The Case of the Backward Mule by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pan, 1957)

I got this one from a bookshop in Tasmania via eBay:

 

Chase in San Francisco's Chinatown

To baffle the lie-detector clamped on his arm, Terry Clane practises the intense concentration he learned in the Orient.  But the sight of a little Chinese figure--an old man riding backward on a mule--sends the indicator-needle leaping; for he'd given it once to Cynthia, his former fiancee and close friend of a man convicted of murder who has escaped.  Says the police examiner: "Either there's something I haven't accurately diagnosed or else ... you murdered Horace Farnsworth."  Then begins a grim game of hide-and-seek through Chinatown.

Erle Stanley Gardner--a prolific mystery writer, best known as the author of 82 (!) Perry Mason books.  None of his works could be described as great literature (not surprisingly, given his output) but they are mostly entertaining light reading.  I find them great reading for the daily commute.

The Case of the Backward Mule is one of the (many) books Gardner managed to write when he was not churning out Perry Mason mysteries.  The book has many "Chinese" elements, as you can see from the cover of this edition and the blurb.   It's interesting to note that Gardner probably drew upon his own experiences in writing this.  As a young lawyer he had many clients (and made some lifelong friends) among California's Chinese community.  Being the writer he was, you can't expect any deep insight into China or the Chinese from this book, nor is it entirely free of cliches, but it is surprisingly sympathetic and lacking in the racism of its era!

Swing, Brother, Swing by Ngaio Marsh (Fontana, 1974)

 

Rivera had advanced in the spotlight.  He seemed rapt; at once tormented and exalted.  He swayed and jerked and ogled, a puppet of his own music.  As the performance rocketed up to its climax, he swayed backwards at a preposterous angle.  Then a screaming dissonance abruptly tore loose from the general din as the spotlight switched to the tympani.  Lord Pastern, wearing his sombrero, had risen.  Advancing to within five feet of Rivera, he pointed his revolver at him and fired...

Oh my!  Hot jazz, aristocrats (common people seldom star in Ngaio Marsh's mysteries where even policemen are pedigreed) and murder all mixed up together.  And bound within one of Fontana's better photo-covers.  I love the dramatic foreshortening of the murder victim, lying there with some kind of spike sticking out of his white dress shirt.  The image just draws you in and makes you want to find out what's going on.

Adam Link Robot by Eando Binder (Paperback Library, 1965)

Another find from the Lifeline Bookfair:

ADAM LINK

- THE FIRST OF THE ROBOT RACE - HAD PHOTO-ELECTRIC EYES, AN IRIDIUM-SPONGE BRAIN AND THE SOUL OF A MAN!

An electronic marvel gifted with incredible skills, Adam Link faces a series of challenges that would stagger a mere mortal, culminating in a fierce struggle to save Earth from destruction at the hands of an alien race.

ADAM LINK ROBOT

Since Eando Binder first wrote about him, Adam Link--Robot has become on of the most famous characters in science-fiction.

Now, for the first time, here is a novel incorporating the startling adventures of Adam Link--a robot battling for existence in a world that misunderstands him, fears him and exploits him.

Adam Link - Robot began life as a series of short stories appearing in Amazing Stories between 1939 and 1942. Not surprisingly, as a novel it is somewhat old-fashioned for 1965 and very episodic. Adam Link is tried for murder, sets himself up as a scientific consultant, falls in love, builds himself a mate, is enslaved by a mad scientist, breaks up a ring of gangsters, becomes a champion athlete and saves the world from an alien invasion--and all in a book only 174 pages long!

 

Ravens' Blood by E.F. Benson (Popular Library, 1961)

Found on a charity bookstall at the markets:

 

THE CURSE OF THE PENTREATHS

Lovely young Nell Robson had heard fearful stories about the old mansion of the Pentreaths ever since she was a little girl in the isolated English village of St. Columb's.  Some said the very ground the house stood on was accursed.  Others whispered of horrifying rites performed in the meadowland under the moon.

Now Nell had come to live within the mansion's walls, and all rumors paled beside the truth.  The master of the house called himself a man of God, but minister of Satan would have been a better name.  The Pentreath women seemed puppets of the shameless sensuality and sinister evil that poisoned the air.  And even as Nell desperately sought to escape, she felt herself falling under the spell of handsome, powerful Dennis Pentreath, heir to the Pentreath curse, who spoke of love even as he drew Nell toward the abyss...

  Ravens' Blood is most definitely NOT a gothic romance, and anyone anticipating one will be disappointed upon opening the book.  What on Earth possessed Popular Books to market it this way?

The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke (Pan, 1964)

I found this little paperback at a school fete.  It's in beautiful condition: spine tight and pages uncreased (though a little yellowed).

 

THE HOSTILE SANDS OF MARS

It is the twenty-first century.  On Mars a dedicated group of pioneers--among them some of Earth's finest brains--struggle to change the face of a planet...

The Mars of this novel has no fabulous cities or exotic princesses; it is the planet which modern science has revealed to us, and the book's authenticity provides a far greater excitement than would fantasy.

Against this background, Arthur C. Clarke has woven a thrilling story about a group of very real people, to show that, amidst the wonder of future science, human nature will stay very much the same.

 It is the twenty-first century--and alas, we still don't have our Mars colony. 

However, Mars is the flavour of the month at the moment, so what better time to look at what we thought we knew about the planet more than half a century ago?   The Sands of Mars was Arthur C. Clarke's first full length novel, originally published in 1951, so it's an oddly quaint little future.  Reporters bash out their copy on typewriters, communication is by fax, and women still work in stenographers' pools.  Also it's obvious that Clarke thought of exploration as something carried out by human explorers rather than automated probes.  It's clear that while he'd put a great deal of thought into the problems of living in zero gravity and planetary navigation, the thought of computers and their potentials never occurred to him!

"That's the trouble with all those old stories.  Nothing is deader than yesterday's science fiction."

(Page 48)

All in all, it reads a bit more like an episodic travelogue than a novel: the point of view character goes places, is shown around, and things happen--briefly.  (Including the discovery of animal life on Mars!)  It's a novice effort, but Arthur C. Clarke would soon be turning out better work.

Alien From Arcturus by Gordon R. Dickson / The Atom Curtain by Nick Boddie Williams (Ace, 1956)

More from my collection of Ace Doubles!

 

Johnny Parent was driven by a furious anger--anger against the cocky Aliens from outer space and anger against the Company which had hired him to build the space drive which would lift the Quarantine against Earth.

It was a tough problem--made tougher by the Company's double-dealing.  And Johnny didn't relish the thought of cracking it with a whip on his back and a knife at his throat.

Then he stumbled upon an eccentric young playboy, his pretty but ambitious secretary and a weird little Alien with collosal strength.  Together they plotted the piratical flight into space which would earn Earth its place in the Universe.

But they had to hurry--because the Company's strong men were right behind them--and the solar time clock was running out!

 

For two hundred and seventy years America had been totally cut off from the rest of the world by an impenetrable wall of raging atomic fury.  To the frightened countries of the Old World, what had once been the greatest of all powers was now the most fearful of all mysteries.

No man ached to know what lay behind that frightful barrier more than Emmett O'Hara, restless air-sentinel of the International Patrol--whose American ancestors had been stranded in Britain the day the Atom Curtain was raised.

Then on December 20, in the year 2230, while on routine patrol, O'Hara did the impossible.  He broke through the barrier--and lived!  But the full story of O'Hara's discoveries and adventures in Atomic America is so utterly breath-taking that readers are sure to rate it a classic of modern science fiction.

Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes (Fontana, 1974)

I bought this in what you might call a charity stall clearance sale--the sellers were losing their storage space and were offering their books at "$10 for all you can carry!" just to get rid of them.  I went around filling a shopping bag with everything and anything that looked remotely interesting.

Von Aschenhausen sat on the edge of a large desk.  His eyes were fixed on the man standing over the girl roped to a chair.  He spoke again: "You fool.  You stupid little fool.  Can't you see I must, I will find out?  Kurt, try some more of your persuasion..."

The girl felt a hand of iron on her aching shoulder.  She tried to turn her face away from the glare of the powerful lamp, but it still pierced her eyelids  with a dull-red burning.  She struggled weakly against the ropes that held her, but they only cut deeper into her breast and thigh...

What is it with cover blurbs and ellipses? 

Above Suspicion was Helen MacInnes' first book and was originally published in 1941.  The villains of this story are (not surprisingly) Nazis.  Interestingly, these fictional Nazis actually seem a bit less evil than their real-life counterparts--probably because in 1941 the full extent of the Nazis' crimes were not known.

There's a sprinkling of propaganda throughout this story (again not surprisingly--1941!)  Most of it is of the "this is what we're fighting for/against" variety as the very English hero and heroine are chased around pre-war Europe:

"You believe you have not changed.  And yet under the leadership which you praise so much you may only read certain books, listen to certain music, look at certain pictures, make friends with certain people.  Isn't that limiting yourself?"

"Oh well, limiting yourself to the good, eliminating the bad--all that is better in the end."

"But who is to say what is good for you or bad for you?  Is it to be your own judgement ... or is it to be some self-appointed leader who can't even speak grammatical German?"

(Page 21) 

There's also a sympathetic American journalist who comes to the aid of our beleaguered heroes--surely a shout out to the United States which in 1941 was not in the War exactly, but certainly coming to the aid of those who were. 

Sadly, Fontana decided to package this book in an ugly seventies photo-cover, with anachronistic models posed in a vaguely dramatic manner.  It's horribly generic, and only gives the loosest idea of what the book is actually about.