I bought some old paperbacks from an old used book store in Forssa that was closing down and selling everything out with half a cover price. One of the books was a war paperback that I've never taken a closer look at. It was by "Steve Jenkins", called Operaatio natsisatama (Operation Nazi Harbour; stupid title if there ever was one). It was published by Viihdeviikarit, one of the last cheapo paperback publishers in Finland, in their Etulinja/Frontline series in the early eighties. The book was left lying on the floor with some other books, but then one night, pretty tired of the historical novels I've been reading for a reference book project I picked the book up and started to read it. It was fluent and fast reading, with lots of dialogue and pretty good action scenes and one or two sex scenes: good old-fashioned disposable trash. I got more interested in the book and started Googling.
No "Steve Jenkins". No war paperback was ever published under that by-line. Googling more I found out that this might've been published originally under some other name - and then I found out that the Etulinja series this was published in held also another book with the main character called Mahoney. That book, called Kuoleman juna/Death Train, was written by one Gordon Davis. And bingo! Gordon Davis is a pseudonym used exclusively by Leonard AKA Len Levinson, a paperback hack working mainly in the seventies and eighties, and the book called Operaatio natsisatama was also written by him and erroneously published in Finland under the "Steve Jenkins" by-line. (Why this? We can only guess.) The original title is Hell Harbor.
The books were a part in Levinson's Sergeant series, which conveniently happens to have a Wikipedia article, even though Levinson doesn't merit one. There's not a lot of information on him anywhere in the web. If anyone knows more, I'd be interested to hear. Has there been an interview with him in Gary Lovisi's Paperback Parade or some such? Levinson was born in 1935, that much Lee Server says in his encyclopedia of pulp fiction writers. Server raises Levinson's non-genre paperback, The Last Buffoon (1980) as "Leonard Jordan", from the pile and says it's an interesting account of the life of a paperback hack. Anyone read that?
I haven't read these, but I'll be looking for THE LAST BUFFOON. What a great title!
ReplyDeleteWell, that's part of what WIKIPEDIA's for, Juri, filling in the gaps...and "Len Levinson" probably didn't sound crisply WASPish enough to the presumed audience for imported testosterone surges. Wonder who translated.
ReplyDeleteSo, pleasant enough diversion?
Pleasant enough, sure, Todd. But the by-line they should've gone for was Gordon Davis, not Len Levinson, which I think Levinson never used in any of his books. I couldn't find - I was in a hurry when posting - a site where I think Levinson's pseudonyms were mentioned, but you might want to Google for them.
ReplyDeleteGeorge: there were some copies of THE LAST BUFFOON on sale in Abebooks, but none with a cover photo!
ReplyDeleteGreat detective work getting the lowdown on this one.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of the way Robert Dietrich's (well, E. Howard Hunt's) series about Steve Bentley were printed in Sweden as written by "John Baxter". I suspect someone was trying to avoid paying someone else.
ReplyDeleteThat's certainly a possible explanation. They did, however, use the author's real pseudonym (sic) in the second book they published. Did the agent say: "Hey, c'mon, guys, see what you did just now, be more careful next time!"
ReplyDelete