Errol Lecale - The Severed Hand

[andydecker]

Errol Lecale (Wilfred McNeilly) - The Severed Hand (NEL 1974, 127 pages)

This is the third of Wilfred McNeilly writing as Errol Lecale in his Specialist series.

The time is Victorian. But the tale starts earlier in the little arab country of Zarida. Zuleika of the Baculla tribe, "of whom it was said that the men were devils and the woman witches" is in the harem of the Emir. The Emir´s handsome son is in love with her and tries to kidnap her. Not a good idea. Zuleika gets publicly whipped and her nose cut off, so she curses the Emir before getting killed. The thieving son´s hand gets chopped off. And then it starts to crawl around killing people, starting with the Emir.

Eli Podgram, Mara, his beautiful and mute helper in all things occult – who is a virgin which makes her such an potent occult weapon - and hulking man-servant Hugo are traveling in the desert. Eli heard that the murderous hand is up to their old tricks and terrorizing Zarida again. Cue in the new and british-educated Emir, whose great-uncle the oppressor was first victim and who is delighted to have an important man like the Specialist come knocking at his door with an offer to help.

The hand keeps crawling and killing, the clues leads into the desert, where Mara gets kidnapped – again – and is threatened with rape – again – and just a self-induced trance saves her for the moment. "I will not touch the girl till she wakens. There is no pleasure without pain. How can I take a girl who does not struggle, cry out?" says the villainous arab who helds her captive.

Of course Eli and Hugo storm to the rescue after much plodding around in the desert and fighting off occult menaces like the Creeping Host of Abbadan which transforms spiders, scorpions, snakes and every other desert critter into an organized attack force. While in a separate sub-plot the hand wreaks havoc on a ship.

I really am a fan of The Specialist, I love "Castledoom" and the "The Death Box" unconditionally, but this novel isn´t McNeilly´s best. For too long the tale wanders in circles and drags even for the short 127 pages. As if McNeilly realized midway that a creeping hand can´t shoulder a whole novel and wrote himself into a corner. The sub-plot on the ship is just boring filler and disconnected from the rest of the book. Somehow the usual occult melodrama of the Specialist verges on self-parody here, and the readers gets told that Mara´s virginity is the most potent weapon in Podgrams mystic arsenal so often it becomes hilarious. At least Wilfred McNeilly doesn´t put it in italics! Of course Mara spends half of the book as a naked captive getting fondled and probed. Oh, those villains! At least in the desert it is warm.

Funny thing here is that the last third of the book becomes quite good when the real plot takes over. Here are a few good and novel ideas which handled otherwise could have made a much better book when the force behind the creeping hand is revealed.

Here in Germany the series was published in the Vampir Horror Roman paperbacks, but this novel was omitted. I don´t know why, it surely is not as gory as some of the other are, and they had no problem to edit the gory stuff out in them. Maybe it was the fondling and probing, which here becomes more a part of the actual plot than in the other books.

Like most of the series this novel has a photo-cover. Let´s say it was not the finest hour of NELs art department and leave it at that, even if this isn´t as god awful as the first one. Or the fourth.

As a whole there are better novels in the series where McNeilly made a lot more out of the setting and his occult hero. At least the last sentence is again true to form which makes those seventies novels such a child of their time which are so refreshingly un-PC. "There is now no more harm in them [the women] than any other of their sex – which is of course, enough …"

Har, har, har, pass the brandy and the cigars, gentlemen!

[dem bones]

Are you sure about that attribute to W. Howard Baker, Andy? Seems to me Curt proved beyond doubt that Wilfred McNeilly wrote all six of 'em (The Twilight World Of Eli Podgram, Paperback Fanatic #9). Anyway, well done - we now have individual threads for each novel in the series!

Tigerman Of Terrahpur

Castledoom

The Death Box

Zombie

Blood Of My Blood

Much has been made of the Victorian setting for the Specialist's adventures, but i'm glad Peter Haining didn't lean on the author to delivery a contemporary series. As it turned out, there's such a lovable Hammer Horror feel to them they still scream late 'sixties-early 'seventies! You're certainly right about that manky cover - and it looks more like a severed entire arm from where i'm sitting.

[killercrab]

Seems to me Curt proved beyond doubt that Wilfred McNeilly wrote all six of 'em (The Twilight World Of Eli Podgram, Paperback Fanatic #9). >>

I thought Curt's piece was excellent. I've not gotten around to reading The Severed Hand yet ( I'm still working through Martin Caidin's Cyborg - a dense read) , plus CrimeSuspense Stories Archive , issues 1-6 which is superb.

Anyway another vote here for The Specialist books!

KC

[andydecker]

Are you sure about that attribute to W. Howard Baker

I hate the Saxon clan!!! *g You need a chart to keep them straight!

Okay, I mixed them up I changed it in the original post. Thnaks for noticing.

[dem bones]

just finished this on the back of Drums Of The Dark Gods and, while i agree with Andy's criticism that the sub-plot is pretty dire, the ship episode at least ends on a high note when we find out how the beast with five fingers handles being fed to a shark! i bet even Jaws fainted when he read that.

For much of the novel it seems that Eli Podgram and the trio of mischievous young witches in yashmaks are evenly matched. For me, the girls' best moment is when they unleash the Creeping Host of Aldebaron - a magnificent desert army of beetles, scorpions, spiders, snakes and lizards. Other highlights are the customary shock horror torture opening as the corrupt Emir dispenses brutal 'justice' to his son and the unfortunate Zuleika, and the cleverly handled abduction of Mara who is, as ever, saved from a fate worse than death. Castledoom is the "best" Specialist i've read (still need to get hold of Zombie and Death Box), but this one, while being perhaps less well rounded plot-wise, is still a marvellously entertaining ripping yarn.