains are out to kill and maim our troops during war games.  Japanese spies and agents have infiltrated the war games and are using our weapons against our troops.  Who is the Japanese mastermind behind this plot?  And why does Chiang Chan, special war observer for the Chinese government, look so suspicious?

A gung-ho, patriotic issue with some interesting artwork by Al Gabriele, who manages to make a caricature out of all the villains.

So celebrate our 250th with this comic book (and, perhaps, a healthy dose of Reflecting Pool memes).

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102129&comicpage=&b=i