Yes, I know it's not a book. Still, I'll bet you don't remember it, so it halfway fits here. When I saw this a while back, I couldn't resist picking it up, mainly because it reprints the first Ed Noon story by Mike Avallone, originally published in 1949 (don't ask me where). I'd never read the story, so I thought I'd take a look. Appropriately enough, there's a headnote by "The Editor's" (sic) that promises "the kind of fast, cracking action that has made Mike Avallone one of the very top crime writers today.""A Bullet for Big Nick" is a revenge tale. Ed Noon, cop turned private-eye, is after the guy who had is former partner killed. That's pretty much it. Lots of violence, with Noon taking enough punishment to put a bull out of commission, while dealing out an equal or greater amount.
For those of you who are wondering, yes, the Avallone writing style was already in full flower: "Big Nick Torrento was staring at me curiously from the depths of a large, square desk."
Avallone's storytelling ability is there, too. The action never slows down, and Noon's first-person narrative takes you right along.
The stories not listed on the cover are by names you'll recognize. Well, I did. Edward Wellen, Jeffrey Wallman, Richard Deming, and Edward D. Hoch.
12 comments:
Great issue! Digests have completely disappeared in this part of the country.
It'll probably come as no surprise that I not only remember this issue, I've read it. I don't recall who actually wrote the Shayne story in that issue, if I ever knew. The most common Brett Hallidays during that era were Edward Y. Breese and Max Vanderveer, though. Leo P. Kelley, who's mentioned on the cover, wrote a few crime novels, some Westerns for Doubleday, and created and wrote most of the Cimarron Western series for Signet. I think Bob Randisi wrote the last few books in that series under the name Lew Baines. Those Sixties and Seventies issues of MSMM may not have been great, but they were consistently entertaining. I miss 'em.
I miss the SF and mystery digests in general. Somehow reading on Kindle or computer just ain't the same.
Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe.
After all, however irregularly, beyond EQMM and AHMM, there are still digests publishing, even if they are usually (like the Penny Press titles) in more like little-magazine format these years. Only THE STRAND seems to be durable among 8.5 x 11" cf magazines.
Leo P. Kelley was also writing and publishing a fair amount of sf in those years. Wonder what happened to him...
Is Wallman still with us? I know where Wellen, Hoch and Deming are these days, alas...
Appropriately enough, there's a headnote by "The Editor's" (sic) that promises "the kind of fast, cracking action that has made Mike Avallone one of the very top crime writers today."
Did Mike write that himself? Sounds like him.
Jeff
Kelley apparently died in 2002, although the SF Encyclopedia says that date isn't confirmed. Wallmann's still alive as far as I know.
Jeff, I thought the same thing about the headnote.
James, I met Wallman once in Houston not long after we moved here. Nice guy. Last I heard he was teaching college somewhere. New Mexico? Can't remember.
I think Wallmann's still at UNLV. I met him once at a WWA convention.
Thanks...I think I knew about Kelley's death, but don't remember why/if he stopped writing so visibly (to me, at least) by the mid 1970s...will go look.
Of course, that blurb looks a bit like what Sam Merwin, Jr. liked to write, sometimes with a bit of a grin, as well...
I don't think Merwin was there then. He was MSMM's first editor (and wrote most of the Shayne novelettes at first) but left after a few issues and didn't come back until the mid-Seventies. In '71 Cylvia Kleinman Margulies (source of the C.K.M. Scanlon house-name in the pulp days) was the editorial director at MSMM, with assorted other people, Frank Belknap Long among them, helping out.
Hi folks. I'm Edward Duke. My father was Jim Duke. (Dead Baby Doll) He passed away several years back and I've been searching for original copies of Shane & Chan magazines that contained his stories for years. He didn't keep any copies around. However, I have the original manuscripts that I only recently discovered. They are amazing.
I was 8 years old and still recall clearly watching my dad type this story out, pounding the keys. That click clacking sound is forever etched in my brain. Id often fall asleep on a green vinyl sofa thing my parents had. Ugliest thing I ever saw. Hanging above it was a orange globe light dangling from a chain that was in front of a huge wall poster that said, "war is unhealthy for children and other living things."
During dads fervorous typing I could also hear my mom out on the front porch playing guitar and singing a Buffie Saint Marie or Dylan song. I would wake hours later and find dad still at it.
What was cool and unique for me was how He'd explain certain parts to my mom and myself right before he typed them out. Often later on he would change those details. (There were always wads of paper everywhere)
I always had a notepad with me, and mom convinced me to write the details down each time he shared something out loud. I wrote the best I could in my own words. Well, I ended up with a unique blend of completely different stories!
So I thought I'd share with those meaningless memories with you all even if you have no interest or whatever. I just miss my folks so much and wish I could go back in time....
Peace to you all! Edward Scott Duke
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