Thursday, November 29, 2012

West of Jerusalem by Gerard de Villiers

Malko
International Secret Agent Extraordinary

West of Jerusalem


Malko Linge
A very unusual name. A very unusual man, in many ways. A man of royal blood, an aristocrat, if you like, from Austria. Handsome, too, as numerous women will eagerly admit. But quite capable of violence, as few remaining enemies will testify. So what does this dashing new hero do?

He is one of the CIA's most daring and effective special agents. Not a regular employee, mind you, but most assuredly a well-paid specialist. Malko gets the impossible missions, the dirty jobs, the secret operations that demand the coolness of a million-dollar caper, the finality of a commando hit.
In this first adventure we meet Malko as he learns that a top CIA official has leaped to his death from a Washington building. Why? The only clue is a grisly one, a little girl's finger. He has seven days to get the answers. 

Printing History
Written by Gerard de Villiers (1929-)

First published in French by Libririe Plon 1967

Translated from French by Graham Snell

Translation
New English Library 1969

Former title
S.A.S.West Of Jerusalem

Pinnacle Books, Inc.
523-00235 
August 1973

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The Marseilles Enforcer by Don Smith

Secret Mission Series #13


"The French Connection" in Marseilles........

The shipment arrived in New York, hidden inside the doors of six cherry red Renaults.  The Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the CIA knew the heroin was there. It had been watched from the moment it left the Turkish freighter in Marseilles. But they wee not interested in arresting middle men or small pushers. They wanted the big one behind the scenes, the French connection. They knew he was Antoine Perelli, agent of the Corsican Mafia. What they needed was proof. and getting that was Phil Sherman's job.

Printing History
Written by Don Smith

Universal Publishing and Distributing Corp
Universal-Award House Inc
Award Books
AN1041 (1972)

Monday, November 26, 2012

Tool Of The Trade by F.W. Paul

You too can be a wife-swapper while happily unmarried... That is if you're
The Man From S.T.U.D. #5


Bret Steele, the tireless and totally irresistible Man from S.T.U.D. had a new assignment and a new partner. The job: To infiltrate a ring of wife swapping clubs and get the goods on one Very Important Member. The partner: Paradise Jones, the Girl from W.I.L.L.I.N.G., who was gorgeous, stacked, uninhibited, and....well..willing.....

The average bachelor, of course, might encounter some difficulties joining the swappers. But Bret Steel isn't average. All he had to do was whistle, and he had almost more wives than he could handle. None of them legally, but all of them his in any and every other way the human mind can imagine....

There were other problems, naturally. Like a slightly embarrassing corpse to get rid of. Like scaling the walls of a luxury apartment building, clad only in his necktie. But Bret had his reputation to think of. And he came through with flying colors. And a fantastic new score.

Printing History
Written by Paul Warren Fairman (1916-1977)

Lancer Books, Inc
Lancer Books
73-811 (1969)
 

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Love Me To Death by Philip Kirk

Butler takes on a gorgeous killer whose weapon is pleasure!

Butler #5


What A Way To Go
One by one. America's leaders were dying of heart attacks under mysterious circumstances. The only clue linking their deaths was the fact that each had been seen in the company of beautiful, sexy women immediately before his demise. Was it possible that the victims had literally been loved to death? Enter Butler, renegade superspy, the only man with the guts, the brains, and the stamina to destroy the most bizarre conspiracy in the history of the U.S.A.!


Printing History
Written by by Leonard Levinson

Nordon Publications, Inc
Leisure Books
ISBN 8439-0712
(January 1980)

Dorchester Publishing Company, Inc
Leisure Books
8439-2079
(June 1984)

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Blood Of The Scimitar by Jack Canon

N3 goes undercover with the jet-set to stop a sheik's assassin!

George Gross Cover
Killmaster #205
When a plot to assassinate Sheik Menbali El Kassier is discovered just before he is to sign a history-making treaty, AXE sends in Nick Carter "Killmaster N3" to bail him out. The mission: Infiltrate Kassier's dazzling entourage and root out a killer so effective he has never been seen. Muamed Quadish, alias, The Fox.Playing the role of a journalist, Nick teams up with a beautiful Israeli operative and enters the decadent world of globe-trotting, bed-hopping, and sudden death.

Print History
Written by Jack Canon

Berkley Publishing Group
Charter Books
Published by arrangement with The Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
ISBN 441 06790
October 1985

Friday, November 23, 2012

Carter Brown Collectors' Series Volume 1 Number 15

Second Collectors' Series
Volume 1 Number 15

Cover by Grant Roberts
Printing History
Written by Alan G Yates (1923-1985)

Contents

A Bullet For My Babe
Numbered Series #1 (September 1955)
Second Collectors' Series Vol 1 #15 (June 1958)

Floozie Out Of Focus
Novelette Series (January 1954)
First Collectors' Series #11 (1955)
Second Collectors' Series Vol 1 #15 (June 1958)

Trivia
Mavis Seidlitz appears as a secondary character in A Bullet For My Babe
The original post from October 2011
Max Tindle is the primary character in Floozie Out Of Focus

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Kill Him Gently by Paul Valdez

Mike Allison thought the bed-ridden man was just another crank until he entered the fear-ridden home and found a cold-blooded plot to.....


Printing History
Written by Alan G Yates (1923-1985)

Published by 
Seabourn Printing and Trading Company
for Transport Publishing Co, Pty Ltd
Wholesale Distributors Gordon and Gotch (Australasia) Ltd 
November 1951

Monday, November 19, 2012

The Mistress (UK Edition) by Carter Brown

A stripper stacked for love at a gambling joint where the odds are stacked for murder.


New English Library
Four Square Books
#957 (1963)

Read the original post from February 14, 2011

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Rimrock Raiders by Hamilton Peck

Sporting Western


The sheepherders were just as determined to hold their range as the cattlemen were to wipe them out. And a bunch of hell-raisin' hombres were standin' by in case the fight cooled down, just itchin' to become........

Printing History
Written by Hamilton Peck

Printed by Cresta Printing Co Pty Ltd
Published by Transport Publishing Co Pty Ltd
Wholesale Distributors Gordon and Gotch (Australasia) Ltd

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Thrills Incorporated No 20

Adventures in Space and the World of Tomorrow


Contents

Last of the Rocketeers
Written by N.K. Heming
(Norma Kathleen Hemming 1928-1960)
The masters of energy came from beyond the great bubble to destroy the universe.

Maneaters on Mixis
Written by Wolfe Herscholt
The lure of the new stones had the same effect as old-fashioned gold.

Goddess of Space
Written by Alan Yates
(Alan G Yates 1923-1985)
Clayton found that the spaceman who made love to a goddess paid the price.

Published by 
Seabourn Printing and Trading Company
for Transport Publishing Co, Pty Ltd
March 1952

Thursday, November 15, 2012

The Assassin Convention by Joseph L Gilmore

On the Agenda: The Ultimate revenge!

George Gross Cover
Killmaster #204
Nick Carter "Killmaster" had never met a more deadly enemy. Nor a more beautiful one. Unknown to him, Raina's only mission in life was to avenge her father's death, by killing Nick in the most hideous fashion imaginable. At their appointed rendezvous in the Casbah of Tangier, Nick Carter realized he had walked into a trap. There was a recorded message in Raina's voice, revealing her group's plan to break into NATO computers and trigger a nuclear attack. As the time loudly ticked away, poisonous gas hissing through the vents, Nick knew the dreaded hour had arrived at last.....

Print History
Written by Joseph L Gilmore (1929-2005)

Berkley Publishing Group
Charter Books
Published by arrangement with The Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
ISBN 441 03211
September 1985

Trivia
Raina first appeared in the title Strike Of The Hawk 
Strike Of The Hawk 

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Figure It Out For Yourself by James Hadley Chase

Wealthy and Wanton


Her money had brought beautiful Serena Marshland jewels, fast cars, and a luxury estate. but it also involves her in a web of violence and blackmail.....from which seemed to be no escape!

Even for ace investigator Vic Malloy this case was moving too fast!

After sneaking out of an apartment block with a naked girl over his shoulder, Vic had to speed to the rescue of another damsel in distress.

It was then that he found himself mixed up in a mysterious murder...with none of the clues making sense.

Printing History
Written by René Lodge Brabazon Raymond (1906-1985)

Robert Hale Ltd, London
1963

Horwitz Publications Inc.
Pocket Book Series (First Series)
PB133 (1963)

Monday, November 12, 2012

Crime Fiction Alphabet: Letter Z

This week we end our journey through the Crime Fiction Alphabet. Letter Z is the end. Kerrie over at Mysteries In Paradise was kind enough to keep us moving right along in the right direction. For the Letter Z will no doubt be the one that for many of us cause the most problems.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: Letter Z is for.......Zelda by Carter Brown

Robert McGinnis Cover
As a sophisticated sex star she's a legend
As a sweet blackmailing schemer she's lethal!

She was Hollywood's goddess of love:
Provocative
Passionate
Excitingly alive
Five Men wanted her......dead.


The seductive star's sweet blackmailing scheme looked like being shot to pieces by one of her three ex-husbands. Till murder took a hand in her game. And Rick Holman, Hollywood's Mr. Fix-it, was elected to dispose of the corpse. Or take the killer's rap for Zelda.

To 10 million men Zelda Roxane was the supreme symbol of sophisticated sex. But to the general who masterminded a Latin American revolution, the ex-Nazi turned millionaire industrialist, the has-been producer about to pull the biggest deal of his life, the lecherous press agent whose advances she's scorned, Zelda meant disgrace...ruin...and death.

Printing History
Written by Alan G Yates (1923-1985)

 Horwitz Publications, Inc
Numbered Series #96 (December 1961)
International Edition Series #32 (June 1963)
Double Carter Brown Edition Series #12A (1982)
w/The Wind-Up Doll

New American Library 
Signet Books
S2033 (December 1961)
D3430 (1968)
Double Carter Brown Edition AE1629 (July 1982)
w/The Wind-Up Doll


New English Library
Four Square Books
#659 (1962)

Cover by W Lapp
Middernacht Serie
Hoorn, Netherlands 
M38
1963


Hayakawa-shobo
Hayakawa Pocket Mystery Book  
Honshu, Tokyo, Japan 
1963


Valpas-Mainos 
Alavus, Finland
1967
Gallimard 
Serie Noire  
Paris, France
1974

Note
This title was featured in April 2011 and September 2011

Thanks for visting


Sunday, November 11, 2012

Partner In Crime by J.A. Jance


The dead women was an artist recently arrived from Washington State, cruelly cut down in the earl stages of a promising career. Now all that remains of Rochelle Baxter lies on a cold slab in the Cochise County morgue, and Sheriff Joanna Brady knows that murder has once again infected her small desert community. But there is more to this homicide than initially meets the eye, and more to the victim, who dies while supposedly under the conscientious protection of the government.

Cover by Jerry Bauer

A big-city legal establishment has no faith in the abilities of a small town sheriff, let alone a female sheriff. Instructed to swallow her indignation, Joanna awaits the arrival of the "help" Washington's attorney general is sending her. The newest member of the state's Special Homicide Investigation team, a man named Beaumont. Bisbee, Arizona is the last place J.P. Beaumont wants to be. The ghosts of a painful past are too numerous there, and his reluctant "partner" Sheriff Brady, resents his intrusion and cannot help but make her feelings known. But the road they are forced to travel together is taking some unexpected turns, running two dedicated servants of the law headfirst into the impenetrable stone walls of a shocking conspiracy of silence. For Brady and Beaumont's hunt is disturbing a very deadly nest of rattlers, and suddenly trust is the only option they have. On their own in the Arizona desert, they know death can be cold and quick. And nobody is watching their backs here, they'll have to watch each other's.

Printing History
Written by Judith Ann Jance

Harper Collins Publishers, Inc
William Morrow
ISBN 385 97730
August 2002

Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Vanishing Smile by Earl Emerson

A Thomas Black Mystery


Marian Wright is an amateur sleuth in the employ of two attractive young women eager to catch up with their no-account ex-lovers, But when Marian's investment ends abruptly and ferociously, Seattle private eye Thomas Black has a new case on his hands. Picking up the pieces of Marian Wright's search for her clients' rouge boyfriends, Thomas encounters a network of people. From ex-cons and prostitutes to other private investigators, all webbed together by a chilling common thread. It's a discovery that speaks volumes about the zealousness of Marian's manhunt and even suggests a monstrous reason for her sudden death. Yet equally monstrous is an unknown baseball-bat-wielding assailant who seams hell-bent on making sure Thomas Black's investigation stays closed.......

Printing History
Written by Earl Emerson (1948-)

Random House, Inc
Ballantine Books

 Hardcover
ISBN 345 38486
November 1995
 
 Softcover
ISBN 345 40453
October 1996

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

White Death by Gayle Lynds

Agent N3 teams up with the KGB to stop a renegade Russian scientist

George Gross Cover
Killmaster #203
A fever. A coma. Then sudden death. The latest in high-tech genocide from a renegade Russian scientist bent to "purifying the world." Forced into teaming up with the KGB, Nick Carter trails the world-class murderer to his impenetrable fortress in the frozen Antarctic waste. But this time, even the honed and deadly skills of the AXE Killmaster may not be enough to stop a madman who has the power to kill millions overnight.....

Printing History
Written by Gayle Lynds

Berkley Publishing Group
Charter Books
Published by arrangement with The Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
ISBN 441 88568
August 1985

Monday, November 5, 2012

Crime Fiction Alphabet: Letter Y

We are nearing the end of the 2012 Edition of the Crime Fiction Alphabet. Kerrie had the original inspiration over at her blog Mysteries In Paradise. Head on over to her blog to check out who is currently posting and what has been submitted in the past. This week I have decided to spotlight my favorite author.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: Letter Y

Y is for Alan Geoffrey Yates


Alan Geoffrey Yates (August 1, 1923 – May 5, 1985) was an Australian-British author of crime fiction. He was born in London and served with the Royal Navy from September 1942 until around September 1946. Mr. Yates served at D-day until October 1944, then he was transferred to the Pacific Theater, being stationed out of Australia, rising to the rank of temporary sub lieutenant. After the War he worked as a sound recordist at Gaumont-British Films for two years and then moved to Australia in 1948, becoming a citizen that same year. Yates then tried his hand as a salesman in Sydney and then as a public relations staff member at Quatas Empire Airways. He wrote under the names Caroline Farr, Dennis Sinclair, Alan Yates, Alan G Yates, A G Yates, Carter Brown, Peter Carter-Brown, Peter Carter Brown, Roger Garradine, Tod Conway, Sinclair MacKellar, and Paul Valdez.



 A Brief History Of Australian Publishing

After the end of the war, paper rationing was lifted and five Sydney printers in turn added fiction to their publishing lists: Action, Calvert, Cleveland, Currawong and Horwitz.  These publishing houses started out as family printeries catering to a small readership of trade journals, sporting publications and comics. The demand for original fiction meant that the printer soon became a busy publisher. Many publishers blossomed, died and merged overnight. This accounts for the confusing  profusion of names (Associated General Publications becomes Transport Publishing becomes Horwitz Publications),  Soon presses ran hot, churning out hundreds of thousands of soft-covered pocket sized books with enticing titles such as Death in a Nudist Camp, Nude in a Boot and Cosmic Calamity. Though westerns dominated at first, science fiction soon followed. Two publishers in particular, Currawong and Horwitz, printed the majority of original Australian science fiction. But the premier press for early science fiction was Horwitz. Horwitz contributed two monthly publications to early Australian science fiction: Scientific Thrillers from 1948 to 1952 as a book series and Thrill Incorporated from 1950 to 1952 as a pulp magazine. Authors were little more than journeymen, they wrote under house names and thus earned no cultural capital as writers. Their material was commissioned to be written to a genre and to a set length, with the material was usually edited without their consent, and was paid piecemeal. The authors were paid little over 1 pounds sterling per thousand words and received no royalties. If the stories were sold to overseas publications, companies retained copyright.  Freelancers like Gordon Clive Bleeck, Russell Hausfeld, Stanford Hennell and Alan G. Yates cropped up and wrote as Hans Karlson, Boris Ludwig, Ace Carter, and Belli Luigi. Unfortunately due to lost and/or inaccurate records, it is uncertain who wrote what. Alan G Yates was one of the few freelancers to turn professional.
  

Now Back To The Story
While working as a PR Officer at Qantas, Mr. Yates was freelancing for a handful of the smaller presses. His first published work was for Invincible Press as a western. His first published work at Scientific Thriller was titled, Hypnotic Death appeared in January 1949, and then he was then silence for almost two years, Fatal Focus November 1950.  In the meantime he filled the pages of Thrills Incorporated with space soaps. His recollections are worth recounting in full in his autobiography published in 1983.

I wrote under 'Paul Valdez" for that one and still have a sneaking
  affection for Valdez, wherever he is. There was also 'Thrills
  Incorporated', which was: 'Fantastic adventures, but these stories of
  tomorrow are only one jump ahead of science ... you too can take a
  trip to the world of space ships and interplanetary travel ..." Short
  stories only were required for this magazine and strictly in terms of
  space opera. Very often, when the editor was running to a tight
  schedule he would have the artwork already done and hand you a
  picture, saying 'Three thousand worlds and a title, old boy, and I do
  need them by Friday."
    One picture he gave me didn't allow a lot of scope as far as the
  title was concerned, I thought, so I called it 'Jet-Bees of Planet J'.
    He took another look at the picture when I brought in the
  manuscript, then looked at the title again
    'See what you mean, old boy'. He nodded approval. "Sort of
  self-propelled by their own farts.' (Yates 31-32)

Yates, Alan G. Ready when you are, C.B: the Autobiography of Alan Yates alias Carter Brown Melbourne: Macmillan, 1983.


In 1953 He signed a 30-year contract with Horwitz to produce two novelettes and one full-length novel a month. Specifically he was contracted to write “Scientific Thrillers” and “Lovely Mysteries.”  After the Scientific Thriller series ended, Yates concentrated on the Carter Brown stories.  He started writing full-time in 1953 and wrote at least 317 novels between 1953 and 1985, mostly crime and detective stories, selling tens of millions of copies. His books were set in the United States and were published throughout the Anglo world. They were also very popular in Europe where they were translated into French, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian, Finnish, German, Portuguese, Romanian, and Dutch. In Asia, some of the novels were translated into Thai. His early books were intended only for Australian audience, but when the Carter Brown series was picked up by the New American Library, he found readers also in the United States. There his book covers were often illustrated by Barye Phillips and Robert McGinnis.


Mr. Yates combines a little humor, a little titillation, and a thoroughly questionable grasp of American slang to create something that was compulsively readable. In 1960 Lyall Moore of Horwitz calculated that Yates had published about eight million words: “but to get there he has probably written twice the number.”  Given Yates’ ability to write 40,000 words overnight, Horwitz was confident when they signed a contract with Signet (New American Library imprint) for Yates to produce one new novel per month.  He had been writing that for the past several years. His early books have a disclaimer at the end: “Written on an IBM Selectric.”  Electric typewriters were like high end laptops in those days. Alan G Yates died on May 5, 1985 and is survived by his wife Denise, three sons, and a daughter, Priscilla.

 
Some Nice Covers




Thanks For Visiting