The Blind Side by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder and Stoughton, 1955)

Ross Craddock had not been on the best of terms with his relations.  More than one of them had reason to wish him dead, as Ethel Bingham was pleased to inform Detective Abbott and considering the number of residents of Craddock House, who, for one reason or another , withheld information, this prying old maid was just the answer to a policeman's prayer.

Lots of people wanted Ross Craddock dead... and sure enough, he's murdered by page 49!

It's a truth universally acknowledged, that the victim in a Golden Age whodunnit is invariably a loathsome person.  This serves two purposes.  Firstly, it lets the reader enjoy the puzzle without worrying about the person who has been murdered.  Secondly it gives the author plenty of suspects to bamboozle the readers with!

The Stars are Dark by Peter Cheyney (Pan, 1948)

I found this at the Lifeline bookfair:

Its a bit of an oddity, because it's a paperback with a - gasp! - dust jacket!  I've never encountered one like this before, and I suspect I won't find a second one in a hurry.

THE STARS ARE DARK belongs to Peter Cheyney's 'Dark' series, by which word he denotes his stories of Secret Service and counter-espionage. His books are always based on fact, to an extent that would alarm his readers if they believed it; indeed, he only forsakes fact when it would be a little too incredible to be presented as fiction.  Here he gives a glimpse of some of the strange and deadly things that are perpetuated in the name of war; his characters are the men and women who wore no uniforms and won no medals, who were prepared to sacrifice everything, who stood to gain precisely nothing.  The story is told in that tense, gripping style that is his hallmark.

A sailor has arrived in Britain from Nazi-occupied Morocco, and says he has some intelligence on enemy troops stationed there.  The question is: can he be believed?  Or is he peddling misinformation?  This is what our agents set out to discover, and the plot involves several layers of deception, and more than one double-cross.

As far as spy stories go, this book stands a lot closer to John Le Carré than Ian Fleming.   There's no glamour here, no travel to exotic locations, no high-tech gadgets.  Instead The Stars are Dark is set in wartime Britain, and the action takes place in some decidedly un-glamorous locales.  What's more, two agents are killed in the course of this story, and a third appears to be sliding slowly into depression as he realises the long-term cover he has adopted has left him isolated from everything he holds dear.

However—this book was first published in 1943, and for obvious reasons the author couldn't let the Nazis win.  So there is a happy ending of sorts: most of the protagonists survive, and the villains are thwarted.  One character even gets to escape the world of espionage which is the best anyone in The Stars are Dark could hope for.

The Green Brain by Frank Herbert (Ace, 1966)

An unexpected treasure from the Green Shed:

 

In an overpopulated world seeking living room in the jungles, the International Ecological Organization was systematically exterminating the voracious insects which made these areas uninhabitable.  Using deadly foamal bombs and newly developed vibration weapons, men like Joao Martinho and his co-workers fought to clear the green hell of Mato Grosso.

But somehow those areas which had been completely cleared were becoming reinfested, despite the impenetrable vibration barriers.  And tales came out of the jungles... of insects mutated to incredible sizes... of creatures who seemed to be men, but whose eyes gleamed with the chitinous sheen of insects...

Here is a vividly different science-fiction novel by the author of DUNE.

Every once in a while I pick up a book and I find myself thinking, "What was the author on when he wrote this?"

Need I add that this is one of those books?

It was probably at least partly inspired by Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring, a study of the ecological effects of pesticides which first appeared in 1962.  (In fact the eco-rebels mentioned in The Green Brain are called Carsonites—clearly a tribute to The Silent Spring!)  A story about pesticides and overpopulation?  That was both relevant and timely in the mid-sixties.  It fits neatly into the tradition of science fiction both as speculative fiction and as dreadful warning: If you keep doing this, this will happen....

On the other hand... things get weird in this book.  In some ways it reminds me of those "nature takes its revenge" movies that became popular in the 1970s, but "nature" in The Green Brain includes sentient hive minds capable of creating imitation human beings to act as their agents in a plot to take over the world.   There is simply no rational way to get from "here" (overuse of pesticides) to "there" (sentient insects)--and to be fair, Frank Herbert doesn't even try.

At least the heroes of seventies "B" movies only had to deal with plagues of tarantulas or incursions of giant rabbits!

Lastly I've got mention that I'm disappointed with the cover of this paperback.  It's messy, a bit generic, and doesn't convey anything in particular about the characters, the plot or the setting of the story.  The covers of science fiction books went through a bit of a rough patch in the late sixties after the glorious pulpiness of the fifties.  Fortunately for lovers of the genre, things picked up in the seventies!

Murder Most Foul by John Creasey (Corgi, 1973)

Grabbed, with a bagful of miscellaneous stuff, at the last Lifeline Bookfair:

Felicity Deverall, Patrick Dawlish's fiancee, was missing, presumed kidnapped.  The note had told Dawlish to go to the Ley Farm Cottage fast--and alone.

Dawlish hesitated: it could be a trap...but he decided to go and find out and climbed into his car.  He was reaching for his ignition key when he heard a voice through the open window: "Don't start your car.  Don't start your car."

Then a car drove off.
Puzzled, Dawlish sat holding the wheel, then he got out, walked to the front and lifted the bonnet.
It was a small container, no bigger than a matchbox, but had Dawlish turned the ignition, it would have blown him to bits.
A PATRICK DAWLISH THRILLER

 I've got to admit I bought this one just for its cover.  The dark woods in the background, the bright green grass in the foreground and the lonely figure sneaking across the centre of the picture drew me straight in.  It's nice to see that in an era when tacky photo covers abounded, there were still publishers prepared to release paperbacks with proper cover art!

Skylark of Valeron and Skylark DuQuesne by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Pyramid, 1967)

The last two volumes in the "Skylark Series"!

STAR WANDERER

As the mighty spaceship Skylark roved the intergalactic world, scientist Richard Seaton and his companions uncovered a world of disembodied intelligences.  A world of four dimensions where time was insanely distorted and matter obeyed no terrestial laws... where three-dimensional intellects were barely sufficient to thwart invisible mentalities!

My Ally, The Enemy

Dick Seaton and Marc DuQuesne are the deadliest enemies in the Universe -- their feud has blazed among the stars and changed the history of a thousand planets.  but now a threat from outside the Galaxy drives them into a dangerous alliance as hordes of strange races drive to a collision with mankind!

Seaton and DuQuesne fight and slave side by side to fend off the invasion -- as Seaton keeps constant, perilous watch for DuQuesne's inevitable double-cross!

More adventures of Dick Seaton and his merry chums, as they blithely invent new and improved weapons of mass destruction and impulsively leap into interstellar wars.  I could suggest that this is a metaphor for something--but instead I'll just say that the Boys' Own Adventure style of this series and some of the views expressed by the author jarred upon my modern sensibilities.

Like the previous two books in the Skylark series I bought these at the Woden Seniors' Club book fair.  They were printed a few years earlier than The Skylark of Space and Skylark Three and it shows in the cover design.  It also shows in the cover price--which rose by a whole fifteen cents between 1967 and 1970!

The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp (Pan, 1952)

More Lifeline treasures!

THE NUTMEG TREE, written with the light touch and bubbling humour that are characteristic of is author, is a joy to read.  Ex-chorus-girl Julia Packett, windowed in World War I after her brief marriage into a County family, wisely allowed her 'in-laws' to take full responsibility for her daughter Susan's upbringing, while she herself, improvident and indiscreet, returned to the stage-life she adored.  Now, verging on middle age, she is almost penniless when Susan writes begging her to join the family in France, for, says the letter, "I want to get married and Grandmother objects."  So Julia, prepared to behave as a lady should, yet ready to pounce on any crumbs of advantage that may fall in her path, sets out for the mountains of the Haute Savoie.  On the Channel boat she involves herself, rather indecorously, with a troupe of trapeze artists, and actually stays in Paris to take part in one of their performances.  Installed in the French villa she finds that Susan's young man is clearly unsuitable for Susan, but is a kindred spirit to herself and is unscrupulously  ready to exploit her delicate position if she opposes him.  Complications follow the arrival of Susan's guardian, the handsome Sir William Waring.  Julia flutters away--but of course not too far away!

I've mentioned before how much I love vintage Pan paperbacks, and how the  bi-annual Lifeline Bookfair lets me buy 'em by the bagful without worrying whether I'd actually enjoy reading them or not.  And sometimes I get lucky--very, very lucky.  This is one of my lucky finds.  It's a romantic comedy, with an unconventional heroine, by an author I've only vaguely heard of.  It's not at all deep and meaningful (there's no way I'm going to say It Changed My Life) but it's fun.  Just the sort of book to while away a Summer's afternoon--or to curl up with by the fire on a cold Winter's night.

An Axe to Grind by Erle Stanley Gardner (Four Square, 1958)

In this hard-hitting, swift-moving murder mystery the author introduces that notable private eye, Donald Lam, confidential agent of Cool & Lam.  He has said goodbye to the Navy, and is looking for peace and quiet. 

But before he has time to say "Hello" to Bertha Cool, trouble walks into the office.

Within thirty minutes, Donald is off to the Rimley rendezvous, a place for lonely women with little to do and money to spend.  From then on it's a matter of corpses and cops, with a beautiful girl called Billy Prue who gets herself into trouble. 

A. A. Fair (now known to be Erle Stanley Gardner, world's record-seller in detective fiction) has written an original murder story, salty with American dialogue and wisecracks.

Wow!  Another Cool and Lam mystery, which is great.  (This is easily the best series Erle Stanley Gardner ever wrote.  Really.)  Not so great is the cover.  It looks like the artist fell asleep during anatomy drawing class.  Either that, or he had serious problems with perspective.  I know the dame opening the door in the picture is meant to be leaning forwards, but her top half is dangerously out of proportion with the rest of her!

The Glass Slipper by M.G. Eberhart (Pan, 1952)

THE GLASS SLIPPER is a mystery novel by a well-known writer who excels in creating an atmosphere of tension and mystery.  A year ago Rue had been sent by the hospital to nurse Crystal Hatterick, wife of one of Chicago's most distinguished surgeons.  Crystal was a patient of Brule Hatterick's protégé and friend, Dr. Andrew Crittenden, and under his care she had been well on the road to recovery when suddenly, to everyone's amazement, she died.  And within a few months Rue became the second Mrs Hatterick, with the world at her feet--wealth, position, beauty.  Yet when someone called her Cinderella, and said, "I wonder--does the glass slipper ever pinch your little foot?" the arrow found its mark.  Complete happiness had eluded her.  Andy Crittenden is the first to tell her that she is suspected of murdering Crystal.  Events then move fast. Another death occurs.  The suspense grows!

I must admit the question that preoccupied me while I was reading this was, "What kind of author names her heroine 'Rue'?  And what prompts her to name another character 'Brule'?"  

Mignon Eberhart was once called the "American Agatha Christie", but judging by this there's a reason why her books have fallen into obscurity, while Christie's have never fallen out of print.  Agatha Christie's characters are often collections of stereotypes, but they live on the page.  The characters in The Glass Slipper—Rue and Brule, et al—are puppets that exist only to further the plot.  Christie's characters have motives for doing what they do—Eberhart's characters' actions make no sense!

This is one of the older Pan paperbacks in my collection--but not THE oldest.  That will be coming up shortly...

The Skylark of Space and Skylark Three by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Pyramid, 1970)

I went to a charity book fair the other weekend.  Someone had evidently been keen on traditional space opera, because I managed to find a number of vintage paperbacks containing early science fiction reprints:

IT STARTED ON EARTH...

Scientist Richard Seaton had discovered the secret of complete release of ultimate energy--the key to exploration of the Universe.  The powerful, unscrupulous DuQuesne, backed by a great industrial combine, tried every means to gain the secret.

... it ended in space, when Seaton, DuQuesne, and three others--two of them women--were marooned, countless light-years from Earth, with only one chance in a million of ever returning!

OSNOME

The first of the mighty Skylark spacecraft took Dick Seaton and Mart Crane on a fantastic tour of the galaxy and to the strange planet of Osnome.  Skylark Two returned them to Earth.  Now in this next adventure, they voyage again to Osnome to meet the deadly threat of war.

On the way, in the deeps of space, Seaton and Crane meet an alien spaceship.  From it they discover a danger more deadly and immediate than any planetary battle.  In a desperate race to mobilize the scientific talent of a score of planets, Seaton makes himself into a "superman" of knowledge and drives toward his goal of building the greatest spaceship of all time--Skylark Three!

Look up in the sky!  It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... a cosmic beach ball!  Seventies cover art meets very old-fashioned space opera, of the sort where men wield "rays" and women need rescuing.   

Georgie Winthrop by Sloan Wilson (Pan, 1965)

On the last afternoon of the Lifeline Bookfair they start selling off their stock by the bag.  Naturally I always take full advantage... and I gravitate towards the "vintage" table where I can fill my bag full of wonderful old paperbacks.  And the beauty of it is, at these bargain prices I can experiment with books I normally wouldn't be interested in - just because I like the looks of their covers.

'I'd love to be the Firebird in the Firebird Suite,' she said.  'She's sort of doomed, because she's feeding on herself, but she's also beautiful to see.  And anyone who touches her is doomed too, set afire, just the way she is.'

CHARLOTTE - at seventeen already a woman, grabbing at life, her passion for Georgie Winthrop all-consuming...

GEORGIE - forty-five, married with two children, a college vice-president - a man whose secure, complacent world trembles under the impact of Charlotte's uninhibited youth and beauty...

And this is a perfect example.

I'm becoming more and more enamored of Pan's output from the early fifties through to the mid-sixties.  They made a habit of commissioning good commercial artists to do their covers, and the best of them were very good indeed.   Later in the sixties Pan decided to cut costs by substituting photographs for the cover art, bringing their Golden Age to an end.  A shame, but it was fun while it lasted!

Meanwhile, I think I've started a collection...

Holiday for Inspector West by John Creasey (Hodder, 1959)

"Handsome" West of the Yard is enjoying a well-earned holiday at the seaside with his wife and young family when news breaks of the murder of an M.P.  In spite of Janet's protests, Roger hurries back to London "to take a look around", and contrives to be given official charge of the case.

Even a preliminary inquiry into Riddel's death opens up a vast number of complications to West.  The pursuit of a small package, for example, leads him into many dangers and strange places.  Slowly a pattern begins to emerge . . .

John Creasey gave his detective hero the nickname "Handsome", but in book after book also has him brawling and/or getting beaten up.  Maybe by this stage in the series he should be called "Cauliflower Ear" or "Broken Nose" West instead!

The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge (Pyramid, 1973)

The clouds of civil war hovered ominously over England in 1642, as Puritan and Royalist forces gathered for bitter battle.  Caught in the midst of tumultuous events, the characters in Miss Goudge's gripping novel act out a compelling drama of intrigue and timeless romance.

Awww, look at the groovy people on the cover of this book.  She is wearing Biba and blue eyeshadow.  He has carefully styled and blow-dried hair and looks like he bought his outfit in King's Road.  They're clearly a happening couple from the 1970s.

--Wait a minute.  You're telling me that the story takes place in 1642?

Now this is an example of egregiously generic cover art: it could have been slapped on any paperback romance (and probably was).  I can hazard a guess who the people on the cover are meant to be, but they don't really resemble any of the characters in the book.  It's a pity: the author is better than average, and certainly didn't write the standard kind of hack work usually published in paperbacks of this kind.

The Green Ribbon by Edgar Wallace (Arrow, 1957)

 

She inherited a fortune--& sinister misfortune...

Young, wealthy and beautiful Edna Gray suddenly found herself, like a fly, caught in a web of sinister intrigue.  New to the racing game, she found that one of her tenants, Elijah Goodie--the famous racing owner and trainer--was indulging in strange, nocturnal activities...

And alone in the dark Perrywig Caves--she awaited a horrible death.

Well might Our Heroine be afraid--she's being pursued by a floating man emerging out of what appears to be a pink radioactive cloud!

As Edgar Wallace thrillers go, this one isn't bad mainly because the plot is halfway believable.  Criminals have set up syndicates to cheat at the races.  However Edgar Wallace can't resist adding a few over-the-top flourishes to this basic story--his chief villain is slain by panthers!

The Case of the Fiery Fingers by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pan, 1959)

Another find from the Lifeline Bookfair!

 

ASPIRIN OR

ARSENIC?

Stake...

Half a million dollars 

Method...

Four pills in a phial

Result...

One dead wife

Proof...

The tell-tale effect of ultra-violet light!

The toughest, most complicated web of intrigue that PERRY MASON ever had to fight his way through!

A woman comes to Perry Mason to prevent a murder—naturally murder happens anyway.  If Perry Mason went around preventing murders, how would he get a chance to prove his client innocent in a dramatically contrived courtroom scene?

The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov (Panther, 1958)

A gift from a friend who knows me far too well:

 

A CRIME THAT COULD INFLAME A GALAXY...

A Spaceman--a specialist in robotics--has been murdered.  Lije Baley, a plain-clothesman of his age, combs the huge cave of steel for a lone fanatic, for a murderer--for the solution to an almost perfect crime.

One of the two men on the cover is a robot—I'm not sure, but I think it is the one who is unconscious.  Don't quote me on that, though!

Isaac Asimov was one of the Big Three names of the "golden age" of science fiction (the others were Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein).  Asimov is most famous for inventing the Three (fictional) Laws of Robotics:
  

"A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."

 In The Caves of Steel he combines a science fiction novel with a detective story, a combination of genres that for some reason seldom works.  And yet it works in this one.  I put it down to the fact Asimov creates an interesting futuristic setting for his story, then makes it integral to that story rather than using it as window-dressing.  His detectives move through an overcrowded urban world where people huddle under domes and hate and fear the outdoors—and robots.  It's an almost film noir-ish setup—except Asimov was far too prissy and logically-minded to indulge in the sort of sex and violence common in most hardboiled fiction!

Need I add that one of the detectives is a robot and the resolution of this mystery lies in the world outside the domes?

I have another copy of this—also a Panther Book—but alas, it was published in the 1970s, and the cover isn't nearly as interesting.

The Escape Orbit by James White (Ace, 1965)

One of my Lifeline Bookfair treasures!

 

STRANDED ON A PLANET OF MONSTERS

When the survivors of his starship were taken prisoner by the insect-creatures against whom Earth had fought a bitter war for nearly a century, Sector Marshal Warren expected to be impounded in a prison camp like those the Earthmen maintained.  But the "Bugs" had a simpler method of dealing with prisoners--they dumped them on an uninhabited planet, without weapons or tools, and left them to fend for themselves against the planet's environment and strange monsters.  A "Bug" spaceship orbited above, guarding them.

Escape was impossible, the "Bugs" told them--but it was absolutely necessary, for reasons Warren couldn't tell even his own men.

The creature on the cover is a "battler", which is.. well, let's go with the author's description:

If it looked like anything at all, Warren thought, it was an elephant—a large, low-slung elephant with six legs and two trunks which were much more than twenty feet long.  Below the point where the trunk joined the massive head a wide, loose mouth gaped open to display three concentric rows of shark-like teeth, and above the trunks its two tiny eyes were almost hidden by protective ridges of bone and muscle.  Between the eyes a flat, triangular horn, razor-edged fore and aft, came to a sharp point, and anything which had been caught by the trunks and was either too large or not quite dead was impaled on the horn while the trunks tore it to pieces of a more manageable size.  Because it had no natural enemies and was too big and awkward to profit from camouflage, its hide was a blotchy horror of black and green and livid yellow.

—Page 64.

Now how is a self-respecting artist supposed to depict that?

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1960)

Another from Fishermen's Wharf Markets:

 

  Murder is easy....

... so long as no one suspects you and the person in question is the last person one would suspect.

Surely you won't let Agatha Christie diddle you again--it would be again, wouldn't it?

I'm trying to figure out what's up with the woman on the cover.  I can't decide whether she is a) frightened, b) sinister or c) doing some weird kind of face toning exercise!

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Samuel L. Clemens (Masterpiece Library, 1967)

Found in the Green Shed:

A Bright, Fresh, Summertime World of Boyhood

When "Mark Twain"--as Samuel L. Clemens signed his books--was writing TOM SAWYER, published in 1876, he was already in his 40s.  The carefree days of boyhood in a small Missouri town were already far behind him.  He remembered them sharply, but the years brought a humorous perspective.  He could appreciate all the fun of being a boy.

What did small boys do in a small town so long ago, when there was no television, no telephone, no movie houses?

They went swimming, they whitewashed fences, traded marbles and other prized possessions, they formed secret societies and had adventures filling up every minute of the time.  Tom Sawyer even managed to attend his own funeral, though he was very much alive!

Samuel L. Clemens was born in 1835 and spent his youth in a small town not much different from the one depicted in the book.  Before he died in 1910 at the age of 75, he adventured across the country and around the world, and wrote many books.

 The ghost of Mark Twain looms over an oblivious Tom Sawyer—who incidentally, looks more like a teenager in this picture than a "small boy".   Still, it's a bright cheerful cover that successfully conveys the mood of the classic boys' adventure story.  The really puzzling thing about this edition of Tom Sawyer, is why the editor insists on calling the author by his birth name of "Samuel L. Clemens", rather than his better known nom de plume "Mark Twain"! 

Out of My Mind by John Brunner (NEL, 1968)

A very battered paperback found in the Green Shed:

 

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE... A wide canvas--and a wide group of stories.  All the way from the downright vicious to the most gently tender: stories rich with humour, ripe with passion.

Just two from man's short past--a blink in time.  A few more for the present we all live in.  And more from the long reach of the future.

Here is a brilliant collection of stories representing the amazing talent of John Brunner.  Read them and discover why the author is fast becoming one of the most popular science fiction writers of the sixties.

The New English Library's science fiction paperbacks had some fascinatingly odd cover art—including this one.  It really doesn't have much to do with the stories inside, all of which were either set in the present or the very near future on Earth.  It does give an impression of strangeness, however, which is perhaps the best come-on you can make to a potential buyer of science fiction!

This Is Murder by Erle Stanley Gardner (WDL, 1960)

Sam Moraine, businessman, poker player and friend of the D.A. agreed as a lark to act as go-between in a kidnapping case.  Following instructions, he went to the boat, delivered $10,000 in old bills and received in exchange a bundle of blonde dynamite named Ann Hartwell.

As they reached the mooring float, they were met by the beam of a flashlight and a man's voice saying:

"You're under arrest, both of you.  Get your hands up in the air and keep them that way."

It was the Federal boys, and when they'd finished working him over, Sam thought the case was finished.

But it was only beginning.  What had started out as a simple adventure turned into a boiling mess of crooked politicians, double-crossing cops, ex-cons, a certain lady of elegant if easy virtue - and MURDER!

 Of course it did.

This is one of Gardner's earlier novels (first published in 1935 under the name of Charles J. Kenny) and not part of any of his series.   He'd been writing for nearly fifteen years before that, however, and he'd honed his craft publishing in magazines such as Black Mask and Detective Fiction Weekly.  In other words, he was already a slick and professional crime writer by the time this entertaining yarn was first released.

Alias the Saint by Leslie Charteris (Pan, 1953)

ALIAS THE SAINT tells of three adventures of Simon Templar.  In "The Story of a Dead Man' we find the Saint supervising an office in which many irregular things take place; there is a network of mystery about the firm of Vanney's Ltd. and Pamela Marlowe, who is employed there as a secretary, is very puzzled--as indeed she has a good reason to be, for she and the Saint are soon in a very dangerous situation, shared (curiously enough) by Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal of Scotland Yard.  "The Impossible Crime" displays the Saint pitting his wits against a gang of smuggling crooks; there is an amazing battle in a London square, where a night porter is shot dead.  "The National Debt" opens with the Saint making a trip to a quiet seaside village, hot on the track of three men who have kidnapped a girl analytical chemist whom they hope to compel to carry out a nefarious scheme.

Oh look!  It's The Saint.  Younger readers might not have heard of him, but older readers over a certain age will probably remember him well.  They might even have watched a young Roger Moore playing The Saint (aka Simon Templar) in the TV series of the same name.

The three novellas in this collection come from fairly early on in The Saint's career.  They were first published in the early 1930s, and people who recall Templar's smoother, newer, incarnations might be surprised at how much of a roughneck he is in this book.  He is not adverse to working on the wrong side of the law, and is quite prepared to use lethal violence if he feels it is necessary.  It is quite clear that it is only his own cunning that keeps him safe from the law--as well as the villains he tackles.  Because, criminal though he is, Templar is also one of the Good Guys, and someone you'd want on your side when the going gets tough.

(This is a fairly early Pan paperback.  I only have one older in my collection!)

Dark Duet by Peter Cheyney (Fontana, 1963)

 

KANE looked at her appreciatively.  "I don't know whether anybody's ever told you, but you've got the swellest pair of legs I've ever seen" he said.  Valetta looked at him sideways along her dark eyelashes.  He thought she was very beautiful; her mouth delicate, sensitive, almost tremulous.  He could look at her for hours on end.  It was that sort of mouth...

And.... here we have some more fiction about World War II--in this case from the pen of pulp writer Peter Cheyney.  Firstly published in 1942, this book contains three linked novellas about two spies/assassins working for the British Government.  Though they are definitely working on the side of good, they are not particularly moral characters, nor do they operate by a gentlemanly code.  The whole thing is altogether more gritty than the previous generation of spy thrillers, and seems to have been influenced by hard-boiled detective fiction (another genre in which Peter Cheyney specialised!)

The Chequer Board by Nevil Shute (Pan, 1968)

Found at a Lifeline Bookfair, bundled with some other books by the same author:

 

THE CHEQUER BOARD

'One of them was a Negro from America,' Turner said.  'The last one to go out... Dave Lesurier, his name was... Then there was Duggie Brent - he was a corporal in the paratroops.  And then there was the pilot of the aeroplane... Flying Officer Morgan.  We was all in a mess one way or another, excepting him, and yet in some ways he was in a worse mess than the lot of us.' 

THE CHEQUER BOARD

Brilliantly interweaving the chequered fates of four men brought together by one violent moment in war, this unforgettable story matches A TOWN LIKE ALICE with its heart-stirring romance, its rich humanity and compelling drama.

World War II was a major influence on Nevil Shute's writing--all his best known novels involve the war in one way or another.  However, he wasn't a writer of straight combat stories.  No, Shute's fiction is mostly about the civilians caught up in the war, and the human effects on the men who have to fight it.

And that brings me to The Chequer Board, which deals with four men in wartime.  Three are in trouble with the law--and the fourth is just in trouble.   The book tells the story of how they got into trouble and what happened to them afterwards (spoiler alert--it ends happily for most of them!)  Of the four stories I enjoyed the one about Dave Lesurier--the 'negro from America'--most, and the culture clash between a small Cornish village and the US Army base that has been planted upon it.

The Chequer Board was first pubished in Great Britain in 1947.

The Toff Takes Shares by John Creasey (Hodder, 1965)

A local bookshop obtained a lot of vintage paperbacks by John Creasey, and all in near-mint condition!

 

An unexpected female passenger introduces the Toff to one of the most complicated and violent cases of his career.  The shares of a large London store are crashing, and amidst gripping excitement the Toff turns stockbroker to find out why.

And no wonder the shares in this "large London store" are crashing!  There are many and varied problems behind the scenes--including blackmail, embezzlement, kidnapping and murder.  In addition to all this--the book being originally published in the post-War austerity year of 1948--the owner is up to his neck in the black market.  How will the Toff manage to sort out the victims from the villains? 

The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1959)

Found in a charity shop on a shelf full of Christie paperbacks:

THE mysterious man in the brown suit is a link between a fatal accident at a London Underground station and the body of a strangled woman found at a Member of Parliament's lonely country house.

Enterprising Anne Beddingfeld, back by a newspaper magnate, follows clues leading to South Africa, and there finds herself plunged into a highly dangerous Secret Service adventure.

First published early in Agatha Christie's career in 1924, this book was written while she was still experimenting with different genres.  It is a thriller rather than a classic whodunnit--and her heroine is an enterprising amateur caught in the middle of things rather than a professional detective.  Readers of Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series will find this a rather different kind of read!

Rogue Roman by Lance Horner (Pan, 1970)

Found on a dusty shelf in the Green Shed:

 

Imperial Rome--centre of the world--throbbing with the white heat of violence, bloodshed and uninhibited sexuality...

Bought as an actor, kidnapped by pirates, sold as a gladiator, young Cleon's beauty and flagrant masculinity made every woman--harlots and Vestal Virgins alike--desire him.

And passion drives Cleon to help destroy a Caesar who combined the vices of his predecessors with his own special perversions--the Emperor Nero.

Soft-core sixties smut, with a plot revolving around a hero whose main attribute is... the size of his, um, main attribute:

Contux took a firmer grip on the cloth and yanked.  There was a ripping sound and the hand came away with the front of Cleon's tunic clutched in the swollen fingers...  "I take it back.  He's more than a man - he's a true stallion.  He was shouting the words and waving the cloth for all to see.

(Page 125) 

Why am I suddenly reminded of Biggus Dickus?

The Red Planet by Charles Chilton (Pan, 1960)

 

Blast off! to new heights of adventure and excitement

with JET MORGAN and the crewmen of the spaceship DISCOVERY, made famous in Charles Chilton's thrill-packed BBC radio series. 

In this book, Jet leads the first fleet of rocketships to reach across space from the Moon to the 'Red Planet', Mars.  But right from the beginning the expedition was ill-omened.  Uncanny happenings were to test their courage to breaking point, both on the long space flight and on the hostile planet itself.

Nerve-racking sequel to JOURNEY INTO SPACE

"Jet Morgan"!  Now there's a name that really belongs in a mid-century space opera.  And what better adventure for a mid-century space hero than to battle nefarious aliens on Mars?

Jet made his debut on BBC radio in 1953.  The Red Planet is a novelization of his second serial (also on radio) broadcast in 1954.   Both serials were immensely popular in their day--pulling a bigger audience in their timeslots than television.   They're available to download at Old Time Radio Download for anyone who's interested.

Fool the Toff by John Creasey (Hodder & Stoughton, 1954)

 

Was "Love's Matrimonial Agency" a racket shop?  Jane Abbott met her husband there and he vanished--her money with him.  The Toff went to see Miss Love and found a most remarkable woman.  Then there was Jeremiah Matt, an equally remarkable man.  In fact the Toff met many new acquaintances and one of them made a fool of him.  Others... died.

This blurb is taken from the half-title page, as the back cover is filled with an advertisement:

 

Every once in a while I stumble across one of these on a secondhand bookstall.

As for the Toff--as the title of this book says, he is indeed fooled!  In the end, all the mysteries contained therein are  solved by his "man", Jolly--which is not what you expect of a story with a crime-fighting gentleman hero!

My Wicked, Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn (Pan, 1961)

Another find from the Lifeline Bookfair!

 

A celebrity and rake confesses--fifty years of high-pressure living recalled by a rebel who became a legend in his lifetime.

a wild youth in New Guinea and the South Seas

--circling the globe on a wilder chase to London, arriving broke and unabashed at the Berkeley Hotel

--for two decades a cinema idol--to millions he was a symbol of masculine virility while his own sex life became an endless orgy

--fighting the celebrated rape case that changed the course of his life.

Errol Flynn has never pulled a punch in his life, nor has he done so in this book--a rogue male's blistering self-portrait.

One of the first tell-all autobiographies--or was it?  Rumour has it that besides bedding countless women, Flynn occasionally, er, "crossed swords" with male actors.  True or not, this book comes across as a remarkably frank memoir by a man who lived a wild, hedonistic life.  In the end one is left wondering what Flynn left out of his book, and how many of the stories about him are true!

The Corpse Came C.O.D. by Jimmy Starr (J. Coker and Co., 1951)

Found at one of the Lifeline Bookfairs, complete with shabby dust-jacket:

Hector Ross, studio dress designer, disappears following  a tiff with glamorous movie star, Mona Harrison.  A few days later, Ross's body, dumped into a packing case, is delivered C.O.D. to Mona's house.  How her boyfriend Joe Medford, ace crime reporter, sets about the task of finding the murderer, provides a story packed with thrills and suspense.

What do you call a fictional character who likes to name-drop real people's names?

George Burns and Gracie Allen were across the way.  They waved at Mona, who returned the greeting.  Edgar Bergen, without Charlie McCarthy, sat in a corner booth.

(Page 43)

 As I strolled in, I noticed Fred Astaire over in a corner with his producer, David Hempstead.  Carole Landis was at the bar, telling stories of her army tour in Africa... Dorothy Lamour and Paulette Goddard, still in studio make-up, were gabbing about clothes in a far booth.

(Page 113)

I looked around the room.  Janet Gaynor and Adrian, the famous stylist, were sitting in the next booth.

(Page 115)

Jimmy Starr (his real name, evidently!) was a screenwriter and Hollywood gossip columnist in the 1930s and 1940s, so this novel really is a case of "writing what you know".   It was made into a movie starring George Brent and Joan Blondell in 1947.

High Crystal by Martin Caidin (W.H. Allen, 1975)

 

He's a cyborg.  He's half man, half machine.  He's Superagent Steve Austin.

And he's back--in a new novel combining breathtaking suspense and high adventure in the remote Andes.  Austin, the 'Bionics Man', confronts the most awesome challenge of his career in a race to track down the hidden source of a mysterious laser energy inextricably bound to the centuries-old secret behind the 'chariots of the gods'.

High in the rugged fastness of the Peruvian interior, a lone parachutist, plummeting to survival, makes a remarkable discovery--an unsegmented 'impossible highway', smooth as marble, more than two miles above sea level.  Who built it?  How were such huge rocks lifted by prehistoric peoples?  How could such technology have been possible?  Austin is assigned to uncover the secret behind the highway in the clouds.

High Crystal goes beyond and behind legend, dramatically creating new and scientifically plausible reasons for the myths that seem ever closer to reality than man has dared to dream.

"Bionics man" is not a typo--it's spelt that way on the book!

Many people around my age have memories of watching Lee Majors as Steve Austin, running in v-e-r-y s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n after the bad guys in The Six Million Dollar Man:

It was meant to show he had super speed or something.

Books, on the other hand, can't do special effects (even the fairly limited kind available to 1970s TV shows), so the author of High Crystal has to stop every once in a while to remind us that Steve Austin is a cyborg.  It's a pity these scenes aren't better integrated into the story.  Then again Steve's superpowers aren't particularly relevant to the plot, which is a sort of mash-up of Indiana Jones and Erich Von Däniken.  Indy didn't make his screen debut until the next decade, but Von Däniken was very, very trendy in the 1970s!

The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart (Hodder, 1964)

Found in a Salvos Store this weekend:

 

Now this is awkward!  The blurbs on the back of this book tell us what the Daily Express said about this book, and gives us a paragraph in praise of the author, but it has nothing at all actually about the book:

The Ivy Tree

"has the ideal thriller blend of plot, suspense, character drawing and good writing... it opens with the impact of a rifle report on a calm summer's day and drives to its climax of action with compelling urgency."

 Daily Express

Mary Stewart, 

author of 'The Moonspinners', has found success with every word.  Her books have been translated into Danish, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish and enjoy enormous success in America where they appear regularly on the bestseller lists.

This kind of thing is not uncommon with Hodder paperbacks!


(From memory, The Ivy Tree contains a heroine (in peril), a case of mistaken identity, an isolated house and a family with a secret.   In other words, fairly standard ingredients, but mixed by a master of the genre!)

Carson's Conspiracy by Michael Innes (Penguin, 1986)

CARL CARSON'S CRIME WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT--IN A DIFFERENT NEIGHBORHOOD

Carl Carson has a prosperous business, a dotty wife, and a fictitious son. When financial ruin threatens, he puts all these resources to use: he simply stages an elaborate "kidnapping" and liquidates his assets to pay the ransom. It might have worked, if Sir John Appleby hadn't been his neighbor. Appleby, lately retired from the Metropolitan Police, is intrigued by the rumors spreading through the neighborhood. But even he can't stop the conspiracy from turning into murder...

This is a bit newer than the books I usually blog about, but I couldn't resist simply because of the way the author describes Carson's favourite toy:

Of this particular telephone he was rather proud.  It didn't trail a cord.  (In this it was probably like the red one habitually toted around by the President of the United States.)  He could carry it, or it could be brought to him anywhere in the house, or even within the nearer reaches of the garden, and put into operation straight away.

--Page 37

Sometimes even the relatively recent past seems a strange and primitive place!

Corpse at the Carnival by George Bellairs (Thriller Bookclub, 1958)

Another Lifeline Bookfair treasure!

 

In his latest thriller, George Bellairs takes us back to the lovely and haunting Isle of Man.

It is holiday time in Douglas, and a carnival crowd engulfs a solitary, elderly man, who is peacefully gazing out to sea.  When the procession passes, the old man quietly dies.  He is found to have a knife wound in his back.  He is, at first, merely an anonymous victim, known casually to a few locals as Uncle Fred.  Superintendent Littlejohn, called to visit his old friend the Rev. Caesar Kinrade, Archdeacon of Man, on his way home from a police conference in Dublin, is asked by his comrade Inspector Knell, of the Manx C.I.D., to give him a hand in the case, unofficially.

As the inquiry progresses, Uncle Fred is virtually brought to life again by Littlejohn.  The lost years of his past are found again, his friends and his foes appear, the events leading up to his strange death fall in line and, gradually, the picture of the murderer appears.

The Case of the Restless Redhead by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pan, 1962)

 

She had a neat figure, plenty of bad luck--and red hair.

They caught her with stolen diamonds--but as she told the story it was a frame-up, and Perry Mason believed her.

Then came news of more serious crime--and Mason found the charge against his client was murder.

It never fails.  No matter what a client initially hires Perry Mason for--to settle a parking fine, to get a divorce--before the end of the book they're up on a charge of murder.

My advice to anyone thinking of consulting Perry Mason?  Don't.

The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Pan, 1953)

Found on the "Vintage" table at last weekend's Lifeline Bookfair:

THE LOST WORLD, one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous novels, is the story of four men's expedition to a remote plateau in South America, cut off from the surrounding country by unscaleable perpendicular cliffs.  Here, in an area the size of the English county of Sussex, strange creatures long extinct in the outside world have survived from prehistoric times, including the huge pterodactyl, half bat, half bird; the reptile-headed iguanodon, forty feet high; the terrifying carnivorous dinosaur; and the horrible ape-men.  The adventures of Professors Challenger and Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and the journalist Malone are breathlessly exciting, and lead up to the climax of their return to London to confound their sceptical critics.
The idea for the tale was suggested to the author by the fossilized footprints of a prehistoric monster found near his home on the Sussex Downs; the then read Professor Ray Lankester's book on extinct animals.  He took the name of Professor Challenger from the wooden ship Sir Charles Wyville Thomson (the zoology professor whose lectures he'd attended at Edinburgh University) had dredged the seas for new forms of animal life; but he gave Challenger the black beard and booming voice of another former Edinburgh professor.  Conan Doyle enjoyed the character whom he thus created so much that he imitated him in real life, and, according to his biographer, Mr. John Dickson Carr, "made Challenger a completely uninhibited version of himself."  The Lost World, first serialized in the Strand Magazine, was an immediate success and was later filmed.

 Pan started publishing paperbacks in 1947, but this is the earliest example of their output I've found so far.    The back cover reads less like a blurb than a mini-essay!

Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder and Stoughton, 1959)

Another find from the Lifeline Bookfair:

about this book

The twentieth ' Miss Silver ' mystery.
Anna sounds a dull, uninteresting girl, but when she stops writing after three years of intensive post-school correspondence, Thomasina becomes anxious about her old school-friend.  In her last letter Anna spoke of a new job without giving any details, and then, to quote Thomasina, she disappears.  The case is put before Miss Silver... "Just a girl who has stopped writing."

 Here we have a dynamic cover illustration (Who is that girl?  And who or what is menacing her?) paired with a downright clunky piece of prose on the back of the book.  Let's hope the potential buyers of this publication found the front cover more intriguing than they found the back cover off-putting.