#50: The Last Lawman by Peter Brandvold

 An aging lawman goes after a deadly gang in Peter Brandvold's The Last Lawman.

Western vet Brandvold has written a lot of "fast action" westerns frequently heavy in sex and violence.  This one has all of that plus features a unique character, a grizzled and cantankerous old law dog who is hoping his heart doesn't quit on him before he has sent a lot of bad guys to Boot Hill.

The bad guys are an especially evil bunch called The Vultures who rape, murder, and pillage across a pretty wide path while our protagonist doggedly follows, gaining and losing a lot of gun-help along the way.

This one has a memorably blood-soaked finale, set in a rotting ghost town that evoked, to me, late-period spaghetti westerns.  The surprise appearance of another Brandvold series character will be welcome to fans.

Brandvold knows how to write westerns for people who like them tough and mean, and I have enjoyed all that I have sampled.  I bought this one for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.

#49: Big Red's Daughter by John McPartland

Freshly back in the U.S. after a tour in Korea, a young man gets in a fender-bender where he meets a lovely young woman and her hot-headed boyfriend; he loves one on sight and hates the other on sight, leading to plenty of trouble in John McPartland's Big Red's Daughter.

McPartland writes a super-charged noir where destructive emotions run high from the first page; it appears that McPartland himself lived a similar life and died young.  

But he seemed to have left a number of memorable novels.  This one paints a picture of a bohemian 50s California that is fully realized as a backdrop to a pretty brutal story; there are a number of grisly fights, terrorized women, a handful of murders, and a jailbreak, all before a conclusion that makes a turn and wraps up more upbeat than one would think.

This was a rapid-fire read and a nice surprise from Stark House Press, which is dedicated to bringing back more obscure and out-of-print crime, detective, and noir books from the past.  

I would definitely recommend this in any edition you can find it in for noir fans, and will be checking out more of John McPartland.

#48: The Devil's Dozen by Nick Carter

Nick Carter avenges the death of a fellow secret agent by trying to break the back of a drug ring in the spy novel The Devil's Dozen.

Unfortunately, Carter meets a strong-willed crime boss who is every inch his equal, and he contemplates his place in the spy game as a result.  But there's more action than introspection, including a helicopter versus skier fight and a memorable wresting match against a Turkish villain, both in a remote mountain fortress.

Nick Carter starred in hundreds of spy novels, written by a legion of writers, and I read a ton of them as a teenager.  I have recently gone back and revisited all three of the ones by Martin Cruz Smith (a favorite contemporary author) written in his peanut-butter days, and liked this one the best.  It's a good second-tier spy novel on its own merits.

I would rank them as this one, Code Name: Werewolf, and then The Inca Death Squad for those interested.

I tracked this one down on eBay and read it quickly.  I might go back and look for more Nick Carter spy novels if the pseudonymous author is a good match for more interests.

#47: The Inca Death Squad by Nick Carter

 In 1970s Chile, superspy Nick Carter is asked to bodyguard a Soviet dignitary against revolutionaries as part of a secret deal in The Inca Death Squad.

I read these Nick Carter novels by the stack during my teen years, and thought I would revisit a few to see how they held up.  Although I could tell the quality varied widely, I didn't know they were all written by different people until the internet.  I wanted to start with the three Martin Cruz Smith wrote, as his ongoing Arkady Renko series I have steadily enjoyed.

The first I read, Code Name: Werewolf, was a solid second-tier spy novel, but this one I just didn't enjoy as much.  

The core plotting just doesn't make a lot of sense, starting with Carter delivering a new style of bulletproof clothing to the oafish Russian for kind of hazy reasons.  Later, rather oddly, he has a bolo fight with an Aztec warrior in ancient garb, but still has time to bed all of the Russian's comrade harem, which includes an undercover KGB agent.

But there is plenty of action, including a cavalry charge on a band of outlaws and a jeep versus fighter plane battle.

I have heard that Smith disavowed these early novels, and I can see a better argument for it here.  I have one more, The Devil's Dozen, to decide.

#46: Red Dust by Yoss

 On the space station William S. Burroughs a dangerous psionic criminal is on the loose, and it is up to a robot policeman with a Raymond Chandler obsession to catch him in Red Dust by the Cuban sci-fi writer/rock star Yoss.

Yoss writes a pretty goofy romp, awash in pop culture references and action-oriented.  But Yoss has a somewhat cloaked political side as well, which features a triumvirate of alien races who have more or less subjugated humankind, allowing them only limited knowledge of their superior technology.  The robot lawmen are the mediators between both factions, and generally disliked by all.

Yoss appears to be very popular in Cuba, and Restless Books is getting some of his novels translated into English--I also liked Super Extra Grande, about a vet who works on giant alien animals, and has to go inside one (the hard way) to rescue some girlfriends.

Yoss writes a light, fresh, largely comedic science fiction story that is worthwhile for a change of pace.  

I got this for my birthday and read it quickly.

#45: Hanging at Pulpit Rock by Lee Leighton

 A greenhorn deputy is put in charge of a tough frontier town when the rugged sheriff goes on a three day fishing trip in Lee Leighton's Hanging at Pulpit Rock.

Leighton was actually Wayne Overholser, a well-regarded western writer whose books I see everywhere, though I had never knowingly dipped into one.  I actually started reading this for the odd cover, which features an angry man slipping a hangman's noose around another man who is smiling enigmatically.  There is a hanging, as per the title, but there isn't any smiling.

Leighton's plot is a cut above, with interesting characters and situations.  Almost right away a murder and alleged rape happens, and the greenhorn deputy proves out to be the fastest gun anyone has seen, tested by any number of owlhoots.  The crooked town leadership doesn't help as a rampaging lynch mob leads to a trial by fire for some of the more upstanding citizens.

I enjoyed this western quite a bit, and would look for more from Overholser/Leighton.  I got this as part of a big lot of western books I was more interested in from eBay but read this one first.  A good find for western fans.

#44: Dark Times in the City by Gene Kerrigan

Not long out of prison after a fight that went wrong, Danny Callaghan impulsively jumps in during an attempted shooting at his local pub, inadvertently putting himself in the middle of a Dublin gang war he doesn't want a part of in Gene Kerrigan's Dark Times in the City.

Kerrigan writes a propulsive, sardonic crime story that is full of satisfying beats.  About two-thirds through he offers a lengthy flashback that sets up the violent finale, a nice bit of narrative style.

Dark times indeed, as the final chapters leave no characters unscathed, and only a handful alive.

Kerrigan is an Irish journalist with a couple of crime novels to his name; his knowledge of Irish politics and contemporary history plays no small role in the storytelling.  This is a very self-assured outing, and I would look for more from him.

I received this from World Noir, a part of Europa Editions, and read it quickly.

#43: Boxes by Pascal Garnier

 A man slowly unraveling after the disappearance of his wife moves to their newly-purchased country home, only to fall into the circle of a strange neighbor, in Pascal Garnier's Boxes.

Garnier was a French author of bleak, unpleasant noirs, often made more palatable with surreal humor.  This one has a fair amount of humor and is light on the noir, with any sort of crime not really materializing until the final chapters of the novel.

What mystery there is centers around the neighbor, a fragile, pale woman with the overprotective older friend of her deceased father hovering nearby and a lot of unanswered questions--if only our protagonist could keep his wits about him long enough to answer them.

More a study of mental unraveling than a crime novel, Garnier still writes with a speed and wit that makes his writing readable for the discerning.

This is the final novel in a collection I purchased titled Gallic Noir Volume 2.

#42: The Blurry Years by Eleanor Kriseman

 A teenager comes of age in the shadow of an alcoholic mother in Eleanor Kriseman's debut The Blurry Years.

The young woman lives on the fringes of Florida society, and dips in and out of various dangerous situations; an ill-advised road trip with her mother to Oregon begins to tip the scales in her favor, but their return to Florida leads to the breaking point.

Although I didn't think Kriseman's novel broke any new ground, I liked the storytelling, with a good feel for time and place.  The characters are complex and the novel ends with a respite of sorts, but with no easy answers.  I'm curious to see what Kriseman would write next.

This novel was sent to me by Two Dollar Radio, and I read it quickly.

#41: Minna Needs Rehearsal Space by Dorthe Nors

 Minna loses a lover via text message, and then finds herself adrift in every aspect of her life, in Danish writer Dorthe Nors' novella Minna Needs Rehearsal Space.

Nors' slender outing is packed with both whimsy and melancholy, as Minna navigates interpersonal challenges, including various frenemies and their families.  Minna eventually tries to run away from it all, but perhaps runs towards a better future.

Minna Needs Rehearsal Space is a fast read, but actually a bit of a difficult read, as it is written in an unusual, choppy style.  I believe Nors was trying to reflect both the order, and encroaching disorder, of the protagonist's mind, but its single-sentence paragraphs, often starting with "Minna does etc.", is an unusual literary device, to put it lightly.

However, I enjoyed Nors' storytelling and am interested in her other novels in translation.

I bought this from Amazon and read it quickly.

#40: Go, Lovely Rose by Jean Potts

A sour old housekeeper is pushed down the basement stairs, and a dissolute young man becomes the prime suspect--much to the dismay of his older, protective sister--in Jean Potts' Go, Lovely Rose.

I didn't know anything about Potts or the novel before picking it up from Stark House Press, one of my favorite publishers, who seems dedicated to bringing lost noir out of obscurity.  This one actually won the Edgar for best first novel in 1954 and has unjustifiably fallen off of the radar.

This is a smart, funny novel that colorfully paints the characters and their small-town life.  Potts writes in a steady amount of coded subtext that makes it of continued interest to contemporary readers.  

Eccentric characters add value, including the young man's oddball high school girlfriend, the housekeeper's equally dour twin sister, the scheming ex-husband of the housekeeper, and a somewhat melancholy and love-stricken town doctor.

A welcome surprise, and extremely enjoyable.  Recommended for fans of classic mysteries.

#39: Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby

 An expert getaway driver gets drawn back into the life (as seems to happen) in SA Cosby's blistering, lyrical crime novel Blacktop Wasteland.

Bug is trying to go straight as a mechanic, looking out for his wife, three kids, and an unforgiving mother; but the bills pile up too fast, and he falls in with an untrustworthy gang of halfwit criminals whose scheme is destined to go sideways (as seems to happen).

Cosby's novel is ready-made for the big screen, opening with a backroads muscle-car race, peaking with a harrowing robbery escape that motors along over and through highway construction, and slamming home with a rage-fueled car chase and a spatter of killings.

Cosby hits every noir beat, but also speaks to the rural Black experience with a deft hand.  This adds value to the narrative and lifts the novel above the standard adrenaline-fueled romp.

I found this to be a rewarding read, and has been one of my favorites of 2020--along with, seemingly, a lot of other people.  

I bought this from Amazon and read it quickly. Easy to recommend to any reader.

#38: Lawman by Grant Freeling

 A tough, unbending lawman stalks a nearby town where a group of drunken cowboys accidentally shot a man through a window; and when the cowboys--including an affluent rancher and his son--won't come willingly, violence ensues in Grant Freeling's Lawman.

This is a novelization of a Michael Winner film, written by Gerald Wilson, and starring Burt Lancaster, a 70s film that somehow I've missed seeing along the way.  As for the novelization, there is some debate whether Grant Freeling was a real person or a pseudonym.  

That's typically two strikes against it in my book--I don't like not knowing the author, and I don't generally read novelizations.  

But this is a somber, late-era spaghetti-flavored western novel that I think stands on its own merits.  It is filled with complicated, flawed characters and has as melancholy a denouement you'll read.  I'm glad I gave it a chance.

I got this in a "mystery bag" of books in a fundraiser from Horizon Books in Seattle, a place I had the pleasure to visit a few years ago.

#37: The Unforgiven by Alan LeMay

 A hardscrabble cattle family, living in near isolation and beset by marauding Kiowas, find their fortunes turn for the worse when a poisonous rumor starts about their youngest child in Alan LeMay's The Unforgiven.

I picked this up for a western fiction book club I joined online, and was caught by surprise.  I did not know of LeMay, or that he had also written the novel The Searchers (which was turned into the great John Ford movie).  I also did not realize this novel was made into a (seemingly ill-fated) John Huston movie as well.

Most of all I was surprised by the mature, nuanced storytelling, genuinely surprising for a western, and for one written in the 50s.  I was unprepared for the depth of the narrative (last month's book club read was a poker-faced, PG-rated Louis L'Amour western) and had to keep flipping back to the copyright notice to absorb that it was actually written during the 1950s.

After building mounting dread throughout, the third act is an absolutely harrowing--at times gruesome--siege of the family home by a group of Kiowas who believe the adopted daughter of this ranch family is actually a lost Kiowa child, a somber coda.

Recommended on all counts for western fans looking for a literate entry in the genre.

I bought this from Amazon and immediately went looking for The Searchers.

#36: The Islanders by Pascal Garnier

During a frigid winter, an alcoholic man's estranged elderly mother dies, and when he returns home to her apartment he finds his former love (and her blind brother) now live across the hall, tipping over a dark past in Pascal Garnier's The Islanders.

Garnier wrote a lot of short, intense French noirs, often laced with dark humor.  This one is in a collection I picked up some time ago.  I stick a toe in only every so often as his books are often gruesome, nihilistic, and populated with unpleasant characters.

In this, we gradually learn that the ill-fated couple, as teens, has been responsible for the (perhaps inadvertent, perhaps not) death of a young boy, and escaped unscathed.  As they reunite, a young homeless man, and then a policeman, come to abrupt ends.

Garnier is a great noir writer and rewarding for the discriminating reader.

#35: Wolf's Head by John Benteen

Soldier of Fortune Neal Fargo heads to the Pacific Northwest to help out a logging operation under attack in John Benteen's Wolf's Head.

John Benteen (Ben Haas) is a go-to western writer and men's adventure scribe.  This series, which actually takes place in the early 20th Century, features our tarnished hero, and his impressive array of unique weapons, under orders from Teddy Roosevelt (!) to help out an old friend.

Men's Adventure was never more manly, as there is fist fighting, axe fighting, fire fighting, hard drinking, and tough talk throughout. 

A quick and easy read from a big stack of Fargo books I picked up somewhere.

#34: The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish by Katya Apekina

Two sisters have to go live with their absent father (a famous author) after their mother's suicide attempt, and slowly unbury a troubled family history, in Katya Apekina's The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish.

Apekina's debut novel has familiar plotting--there seems to be shades of Mona Simpson, Larry McMurtry, and Michael Chabon throughout--in its discussion of difficult topics such as mental illness, infidelity, suicide, child molesting, and incest.  But its storytelling is more uniquely its own, mixing in oral histories, letters, and vantage points from various times, places, and characters.

Part of the storytelling centers around the father being involved in the civil rights movement, where he meets a teenager who becomes his wife; more around a graduate student trying to write a dissertation about the author (though more accurately, stalking him); but central is the voice of one sister, from her perspective as a teen, and the other sister, as an adult looking back at a rocky stretch of her life.

Apekina's novel is compelling and readable throughout, even with some familiar beats, and worthwhile for those comfortable with challenging subject matter.

I was sent this novel by the publisher, Two Dollar Radio.

#33: The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch by Michael G. Coney

A businessman dealing in alien furs falls for a young woman he learns is a "Spare Parts Girl" for a fading video star, with disastrous results, in Michael G. Coney's The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch.

I came across this in a box of books at a flea market and was interested in the title, and the promise of the kind of psychedelic sci-fi I have grown to appreciate as an adult (this one came out in 1975).  I learned Coney was a British science fiction writer with a steady output.

This has a lot of funny world-building, taking place in a town clinging to what appears to be what's left of California after the rest of it slid into the ocean, whose inhabitants are hung up on para-gliding and making pets out of dangerous sea life like sharks--and an ambulatory one (set up with a water-breathing device so that he can wander around the surface) has a significant role in the story.

The core of the story features the idea that prisoners can have their sentence reduced by becoming "bonded" servants to business people--but part of the deal is that they have to donate organs and limbs if the business person needs it.  A "3-V" star in a love triangle with the protagonist and her own "Spare Parts Girl" drives the narrative.

To me, the story is marred a bit by a passive, unlikable protagonist who uses and discards several women, which as it happens causes great harm to them.  The ending has a strikingly dark note.

It's interesting to me that Kazuo Ishiguro's literary novel Never Let Me Go from 2005 has a surprisingly similar plot, though used to show class divides rather than paperback sci-fi genre beats. Ishiguro was 20 or 21 when this book came out in England, where he lived, and I can't help wondering whether he read it, and it percolated in the back of his young mind for a long time.  Fun to think about.

This was also published as The Girl with A Symphony in Her Fingers, which is another trippy title.

#32: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy

A pair of drifters lose track of each other, and when one finds out the other committed suicide, she heads to a remote commune to figure out what happened in Margaret Killjoy's The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.

In very short order she learns this commune, set up in an abandoned town in Iowa, has summed a three-horned, blood-red deer who for better or worse manifests a hazy form of justice over the community.  Quickly we have squatters versus cops versus the Unknown, with no answers in black and white.

Killjoy writes a sharp-edged novel with equal parts horror, post-apocalyptic fantasy, and punk manifesto, both genre-busting and gender-busting.  To me, this novel owes a significant nod to Samuel R. Delany's masterwork Dahlgren, also about an eerie, otherworldly city populated by free-thinking and free-loving inhabitants.  It is good company to be in.

I was brought up a little short by a rather conventional ending, with the survivors setting themselves up for a sequel by pledging to band together and fight against the supernatural in other towns, which seemed to betray the outsider coolness throughout.

But I would still read that novel, and enjoyed this one.  

I got this for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.

#31: Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather

An eclectic group of nuns--on a deep space assignment in a large living spaceship--reluctantly come into conflict with an increasingly restrictive central government on far-away Earth in Lina Rather's highly imaginative science fiction outing Sisters of the Vast Black.

Rather's storytelling has enough neat world-building ideas for a half-dozen novels, from the organic ships grown from more or less tadpoles to the repressive Earth government risen from radioactive ashes to the tenets of a future Catholic church.

Best of which are the characters, from the ship--trying to veer off course and mate with another ship she saw in passing--to the Mother Superior with a government-toppling past to the nun who has a secret romance correspondence with a woman she met at a space station.

Entirely satisfying sci-fi I read quickly on my beloved Kindle.  I hope this one becomes a series.

#30: The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang

Twins born of a ruthless dictator try to forge their own paths in JY Yang's The Black Tides of Heaven.

One has tremendous precognition powers, used in service to the regime, while the other ends up joining a rebel group called The Machinists.

This is the first of a new series with tremendous world-building and an interesting plot.  The story is threaded with psychic powers, magic, mythic monsters, and steampunk-style technology, a high-wire balance of high fantasy and science fiction.  The cultural world-building has an Asian-fused backdrop and gender-fluid relationships.

Yang has written an intricate opening salvo to what I think will be a strong series.

I got this one for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.

#29: Code Name: Werewolf by Nick Carter

In early 70s Spain, Nick Carter, Killmaster, takes on the unlikely job of protecting dictator Francisco Franco from an assassin in Code Name: Werewolf, part of the long-running spy series.

I read these Nick Carter paperbacks fervently as a teen in the late 70s and early 80s, and had no idea they were written by a large number of authors (although I could tell some were markedly better than others).  I even ordered them by mail from the backs of other paperbacks, paying with hard-earned allowance money.

I became interested (although tentatively) in revisiting a few and thought this was a good place to start, as this was one written by Martin Cruz Smith.  Martin Cruz Smith writes the Arkady Renko detective novels that I enjoy as they are released (beginning with Gorky Park).

Although Martin Cruz Smith has apparently disavowed his few Nick Carter contributions, I found this a solid and interesting spy thriller.  Spanish politics and culture, including several bullfighting scenes involving Carter (one intended to kill him), add interest.

This was a good second-tier spy novel, not at the level of a Donald Hamilton or Edward S. Aarons but eminently readable.

I accumulated a stack of these from a friend--at one point that seemed to be stacked up in used bookstores everywhere--and might dive into another if I find an author behind the pseudonym of interest. 

#28: Sackett's Land by Louis L'Amour

In 1600s England, a poor young man tries to help an affluent lady, drawing the ire of a dark-hearted aristocrat and setting off a dire chain of events in Louis L'Amour's Sackett's Land.

The young man gets press-ganged into a pirate ship headed for the New World, escapes on land and there gets a fragile toehold in the fur trading business.  But he eventually needs to return to England to deal with his old foe.

L'Amour is one of the most heralded western writers, with many popular titles and series, the Sacketts series possibly top among them.  This kind-of prequel to the Sacketts stories is a departure from the Old West stories, pretty obviously, but still chock full of manly, rousing adventure. 

L'Amour, along with Zane Grey, Elmer Kelton, Ray Hogan, and just a handful of others, were the main western writers I read during my teen and young adult years.  I haven't read L'Amour in decades, and revisited this him because of joining an online western fiction book group just formed.

My tastes have evolved to more spaghetti-style storytelling, but it moves fast and is reader-friendly for fans.

I bought this from Amazon and read it quickly.

#27: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

A decades-old Ponzi scheme collapses, throwing many lives into chaos, from a fading painter to an addicted performance artist to a cargo shipping manager to a bartender turned rich man's girlfriend and more; a woman jumping from a cargo ship, and a message scrawled on a swank hotel's window, bracket the narrative and tie all the storylines together in Emily St. John Mandel's The Glass Hotel.

I recommended Mandel's Station Eleven to everyone a few years ago, and find this follow-up also a literate, rewarding novel for any reader.  Attached to the spine of the story are many interweaving narratives, which showcase, more than anything else, how chance happenstance and random meetings can resonate through a person's life.

There is a magical element to the narrative too, with ghosts--perhaps brought on by guilt and strong memories, perhaps not--and an exploration of alternate histories core parts of the story.  

In fact, careful readers will see several characters from Station Eleven here, positioning the novel as an alternate history version of Station Eleven, in an odd way.   Odd especially in that her previous novel is about a pandemic that wipes out a lot of the population, and this one reflects on what might have happened if that pandemic had been contained.

A worthwhile read that I was looking forward to.  I bought this from Amazon and read it quickly.

#26: The Wildcatters by John Benteen

A soldier of fortune heads to a booming oil field looking for gunwork, and finds all he wants, in John Benteen's The Wildcatters.

The Fargo series was written by John Benteen, alias Ben Haas, and although packaged like a western these are more straight adventure.  The books take place in the early 20th century, with cars and other contemporary elements mixed in with the requisite shoot-outs.

Benteen knows how to wrap up a story; this one features an uncapped gusher flooding a town while Fargo fights to the death against a seemingly unkillable foe.

Benteen also wrote another series, featuring a Native American gun-hand called Sundance, and I find both to be full of solid storytelling.  In fact Benteen has become a go-to favorite.

I can't recall where I found this one, but I grab them for comfort reading when I see them, and quickly read this fast-moving tale.