SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: A MYSTERIOUS MURDER

"A Mysterious Murder" by Jonas Kreppel  (originally published in Yiddish as a pamphlet, 1908; translated by Mikhl Yashinsh and published in Adventures of Max Spitzkopf, The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes, 2025)

Time again to check in on Max Spitzkopf, the King of Detectives who appeared in a series of fifteen cheaply produced pamphlets published in Yiddish in 1908 Vienna.   Sptizkopf, of course was a Jew' he ran the most famous detective agency in the empire and employed many loyal assistants -- all of them Jewish.  One need merely reflect on how respected Spitzkopf was in his chosen profession to realize that here was a man who was a hero to his readers, many of whom were downtrodden by the bigotry of the era.  Not only was Spitzkopf a Jew but he was a man dedicated to helping Jews.  Spitzkopf's adventures -- poorly written to modern eyes, but thrilling to readers who had little to compare them to -- enthralled a very young future-Nobel Prize-winning author, and a leading figure in the Yiddish literary movement,  Isaac Bashevis Singer to look back on his childhood in Warsaw with pleasure, recalling reading Spitzkopf's adventure whiloe huddled under a blanket at night.

":A Mysterious murder" opens with the trial of  Wilhelm Grunfeld, a correspondence clerk accused of the murder of his employer, the manufacturer Leopold Konigsberg.  Gottfried, the Provincial Judge in the case, is convinced that Grunfeld is innocent, but has no proof to back up his feeling.  He asks Max Spitzkopf to look in on the trial and see what he can discover.  Spitskopf dons a disguise (because that's what detectives do at that time, I guess) and goes to the trial.  The evidence against Grunfeld is weak, IMHO (but I am not a prosecutor of that era):  Grunfeld left the office at 7:00 PM while his employer was still there; on his way out he saw a strange cloaked female figure climbing the stairs; when he returned in the morning, he found his employer dead, stabbed through the heart, the safe open, and valuables missing.  No witness came forward to corroborate Grunfeld's story of the mysterious cloaked figure.  The police (who were not very good at their job, IMHO) decided that Grunfeld must be the guilty party, despite the fact that a search of him and his lodgings found no weapon and no loot.  It took the (easily led, IMHO) jury just half an hour to find Grunfeld guilty, although they recommended that he not be sentenced to death.  The judge, whose hands were tied, pronounced the death sentence but said that he would recommend that the kaiser take pity on Grunfeld and commute the death sentence.

Everyone in the courtroom was upset at the verdict, except for on man, whom Spitzkopf noticed stayed quiet and smiled knowingly at the verdict.  Also at the trail was Fuchs, Spitzkopf's main assistant (also in disguise, natch).  Spitzkopf told Fuchs to follow the man and leave a trail so that Spitzkpof could follow it later if need be.  Fuchs followed and every ten feet dropped a piece of chalk, crushing it with his foot to leave a trail.  The man Fuchs ws following met another man and they walked for about an hour, which leads me to wonder how much chalk Fuchs had in his pocket to begin with.  Fuchs follows them to a coffee shack known to be the headquarter of the Plattenbruder, a vicious gang of thieves that even the police were afraid of.  There had been another murder, with the same M.O. as that of Konigsberg.  The gang had the loot with them in the coffee house.  Fuchs is discovered as a spy and, although he was able to shoot two of the gang with his pistol, they soon overpowered him and beat the yarmulke out of him.  Fuchs was bound head and food and tossed into a cellar, and a large box was placed over the trapdoor to the cellar.

When Fuchs did not return, Spitzkopf went in search for his assistant.  Recognizing the coffe house as a den of violent thieves, he snuck around to the back of the building and hid in a shed -- the very shed where Fuchs was trapped in the cellar.  Spitzkopf noticed many footprints around the large crate and, moving it, he found the trapdoor, and then Fuchs.  He freed Fuchs and began to explore the cellar.  Behind an easily-picked locked door he found a room full of treasure, all the loot the gang had recently amassed.   He left he loot there and, replacing the crate so the gang would not suspect a thing, he and Fuchs left to report the find to the plice and arrange for a raid.

But when Spitzkopf arrived with the police, the room with the loot had been emptied!  Now, with no proof, what can Spitzkopf do to capture the gang and free Wilhelm Grunfeld?

What indeed?

Needless to say, Max prevails and justice is served, because that's what Max Spitzkopf does.  The adventures of Max Spitzkopf are written in broad strokes, resembling more dime novels than early pulp fiction.  The detection is not on the level of Sherlock Holmes or his ilk; I doubt if most of Kreppel's readers has ever read a Sherlock Holmes tale.  Nonetheless, there is a primitive excitement to the stories that the modern reader can easily feel.  And anyone interested in the development of the detective story worldwide would be amiss to skip the Adventures of Max Spitzkopf.

Kreppel (1874-1940), a journalist and civil servant, was an outspoken critic of Nazism. The Max Spitzkopf stories were written anonymously for a press operated by his father-in-law.  He spent three decades editing a German Jewish weekly, and writing historical and political tomes.  A leading Austrian-Jewish intellectual, he was sent to Dachau in 1938 and then to Buchenwald, where he died in 1940.  Sources differ as to whether he had been worked to death at Buchenwald, or murdered -- in the end, it amounted to the same thing.

OVERLOOKS FILM: HOGFATHER (2006)

From the mind of Terry Pratchett comes this Christmas Hogswatch tale of Discworld.  Michelle Dockery plays Susan and Ian Richardson is DEATH.  

You're welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdAe3oTJIjA

HO-HO-HO BITS & PIECES

Openers:  You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East, and how they travelled from far away to offer gifts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem.  But have you heard the story of the Other Wise Man, who also saw the star in its rising, and set out to follow it, yet did not arrive with his brethren in the presence of the young child Jesus?  Of the great desires of this fourth pilgrim, and how it was denied, yet accomplished in the denial; of his many wanderings and the probations of his soul; of the long way of his seeking, and the strange way of his finding, the One whom he sought -- I would tell the tale as I have heard fragments of in in the Hall of Dreams, in the Place of the Heart of Man.

-- "The Story of the Other Wise Man" by Henry van Dyke (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, January 1893; published in book form in 1895; reprinted many times, and available online at many of the usual sites)

The Fourth Wise Man is a priest of the Magi named Artaban.  As with the other three wise men, he sees signs in the sky that a king has born among the Jews, and he sets out to visit the child, bringing gifts -- a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl.  On his way he meets a dying man and stops to help him, making him late for the caravan of the other wise men.  Unable to cross the desert by himself with just a horse, he is forced to sell one of his treasures to purchase supplies for the journey.  He arrives in Bethlehen too late to see the child -- the parents have fled to Egypt -- and he has to use another of his treasures to save the life of another child.

Artaban travels to Egypt and other countries seeking the child.  along the way he performs many acts of charity.  Thirty-three years have passed and he still has not achieved his goal.  He arrives in Jerusalem in time for the Crucifixion of Jesus, when is must sacrifice his last treasure, a "pearl of great price" to save a young woman from being sold into slavery.  He is then caught by a falling roof and is about to die, having failed in his quest, when a voice from the heavens speaks to him, using a verse from Matthew 25:40:  "Verily I say unto thee, Insomuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me."  Artaban is overcome with joy and wonder and dies peacefully knowing that he has found his King.

Harper's New Monthly Magazine stated, "So beautiful and so true to what is best in our natures, and so full of the Christmas spirit, is this story of The Other Wise Man that it ought to find its way into every sheaf of Christmas gifts in the land."  And so it has.  The story has become a classic and has been told and retold in many forms over the past one hundred thirty-two years.

Henry van Dyke (1852-1933) was an American author, educator, and diplomat; it will come as no surprise that he was also a Presbyterian minister.  A professor of English literature at Princeton for twenty-four years, he was also on the committee that produce the first Presbyterian printed liturgy, The Book of Common Worship of 1906.  At the request of his friend Woodrow Wilson, he became Minister the the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1913; with the outbreak of the Great War, van Dyke proved to be an excellent diplomat, maintaining the right of /american an Europe and organizing for their relief.  He was a good friend of Helen Keller, and officiated at Mark Twain's funeral.

On the literary front, he wrote many stories, poems, hymns, and essays.  "The Story of the Other Wise Man" remains his best-known work, with "The First Christmas Tree" (1897) coming in at a close second.  One of his best-known poems is "Time Is" -- portions of which were read at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales:   "Time is / Too slow for those who Wait, / Too swift for those who Fear, / Too long for those who Grieve, / Too short for those who Rejoice, / But for those who love, / Time is not."

Incoming:

• Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself.  Epic fantasy, Book One in the First Law Trilogy.  "Logan Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck.  Caught up in one feud too many he's about to become a dead barbarian, leaving nothing behind but bad songs and dead friends.  Jeral dan Luthar, paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than winning glory in the fencing circle.  But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.  Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like little better than to see Jeral come home in a box.  But then he hates everyone.  Cutting treasures out of the heart of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendships -- and his latest trail of corpses could lead straight to the rotten heart of government...if he can just stay alive long enough to follow it."
• Taylor Adams, No Exit.  Thriller.  "On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the California Rockies.  With the roads impassable, she's forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop with no cell phone reception.  Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.  Desperate to find a signal to call home, the exhausted young art student goes back out into the storm...and makes a horrifying discovery.  In the back of the van parked next to her car is a little girl locked in an animal crate.  Who is this child?  Why has she been taken?  And how can Darby save her?  There is no way to call for help and no way out.  One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper/  But which one?  Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation on the edge of civilization, with a child's life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.  But who can she trust...?"
• Linwood Barclay, The Accident.   Thriller.  "Glen Garber, a contractor, has seen his business shaken by the housing crisis, and now his wife, Sheila, is taking a business course at night to increase her chances of landing a good-paying job.  But she should have been home by now.  With their eight-year-old daughter sleeping soundly. Glen soon finds his worst fears confirmed.  Sheila and two other have been killed in a car accident.  Grieving and in denial, Glen resolves to investigate the accident himself -- and begins to uncover layers of of lawlessness beneath the placid surface of their Connecticut suburb, secret after dangerous secret behind closed doors.  Propelled into a vortex of corruption and illegal activity, pursued by mysterious killers, and confronted wit threats from neighbors he thought he knew, Glen must take his own desperate measures and go to terrifying new places in himself to avenge his wife and protect his child."
• Burl Barr, Murder in the Family.  True crime.  "On March 15, 1987, police in Anchorage, Alaska arrived at a horrific scene of carnage.  In a modest downtown apartment, they found Nancy Newman's brutally beaten corpse sprawled across her bed.  In another room were the bodies of her eight-year-old daughter, Melissa, and her three-year-old, Angie, whose throat was slit from ear to ear.  Both Nancy and Melissa had been sexually assaulted.  23-year-old Kirby Anthoney was a troubled drifter who had turned to his uncle, John Newman, Nancy's husband.  But little did John know that the nephew he took in was a murderous sociopath capable of slaughtering his beloved wife and children while he was away on business.  But while police built their case, Kirby bolted for the Canadian border.  First they hunted him down,  Then, authorities  began their long, bitter battle to convict him.  but the police would not be done until Kirby Anthoney took took the stand in his own defense -- and showed the world the monster he truly was."  Barer is the author of a number of acclaimed true crime nonfiction books, as well as a major study of the Leslie charteris character The Saint.  He is the uncle of crime writers Lee Goldberg and Tod goldberg, and a distant relative of his composed the Mighty Mouse theme song.
• Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter, The Light of Other Days.  Science fiction.  "...the tale of what happens when a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses quantum physics to enable people everywhere to see one another at all times:  around every corners, through every wall, into everyone's most private, hidden, and even intimate moments.  This new technology amounts to the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy -- forever.  Then, as men and women scramble to absorb the shock, the same technology proves able  look backwards in time as well.  Nothing can prepare us for what follows -- the wholesale discovery of the truth about thousands of years of human history.  .  Governments topple, religions fall, the entire edifice of human society is shaken to its roots.  It is a fundamental change in in the terms of the human condition -- cause for despair, provocation for chaos, and -- just maybe -- opportunity for transcendence."
• Alan Dean Foster, The Tar-Aiym Krang.  Science fiction novel in the author's Pip & Flinx series.  "Here was a wide-open world for any venture a man might scheme.  The planet attracted unwary travelers hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers -- a teeming constantly shifting horde that provided a comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his per mini-dragon Pip.  With his old talents the pickings were easy enough so that Flinx did not have to be dishonest...most of the time.  In fact, it hardly seemed dishonest at all to steal a starmap from a dead body that didn't really need it anymore.  But Flinx forgot one crucial point.  He should have wondered why the body was dead in the first place,"
• Robert E. Howard, Bran Mak Morn:  The Last King.  In which the last king of a doomed race learns the true meaning of Christmas.  Well, not really -- it's just that I noticed there are no holiday themes on this week's list of Incoming.  Actually, this is a large compendium of all things Bran Mac Morn, the fierce Pictish king of a number of stories by Howard.  The book is an expansion of 1969's Bran Mac Morn, adding previously uncollected poems, fragments, and drafts, as well as nearly fifty pages of background material.  The book is great for Howard completists, or those who, like me, as OCD.  As such, it is a perfect Christmas gift to myself, which actually alows me to mention Christmas in this holiday edition  of Incoming.  
• Richard Peck, The Dreadful future of Blossom Culp and Ghosts I Have Been. Two YA fantasies about Blossom Culp, a psychic girl living in a small town along the Mississippi in the early 1900s.  She and her friend Alexander (also a psychic) investigate matters concerning ghosts that Blossom sees.  In Dreadful Future, Blossom is cast into the 1980s, befriending a boy there and getting answers to problems she faces in her own time.  In Ghosts, blossom seeks justice for a young boy who has died on the Titanic.  Richard Peck (1934-2018) was an Edgar Allan Poe Award, Newbery Medal, Scott O'Dell Award winning author, and Boston Globe-Horn Book Award-winning author of young adult novels.  Many of his books, including the Blossom Culp series, have become standard reading.
• John Peel, Dances with Wolves.  YA werewolf novel in the Tombstones series.  "Holly Brand is a heroine!  She stopped a mad killer in the act.  Only holly, her friend Zakiya, and police chief Dorn know the truth:  the killer was a werewolf.  Suddenly everyone wants to know Holly.  A football hunk has even nominated her to be Midwinter Dance queen.  But Gina, who would have been queen is mad enough to kill...  Holly is having the time of her life... until she sees the note, written in blood:  "It's not over yet."  The werewolves are here and they're coming to the dance.  This time she'll have to save the last one for them."  Peel (b. 1954) is a prolific British author, mainly of television tie-in novels and novelizations (including Dr. Who, The Patrick Macnee Avengers and not the Marvel Avengers, Star Trek, James Bond Jr., Carmen Sandiego, Shelby Woo, Alex Mack, and Eerie Indiana) .  He also has published a number of young adult horror novels under his own name and pseudonyms.  His books tend to be quick reads and unlikely to win any awards.

A Few Songs for the Season:

"Dance, Little Wren"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNSgaCYG2SA

"I Wonder as I Wander"  (my favorite song of the season)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCjER0_aKjE

"O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"  (this was Kitty's favorite)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zshzkkD-NYA

"Silent Night"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z15FHAVrv7A

"What Child Is This?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ731qXWEho

"The Holly's Whisper"

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

"Santa Bloody Claus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx5_MBXjED4

"Silent Night All Day Long"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwDh_7tSpag

"Huron Carol"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zJwOPeIn_s

"Cool Yule"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms7-6vN69nY

"Little Drummer Boy"  (bagpipe version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cdq72l8uGU

"Boogie Woogie Santa Claus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cqqzp4ZN_c

"The Little Swallow" ("The Carol of the Bells")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwHHxbuxgg0

Santa Claus Funnies #1:  From December 1942, this comic book features some of the earliest work by Walt Kelly, later to gain fame as the creator of Pogo.  

In "Santa Claus in Trouble," Santa upsets Belinda the Ice Queen when he criticizes the toy ice trains that Belinda has been having her Snow Men make for the children; Santa rightly mentions that the ice toys will melt when then get into the warm hands of children.  In retaliation, Belinda steals Santa's sleigh and kidnaps his reindeer, while also sending a huge blizzard over the North Pole.  Will Santa rescue his reindeer and sleigh in time to deliver toys to all the boys and girls in the land?  If there were any toys under your tree on Christmas Day 1942, you'd know he did.

There are also a bunch of illustrated poems and songs, including "Jingle Bells," Clement Moore's "The Night before Christmas" (yeah, I know Moore did not write it -- Henry Livingston, Jr. did -- but folks back then did not know that), "O Christmas Tree," "Silent Night," Stella Mead's "Lord Octopus Went to the Christmas Fair" (illustrated by Kelly), "The First Noel," and Emile Poulsson's "Santa Claus and the Mouse."

Walt Kelly also shows up with a brilliant eight-page adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Fir Tree"; and a fifteen-page adaptation of A Christmas Carol (artist unknown); followed by a six-page legend of "The First Christmas Tree, drawn by Arthur E. Jameson.  The issue ends with a page of games and puzzles, "Santa's Pencil Fun."

If this issue had come out five years later, my sister would have been upset that there were no cut-out paper dolls -- she went ga-ga over them when she was very young.  Luckily for Dell comics, she had not been born yet so they managed to avoid her wrath.

The big draw here for me is Walt Kelly.  Enjoy this issue, even if there are no cut-out dolls:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=29465

Dad Joke, Christmas Edition:  How much does Santa pay for parking?

Nothing, it's on the house.

The Short Answer to Your Question is "No":

https://archive.org/details/youtube-b01gSE4ySZY

Speaking of the Above:

https://archive.org/details/Fire_Safety_-_Christmas_Tree

Toy Tinkers:  My father loved Donald Duck and hard a hard time stopping laughing once the cartoon was over.  This Christmas cartoon from 1949 has the added presence of Chip and Dale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l49a9z8xBL0

Today's Poem:

How Rudolph's Nose Got Its Glow

Gene Autry sang of Rudolph

His nose so red and bright

And how he'd guide Santa's sleigh

On those foggy nights

Yes, Rudolph was now a hero

The way the story goes

But have you ever stopped to think

How Rudolph got that nose

It all started years ago

That's what the reindeer say

No matter what the reindeer did

Rudolph was always in their way

He was in the middle of their work

And in their way at play

When he got in the middle of their football game

An accident happened that day

The score was tied six to six

With just seconds left to go

When Prancer decided to try and kick

A thirty yard field goal

Donner was ready with the ball

Prancer's foot was back to kick

Then all of a sudden from nowhere

In Rudolph's nose did stick

Prancer's foot came flying

As the story goes

But instead of kicking the football

He kicked Rudolph on the nose

Rudolph's nose began to swell

The it began to glow

The sky was lit for miles and miles

From Rudolph's bright red nose

Many years have now gone past

Since that awful day

Although the swelling has long been gone

His nose still glows today

So now you know the whole story

It wasn't Rudolph who saved the night

For if it hadn't been for Prancer's foot

Santa would never have made the flight

-- Woody Woodruff (December 1996)

[hat tip to Miss Cellania]

I know we have all been going through some pretty tough times this year.  But the solstice has passed us and the days are getting longer and the darkness is retreating.  And this is a time for celebrating for many of the world's religions.  No mater what your belief, the hope of a new year is upon us.  May we take that hope and hold it close to our hearts as we venture forward.  We may be muddling through, but we are all muddling through together and, as one, our light is strong enough to face and overcome many of the travails that may await us.

May each of you enjoy peace and joy this holiday season.

HYMN TIME

The Chad Mitchell Trio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2re8-uyjzU

STONY CRAIG (UNDATED ONE-SHOT COMIC BOOK)

Pentagon Publishing was a small comic book publisher which existed from 1945 to 1947.  It's most notable title (which is not saying much) was Claire Voyant, which I featured here a while ago.  According to the indicia, Stony Craig was planned to be a quarterly publication; it lasted the one issue, and you should be able to figure out why as you read the issue.

Now that the war in the Pacific is over, Sgt. Stony Craig finds himself in charge of a U.S. prison camp.  But there are some Japanese who refuse to give and they are bombing the prison camp.   They are led by the brother of a Japanese general interred in the camp; he hopes to convince his brother to surrender before the Americans destroy him.  But soon Stoney and fellow marines Slugger Wise (who refused to wear a shirt) and Mountain Music Fink are captured and condemned to be shot by a firing squad.  At the last minute they are rescued by an army prisoner of war team.  This leads to some meaningless jealousy between Slugger and the army men, all of which adds up to nothing and is pretty boring.

As a matter of fact, the whole thing is pretty boring.  And the artwork is on the level of that of a somewhat talented eighth grade student.

Oh, well.  Win some, lose some.

Give it a try.  Your reaction might be different.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=97310

FORGOTTEN BOOK: BLOOD RED

Blood Red by John Creasey (originally published as Red Eye for the Baron, under the pseudonym "Anthony Morton," 1958; published under the present title, 1960)

The super-prolific John Creasey published nearly 600 books under more than twenty names.  Although he is best known for his mystery and crimes thrillers, he also published in other fields, including western, romance, children's, sports, and nonfiction.  In the mystery/crime/thriller fields Creasey created thirteen series characters, as well as adding to the long-running Sexton Blake series.  His most popular character (in terms of books published was The Toff (80 books), followed by Chief Superintendent Roger West (68 books), with John Mannering, the Baron, coming in at a close third with 62 books.

The Baron, originally a gentleman thief known as Blue Mask, started out as a cross between Raffles and Simon Templar, the Saint; Mannering made his debut nearly two decades before Hitchcock filmed To Catch a Thief, with Cary Grant starring as John Robie, otherwise that may have been consider one of the sources for the character.  Originally from a privileged family who had lost their fortune, Mannering not only performed daring robberies, but he also developed a connoisseur's appreciation of fine gems.  Mannering's literary career as Blue Mask was short-lived; by the ninth book in the series he was known as the Baron, and the previous eight novels were retrofitted in alignment.  Mannering fell in love with Lorna, a talented and wealthy portrait painter, they married, and Mannering gave up crime and settled into the antiquities business, operating the prestigious Quinn's, which soon grew into an international concern.  But crime still managed to find its way to the Baron's doorstep, enough crime to fill the 62 books in the series.

Although Creasey remains one of my favorite authors, he cannot be considered a great writer.  His books are fast reads, quickly paced, highly imaginative, filled with danger and thrills, and you can often drive a truck lorry (he's British, don't you know) through the plots.  Usually, though, you are reading though so fast that you do not realize that last bit.  But then there's Blood Red.

This is a book of excesses, chock full of things that make you go, huh?

Theodorus Wray is a very, very rich man, perhaps one of the ten wealthiest men in the world.  a Britisher by birth, he emigrated to Australia when young, made a fortune, went to America, and made an even bigger fortune.  Everything that Wray touches, every business he invests in, turns to gold.  When we meet him, he is juggling at least a dozen major international deals at one time.  He keeps all his knowledge in his head; no plans are ever written down.  Wray is cocky and self-assured, used to getting his own way.  He bulldozes his way through any obstacle, usually in a plain-spoken and rustic manner as befitting his Australian and Texan background.  (Creasey often goes over the top with his American characters; this time he added an Australian stereotype to the mix.)  He is forty-four years old and has never been in love -- until two weeks ago.

The girl who has him smitten is Rosamund Morrell, a young country beauty who is innocence personified.  Theo saw her at a party, fell instantly in love, and soon they were engaged.  Rosamund, for her part, is also dreadfully in love with Theo.  But Rosamund has a secret in her past.  When  she first came to London a few years ago at age eighteen, she met the charming  Micky Odell, not realizing that he was a thief and a conman and the man Scotland Yard most wanted to put behind bars.  Odell would pressure young girls to cozy up to older rich men and wheedle gifts from them -- usually in the form of precious gems.  Odell would then take the loot and sell it.  He worked this con game so well that, if any legal consequences came about, they would only fall on the young girls.  Just once he used Rosamund for this grift; she was young and did not realize what she was doing, and Rosamund's sister was in legal trouble and Odell promised that he would make things right for her.  (The whole scam and set-up did not sound right to me, but what do I know?)  Anyway, Rosamund is keeping her past a secret because 1)  she does not want to ruin her relationship with Theo, and 2)  she is afraid that she would liable for arrest.

Odell discovers that Rosamund and Theo are an item, and knowing the Theo is very, very rich, decides to cut himself into half of Theo's fortune by using Rosamund.  (Again, this whole scheme doesn't make sense to me, but what do I know?)  Rosamund refuses and Odell gets very angry and makes threats.  Odell is not above violence.

What, you may ask, does John Mannering have to do with all this.  Well, he's right there from page one.  One of the valuable antiquities Quinn's has for sale is an ancient Babylonian diamond ring, approximate value 40,000 pounds, but most likely worth over 100,000 pounds on the collectors' market.  The ring, with a little in of red in the diamond, is known as the Red Eye of Love. has a storied background in both legend and history.  It can give the woman who wears it a power over men, and over the ages men have fallen to its spell.  Theo comes bursting into Quinn's and demands to buy the ring on the spot, offering 75.000 pounds.  His fiance, he said, deserves a ring almost as beautiful as she is.  Theo is followed into the shop by Rosamund, who is highly embarrassed.  She does not want the ring and, if Theo buys it, she will not wear it.  She leaves, but Theo is determined that she will accept the ring.  Theo then phones Lorna and gets her to agree to paint a portrait on Rosamund.  The ring is purchased, and Rosamund ends up staying at the Mannering home, in part to protect her from Odell.

Odell tries to pressure Rosamund and Theo, who has a quick temper and is prone to violence. finds out and beats the living crap out of Odell.  Luckily Mannering was present and prevented Theo from killing Odell.

Then Odell is found murdered in Rosamund's apartment and Theo is the only viable suspect.

The problem with murder mysteries is that there have to be suspects and the cast of characters is mighty slim here, none of which appear to have any motives.  There's Theo's loyal bodyguard, Theo's new accounting assistant who is a genius with numbers, there's Odell's new wife, and there's a business rival who had left for South America days before the murder.  The only person with a motive is Theo, and Mannering finds himself seriously considering him as the culprit.  If there were more suspects -- more logical ones, anyway -- Mannering felt he might be tempted to blame everyone one the train (a tacit nod to Dame Agatha, there).

And then there is the Red Eye of Love.  Does it hold sway over Rosamund, or does Rosamund hold sway over it?

Can the Baron make sense of all this and solve the murder of Odell?

[SPOILER:  He can.]

All in all, this book is a muddled mess.  Yet, despite its many flaws. it's a quick and somewhat entertaining read, albeit many notches below the typical Baron novel from Creasey.

THE INVESTIGATOR (1954)

A satire on Joseph McCarthy, first heard on Canadian Broadcasting System radio.  It still echoes in today's environment.

https://archive.org/details/the-investigator-by-reuben-ship

The author, Reuben Ship, later turned it into a book.  Brian Busby, of The Dusty Bookcase, recently discussed this "Narrative in Dialogue" and its background.  It makes for fascinating (and, perhaps in these days, essential) reading:

https://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2025/12/exhuming-mccarthy.html

ALMOST SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MURDER PICTURE

[Having nearly completed a lengthy post on George Harmon Coxe's "Flashgun" Casey story "Murder Picture" (Black Mask, January 1935), my computer ate it with no hope of retrieval.  I'm too frustrated to rewrite the entire post, so this little bit will have to do.

[Casey was Coxe's first newspaper photographer crime-fighting hero -- tough, glib, and not afraid to use either his gun or his firsts.  He appeared 23 times in Black Mask through 1943, and once (in a novel abridgement}in the Star Weekly in 1962.  There have been five novels and two short story collections about the character, as well as two films, a television series (1951-1952), a radio series (1943-1955, under a variety of titles), a three-act play, an audio CD, and a comic book (four issues 1949-1950).  Casey was also the main character in Edward S. Aarons' Dead Heat (1951, published as by "Paul Ayres").

[Only a year after creating Casey, Coxe repurposed the character aa the milder ( although still tough as nails when needed) crime photographer Kent Murdock.  Murdock was a cleaned-up version of Casey and was created for the book marker, appearing in 23 novels from 1935 through 1973, and only one short story (from 1947).  Murdock appeared in just one motion picture (1936), as well in a digest-sized paperback graphic novel adaptation of Murdock's Four Frightened Women (1950, with the dubious claim of being the very first graphic novel)

[Coxe (1901-1984) published 63 novels from 1934 to 1975.  Among his other popular characters was Dr. Paul Standish, who was played by Gary Merrill in a short-lived summer replacement series on CBS Radio in 1948.  Coxe was named a Grand Master by The Mystery Writers of America in 1964, and had served as that group's president in 1952.  Like many other very popular mystery writers of the time -- including fellow MWA Grand Masters Baynard Kendrick, Judson Philips, and Aaron Marc Stein --  Coxe may well be considered a "forgotten writer."]

"Murder Picture" is a pivotal story in the Flashgun Casey opus and it is the one where Casey leaves the Globe for The Express.  There's gangsters, a murder, an escaped girl prisoner, and the son of the new owner of the Globe (and the brother of the paper's managing editor) who happened to get on Casey's camera being where he should not have been.  It's a tangled mess and Casey is right in the middle of it.

"Murder Picture" was also reprinted in Otto Penzler's The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps (2007).  Check it out.

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN FILM: MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (1934)

Also known as Babes in Toyland, this Laurel and Hardy classic veers from its source material, the Victor Herbert 1903 operetta of the same title. 

Taking place entirely in Toyland, Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee live in a shoe with Mother Peep, Bo-Peep, and a large group of children.  The villain, Silas Barnaby, intends to wed Bo-Peep and take control of the shoe through foreclosure.  Stannie and Ollie try to get the money to pay off the mortgage through their employer, the Toymaker, leading to chaos in the Toyshop.    Fired from their job and facing exile, Stannie and Ollie resort to a cunning scheme to save Bo-Peep from marrying Barnaby.  In retaliation, Barnaby manages to frame Bo-Peep's true love, Tom-Tom, for pig-stealing.

A ight, frothy Christmas film with several engaging musical numbers.  A holiday staple, the movie was shown on television stations throughout America in the 1960s and 1970s, and is still viewed on a number of stations.  Although it was also popular at the box office, the film initially lost money, causing producer Hal Roach to release it annually under a variety of different names, which led some audiences to believe they were seeing anew and different film.

Directed by Gus Meins and Charles Rogers, with a script by Frank Butler and Nick Grinde, the film also featured Charlotte Henry (best known for starring in Alice in Wonderland) as Bo-Peep, Felix Knight (a singer and vocal coach, member of the Metropolitan Opera for 14 years, and a vocalist with the Guy Lombardo and Russ Morgan orchestra) as Tom-Tom Piper, Virginia Karns (a singer and character actress with the Hal Roach Studios who later found success as a voice-over actress) as Mother Goose, Florence Roberts (who had an active film career from 1917 until her death in 1940, including in 1917's Allan Quatermain, The Life of Emile Zola, and numerous appearances as Granny Jones in the Jones Family comedies) as the Widow Peep, and Henry Brandon (The Garden of Allah, Drums of Fu-Manchu, The Searchers; after a brief marriage, Brandon became romantically involved with the actor Mick Herron; they remained together until the mid-Sixties when Herron became Judy Garland's fourth husband; the Garland marriage lasted less than six months, after which Herron returned to Brandon and remained with him until Brandon's death in 1990) as Silas Barnaby.  Also featured (alphabetically) were Frank Austin (who also appeared in The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case) as the Justice of the Peace, Billy Bletcher (who voiced Pete in the Mickey Mouse cartoon, the Big Bad Wolf in Three Little Pigs, and Spike in the Tom and Jerry cartoons) as the Chief of Police, William Buress (who was on Broadway for 20 years and was featured in more than seventy films from 1915 to 1939) as the Toymaker, Payne B. Johnson (a child actor with 104 mostly uncredited roles) as Jiggs (the First Little Pig), Angelo Rossitto (Freaks, Dracula vs. Frankenstein,Mad Max:  Beyond Thunderdome) as Elmer (the Second Little Pig). Zebedy Colt (who later became a gay cabaret singer and an adult film director and actor) as Willie (the Third Three Little Pig), 

That's just scratching the surface of the cast.  We should note, however, three things:  director Charlies Rogers was cast as Simple Simon,  R.O.U.T. (Rodent of Unusual Talent) Mickey Mouse appeared as himself, and you have to watch very carefully or you will miss Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton herself) as a Townswoman at Tom-Tom's trial.

Enjoy this wonderful flight of fantasy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7z5UT3Py70

BIT & PIECE -- INCOMING ONLY

Despite all good intentions, I sometimes get behind in items I want to post on the blog.  Rather than pt it off for another week here's some of the latest Incoming. 

Incoming:

• [anonymous editor], Gothic Fantasy:  Weird Horror Short Stories.  Collection of 44 stories, both old and new.  Louisa May Alcott, Gertrude Atherton, E. F. Benson, Algernon blackwood, Robert Bloch, Ramsay Campbell, Robert W. Chambers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Francis Flagg, R. Murray Gilchrist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Hope Hodgson, Carl Jacobi, M. R. James, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Reggie Oliver, Barry Pain, Edgar Allan Poe, M. P. Shiel, Clark Ashton Smith, H. G. Wells, and many others,  :Part of a box from George.
• "Loren Beauchamp" (Robert Silverberg), Sin on Wheels.  Midcentury erotica.  "The gay trailer camp life of casual sin and adultery shocked Lenore.  After all, she had only been married to Jack two weeks when the woman next door told her.  'You married a crackerjack.  Jack's an ace in bed.  I never had it better from anybody.  In fact, I kind of miss it, so you just let me know any time you feel like letting me crawl into the sack with Jack.  And you can get it from my old man, I won't squawk at all, because turnabout's fair play and...'  The trailer camp dwellers were always having fun -- especially when they played strip poker, switch parties, and other interesting games!"  These paperbacks talked big but actually showed little.  Early in his career, Silverberg wrote nearly 170 of them, sometimes averaging more than two a month, in additional to his other writing.  The problem with writing so much is that titles get confused; this one has also been issued as Orgy on Wheels by "Don Elliott," while the title Sin on Wheels that Silverberg wrote as "Elliott" is a completely different book.  
• Earl Derr Biggers, Love Insurance.  An early (1914) comic novel from the creator of Charlie Chan.  "...a delightful comic romp set among the palm trees of early 1900's San Marco, Florida, and features stolen diamonds, kidnapping, false identities, blackmail, and l'amour...ah, l'amour."  According to reviews, this is actually a very funny novel.
• Fred Blosser, The Solomon Kane Companion:  An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard's Dark Avenger.  This is clickbait for a fanboy like me.  "Solomon Kane, Robert E. Howard's grim Puritan avenger, rivals Howard's most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, in the annals of sword-and-sorcery.   In  this first-ever comprehensive guide, Howard scholar Fred Blosser unravels the mysteries of Kane and his savage world -- from treacherous Tudor England and Germany's demon-haunted Black Forest to a lost outpost of Atlantis and the vampire-ridden hills of darkest Africa."
• Marion Zimmer Bradley, Gravelight.  Occult fantasy romance, the third book in the Shadow's Gate sequence.  "Trying to outrun the memory opf a drunk-driving accident where he may have killed someone, Wycherly Musgrove send his expensive sports car sailing off the road... Amazingly he survives the crash with no more than a few bumps and bruises, but the car is totaled and Wych is stranded in tiny Morton's Fork. Sinah Dellon left Morton's Fork an infant foundling.  Now a world-famous movie star, her most closely-held secret is her ability to read minds.  She's come home in search of the truth about her origins.  Also poking around in Morton's Fork this fateful summer are researchers investigating centuries of reported hauntings and other phenomena.  Truth Jourdemayne discovers a renegade Gate, a portal to another plane.  But she cannot close the Gate without the help of its keeper, who is nowhere to be found.  Wycherly, Sinah, and Truth are fighters in the eternal struggle between Light and Darkness, and the small mountain town of Morton's fork has become a battleground."   We met Marion at a convention more than fifty years ago when Kitty was pregnant with out first child; she was excited for us and gushed over Kitty (who was also a great fan of The Mists of Avalon).  The following year we met her again when  we took Jessamyn in tow and Marion spotted us from a distance and came running over to ooh and aah at the baby.  This was more than forty years before the dark charges about her came out, but at the time we were impressed with her open friendliness.  Looking back, I wonder...  
• Darcy Coats, Quarter to Midnight.  Horror short story collection with fifteen stories.  Coates is a USA Today bestselling Australian horror and suspense writer who began self-publishing in 2013 with ever-increasing sales.  She has published more than three dozen novels and more than half a dozen collections.  I actually read one of her novels and was less than impressed.  Maybe I picked the wrong one, and maybe she reads better in shorter bites.  We'll see,
• "Isak Dinesen"  (Karen Blixen), Last Tales.  Collection of twelve stories, many of them a bit more "literary" than my normal reading, but she's also good at creepy Gothic stories.
• Stefan Dziemianowicz, editor, Great Horror Stories.  Instant remainder of 101 short tales.  A good mix of the familiar with the unfamiliar, both in terms of authors and stories.
• Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert W. Weinberg, & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, 100 ghastly Little Ghost Stories.  Another instant remainder.  Another gift from George.  All reprints, a mixture of the familiar and the not-so familiar, mostly from the pulps, with over 40% from Weird Tales.
• Mike Evans, The Rock 'N' Roll Age.  Coffee table book from Reader's Digest, but don't hold that against it.  A look at American culture through the lens of Rock and Roll, from the origins of the genre to the coming of the Beatles.  some of the events may not have been pretty, but the music...ah!  the music!  another goodie from George.
• John Farris, Sacrifice.  suspense novel.  "Seventeen-year-old Sharissa Walker is beauty personified, decency incarnate and a joy to behold -- the apple of her father's eye.  By anyone's standards, Greg Walker is the perfect father.  He'll do anything to protect her and keep her safe.  But in this novel of terror and suspense, nothing is as it seems.  Nothing.  Not youthful innocence.  Not daughterly devotion.  Not a father's love...:"  Of this book, Ed Gorman wrote:  "Sacrifice is an astonishing achievement -- a novel of love and hate, light and darkness, the everyday and the macabre.  The book holds so much excitement, and so much suspense, and so much plain human wisdom, that one hates to let go of it."
• Tanya Huff & Alexander Potter (with an uncredited assist from Martin H. Greenberg's Tekno Books), editors, Women of War.  Science fiction and fantasy collection with fourteen stories of women who have come into their own during wartime, whether in outer space, on distant worlds, in our own future, or in fantasy realms.  Authors include Huff, Rosemary Edghill, Julie E. Czernada, Bruce Holland Rogers, Jane Lindskold, Stephen Leigh, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.
• His Hawaiian Majesty Kalakaua, The Legends and Myths of Hawaii.  The Legends and Myths of Hawaii.  "First published in 1888 under the authorship of His Hawaiian Majesty Kalakaua, has been widely acknowledges as one of the first and most significant collections of native Hawaiian folklore to have reached an international audience during the last century.  Drawing on his intimate knowledge of the oral traditions of his ancestors, King Kalakaua has woven a bright Hawaiian tapestry of romantic legends, mythical heroes and historical events that remains as dramatic, readable and informative today as it was when first published over a hundred years ago."  I am a sucker for old legends, myths, and folklore.
• Ronald Kelly, Fear.  Horror novel.  "It was a legend in Fear County...a hideous, flesh-eating creature that feasted on the blood of innocent children in the cold black heart of the Tennessee Backwoods....But ten-year-old Jeb Sweeney knows the horrible stories are true.  His best friend Mandy just up and disappeared.  He also knows that no one has ever had the courage to go after the monster and put an end to his raging, bestial hunger.  Until now.  But evil is well guarded.   And for young Jeb Sweeney, about to enter the lair of the unknown, passage through the gates of Hell comes with a terrible price.  Everlasting...FEAR."
• Edward Truett Long, Dr. Thaddeus C. Harker:  The Complete Stories.  "Dressed in a Prince Albert coat and looking like a Kentucky gentleman, Harker and his crew travel the country selling their cure-all Chickasha Remedies... and encounter crime at every stop.  This edition collects the entire series:  'Crime Nest,' 'Woe to the Vanquished' and 'South of the Border,' all from 1940 and complete, remastered, and with the original illustrations.  And it's rounded out by an introduction by pulp historian Tom Johnson which reveals many facts about this previously unidentified pulp author, along with an exhaustive Edward Truett Long bibliography."  Recently mentioned on James Reasoner's blog and I could not resist.  
• John Lutz, Twist.  A Frank Quinn thriller.  "Frank Quinn is a decorated ex-cop.  A former homicide detective specializing in tracking serial killers.  Now his niece, Carlie Clark, needs help.  Someone is stalking her, and the NYPD can't stop him.  A blonde, blue-eyed beauty, Carlie is the victim type of the killer who's been terrorizing women -- leaving them bound, gagged, and tortured with surgical precision.  To win against the most personal adversary of his career, Quinn will have to set the perfect trap.  All he n 'Greetings from the dead,'eeds is the perfect bait...'
• Jeff Mariotte, Angel: Sanctuary.  Television tie-in novel based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff.  "Angel and Co. are enjoying a rare moment of relaxation at the karaoke bar Caritas when a loud explosion draws the gang -- and the rest of the bar's patrons -- outside.  A building across the street is on fire, but the conflagration is nothing more than a diversionary tactic to distract people from a drive-by shooting!  And when the smoke clears, Fred is missing.  It's obvious she's been kidnapped, so Angel, Lorne, Cordy, Wes, and Gunn set about questioning everyone within the immediate radius.  At least ten demons were direct eyewitnesses,  One problem, though:  Each tells a diffe  rent story of what he, she, or it saw...Demons don't make for the most reliable sources."
• Helen McCloy, Through a Glass, Darkly.  A Basil Willing mystery.  "Gisela von Hohenems joins the teaching staff of an exclusive girls' school in upstate New York, where she befriends fellow newcomer Faustina Coyle.  But a climate of fear surrounds Faustina, and after several strange incidents which defy rational explanation, she's forced to resign.  Gisela asks her fiance, detective-psychologist Dr. Basil Willing, to investigate."  McCloy always provides a good read and Basil Willing can unlock the thorniest problems.
• Cerise Rennie Murphy & Alana Joli Abbott, editors, Where the Veil Is Thin.  Original collection of fourteen horror stories.  Another book that was lurking in a box sent by the Sage of Tonawanda.  "Around the world, there are tales of creatures  that live in mist or shadow, hidden from humanity by only the slightest veil.  [...] {T]hese creatures step into the night.  Some are small and harmless.  Some are bizarre mirrors of the world.  Some have hidden motives, while others seek justice against humans who have wronged them.  In these pages you will find blood-sucking tooth fairies and gentle boo hags, souls who find new shapes after death and changelings seeking a way to fit into either world.  You will cross the veil -- but be careful  that you remember the way back."
• Mel Odom, Buffy the Vampire Slayer:  Unnatural Selection. Original television tie-in novel.  "Willow's trying to earn a little pocket change by taking the usual teenage part-time job -- baby-sitting the neighbor's kid.  But the child-care chores turn into a scene from a horror movie when the baby gives her the evil eye and attacks.  Barely escaping the tiny terror, Willow can't forget the missing human child -- or the monstrous thing left in its place.  The childish changeling keeps coming back to haunt and taunt her.  Buffy and her posse soon discover a possible connection between Willow's infant interloper and some strange artifacts Giles found at a local archaeological dig.  The evil plaguing Will was once trapped underground.  Now that it has been unearthed by new construction on the property, it's ready to cause some major mischief...and worse."
• James Patterson & Chris Grabenstein, Jacky Ha-Ha.  Kid's book.  "This is the story of Jacky Ha-Ha.  She's a mother -- and a very funny writer and actress -- who tells her daughter what life was like when she was a twelve-year-old kid growing up with her six sisters and lifeguard dad at the Jersey Shore.  And most important, where she got the nickname Jacky Ha-Ha and how it changed her life -- for the funnier!"  Bought because I like Chris Grabenstein. 
• Douglas Preston, The Codex.  Thriller.  " 'Greetings from the Dead,' declares Maxwell Broadbent on the videotape he left behind after his mysterious disappearance.  A notorious treasure hunter and tomb raider, Broadbent accumulated over half a billion dollars' worth of priceless art, gems, and artifacts before vanishing -- along with his entire collection -- from his mansion in New Mexico.  As a final challenge to his three sons,  Broadbent has buried himself and his treasure somewhere in the world, hidden away like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh.  If the sons wish to claim their inheritance, they must find their father's carefully concealed tomb.  The race is on, but among Broadbent's treasures is an ancient Mayan codex that may hold a secret far more important than the wealth of riches among it.  And Broadbent's sons aren't the only ones after it."
• "Clay Randall" (Clifton Adams), Amos Flagg -- High Gun.  The second (of seven) in the Amos Flagg series of westerns.  "The four most notorious killers in Texas Territory had drifted into Sangaree County from different directions -- quietly, singly, carefully.  And now they were gathered together in a stretch of badland, a mean little cutback running between No Man's Land and Indian Territory.  Rumors said they were there to make a deal with Amos Flagg, in exchange for protection against the law.  But the four gunmen knew you couldn't make any deals with a damn fool like Flagg.  The only place you could handle Flagg was on his own ground, and the only way you could do it was to lure him into an ambush, strip him of his badge, and kill him."
• Clayton Rawson, The Great Merlini:  The Complete Stories of the Magician Detective.  The Great Merlini was Rawson's stage name as a magician, so he naturally used it for his most famous detective character.  Collection of twelve short stories.  when homicide cases venture outside the realm of the possible, Merlini is there to set things right.  He "confronts puzzles that would leave a lesser magician's head spinning.  From vanishing blackmailers to murderous mediums, no cosmic crime can baffle The Great Merlini."  Also, Death Out of Thin Air, originally published as by "Stuart Towne."  Two stories about Don Diavolo, magician and escape artist.  "The women of London have taken to wear thin black bands around their necks.  Is it a fashion accessory -- or a stylish way of hiding bite marks?  A string of strange deaths has struck the town, and witnesses claim to have seen a vampire bat fleeing the scene.  The London police can rest easy, for the vampire bat has left for New York.  He makes his first appearance in a Broadway dressing room, piercing the neck of a woman who had come to speak to Don Diavolo, magician and escape artist.  The police suspect Diavolo of killing her, forcing him to catch the vampire or face the chair.  For his next trick, Diavolo confronts the murder of a police detective who is found shot to death in a locked office, where the sole trace of the killer is a mocking voice on the telephone.  Only Don Diavolo, the Scarlet Wizard, can prove ho the gunman made his escape."   Rawson was one of the four founding members of the Mystery Writers of America and was the one who coined their slogan "Crime Does Not Pay -- Enough."  Rawson received two special Edgar Awards, in 1949 and in 1967.  He was the managing editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine from 1963 until his death in 1971
• "James Rollins" & Grant Blackwood, War Hawk.  A Tucker Wayne novel, a spinoff of the Sigma Force novels by Rollins.  "Tucker Wayne's past and present collide when a former army colleague comes to him for help.  She's on the run from brutal assassins hunting her and her son.  To keep them safe, Tucker must discover who killed a brilliant young idealist -- a crime that leads back to the most powerful figures in the U.S. government.  From the haunted swamplands of the deep South to the beachheads of a savage civil was in Trinidad, Tucker and his beloved war dog, Kane, must work together to discover the truth behind a mystery that dates back to World War II, involving the genius of a young code-breaker, Alan Turning... They will be forced to break the law, expose national secrets, and risk everything to stop a madman determined to control the future of modern warfare for his own diabolical ends.  But can Tucker and Kane withstand a force so indominable that it threatens our future?"  Rollins is a pen name for James Czajkowski, who also writes as "James Clemens."  Blackwood is a thriller writer and ghost writer who has penned series with Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, and Steve Berry.
• Steven Saville, creator, Latchkeys:  Splinters.  Young adult fantasy/horror collection with six stories.  "On a quiet dead-end residential street on the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska sits an old house called Tanglewood.  In its front yard a large old ash tree casts its shadow across shrubs and flowerbeds and a lawn that have all long ago surrendered any pretense of life.  But inside the House are the Doors.  Doors too numerous too count.  Doors made of wood from Yggdrasil, the great Norse /world Tree that stands in the center of the universe.  Doors that lead to every time and every place that ever was -- or ever could be.  Provided you are one of the rare few with the gift, a child with the ability to step through such Doors to the other side.  Provided you are a Latchkey, capable of becoming one of the Wardens, the protectors of Tanglewood and the Doors.  Then -- disaster!  Tanglewood's connection to the World Tree is somehow broken.  And many of the Doors disappear, sent spinning out across time and space with no rhyme or reason, leaving behind only the dimmest of shadows.  Now the young Wardens must find and return the missing Doors.  But many of them have splintered from the impact.  Those missing pieces must be restored before the Doors can be returned.  And the splinters can be anywhere and assume any form.  Almost like they didn't want to be found."
• Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver:  The Baroque Cycle #1.  Science fantasy.  This is the 2006 edition, which covers one-third of the original 2003 edition.  The original Baroque Cycle cover three volumes, which were later split into eight volumes.  "In which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe -- in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight."    A good feel for the book comes from a San Antonio Express-News review:  "Part romance, part picaresque adventure, part potboiler, part scientific treatise, part religious tome, part political sage -- just about every literary genre around..."
• Elizabeth Zelvin,  The Old Lady Shows Her Mettle.  Poetry collection.  "A Jewish woman poet in her eighties reflects on her broad life experience on this fragile planet in a time of global conflict and uncertain future.  A storyteller, a traveler, and a collector of people to love, she declares her hard-won identity without fear, expresses her outrage without letting it consume her, achieves balance, and dares to hope as her granddaughters give meaning to her legacy.  Zelvin is a multi-talented clinical social worker, writer (mysteries [the Bruce Kohler series], historical fiction [the Mendoza Family saga], fantasy [the Emerald Love urban fantasy mysteries], and poetry), and singer-songwriter.  She has a sharp wit and is very incisive in her comments.  Recommended.

They Have a Word for Me:   "Sgiomlaireachd" (pronounced "scrum-leerie") is the Scots Gaelic word for "the kind of friends who only drops in at mealtime.'

Ain't No Man Alive Can Handle Me:  A blues tune from 1952 about one tough lady...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weJyH1zCNDc

HYMN TIME

The Chick Wagon Gang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPfSyy6Ils0

CAMERA COMICS #1 (OCTOBER 1944)

Question:  You have a product you want to shill.  What do you do?  For many companies and organizations the answer is simple:  put out a comic book to lure your customers in at a young age.  (Well, it seemed to work in the 40s.)  Anyway, that seems to be the idea behind Camera Comics, issued by U.S. Camera Publishing Corporation, which published nine issues of the title from 1944 through 1946 == the first three on a monthly basis, the final six on a quarterly basis.  Camera Comics straddled that fine line between a comic book, a general interest magazine, and a trade publication.  Because it began in 1944, most of the comic story scripts had to do with the war effort for the first few issues; later intrepid newspaper photographers and whatnot tackled other threats such as criminals and corruption.

After a full-page ad for Everybody's Photo Course (for just twenty-five cents, kids!), we come to out first story, about The Gray Comet, "a daring danger-seeking member of the Army Air Force."  His plane does not carry a gun; instead it carries a camera because The Gray Comet does recon over enemy territory.  "He's been largely responsible for most of our bombing success...He's just about the greatest guy who ever lived!"  Take that, you Nazis!  In this adventure, he's off to locate enemy rocket bombs.  [SPOILER:  He does.] 

You'd think they would give us a breather after all that excitement but, no!  We hop straight into a story about Sergeant Art Fenton of the Signal Corps, whose job it is to go in on the first wave on D-Day "to get the pictures to tell the world what the American really did!"  [SPOILER:  He does.  But we will have to wait until the next issue to see what happens to Art Fenton when he gets close to the Nazis!]

But it's not just Nazis.  There's also the Yellow Peril, and the Japanese are drawn in the most yellow-ish peril-ish manner possible in the tale of George Ferguson, ace newsreel cameraman, in San Francisco in the days before Pearl Harbor when the city was a hotbed of spies and saboteurs.  George stumbles upon a Japanese agent who uses a trained crow to fly over restricted areas and take photographs.  When  George puts the kibosh on that deal. the spy tries to get murder-y.  [SPOILER:  George prevails.]

In "Pick Your Target" we have the lowdown on how "modern photography and modern planes combine against the Axis in a nard to beat team!"

Then comes a two-page text article devoted to "you photography hobbyists."   This issue discuss EQUIPMENT, METHOD, and RECORDS.  Next issue they will discuss the parts of your camera, speed, and selection.

You never know where Kid Click is going to show up.  This time Kid Click and his trusty camera is on the job at the local war plant where Nazi spy activity is unchecked -- but not for long!  The police have no clues as to who is behind the spy ring so the Police Chief calls Kid Click on the case, because that would happen in real life.  But Kid Click gets caught by the bad guy and is about to be tossed into a room full of acid when the police arrive.   How did the police know where to go?  Because Kid Click was able to write a message backwards on a roll of film.  Kid Click was also able to figure that the bad guy's glass eye was actually a miniature camera, enabling him to get information without throwing suspicion on himself.  [SPOILER:  The police decide to continue to use Kid Click's services to fight crime and spies and stuff; Kid Click agrees, as long as they don't tell his mom because she would worry.]

Bob Scott, U.S. N. Crash Photographer and his buddy Tom Hayes are stationed abo]ard one of the Navy's biggest aircraft carriers.  Their job:  To record on film all the action and adventure that is part of their Navy lives; their duties with the Pacific Fleet bring them daily face-to-face with death, especially since they are inside ENEMY TERRITORY!  [SPOILER:  The Japanese are no match for the U.S. Navy -- at least until next issue.]

Ole 'Prof, bald, bearded, and cranky is not happy with the jitter buggin' music that is coming from his radio, so he captures some of those pesky insects to try to figure out how to get them to stop.  But the bugs still have a lot of "jitter juice" left in them and they inject it into Ole 'Prof and now he's a hep cat.  [SPOILER:  Don't expect a realistic story; the jitter bugs look like the gremlins from an old Disney cartoon.]

Then, in rapid succession, a one-page diagram on How To Make an Automatic Timing Switch, reprinted from U. S. Camera magazine, and a one-pager on "Fotofacts" on Aerial Photography, followed by a back page ad for War Bonds (HASTEN THE DAY of final unconditional surrender).

Future issues would reduce the number of comic stories and increase the number of articles about photography and advertisements.

It's time to get your patriot on and get your cameras clicking!

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=7723

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE JOHNNY MAXWELL TRILOGY

The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy  by Terry Pratchett  (omnibus of three novels published by The Science Fiction Book Club, 1996; contains Only You Can Save Mankind, 1992, Johnny and the Dead, 1993, and Johnny and the Bomb, 1996)

Johnny Maxwell is the hero of three YA books by Pratchett.  We first meet him when he is twelve and going through Troubling Times -- his father has lost his job and his parents are arguing constantly and are about to break up.  He lives in the English town of Blackbury, outside of London.  Johnny is a strange kid; surprisingly normal and thus does not fit into any of the school cliques.  He thinks a lot and is slow to react and often thinks he is stupid, especially compared to his friends, who hang out together because they have no one else to hang out with.

Johnny's best friend is Wobbles, so named because he is fat and wobbles when he walks.  Wobbles is an electrical and computer genius who pirates video games and gives them away.  Bigmac is one of the three young skinheads in the town.  He wants to be tough but is asthmatic.  He dreams of guns and weaponry and wants to join the army, b ut he does not like bullets.  Bigmac is not a criminal, per se, but he does have a habit of taking cars that the owners have left the keys in; he considers he is doing a favor for the car owners by running the vehicles properly, and he almost always returns the cars in one piece.  Bigmac lives in a rundown housing development with his criminal older brother and his brother's vicious dog.  The local police always have they eyes on Bigmac.  Bigmac is a genius at mathematics.  Yo-less is a West Indian who lives with his mother, a nurse.  Yo-less is a straight arrow and wants to be a doctor.  He does not go in for the stereotypical black talk and never greets anyone by saying "Yo," hence his nickname.  He seethes inside at racial discrimination.  And then there's Kirsty, who alternatively calls herself Sigourney, Kimberley, Klytemnestra, and Kasandra (she does not like her given name).  Kirsty is an over-achiever and is very good at it.  She is highly intelligent and has poor people skills.  She looks down at Johnny with pity, while he finds it easy to talk to her because she just doesn't listen.  Kirsty can be highly dangerous to anyone who calls her "Missy" or "Little Lady."  with this motley group what could go wrong?  Almost anything.

It's the mid-90s and Johnny is trying put a pirated copy of a video game that Wobbles has given him.  In Only You Can Save Mankind the alien ScreeWee have destroyed almost all of Earth's defensive fleet.  There is only one starship left and you are piloting it -- you are the only thing that stands in the way of the ScreeWee's total destruction of the Earth.  You are Earth's Last Hope!  It's a tricky game and Johnny gets killed every time he plays.  But because it is a game, he lives again each time he plays the game...until he is killed.  But Johnny is getting better at it.  Then a message flashes across his computer screen:  WE GIVE UP.  What?  Is this some sort of strange twist built into the game?  The messages continue.  WE SURRENDER.  DON'T KILL US.  It turns out the ScreeWee in the game are real, and -- unlike Johnny -- if they are killed in the game, they don't come back; they are just dead.  And the Scree Wee, who are actually not the rampaging killers the game makes them out to be, don't like that.  The ScreeWee, reptilian creatures from a matriarchal society, resemble giant newts, or perhaps large snakes with arms, and now that they have surrender to Johnny, he must provide them safe passage back to their home world, many light years away.  But his is a computer game and there are many other players out there, all determined to kill the ScreeWee and save Earth -- and one of the most determined players is Kirsty...

Now reference is made of this in the second book, Johnny and the Dead, although it is a given that strange things happen whenever Johnny is around.  Johnny, Wobbles, Yo-less, and Bigmac are walking through an old cemetery in town when Johnny spots a strange man outside of a tomb.  The man .is a long-deceased Alderman for the town and he and Johnny begin a conversation.  Johnny's friends cannot see the man and wonder why Johnny is talking to thin air.  The dead Alderman, Thomas Bowler, is surprised he can communicate with the living because that has never happened before.  Bowler is curious about what has happened in the town since he had passed away.  Johnny doesn't know much about current or past events (hey, he's only twelve or thirteen, cut him some slack), but he decides the best thing would be to drop off a local paper at Bowler's tomb the next day so the Alderman could catch up.  It just so happened that a large developer has just gotten approval from the Council to buy the cemetery, with the intention of ripping up the graveyard and putting a large factory.. This does not sit well with the Alderman, nor any of the other denizens of the cemetery.  They insist that Johnny, who is the only person they can communicate with, put a stop to this plan.  Things get complicated.

{By the way, the dead are not ghosts.  They are emphatic they are not ghosts -- which seems to be a dirty term to them.  They are just the dead.  Johnny's friends come up with other words to describe them:  "post-senior citizens," "breathily challenged,"  and "vertically disadvantaged."  there is one actually ghost in the cemetery, however, the grumpy Mr. Grimm.)

Johnny and the Bomb is a time travel extravaganza, taking place a year of so later.  The local bag lady, Mrs. Tachyon wheels a shopping trolley (cart) filled with black bags  and her very nasty cat, Guilty, throughout the town, as well as through various past times.  Mrs. Tachyon has always been very old, very disheveled, and not quite right in the head.  She makes no sense when she talks.  Johnny and the gang come across a bunch of upset trolleys and bundles in a parking lot; one of the bundles is wearing trainers --it's Mrs. Tachyon and she has had an accident.  An ambulance comes and takes her away, leaving Johnny with Mrs. Tachyon's trolley and all of her bundles.  Johnny takes the trolley (complete with Guilty) to his house to hold it until Mrs. Tachyon gets better.  The bags in the trolley move.  It turns out that the bags are filled with time.  The Johnny reached into a bag...

Now Johnny and his friends are in the past -- in 1941, on the very day when a German bomb hits the town (the Germans were aiming for a different town, but they got lost), killing nineteen people because for some reason the air raid signal didn't work.  Johnny cannot stop the bomb, but perhaps he can save the people doomed to die.  The problem is that the police do not like the look of Bigmac and he has all of these late 20th century devices that look like they might be spy thingabobs.  And Yo-less is black and people keep calling him Sambo.  And everybody dismisses Kirsty because she's a girl.  And Wobbles is wobbling and looking for someplace safe.  Johnny and the gang make it back to their present but Wobbles isn't with them, because Wobbles stayed in 1941 and eventually became the richest man on Earth.  Johnny and his friends have to back for Wobbles (and to try to save people from the bomb blast).  This time they decide to go back dressed in clothing appropriate for the time,  but somehow Bigmac ends up wearing a German military outfit and Kirsty is wearing and outfit that is totally inappropriate for her fourteen-year-old age.  As usual with Johnny's adventures, things get complicated.

The books are funny.  The books are exciting  And there are important messages buried close to the surface in Pratchett's satire.   All three books are winners and highly recommended.   They should not read as Discworld-lite, but as Discworld-different.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO: CHRISTMAS SHOPPING (DECEMBER 14, 1944)

 'Tis the season...for laughter...and Christmas shopping.

Let's see how Bud and Lou are handling things...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEjbcauy1Ac

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: LOST KEEP

 "Lost Keep" by L. A. Lewis  (first published in the collection Tales of the Grotesque:  A collection of Uneasy Tales, 1934; reprinted in an expanded edition of that collection, 1994)

For many years little was known about the author.  Leslie Allin Lewis (1899-1961) published just one book, a collection of ten stories in "The Creeps Library" published in London by Philip Allen in 1934; an eleventh story appeared in Christine Campbell Thomson's anthology Terror by Night that same year.  Copies of Tales of the Grotesque, while being a highly collectable book, were rare and remained out of print for sixty years until editor Richard Dalby began a friendship with Lewis's widow, who on her death bequeathed the literary copyright of Lewis's work to him.  Dalby finally was able to re-issue the collection, with the addition of the eleventh story, from small publisher Ghost Story Press in 1994.

Despite his friendship with Elizabeth Lewis, she remained guarded about her husband's personal details.  He writes, "I quickly realized he had suffered much tragedy and mental anguish (with brief references to padded cells and suicide attempts) throughout his life."  He had been a Squadron Leader in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I and came out with the belief that aeroplanes had souls.  He also believed in demonic creatures and elements, evil creatures trying to break through to our world; Lewis also claimed to have personally witnessed such creatures..  He was invalided out of the RAF in the early 1940s and destroyed all of his remaining work during a fit of manic depression.  Facing permanent unemployment and deteriorating physical and mental health, Lewis eventually became blind and suffered from myocardial disease.  He was 62 when he eventually died from a heart attack.  his eleven stories that have survived are masterpieces of the fantastic imagination.

"Lost Keep" features Peter Hunt, a seventeen-year-old orphan living in abject poverty in a shabby rooming house.  His only relative, an aunt as poor as Peter, has just died and Peter could expect nothing from her estate.  It turns out that she did have one thing to leave him.  Shortly before her death, she asked the hospital matron to retrieve a small locked box from her safety deposit.  There was note from her telling Peter to "make use what Fate wills of its contents."  Inside the box were three items:  a samll scale model of a stone fortress, a folded sheet of paper, and a dark lens that was almost impervious to light.  The note, it turns out, was from his deceased father..  The scale model of the fortress, it seems, had been handed down for generations from parent to child over many, many years.  It was not known how old it was or its exact origins, but legend had it that the model held a secret that could be rediscovered by any with "the wit or fortune to combine glass and facsimile with understanding." but (the note continued) none has been able to solve the riddle.  And, by the way, there is also a supposed curse on the model for whoever does discover its secret.  The lens, being completely black, opened no secrets when Peter used it to examine the model.  But the little facsimile was cleverly made and may get a decent price from a dealer of  curios...

As Peter looked closer at the model further using the lens, he felt a great heat , and then the lens cracked -- but only the outer portion of the lens, which, it turned out was made of several layers of glass.  He removed the outer shell of dark glass, and the model began to appear larger and larger, then blackness... And he woke within the keep, which had now become greatly enlarged and sat on a high cliff overlooking an endless sea,  He wandered through the castle, scaling its turrets, looking for a way to get back to his rooming house.  After a while he began to get hungry and thirsty, but there was no food or water available...

We shift to the rooming house, where his landlady is talking to two policemen.  Peter had gone to his room with a package some forty-two hour before.  when he did not appear for breakfast and di not show up at his work, she began to get concerned.  There was no answer at the door and the door was locked from the inside.  She and another boarder broke in, but Peter had vanished with no means of leaving the room.  The landlady and the police were baffled.  then there was a groan from the bed, and Peter was suddenly there, wan and demanding food and water...

Flash forward fifteen or twenty years.  Peter is now very rich.  He has a large house, a country seat, three cars, a large staff of servants, and a charming (but neglected) wife, and a young son.  It turned out that, when he visited the Lost Keep the very first time, he still had the magical lens in his pocket and eventually used that to return to the real world.  He had the ability to visit the Lost Keep and return anytime he wanted as long as he had the lens on him.  He also was able to bring others with him to the deserted fortress and cold leave them there as his prisoners until they did what he wished or starved, and what he most wanted for for them to sig over property and wealth to him; and, of course, he then let them starve.  For years, there were mysterious unexplained disappearances but no provable suspicions fell on Peter.

And it was almost as if Peter forget there was a curse on the fortress and whoever solved its riddle...

A disturbingly creepy story that could have become very trite if left where his landlady and the policemen were puzzling over Peters impossible disappearance, but Lewis carries it an eerier conclusion.  In the end we know that Peter is going to get his but we have no idea how fitting Fate could be.

This is the first story I've read by Lewis.  I'm looking forward to read the remaining ten.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: THE REBEL: JOHNNY YUMA (THE FIRST EPISODE, OCTOBER 4, 1959)

 Nick Adams played Johnny Yuma. a young Confederate soldier and aspiring writer who wandered the West following the Civil War, fighting injustice with his revolver and his dead father's sawed-off shotgun.  The show ran for two seasons on ABC, ending on June 18, 1961, for a total of 76 episodes.  The title song was sung by Johnny Cash, although series star Nick Adams released a single of the show's theme in 1960.  Despite being a ratings success, the show was cancelled after two seasons because of the network's new "counter-programming" format; it was replaced by a variety show starring Steve Allen, which died after only four months.

In the pilot episode, Yuma returns to his hometown in 1867, two years after the war, only to find that his father, the local sheriff, had been killed by a gang led by Dan Blocker, which had taken over the town.  The episode was directed by Irvin Kershner and written by series producer and co-creator (along with star Nick Adams) Andrew Fenady.  Also featured in the cast are John Carradine, Jeanette Nolan, Strother Martin, and Harry Bartell.

One of my favorite television shows from way back when.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4SJ3J-V5To&t=112s

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEAN RITCHIE

American folk singer Jean Ritchie (1922-2015) was often referred to as "The Mother of Folk."  The youngest of fourteen children who grew up in Viper, an unincorporated area in Kentucky's Cumberland Mountains, she came from a family dedicated to performing and preserving Appalachian music and tradition.  Her family provided many songs for noted musical collector Cecil Sharp, and Jean herself recoirded for Alan Loman  and, later, for The Library of Congress.  As a young child, she had already learned hundreds of traditional songs orally and later travelled extensively to research and add to her repertoire.  She performed on stage with the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Oscar Brand.  She had a significant influence on Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, and Judy Collins among others.  Responsible for the re-emergence of the Appalachian dulcimer in folk music, she was also the person who popularized the song "Amazing Grace."  Although most associated with traditional music, she also wrote and performed topical songs.  Her clear, unvarnished voice has echoed over the decades to please fans young and old.  She was given the folk Alliance's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship -- the highest honor given for folk and traditional arts in the United States -- from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002.

"Barbara Allen"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihit0mpmz7o

"Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1JhPX2M6nY

"Amazing Grace"  (with Doc Watson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBBCDpYKV1g

"With Kitty I'll Go"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch1EPCIKTuU

"Hangman"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnfNGmDiYt0

"One I Love"

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

The L and N Don't Here Anymore"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1CNua_KWRM

"Nottamun Town"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGU1yR3wPlw

"Cherry Tree Carol"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB0ItQFsZlQ

"Let the Sun Shine Down on Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdVH9eUL3HY

"Go Dig My Grave"  (with Doc Watson)

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

"Cedar Swamp"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP4WiPlHL6A

"Careless Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBJJZ96epbg

"Old Virginny"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjj6CzxBRY8

"One More Mile"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9b78HHhYm8

HYMN TIME

Because December 7 is the Day That Will Go Down in Infamy, here's Kay Kyser & His Orchestra with a Frank Loesser song from 1942.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUOPvtVZwo8

THE MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN #32 (AUG.-SEPT. 1954)

This one has an interesting past.  Comic historian Don Markstein considers this to be "America's first on-going comic book series to fall squarely within the horror genre."  In this case, Frankenstein refers to the monster itself rather than its creator.  Created by Dick Briefer, he first appeared in Prize Comics #7 (December 1940); and continued as a feature in Prize Comics until 1948, when the title switched to a western format.  In the beginning, the character was a rampaging monster, but turned into a Nazi-hater in 1943.  By 1945, Briefer changed focus and Frankenstein was written and drawn just for laughs, becoming the "Merry Monster," cavorting with Dracula, the Wolf Man, and other monsters in a small town.  Also in 1945, he achieved his own title, Frankenstein, which included a humorous version of the creature's origins.  The title continued until February 1949, the last few issues retitled The Monster of Frankenstein.  Again, there was a switch in focus halfway through the run; according to Markstein, "A total of 33 issues were published, 17 containing  1940s hilarity and 16 with 1950s gore.

In this issue:

• "The Battle of the Monsters"  Frankenstein is washed shore on a tropical island following a shipwreck.  The evil natives attempt to kill him by pitting him against first a giant crocodile. then a man-eating lion, booth of which he easily defeats.  They then lead him to an active volcano where two stranded white persons have been chained as a sacrifice to the gods.  He free them, the volcano explodes, raining lave and death upon the natives, and Frankenstein and the two survivors head out to sea in a boat, where the two are rescued.
• "The Beautiful Dead"  Frankenstein is on the run from angry townsfolks.  He dashes into a building for safety.  It is a storage building for mannikins with sheet-covered bodies lying on tables.  He climbs on a table and pulls a sheet over himself.  While waiting for the mob to disperse, he examines the other bodies and discover one of a beautiful woman.  Something compels him.  He must have this body to keep.  He takes the mannikin and hides in an abandoned house deep in the woods.  There, while Frankenstein is out doing something, dunno what), two bums break in, looking for shelter.  They are surprised to see the beautiful woman and even more surprised to see that she is a wax figure.  They light a fire and the figure melts.  when Frankenstein discovers this, he goes on a rampage.  Later he goes out foraging for food but all the animals manage to avoid him.  He spies a large bird resting atop some electrical wires.  He reaches for the bird and is electrocuted.  When his body is found, he is dead (or so they thin).  Now his body rest on a table in a different room, covered by a sheet, among many others of the dead.  He awakens and checks out the other bodies in the morgue and, lo and behold!, there is a body of another beautiful woman!  He steals that corpse and hides her in another abandoned house, coming back one day to find to his horror that this beautiful woman's body has started to rot!

Also in this issue is the story of man who, using information found in rare and occult books, managed to find and resurrect the body of the Greek god Zeus, who for some reason had been  buried in Zion National Park.  Zeus, BTW, a a blond giant who speaks English.  Go figure.

There's also a couple of text stories, one of which gives a nod to the television show I've Got a Secret.  And a nifty advertisement for those socially inept on how to find romance, specifically books titled How to Get Along with Girls, How to Get Along with Boys, and How to Write Love Letters, all for the low price of 98 cents each!   Alas, I was not the target audience for these in 1954; at that time all I knew about girls was that they had cooties.

Anyway, enjoy this odd little trip to the past:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=97271