Negative reviews on e-books?

I've been reading some stuff on my Kindle, mainly stuff I've picked free from Amazon, new gritty and noirish crime fiction from both side of Atlantic. I've liked a lot some of the stuff I've acquired, for instance Juaréz Dance by Sam Hawken and Tony Black's bleak novella The Storm Without (of which I didn't do a blog post). I also liked Lawrence Block's short story "Keller on the Spot" quite a bit.

But I've recently dropped two novels by new noir writers I was reading on Kindle. The other one was sloppily written and edited, and the other one had ridiculous characters and the police work depicted in the book wasn't believable. I was going to post a review of the books, but then I got to thinking I wouldn't be doing much of a service to the writers and their publishers (the other one of the two writers has just a book out from a small publisher working actively in the neo-noir business). Then I got to thinking that as a critic that's just what I should be doing: pointing out what these writers and their publishers are not doing very well and keeping readers out of the bad or mediocre stuff, but then I got to thinking again and then I decided not to post.

What do you think? I'm really an outsider in these circles, since I'm essentially a foreigner to all American, British and Scottish writers mining this area, but then again, someone might benefit from my point of view.

Review of Weasels Ripped My Flesh

Or actually a review of half of it. I wrote a review of this collection of stories from vintage men's magazines for a Finnish cultural magazine and I asked the published if I could see a PDF of the book in advance, since I wouldn't have had time to buy the book via web and wait for the copy to arrive. And I haven't had time since to read the rest of the book, but I definitely will when I've got some extra money to order the print book.

Okay, to the book. I posted the table of contents earlier, now I read the first half of the book and some extra stories. My reaction to the stories was somewhat mixed: the concept of the stories is often better than the execution. (Well, who didn't know that already..?) The idea of half-crazed Nazis torturing gorgeous and half-naked women in the castles of Germany is always good fun, but as far as the stories go, I'm not sure whether I'd care to read lots of them. One here and there is passable, but dozens of these...?

There are some good writers and good stories in the bunch, make no mistake about that. Robert Silverberg's crazy "Trapped by Mau Mau" (Exotic Adventures 1959) is a very good hardboiled adventure story, even though it's racist as hell. Robert F. Dorr's "Bayonet Killer of Heartbreak Ridge" (Man's Magazine 1964) is very well told, a snappy true-war story set in the Korean War. Harlan Ellison's "Death Climb" (True Men Stories 1957) is just a crime story, there's nothing about it to claim it's a true story, but it's pretty good - noir set on a mountain!

There were some disappointments: Lawrence Block's "She Doesn't Want You" (Real Men 1958), which is a rather bland account of prostitutes who are really lesbians. This wouldn't do as journalism anymore, even though I'm willing to admit that today's journalism at times resembles the vintage men's magazines very much. They might only do it better today. Same goes for Walter Wager's "Please God, Help Me Break Out" (Male 1958), which just tells what happened to a famous soldier (forgot the name already, sorry!) during the WWII. Jim McDonald's (real identity unknown) story has a great title: "Grisly Rites of Hitler's Monster Flesh Stripper" (Man's Story 1965), but it's actually a quite bland "re"-telling of odd incidents. You would think a writer would want to pepper these stories with some narrative hooks, but that clearly wasn't the case. And it has not enough sadism! By 2013, the teasing element has somewhat worn out. (Someone might say of course that's sad, but that's the way it goes.)

There were also stories by Bruce Jay Friedman (oddly humorous piece about a tiger in a zoo trying to eat another tiger in another cage) and Walter Kaylin (weird story about an exotic dancer acting as a tribal chief in the darkest Africa) that were of interest. The book is also spiced up by interviews with Wager and Mario Puzo, but unfortunately no story by Puzo. Wager's interview is more interesting (albeit too short!) than his story.

There are more books coming out from New Texture and I'm all for it, though I was a bit critical on this. I'll be reading the rest of the book one of these days and I'll also blog about it. Meanwhile you can take a look here.

Weasels Ripped My Flesh out soon!

The long-awaited collection of vintage stories from the Golden Age of men's adventure magazines called Weasels Ripped My Flesh is out soon! I received the table of contents in PDF form last week and I can tell the book looks dandy! The editor of the book, Bob Deis (who maintains the great Men's Pulp Mags blog), has done good work with his colleagues, Josh Friedman and Wyatt Doyle (who's also the mastermind behind the New Texture publishing house that's putting this out).

Here are the table of contents, posted with Bob's and Wyatt's permission. It's too bad they didn't get a permission to reprint any of Mario Puzo's men's magazine stories, but there's an interview with him about him hacking away for the mags. I believe the last piece in the ToC is an essay on men's mag (and the writer, Bruce Friedman, is I believe the father of Josh Alan Friedman). 

I think this looks cool.

Mike Kamens: Weasels Ripped My Flesh [MAN’S LIFE, September 1956]
Gilbert Nash: "Beat" Girls: Worshippers of Zen and Sin? [UNTAMED, February 1959]
Walter Kaylin: Bar Room Girl Who Touched Off a Tribal War [MALE, June 1966]
Lawrence Block (as Sheldon Lord): She Doesn’t Want You [REAL MEN, June 1958]
Harlan Ellison: Death Climb [TRUE MEN STORIES, February 1957]
Robert F. Dorr: Bayonet Killer of Heartbreak Ridge [MAN’S MAGAZINE, October 1964]
Bruce Jay Friedman: Eat Her... Bones and All [MALE, December 1954]
Robert Silverberg (as Norman Reynolds): Trapped by Mau Mau Terror [EXOTIC ADVENTURES, 1959]
Josh Alan Friedman: Walter Wager Interview
Walter Wager: Please God, Help Me Break Out [MALE, November 1958]
Vic Pate: Chewed to Bits by Giant Turtles [MAN’S LIFE, May 1957]
Jim McDonald: Grisly Rites of Hitler’s Monster Flesh Stripper [MAN’S STORY, March 1965]
George Majari: Calypso: Is It Pornography in Hi-Fi? [GUSTO, October 1957]
Robert Silverberg (as David Challon): 50 Days as an Amazon Love Slave [SIR!, November 1959]
Josh Alan Friedman: Mario Puzo Interview
Walter Kaylin: The Stewardess ‘Call Girl Slave’ Ring [FOR MEN ONLY, December 1971]
Jane Dolinger: Girl Crusoe [ESCAPE TO ADVENTURE, March 1959]
Ken Krippene: I Married a Jungle Savage [SIR!, November 1959]
Dr. Robert H.: I Went Insane for Science [MAN’S MAGAZINE, August 1956]
Robert F. Dorr: "Ghost Bear" That Terrorized a Town [MALE, February 1975]
Lawrence Block (as Sheldon Lord): Just Window Shopping [MAN’S MAGAZINE, December 1962]
E. C. Schurmacher: I Was a Slave of the Savage Blonde [HUNTING ADVENTURES, 1956]
Joanne Beardon: I Went to a Lesbian Party [ALL MAN, May 1964]
Carl Evans: Monkey Madness [MALE, August 1953]
Bruce Jay Friedman: Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos

Sheldon Lord: Kept

As you've noticed, I've been reading Lawrence Block's old sleaze novels lately. The quality hasn't been as good as Block's reputation would indicate, but as I'm writing an article about the reprint boom of old sleaze paperbacks, I wanted to try another one: Kept, as by Sheldon Lord (Midwood, 1960). Lord was a pseudonym Block used in his novels (such as Pads Are For Passion, reprinted as A Diet of Treacle), but then again this website says Kept was actually written by Donald Westlake.

I couldn't tell. Kept could be by either one as the prose is smooth and very readable, just as both Westlake and Block can deliver. I read the book in Finnish translation (it was published as Maksettu rakastaja in the mid-sixties by Finnbooks in their short-lived series called Domino) and for all I know, it could be abridged or altered in any other way.


I was rather disappointed in Kept, because I went in looking for a criminous content, but there was none! This could've been a romance paperback, save for the fact that there are some candid sex scenes (candid for their own time, mind you) and that the lead character is a man. The book starts off promisingly, a bit like Postman Always Rings Twice, with a beautiful, young woman picking up a hobo man off the side of the road. But in the end nothing much happens: the boy gets the girl and that's about it. There's some fascinating Mad Men territory being covered here, though: penthouse luxury, new hi-fi stuff, well-cut suits, bossing women around at the office, drinks consumed almost at all times, all that.

But all in all, I'm not sure if I share the Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks conviction this should be reprinted. (But take this with a grain of salt, since I read the translation.)

The great original cover is by Paul Rader.

By the way, here's a link to the Finnish Domino series. Any comments on the books published in it?

Lawrence Block: A Diet of Treacle

This is one of the old Lawrence Block sleaze titles Hard Case Crime has been reprinting. Killing Castro was somewhat disappointing, and so was this. A Diet of Treacle is a ménage à trois between two beatnik guys (one a loser, other a criminal) and a girl who'd like to be a beatnik. The book is not really a crime novel, it's more a novel with a crime. The actual plot starts only after the middle part, but Block writes so smoothly it's not a huge problem. The problem lies with the fact that the plot is too thin after all - and that there's too much of the beatnik slang, with everything being cool, solid or hip. The ending is good, though, real noir stuff.


The book was first published as Pads Are For Passion (Beacon, in the early sixties), but A Diet of Treacle (name snatched from Lewis Carroll) was Block's original title. This kind of information is something I'd really like Hard Case Crime would tell at their website. The book was first published under the Sheldon Lord by-line and I already started reading Sheldon Lord's Kept that was written also by Block. Seems pretty solid (sic) by the first 50 pages.

The Thrill Kill Books: Getting Off and Bad Thoughts

 I finished two books last weekend that shared the same theme: the thrill of a good kill. Both dealt the theme very differently, the other one was very humorous and free-wheeling and the other one developed some real horror out of it.

The latter was Dave Zeltserman's Bad Thoughts that was first published in hardcover by Five Star, but is now available as an e-book. Zeltserman sure knows how to spin a dark tale, as has been witnessed by his earlier books (of which I think Killer is the best - at least of those I've read). And boy oh boy, is Bad Thoughts dark! The killer in Bad Thoughts has a dubious gift of being able to work in the dreams of the people he wants to hurt and seems like there's no escape out of the situation. There are some moments that ask for the suspension of disbelief, but Zeltserman brings the thing to a well-balanced conclusion and does it with verve, through a simple-looking style that maintains the hardboiled noir style that's so familiar to Zeltserman's readers. In the hands of a mediocre serial killer writer, this would merely be a thriller. Now it's something else entirely.

Lawrence Block's hardcover Hard Case Crime outing Getting Off makes the same thing very differently. It tells about a young and attractive woman who kills men to revenge the abuse her father inflicted upon her and does it with great pleasure, first having sex with the men. Block pulls no punches in this tale that develops into a parody of serial killer novels. He turns the clichés upside down: there's nothing inherently bad in getting your joy out of killing people. The book's highly erotic at the same time and it's no wonder Block has used his early Jill Emerson pseudonym in this (though this is much seedier stuff than anything by "Jill Emerson"). There are some moments in the book that feel forced, as a couple of details in the lesbian romance, but I can see Block chuckling to himself while writing those scenes.

The books are very different in depicting the reasons for the thrill kill violence: Zeltserman says there's no reason, the guy was just born broken and it was a pity no one made anything to stop him, Block claims the abuse of the young girl made her what she is today. Seems like the Zeltserman explanation is more fashionable now, as the psychoanalytic-tinged theory of traumatized sexual behaviour has faded out of academic fashion.

Dave Zeltserman's Bad Thoughts has also the distinction of being the first e-book I've read. I loaded the free Kindle Reader on my portable and I've been snatching some free e-books whenever they've been available. As a reading experience I thought it was okay, but something I'd think should be done with the real device. But as of yet, I don't own one. As more and more interesting noir and hardboiled books are coming out only as e-books, getting a Kindle or a Nook or something similar seems something I need to do. Just too pity e-books are so expensive here in Finland.

Lawrence Block: Grifter's Game

I've never actually read much Lawrence Block. I once read one of his later Matt Scudder novels and I really didn't care for it. I'll have to try one of them again. I've liked two of his Tanner novels, even though they are very light. A Bernie Rhodenbarr I had to quit in the middle. And then I've read Killing Castro.

I finally got around to reading the first book Hard Case Crime put out, Block's Grifter's Game that was originally published as Mona (Fawcett Gold Medal 1961). It really shows Block was a good writer even when he was very young (he was 23 when this was published, and I think this is his first, at least under his own name), the text is fluent and very readable. Block's dialogue is paced well and crispy. It's too bad there's so little of it in the middle parts - the narrative turns pretty much into the protagonist's monology. The protagonist is a con man in his late twenties. He's quite sympathetic, though he's a heel of the worst kind, seducing women to to live on their money for days or for months and then dropping them. There are no good people in the world of Grifter's Game, which, combined with the pretty nasty ending, makes this a worthwhile noir novel.

Next off I'll be reading Block's Getting Off and Lucky at Cards. Why? I'm working on an article for a Finnish journal about sex and sleaze paperbacks. And because it's about time I start reading Lawrence Block.

Fidel Castro assassinated

Hard Case Crime has put out some very interesting reprints and obscurities. Lawrence Block's Killing Castro is probably of the latter kind. It's entertaining, but I'm not sure whether I could call it a forgotten classic. It's a story about five Americanos trying to kill Fidel Castro and trying to get 20,000 dollars as a reward. Some of them are professionals, some of them are idealists, some of them are just waiting around to die and trying to do something useful while dying.

Unlike another blogger said, I didn't find this tightly knit or narrated. It's more like a loose narrative, with just episodes following each other. Some of the episodes are more entertaining than others and Block creates some pretty good characters through dialogue and action. The fate of some of the characters was also entertaining and not something I anticipated.

In a weird narrative technique Block also interweaves the story with the history of real-life Castro and his rise to power. Without those parts the book would be one third shorter and I guess Block just typed them up to fill up the standard book-length. Block's view of Castro and Cuba before him seems pretty solid, though, and even if those bits irritated me, they provided some new information! 

The book is one of Block's rarest early pseudonymous efforts, published as "Lee Duncan" under the title Fidel Castro Assassinated. The publisher was Monarch, the year is 1961, and I think in this case the new cover is much better than the original! 

Crime novels worthy of reconsideration

The Rap Sheet had a wonderful idea: they asked several authors, critics and crime fiction bloggers what crime novel they thought had gone unnoticed or had been forgotten. You can see the results here; look also here: this blog archives all the posts about the subject.

I thought about posting to Rap Sheet's masterminds whether I could have my votes in, but didn't have time (and also suffered a stroke of low self-esteem), but here in Pulpetti I can do whatever I want and don't have to restrict only to one novel. I'll pick some up, mainly from memory and my 2000 book, Pulpografia, that introduces over 300 American pulp and paperback crime authors translated in Finnish. These are by some authors that are rarely, or maybe never, discussed on blogs and other venues highlighted by interest in noir and hardboiled.

W.T. Ballard: Murder Las Vegas Style (Belmont 1967): a misfortunate P.I. gets dragged in a triangle drama of deception and deceit

Jonathan Craig: So Young, So Wicked (Fawcett Gold Medal 1957): a mob hitman is hired to kill a 15-year old nymphette who lures the man into a web of deception

Ben Benson: Broken Shield (Mill 1955): quiet and wise police procedural about a young cop whose partner is killed

Tedd Thomey: Killer in White (Fawcett Gold Medal 1956): comes close to Jim Thompson in its depiction of evil dressed as a doctor

Al Conroy: Devil in Dungarees (Fawcett Crest 1960): ultrahardboiled book about a big caper gone hugely wrong

Stephen Ransome: I'll Die For You (Doubleday 1959): an old pulpster, Frederick C. Davis, being in top of his form in the late fifties' hardback mystery novel under a pseudonym

Floyd Mahannah: The Golden Goose (Duell 1951): almost a deconstruction of a P.I. novel, very unorthodox crime novel about a bad P.I. whose's assigned for his last job; almost as good as this is Mahannah's other novel, The Golden Widow (1956)

Walt Sheldon: Gold Bait (Gold Medal 1973): only crime paperback I know that's been written in the form of letters and diary entries (if there's another one, please let me know!), beside that it's also a fast-paced adventure novel about trying to find a gold treasure

Richard Deming: Hit and Run (Pocket 1960): a sleazy, half-criminal P.I. is hired by a woman to kill her husband; they keep the body in ice in the bedroom - wanna guess where they get their ice for the drinks?

Zekial Marko (John Trinian): Scratch a Thief (Gold Medal 1961): a melancholy take on a prisoner just released from prison

Bruno Fischer: Run For Your Life (Gold Medal 1953): a chase novel about a man who's being framed for a killing, a surprisingly political novel about the McCarthy era

Charles Alverson: Fighting Back (Bobbs-Merrill 1973): a quiet mob novel about a restaurant owner who won't back down in front of Mafia

John Jakes (as William Ard): Give Me This Woman (Monarch 1962): very hardboiled and violent book about a sleazy P.I. who's on the hunt for a psychopath journalist (who's on his honeymoon with a dead woman in the trunk of his car!) and who's being hunted by a knife-wielding psycho killer

I think any of these could merit being reprinted by someone like Hard Case Crime or Stark House Press or any other small press that does noir and hardboiled reprints.

There's also the case of being Finnish and in Finland there's not much market for hardboiled crime fiction (even though Chandler and Hammett have been quite popular here and guys like Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane are being published to critical acclaim and to rather wide readerships). So there are several - dozens and dozens - authors who haven't had their due in Finland: Donald Westlake whose early hardboiled thrillers have been published only in obscure paperbacks and some not at all, Lawrence Block, Robert J. Randisi, etc. (I've been writing about this earlier here and here.)

A healthy break from Ridley Pearson and Sidney Sheldon

I decided to let my own entries in the thriller reference book rest and took Lawrence Block's Tanner's Twelve Swingers (1967, a No Exit reprint from the nineties) from the shelf. It is indeed much better than anything I've read by the said writers. I'm no big fan of Block, but I've liked his early work.

Nothing much else here, except work. I was yesterday at the university library studying old Finnish pulp and other fiction mags and came up with quite a bunch of photocopies of old stories for possible reprints. It seems nowadays that typing is my most recent profession. I said to Elina that if someone asks about my hobbies, say, in an interview, I say: "I collect photocopies of stories from old fictionmags." (Now, what label should I have for this post? I say nothing substantial about Block and I don't really know what category the latter paragraph should belong to. I'll put up here a new ephemera label. My life is just a big piece of ephemera, so it's fitting.)