Scorpion Reef a.k.a. Gulf Coast Girl (Charles Williams, 1955)

I read Williams' debut novel Hill Girl a while ago and really liked it. I wish I had blogged about that one instead of Scorpion Reef, because the old maestro certainly deserves a more positive introductory post on this blog. But it is the end of the month, and I need to fill a self-imposed minimal monthly posts quota of at least one entry:)

Three-part structure with a somehow formulaic beginning in which our hero gets sucked into an intrigue that involves a beautiful blonde, her husband, a shitload of money, smuggled diamonds and a gang of ruthless gangsters. So, nothing really original, but I still liked it a lot. It's written with great skill in a very realistic style and with some excellent characterisations (the main bad guy is pretty fucking menacing!). A true page-turner, even though it has to be said that the plot is a bit simplistic and takes too long to get going.

This first half sets the stage for the central part. Our hero and freshly widowed Shannon (btw, by now, she has become the love of his life) are sailing on a small boat accompanied by a couple of mean gangsters on some sort of treasure hunt. Confined space, the heat of the sun, a handful of co-dependent individuals linked by love/hate/fear/greed/mistrust/etc., and with a clock relentlessly ticking,... should be a winning formula for a superb psychological thriller...

Unfortunately, it doesn't happen this way; instead, it rapidly goes downhill. There's too much emphasis on our damned lovers while the action is almost totally neglected. Psychological parts are naive at best and sometimes even laughable. There's a scene in which the bad guy hands a loaded gun to our hero, knowing that he hasn't got the guts to use it...

But as much as this middle part is a letdown after the promising opening, the worst is yet to come. I would dare guess that Mr Williams wanted to wrap up the novel with a surprising twist, so in the several following chapters, we need to endure some ultra-corny romance that serves as a basis for that unexpected ending. But it's too little, too late for my liking. After 190 pages, I was relieved to finally reach the end.

But I'm not giving up on Williams. I think my next one will be Dead Calm. Saw the movie with Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill ages ago, and as far as I can remember, it has a similar setup to this one. Or maybe I should go with "Talk of the Town" or "Hell Hath no Fury"? Surely books with such cool covers cannot be bad? :)

4/5 for the first eight chapters, 2.5 for the following six and 1.5 for the last three combined, equal to 2.31, but I'll round it to

2.5 / 5

Facts:

Hero:
Bill Manning - former writer, now a freelance diver.

Location:
The first half takes place in a fictitious coastal town called Sanport, while the rest unfolds on the vast open sea.

Body count: 4
And Bill is pretty philosophical about the demise of the hoodlums:  They lived by violence. They had died the same way. It was just an industrial accident.

The object of desire:
"What's in the plane?" I asked.
"Diamonds," Barclay answered. "You might say a considerable amount of diamonds."
"Whose?"
"Ours, obviously."

Dames:
The very first encounter between Bill and Shannon is pretty cool:

I was checking over some diving gear on the forward deck when a car rolled out of the end of the shed and stopped beside mine. It was a couple of tons of shining Cadillac, and there was a girl in it.
Or maybe a better way of putting it would be to say a girl came out of the shed, wearing a Cadillac. You'd see her first.

And I'll spare you all the superlatives in that corny last act...

Blackouts:
When they turned me loose at last and went away my knees folded and I fell forward on my face. Wind roared in my throat, and my mouth was full of sand.

Title: 
Scorpion Reef is where our party of four is headed to salvage diamonds from the sunken plane. However, I think it has a more symbolic meaning, something inescapable (think: scorpion, death). Anyway, it's a pretty cool title, and definitely better than "Gulf Coast Girl", under which it was republished a year later by Dell.

Edition:
Pan, 1958

Cover:
Typical British cover. We get a pretty generic fight scene instead of some sexy illustration of Russian-Finish-Irish tall blonde Shannon in a swimsuit. And look at the facial expression of the guy standing. Hillarious!

Cool lines:
"Well, I wanted to see everything before I died, and now I have. A man over thirty who still believes women.""

Due Or Die (Frank Kane, 1961)

I like the concept of a P.I. being hired by mobsters. It isn't terribly original, but it's still unusual enough to be effective when done well. It does work in this one, maybe because there's a cute twist. A group of ageing has-been tough guys hires our hero because somebody is trying to sell them protection! Yep - some "shake artist" threatens to wipe them out one by one unless they come up with a neat little sum of a million bucks!

It's too bad that the story doesn't evolve much beyond this premise. Only a couple of new characters are introduced outside this closed group of six people, so it gets clear pretty soon that the culprit will be one old fart double-crossing his mates. Liddell's M.O. doesn't help this non-development either. Our main guy basically stirs shit up by doing nothing more than simply hanging around and making bad guys nervous. You know, so they would make a mistake...

But it's still cool. The pace is relentless, and numerous scenes either don't make much sense, their timing is off, or some details simply don't add up logically when you stop to think about them. But the trick is that the reader doesn't stop to think about them. I'll give you a couple of amusing examples.

There's a body in the morgue that the local sheriff wants to dispose of by cremating it ASAP to destroy the evidence that would prove this guy was shot and hadn't committed suicide. The contrary proof is the angle of the bullet's entry point into a wound, so Liddell and his side-kick Tommy Thompson at first even contemplate stealing the fucking corpse!?! Luckily for them, Johhny does get the Eureka "Pictures!" moment (but doesn't share it with Tommy), so he spends 10 minutes setting up the shot and then another 10 minutes searching for the camera. After failing to find one (in a morgue!?!), he admits defeat and finally explains the whole setup to Tommy. It is a good thing he does so because it turns out that Tommy owns a Polaroid and needs just 15 minutes to fetch it from his home. So, here's a lesson for all you private investigators out there: do some brainstorming with your assistants and share the ideas!

The other example involves a bomb! Johnny is chosen to deliver the payoff money, but the "shake artist" replaces the money in the bag with the bomb before handing it to our delivery boy. This whole bomb business is entirely unknown to us, but Johnny has a hunch. Even more - he's pretty sure when the thing will go off, so he vehemently drives around with this bag in his trunk before burying it into the ground. Lesson #2: if you have a hunch there's a ticking bomb in your car's trunk, pull the fuck over and check it out. Otherwise, you're a dumb-ass and not bad-ass!

Cool, entertaining stuff. I just wish it didn't have to end with one of those silly but almost mandatory suspects roundups...

3/5

Facts:

Hero:
Johnny Liddell, P.I. - action man, fast on the trigger and relatively (10 minutes) fast on thinking. But, to be honest, he could definitely be fed a few witty lines. His verbal exchanges with women are especially corny.  Check this:

"I hope you know what you're doing."
Liddell smiled grimly. "I hope you get your hope."

"I liked your act," Liddell told her.
She looked him over with frank interest. "You should see what I do for an encore."
"That an invitation?"
The blonde shrugged. "Why don't you try taking me up on it?"
"Maybe I will. But if I did, I couldn't just go asking for the chocolate dish with the white frosting."

The bad guy(s):
Las Palmas sheriff:
"Under him, law enforcement was satisfyingly broadminded"

...and his two henchmen:
Behind him, he could hear the sheriff expressing a highly censorable, and at best debatable, opinion of his two men, their personal habits, their legitimacy, and the possible canine element in their immediate families.

Location:
It starts briefly in Johnny's New York but then moves to the fictitious town called Las Palmas, where "the only unforgivable crime was to be broke".

Body count: 5
But let's make it 6 because:

"What'll they do to him?"
Liddell shrugged. "Take back their money. Then they'll turn him loose and let him run." The elevator whooshed to a stop, the doors opened. "The syndicate will put a pencil mark around his name and he'll be a fair hit any place in the world. He won't live much longer this way, but it'll seem a lot longer. In the end, he couldn't be deader."

The object of desire:
Preservation of their lives (and a million bucks) for mobsters and clearing his name for Johnny.

Dames:
The voice on the other end was the husky kind that does things to the spine. "This is Lee Loomis. I don't know if you know me-"
"The Lee Loomis?"
There was a pleased sound from the other end of the phone. "A Lee Loomis. I hope it's the one you mean."
"You headlined the show at the Cuernavaca a couple of months ago? That Lee Loomis?"
"How nice of you to remember."
"How could I forget?"

There are two other gun molls, but (unfortunately) they don't get much exposure.

Blackouts:
He briefly loses consciousness during the interrogation of the two sheriff's bulls but kicks the shit out of them when he comes back to his senses.

Title: 
It sounds cool, but it doesn't have much to do with the story. At least, I didn't think that anything was so due that someone would have to die.

Edition:
Dell, First Edition, March 1961. It is numbered 8174, but when I Google it, I get an A. Betram Chandler's "Spartan Planet". Strange... I don't own some special collector's item paperback with the printing error, do I?

Cover:
She was tall. Her red hair was piled on top of her head and a green silk gown did its best to cover her lush figure. Her lips were full, moist soft; her eyes green and slightly slanted.

And again towards the end:

She was wearing the same nile-green dressing gown she had on when he first came to the bungalow. It was still doing the same wonderful job of showcasing her figure.

Cool lines:
Liddell turned to face the man who was leaning against the back of the cage. His eyes were tired, his suit wrinkled, but the right hand sunk in the pocket of his jacket gave him authority...
"Who are you?"
"The welcoming committee," the tired-eyed man drawled. He nodded to the gun. "Take it out with your left hand. Two fingers."
...
"Heavy piece."
"Makes my coat hang hang straight."

And a couple of threats. I'm not sure that I get the first one:

"Okay, buddy. One move out of you and this is Cinderella's coach, only midnight's never coming."

The next one I do get, but it's still a bit silly:

"Move one finger while I'm driving and I'll put a hole in you big enough to drive a Mack truck through."

Danger Is My Line (Stephen Marlowe, 1960)

I read Drum Beat - Madrid recently and quite liked it. Nice mix of a private eye mystery and spy thriller with a decent story (there are actually two of them) and a bit of a globetrotting plus some sex thrown in. This one follows such a template but is far inferior.

The opening part, let's call it the "P.I." section, which takes place in Washington, is okay, and, although it's pretty short, it sets things up nicely. A guy found not guilty of murder confesses the crime and sells his story to some newspaper publisher. There's also a beautiful blonde, and we don't need to wait long for the first corpse to appear. It didn't exactly grab me by the throat, but it wasn't bad.

But then it just goes from pretty good to somewhat decent to kind of okay-ish to... a bit boring, and towards the end, it's just a struggle to get over the line.

The story is too fragmented, and numerous action scenes are too static. The damn thing hardly moves anywhere, and it is usually in the wrong direction when it does. And you know that the writer wasn't very confident (dare I say skilful?) when, in the middle of the novel, you come across a two-page recap that reminds the readers what the hell they've been reading so far.

In short - disappointment. Stephen Marlowe and his Chester Drum post were long overdue on this blog, but I wish it would be for some other book. This one is memorable only for one of the most idiotic takes on the Cold War (see 'Object of Desire' section of the facts below) and maybe also for some pretty ridiculous LSD trip descriptions.

2.5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
His eyes examined my card for the first time.  It said I was Chester Drum. I did confidential investigations, I had an office in the Farrell Building on F Street in downtown Washington and could be seen with or without appointment or any way at all.

Bad guy(s):
"He runs the show. You want a name for it, I'll give you one. He's the chief hatchetman for the Reds. He can make men dance on five continents."

Location: 
Washington, Reykjavik, Akureyri (400 km from Reykjavik), Stockholm

Body count:  
9 + Wally's dog Benards. Interestingly, the main villain survives in this one and only gets away with a broken arm.

The object of desire: 
Preventing a fishing war between Iceland and the UK that the Commies would like to exploit.

Huh? Let's see how this gets explained to our hero: 

"And Chet, if the key to world mastery, thanks to intercontinental missiles whose shortest route lies over the Pole, is the Arctic Ocean, then the key to the Arctic is Iceland, Now do you see where we stand?"

Makes sense now, doesn't it?

Dames: 
Maja Kolding, a small blonde with ice-blue eyes only a little colder than the Rhone glacier. Unfortunately, after the opening, she's mostly out of the picture.

Baroness Margaretha:
She was not quite  twice the size of Anita Ekberg, and all of it in splendid proportion... She was that kind of woman. Her eyes were green, her large breasts fought against the white wisp of the Bikini top, her hips, bare for a couple of devastating inches above the Bikini bottom, were broad and firm-fleshed, her long legs were as tanned as a beach-boy's and as shapely as a Grecian statue's. She was an insolent-eyed, thick-lipped sex-bomb of a woman, to end all insolent-eyed, thick-lipped sex-bombs. she was probably a Swede.

Stewardess Freya, a fine-boned, almost delicate. brunette:
It was as if there were two Freyas - the one pleasantly and lightly seductive who did all the talking, the other silent and deeper with an almost astonishing understated desire and need. Alone either one of them would have been a memorable occasion for a man who likes such memorable occasions. Together they could have stirred even an octogenarian.

And when both Freyas finally have sex with Drum, the whole thing is described pretty - oh well - octogenarian-ish:

It was swift and explosive and then it built - a slow mounting fusion of lips, arms, legs, bodies - to magic.

And to conclude this section - there's a cool blurb on the cover saying: "She was a daydream turned into a nightmare - the most lethal beauty Chester Drum had ever met"

Nice one indeed, although I'm not 100% sure whether it refers to the Baroness or to Freya.

Blackout: 
She held it [the rifle] by the metal barrel and was swinging it like a baseball bat. I dove for the ground and got halfway down before the heavy walnut stock took the top of my head off.

The peculiar thing about this one is that afterwards, Drum still manages to walk for three hours before collapsing. But let us not question this too much since even "Dr. Ericksson says it sometimes happens like that, even with severe concussion." 

Anyway, he loses his consciousnesses twice more, but neither one is especially memorable:
Dark sky split and spun sickeningly a hundred and eighty degrees until it was beneath my feet, and I plunged in,

The blow drove me to my knees and a dark closed on my brain, squeezing out consciousness.

Title: 
One of the early Drum titles in the form of:

Murder/Trouble/Terror/Violence/Homicide/Danger/Death/...
is my 
Meat/Dish/Name/Trade/Business/Comrade/Pay/Job/...

It's fair to say that it is one of the coolest. Except for, of course, "Killers Are My Meat"!

Edition:  
Gold Medal #947, First Printing, January 1960

Cover: 
An iconic and super cool illustration by Barye Phillips.

Cool lines: 

With her left hand she shut the door and leaned on it. That made her right-handed, because in her right hand, and pointing it where such things will be pointed, she held a small, snub-barreled revolver, a belly-gun.
The phone went on ringing. the shower went on hissing and drumming. I went on living - for a while.

Don't Call Tonight a.k.a. End of a Call Girl (William Campbell Gault, 1958)

Had a pretty shitty streak of book choices lately, ranging from an ultra boring and annoying Perry Mason to a couple of old British spy thrillers, so I just wanted to get back on track with some classic PI stuff. I had read Gault's "Million Dollar Tramp" not long ago, so I knew what to expect with this one.

And I did get the classical detective stuff that I'd wanted. However, unfortunately, except for my favourite type of opening (a PI hired by a damsel in distress in his shabby office), there's nothing really positive to report about this one.

The biggest problem is our protagonist. He's simply not very imaginative and totally lacks initiative. At times he gets so lost that instead of doing proper gumshoeing, he reads Western paperbacks (btw - approved) or goes playing golf (not fucking cool). He simply goes out on a stakeout on one occasion because "I had nothing else to do"?!? And even though he works with the police, he gets most of the information from newspapers and radio.

It gets worse. Or maybe it's better since it's a bit comical. When he finally gets a hold of the suspect, who might be able to give him some useful clues, our man Joe fucks up the interrogation and subsequently gets so frustrated that he beats this poor schmuck so hard that the guy ends up in a hospital. Not exactly Marlowe-esque, right? Therefore, due to his inefficient techniques, it takes him over 150 pages to obtain a vital clue. He goes for lunch and accidentally runs into one of his fellow sleuthing colleagues who investigated one of Joe's current suspects in a totally unrelated case. During the chat, he then opens Joe's eyes to information that both he and the police have somehow overlooked. Eureka! And again - not exactly Marlowe-esque...

A bit amateurish but still bearable. In a way, it is even amusing. But coupled with a corny romance involving one of his suspects and topped with some lame self-pitying midlife crisis philosophy, it proved to be too much for me.

Not good, not bad, just another formulaic novel. I think I'm probably a bit pissed off and mean towards Joe because of the climax. You see, the twist has to do with homosexuality. I'm certainly no prude, don't care much about political correctness and try not to judge old books from the modern perspective, but at the same time, reading about the queers, degenerates, and half-people,... did leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, for fuck's sake - half people!?

Okay, if you were reading Perry Mason before this one, but otherwise...

2.5/5

Facts:

Hero:
"My name is Puma," I said.
She stood in the doorway of her apartment and looked at me without interest. "Is that supposed to mean anything to me?"

Location:
L.A.

Body count: 

2

Dames:
Jean Talsman, the call girl. Her madame Mrs Dora Diggert. Her flatmate (and Joe's playmate) is Mary Cefalu, the model. Mrs Rafferty, the red-headed secretary with a shady past.

Blackouts:
Redness flooded my brain, but I was still conscious as I went down, conscious and powerless. As soon as I went prone, they began to kick me.
The last thing I heard, before a shoe caught my chin and brought oblivion, was the voice of the man whose throat I had held.
"God-damned snooping shamus," he was muttering.

Title: 
I have no idea where the "calling tonight" business came from. There was no fatal phone call in this one. The original American title "End of a Call Girl" is a bit more appropriate and accurate. The call girl in question survives this one, but she's now engaged to be married, so that would make the end of her as a call girl.

Edition:
Mayflower B-39, 1962

Cover:
Nice colours and lovely Kim Novak lookalike blonde. The original one with the Marilyn Monroe lookalike doesn't look bad, either.

Cool lines: 

/

Dolls are Deadly (Brett Halliday, 1960)

Pretty cool opening. Shayne is in his office nursing a glass of his Hennessy cognac, working on the dilemma of putting out his cigarette. He opts for the hardest of the three available choices by swinging his long legs to the floor and thumbing it out in an ashtray. And then the trouble comes knocking on his office door. Only this time, the trouble isn't shaped as some beautiful damsel in distress. The distressed one is a muscle man of the local loan shark, and there are two reasons for his disturbed mental state. Someone has sent him a couple of voodoo dolls!

After a mere five pages (of pretty large print), our shamus throws the big man out and reminds his secretary (who stopped typing and looked up reproachfully):

"I draw the line, Lucy, at keeping a professional murderer from being murdered. I know the law doesn't, but I have a code of ethics which I don't think it would hurt the law to embrace."

And then off he goes fishing with his Cuban friend Sylvester!

Pretty funny, I liked it. But in the very next chapter, things start to go downhill a bit. His little Cuban captain is being exploited by three shady characters, and it doesn't take long before he ends up under his ship tied to an anchor. Which is not that good. I mean, obviously, it's pretty fucking bad for Sylvester, but what bothered me was that personal crap got involved, and I don't like that in P.I. stories. However, on a positive note, at least it's not family crap which is the worst kind of personal crap.

But I'm digressing. So, we have two unrelated cases that our sleuth needs to solve. It won't be much of a spoiler to reveal that it turns out they are not unrelated. Nothing unusual, of course, about that. It follows well-established and proven formulas, and we read such stuff all the time. What is worth mentioning is that these two affairs are linked by sheer coincidence. Protagonists of both sub-plots simply attend to Madame Swoboda's mystic seances.

Unlike coincidences combined with personal/family shit is usually a recipe for disaster (sometimes for laughter), but it still works in this one. The story is quite complex, and it culminates in a cool twist, reminiscent of a Ross Macdonald-esque tragedy.

I also liked the style. This is one of the first Shayne novels that were ghostwritten (according to this website by Walter Ryerson Johnson). The writer attempted to capture the original style of the 1940s and succeeded remarkably well (check out the 'dames' and 'cool lines' in the facts below). But at the same time, it also feels like it was penned out pretty quickly without much reviewing and/or rewriting. Some scenes simply don't make much sense and feel like leftover ideas that the author forgot to drop when trying to reach his word count before the deadline. Why would Shayne take his secretary to an interview with his client and then leave her waiting in his car?

Charming. The coolest Shayne I can remember.

4/5

Facts:

Hero:
"Michael Shayne?" Ed repeated quickly. He looked at Shayne, as did Slim and Vince, from the wheelhouse. "You mean," Ed said with unsteadiness in his voice, "you're Michael Shayne, the private detective?"
"The same," Sylvester said proudly. "My friend, he is famous everywhere."
"Well, I'm damned!" Ed smoothed his angel's halo of graying hair. "Miami's best-known detective on our boat. Wait'll I tell the folks back home."

Bad guys:
It was rumored that he had known Lucky Luciano before Luciano was deported to Italy, and had since visited with the dope and vice czar there. However, as yet no crimes of consequence had been hung on De Luca by local or federal lawmen, for he was cunning and capable as well as ruthless.

Location:
Miami

Body count: 

3

Dames:
There's Clarissa Milford with a smooth golden head... tall, but her bones were light... she gave the impression of delicate fragility... she seemed to be one of those rare feminine creatures without imperfection.

But the real star is the mystic Madame Swoboda. Check out her anatomical details: 

...ample and worldly breasts, extraordinary long lashes, slim fingers, aquiline nose. Her features were regular, her skin clear and fair, her face beautiful and tantalizing. 

Blackouts:

/

Title: 
Someone is sending around voodoo dolls, and some recipients end up dead.

Edition:
Jove Books, May 1989

Cover:
A horribly generic photo, so I'm also including the original McGinnis illustration. 

Cool lines:
In any case, since murder unaccountably was breathing down the necks of some people, a talk with Sylvester was strongly indicated.

Coxman #25: The Penetrator (Troy Conway, 1971)

Who's Afraid of The Big Bad Russian Wolf?
Certainly not Rod Damon!

Unlike my first two Coxmans, this one doesn't start in his cabinet at Wisconsin College with our stud "studying" the species of the opposite sex and being interrupted by his superior. Instead, the entire opening chapter is dedicated to introducing his soon-to-be adversary, Countess Marie Antoinetta Rubinov. You can read more about her in the facts below, but for now - just to keep your interest - let me add that she has had over seventeen thousand men and was "mounted" by a heat-crazed horse on her tenth birthday! Yes - welcome to the crazy and sexed world of Troy Conway!

She is briefed about her assignment while being fucked with a dildo for several hours. The whole thing (I mean the assignment, of course) is a bit odd, but it involves a British super-spy called Penetrator. I think she is supposed to track him down and use her female charms to convince him to change sides. Or something like that.

It's somewhat unclear, and although amusing, it doesn't significantly advance the plot. So, Mr Avallone switches over to a proven formula. In the second chapter, we find Rod in his Wisconsin University cabinet, working on one of his sex theories with the assistance of his student Sarena. And being interrupted by Walrus-Moustache - Party-pooper, Killjoy, Bad News and Joe Btsplk Number One.

Rod's briefing is more conventional, and his assignment also includes the mysterious Penetrator, but there's another problem he must deal with. He needs to find out as much as possible about the "cobalt special - a granddaddy of all bombs".

Rod is now promptly off to Moscow, and this is where the plot ends before it has even really begun. For the following hundred pages or so, there's nothing but fucking. And it's cool, but it does get repetitive. There are several attempts to revive the story (dead spy, assassination attempt). However, they don't amount to much, so Mr Avallone just wraps the whole thing up with a couple of surprising twists (for lack of a better expression) and a little reminder that this is not a spy story anyway.

And also tells us in his unique way to go fuck ourselves in case we expected one:

Spying just isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
But sex is.
And it's the only crack in the world that I, Rod Damon, will ever be interested in.
Local Russian spy rings, please copy!
And why you're at, go screw yourselves.
Da, da!

Da, da?

3/5

Facts:

Hero:
You see, I'm kind of the male Rubinov of the West when you get right down to it. A pure born satyr, first class. Only thing is I'm not sick about it. It's no hang-up.
More a hang-down, you could say. Ahem.

Bad guys:
"And who is the General?"
Him I hadn't heard of. Aside from Motors, Electric, etcetera.
Walrus-Moustache smiled at me almost fondly.
"I hope you never meet him, Damon. Few people that we know have. And lived to tell the tale. A man of mystery. A physical giant of over six feet six. Handsome as a statue, older than time itself. He drove a tank in World War I and led armies in World War II. And now he is the head of anything Russian that requires violence, liquidation and aggressive action. He is their executioner, as it were.

Driving tanks and leading the armies, but only a few people have seen him?

Location: 
"Go ahead. Hit me with it. Tibet? Nope, Alaska? The moon-" 
"No, Damon. Russia."
I opened my eyes and in spite of myself, I felt a quickening of interest. You see, lately I've been on a Russian kick. Culturally, I'm kind of stuck on Redland. What with the Moiseyev Ballet, their opera, all those great-looking ballerinas and busty peasant dolls - in fact, I'd been toying with doing a thesis on Russian females. You know - Better Bed Than Red - or something like that.

Body count: 2
Not counting the dead CIA spy William Watts and a bunch of scientists that crashed down in Russian foothills in some deluxe private charter jet. But none of this has anything to do with the operation Penetrator. At least I couldn't make a connection.

Anyway. As usual, let's instead go through Rod's sexual conquests. More fun.

Sarena #1
As mentioned, his student Sarena is the first one. He deflowers her, and she comes back the very same night for more action (she couldn't study after THE experience). But she's not that inexperienced (she was natural) because she starts the foreplay by sticking her tongue in Rod's ass! Once finished, she concludes, "You are not to be believed! I thought you were a mirage!"

Nosha 
Upon his arrival in Moscow, the commies send a call girl, Nosha, to his room. This "steamrolling female tank" fucks him savagely, but then he gives her the complete treatment (I reamed it, steamed it and dry-cleaned it.) that includes a couple of his famous "sex ploys". And this is where we get the only Avallone LOL/WTF trademark moment. Check this:

Things got so worked up I once mistook her right ear for the natural target but she didn't howl or pull back but considered it another innovation until I explained my muscular mistake to her.[The Coolest!]

Do you get it!? I almost missed it the first time and had to reread and decipher it. Anyway, after they are finished, she just utters, "You are not bad, Comrade. Not bad at all. In  fact, you are in a class by yourself."

Orgy at the Smirnski School of Psychology with "the finest scholastic specimens"
Rod is undercover in Russia as a visiting professor at Smirnski School of Psychology, where he teaches cadets of the Cosmonaut Space Agency his "Sex and Weightlessness" seminar. You know, to make sure they know how to fuck in outer space. In the very first lecture, there's a brief introduction (8 Ivans and 4 quintessential babes) that ends with:

"All right! Now, select your partners. Two males to one female. And let's go. Fornicate! As best or however you can. And I warn you - I'm watching - I'm taking notes - and I'll ask questions later."

Ina the Ballerina
On his way back to the hotel, he runs into Ina (torrid tomato)... who btw is the only Russian person he knows... and they end up doing the Wanton Waltz the whole night:

"Ah, Rodski - " she murmured happily as we careened around her bedroom floor. "You are Nijinsky, Nureyev - with something extra added - what drive you have! What extension!"

In limbo
Rod is just waiting for something to happen over the next three days and keeps his rod busy, spending his days with students and his nights with Nosha.

Six Three
This idle period ends with the appearance of Six Three, his contact agent. Who has a little anatomical problem:
"I am very large down there, you see, It takes a big man to fill me, As you will see should you take on my problem."

He, of course, takes her problem on sooner as he can say Shostakovitch, and two pages later, we are treated with this unforgettable line:  
IT FITS! GREAT JUMPING TROTSKY - IT FITS!". 

To which he replies with yet another one of those inner monologues spoken in Avallone language: 
"Of course, it did. Pooh-pooh and tut-tut."

And the scene ends with her simple:
"Comrade Demon - I love you - "

Rod-Manya history-maker
Everything until this moment was just a build-up to Rod's encounter with the Countess, aka the Silver Hair, aka Manya. So when this historic moment arrives, it is first adequately introduced:

BOOMMMMMMMMMM!
No, that's not an elephant breaking wind.
That's the sound of Rod Damon and Silver Hair meeting on even ground in the dark of a bedroom. A Rod-Manya history-maker.
A most historic occasion in the annals of the Coxman.

Then it goes on for several pages in such a manner:
"- ohmylenintrotskymarxgodddd - " you are a man among men - truly, you are a might bull - ohmylord - againagain - and againagainagainagainagainagainagainagainnnnnnnaaahhhhh!"
"You're repeating yourself, Manya."
"Of course I am! And I want you to repeat yourself! A dozen times over - oh, Comrade - a whole troop of infantrymen have never given me so much pleasure - you are a marvel!"
"Thank you."
"You are welcome - come - do that once more - I tingle all over - and the itch is driving me insannnnnnnnnnne!"

But it suddenly totally anticlimaxes when Rod realises that she's, in fact, a nymphomaniac. He's appalled (She was sick for the stick, all right. And those are the worst kind!) and even gets pretty fucking mean to her:
"My baby shivers," she murmured. "Is Manya hurting him?"
"Not a chance, baby. Shut up and suck!"

Tumultuous orgy
The next day, he's half-dead after being ravaged the whole night by Three Six and Countess, so Comrade Professor's lecture at the institute is about reviving a dead man with sex. Tumultuous orgy follows.

Manya's punishment
And it was there, I swear by all I hold dear, that I perpetrated the most incredible love act of my life.
...Even Fay Wray got a better break than she did

In short: he fucks her to death.

Sarena #2
Similar to Had any Lately?, this one also finishes with the same girl he started with. Once he's back in the States, she demonstrates what she has learned from his books while he was away.

Dames:
Marie Antoinetta Rubinov. In a (very) condensed summary: the swingingest lady this side of a Playboy centerfold,... the most rapacious Russian nymphomaniac since Catherine the Great put a whole regiment of Cossacks through their nighttime paces,... Vavavavoom!... some mad artist's horniest fantasy...even a bishop with his Bible would burn with a fervor not precisely religious... a body of creamy white sculpture that Michelangelo might have chipped out of pure Carrara marble if he hadn't been one of the wrong kinds of boys... big, beautiful breasts with scarlet nipples that look like a bloody sacrifice on the snowy white mounds they adorn... perfect Venus... 

And so on and on... And on and fucking on. But if you still haven't grasped the idea, there's her whole dossier on page 9 (interesting reading). In essence, Marie Antoinetta Rubinov, nymphomaniac extraordinaire, was the greatest spy in Russia's history.

And there's a reference to some fantastic beauty specialising in sadomasochism named (check this!!!) Legget E. Split from "Coxman #9: The Man-Eater". I guess I know now which Coxeman book to pick up next.

Blackouts:
He blacks out during the bomb blast when he's about to join the orgy #1.

Title: 
"Ahhhhhhh, Boris," Marie cooed, "and what is my assignment, pet?" She kept grinding away with her thighs, like a coffee-maker.
"Stop The Penetrator!" Boris panted, exerting himself mightily behind his artificial manhood.
..."- And who is that - Rod Damon of America?"
As you can see, my fame precedes me. The world knows me...

"No, no, Manya - not he, though he is bad enough - this is a British superspy. The Penetrator -"...born in London... raised in America... has a fluent command of most Russian dialects... has been able to penetrate the deepest Russian military secrets for M2 of Britain and the CIA... genius... 

But Rod does know him well:

I knew all about The Penetrator. Someone who made James Bond seem like a kid playing with an erector set. Heard of him? Has the Lone Ranger heard of Tonto? Has Dick heard about Liz? Does Raquel Welch know that every man in the world wants to tag?

Although he's not very impressed a couple of pages later when he's shown Penetrator's photo: 
"He looks like Woody Allen in advanced stages of tuberculosis."

Edition:
Paperback Library 73-125

Cover: 
Rod with some hot Brigitte Bardot look-alike.

Cool lines: 
I'm telling you, you learn something new every day. In every way. With every lay.[The Coolest!]

He said nothing, merely grunting, but he did shove very hard behind her and she felt every delectable inch of that delightful instrument [=dildo] probing deeper into her soul.
"My sainted ass -" she screamed dropping exhausted on the bed, physically spent and battered.

"Shut up," I snarled, "and let's fornicate!"The Coolest!]

Masters of Noir - Volume 1 (1953-1959, published in 2010)

A great collection that starts slowly but gets better with each story.

Identity Unknown (Jonathan Craig, first published in Manhunt, August 1954)

Nice police procedural. All it takes for our detective is a pair of the victim's expensive shoes to establish her identity and, consequently, her killer. I liked its sharp style. There is no need for (too much) drama and emotions in a short story, right?

The Girl behind the Hedge (Mickey Spillane, first published in Manhunt, October 1953)

It seems like a logical decision for the editors of this compilation to shift gears with Spillane to follow up on the fairly plain opening story. You know - throw in a bit of sex and violence. No, sir.

I don't like writing this, and it's slowly beginning to look like I have something against good old Mickey, but this one is truly horrible. Instead of private eyes, cops, gangsters, dolls etc., we have a moral story about a couple of Wall Street brokers. One is good (?), and the other (surprise, surprise) is not so good. A real asshole, in fact, who some time ago stole the good one's fiancé. Hence, the poor sucker masterminded a diabolical revenge plan by making the asshole desperately fall in love with a mentally disabled girl and kill himself upon realising this.

And yes, that's it. Does it ring a bell? I forgot most about the classical adventures I read back in my primary school days, but this resembles one of those Count of Monte Cristo romantic revenge plots. I hope this is the case and that Spillane was fooling around and/or paying homage to some old master. But at least he stayed the classical Spillane as we know - one of his two protagonists calls this unfortunate girl a "hopeless imbecile". Fucking hell, what was this guy's problem??

Carrera's Woman (Ed McBain writing as Richard Marsten, first published in Manhunt, February 1953)

More like a Western, but still pretty cool. A bad guy vs. a good guy, and a woman playing a cat-and-mouse game in the scorching Mexican sun. Memorable for avoiding the obvious twist at the end.

Butcher (Richard S. Prather, first published in Manhunt, June 1954)

Can a good serial killer hunt story be squeezed into a short story? Probably not. But can a mediocre serial killer hunt story full of incredible coincidences be squeezed into a short story? Yes, definitely - this one is living proof. It's not all bad, and there are some okay moments and a decent twist at the end. Also good to see Shell Scott being a tough guy and not just some douchebag babbling about women.

Look Death in the Eye (Lawrence Block, first published in Saturn Web Detective Story Magazine, April 1959)

Another serial killer story! And it took exactly ten minutes to answer the above question and reject my hypothesis. Yes, writing a compelling short story about a serial killer is definitely possible. Although this one is not about the hunt, it is about the hunter instead.

It's Lawrence Block doing his Jill Emerson-ish erotic thing. But this time I was prepared and knew what to expect... and surprisingly I liked it. Liked it a lot, to be honest. Hot, a bit crazy, and also a little nasty! His recent one, The Girl with the deep Blue Eyes is now on my to-do list.

On a Sunday Afternoon (Gil Brewer, first published in Manhunt, January 1957)

A sexually repressed wife and her cowardly (impotent?) husband go to a family picnic after the Sunday mass, where they are attacked by a gang of juvenile delinquents. Cool stuff by the master.

Frame (Frank Kane, first published in Manhunt, December 1954)

Now we are getting somewhere! This one is a proper P.I. mystery with mobsters, dames, stolen loot, and even a decent body count. Great story, too. It kept me guessing right until the end.

Double (Bruno Fischer, first published in Manhunt, June 1954)

My favourite one in the collection. The bitter and woman-hating cop is fixated on the idea that the killer is his cheating ex-wife lookalike. Savage stuff, my only minor complaint would be that the apologies at the end are needless!

As I Lie Dead (Fletcher Flora, first published in Manhunt, February 1953)

It's hot, and two young lovers sit by the lake. She's dreaming about Acapulco, but his mind is elsewhere:

I saw that Grandfather had reached the raft. He was sitting on the far side, his back to us, legs dangling in the water. He’d made it out there in good time. For an old man, damn good time. He was strong, in spite of his fat belly. It didn’t look like he was ever going to die.

Guess what happens next?  You are right - grandfather won't be swimming much in the future. But that is just the beginning of the story. There will be blackmail, and murder, and betrayal. Excellent stuff, a bit depressing, but a great choice for a closing story.

3.5/5

Facts:

Body count: 

1 + 1 (added reluctantly since Wall Street yuppies shouldn't really count, right?) + 1 + 1 with at least 3 victims + 1 with a bunch of other victims (unfortunately, those eyeballs count is not specified) + 0 + 3 + 2 + 4 = 17

Dames:
Linda from "Carrera's Woman" is pretty cool (or should I say hot?):

There was sweetness in her kiss, and an undercurrent of danger, a pulsing emotion that knifed through me like an electric shock. She pressed against me, and her body was soft and womanly, and I forgot the marks of her nails on my arms and face, forgot that she could be as deadly as a grizzly. She was a kitten now, soft and caressing, and her breath was in my ears, and the movement of her body was quick and urgent. I lifted her, the .45 still in my hand, and carried her to the deep shadows of the rocks.

And cousin Cindy from "As I Lie Dead":

She was gold all over in the various shades that gold can take. Even her brown eyes, behind dark glass in white harlequin frames, were flecked with gold.

Edition: eBook

Cool lines: 

From "Carrera's Woman":

I hesitated before answering. “Ten G’s is a lot of money, baby.”
“I’m a lot of woman,” she answered.[Fatale]

From "Frame:

He debated the advisability of walking around back, decided to knock.

He slammed his fist against the big man’s mouth. There was the sound of crunching teeth. The big man went staggering backward and fell across a table.
“You won’t be needing teeth where you’re going.”

From "Double":

I growled, “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Shouldn’t I?” She got off the chaise longue and ran her hands sensuously over her half-naked body. “Look at me, Gus. Don’t you think I have a right to flatter myself?[Fatale]

From "As I Lie Dead":

I took the gun out of my pocket and pointed it at him, and then I saw what I’d been living to see. I saw the smooth assurance go sick in his eyes and fear come flooding in. When I’d seen that, I’d had everything from him I’d ever want, so I shot him. I shot him where I hated him most. Right in his pretty face. 

“Yes,” I said. “We’ll go away together, honey. I’ve got our tickets right here in the gun. One way and a long way.”[The Coolest!]