|
Post by dem bones on Feb 7, 2011 10:10:45 GMT
Peter Haining - More Great Tales of Crime & Detection (Chartwell Books, 1994: aka The Television Crimebusters Omnibus, Orion, 1994) Peter Haining - Introduction
Edgar Wallace - The Kidnapping of Inspector Mander [The Ringer] Jack Boyle - Boston Blackie’s Mary [Boston Blackie] Michael Arlen - A Man Called Falcon [Adventures Of The Falcon] Craig Rice - The Man Who Swallowed a Horse [The Amazing Mr. Malone] Jack Webb - The Stranger in Church [Dragnet] Robert Fabian - The Traffic in Damnation [Fabian Of The Yard] Ted Willis - PC Crawford’s First Pinch [Dixon Of Dock Green] Gilbert Ralston - A Little Push from Cappy Fleers [Naked City] Eliot Ness - The Flushing of Al Capone [The Untouchables] W. R. Burnett - Dressing-Up [The Asphalt Jungle] Troy Kennedy Martin - Mobile Commandos [Z-Cars] Peter Leslie - What’s a Ghoul Like You Doing in a Place Like This? [The Avengers] Ed McBain - Sadie When She Died [87th Precinct] Roy Huggins (Howard Browne) - Man in the Dark [The Fugitive] Jeffery Farnol - Footprints [Jasper Shrug, Bow Street Runneri] Joyce Porter - Dover Does Some Spadework [Insp. Dover] Richard Levinson & William Link - The Man in the Lobby [Columbo] Baroness Orczy - The Man in the Inverness Cape [Lady Molly of Scotland Yard] Stuart Palmer - Hildegarde Withers Is Back [Hildegarde Withers] Carolyn Weston - Poor, Poor Ophelia [The Streets of San Francisco] Abby Mann - The Way of a Cop [Kojak] Joe Balham - Regan and the Stripper [The Sweeney] William Blinn - One of Those Days [Starsky & Hutch] Dennis Spooner - The Christmas Killer [The Professionals] Leon Griffiths - One Good Turn [Minder] Serita Stevens - The John Detail [Cagney & Lacey] Peter Cave - Taggart and a Bit of Skulduggery (Nest of Vipers) [Taggart] Jimmy Nail - All A Matter of Balance [Spender] Ngaio Marsh - I Can Find My Way Out [The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries] Lynda La Plante - The Keeper of Souls [Prime Suspect]Here's Vol 2. doubt i'll ever get around to reading it through, but will definitely give the Michael Arlen, Joe Balham and Peter Chopper Cave contributions a go and dip in some more if you've any recommendations? Peter Leslie - What’s a Ghoul Like You Doing in a Place Like This?: Mother has learned of an audacious plot to abduct scientific researcher Sir Hubert Corringham during a masked ball he's hosting at Batley Abbey, reputedly "the most haunted house in England." Steed's idea of fancy dress is an Edwardian look barely discernible from his everyday apparel, requiring poor Tara King to adopt a whalebone corset and elegant, flowing gown of the impossible-to-run-away-in variety (a situating not unfamiliar to the dark mistress of Probert Towers, I'll wager). Steed and Ms. King manage to get themselves bound and gagged by a chap dressed as an Executioner without too much difficulty and escape up a chimney with even less, by which time their job has been done for them - a phantom Cavalier having charged the escape helicopter and caused it to crash land! Haining mentions in his introduction that it was based on the episode You'll Catch Your Death, but it sounds nothing like it! According to Dave Rogers in The Ultimate Avengers, Haining likely found this rarity in an Avengers annual. I'm glad he did. Dennis Spooner - The Christmas Killer: Hitmen don't do poofy Christmas shopping so why is notorious international hit-man Ramos knocking about in Harrods on December 24th? Answer: he's out to earn £50,000 by snuffing important bloke James Fielding on behalf of "the group." Cowley has his every C15 agent on the case, but even Bodie and Doyle come close to letting their man slip the net (in Bodie's case this is in part due to him buying twelve identical toiletry sets for his girlfriends from a leggy blonde assistant he'd have pulled if he wasn't so busy). It is left to an unlikely 'Father Christmas' to save the day. Haining rescued this one from The Mirror for Christmas Eve 1981.
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Feb 7, 2011 10:27:50 GMT
Just ordered a copy - thanks Dem!
KC
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 7, 2011 11:11:37 GMT
Hope you enjoy it, KC. The Avengers and Professionals stories only cover around 15 pages between them, but that's 15 pages of guaranteed fun and best of all, they're not extracts/ condensed versions of novels as is the case with Joe Balham's Reagan and the Stripper (i think you mentioned that you read the full version of that one) and probably several others. Still haven't got around to anything from the first book, but am more likely to dip in now I've the bit between my teeth. Would love to see a collection devoted exclusively to the crime fighters & detectives' supernatural adventures: they all seemed to have them: McCloud Versus Dracula: Six Million Dollar Man versus Bigfoot; Man from UNCLE in The Vampire Affair, etc. A bloodsucking fangy babe even showed up in a supremely daft episode of Diagnosis Murder and I seem to recall a very Gothic Romance influenced Haunted House outing for Charlies Angels? Such a shame there were never any Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) novelisations!
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Feb 7, 2011 15:50:54 GMT
Quite a bit of the other stuff intrigues me too - I'm sure I'll get my £2.81 worth of reading ! lol This arrived today to keep me busy.
Escape From The Planet Of The Apes - Award Books 1973.
KC
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 9, 2011 17:07:01 GMT
Joe Balham - Regan and the Stripper: A self-contained(ish) chapter from Balham's Sweeney #4: Regan And The Bent Stripper (Futura, 1977). An outfit calling itself the League Of Decency is mounting a clean-up campaign versus Soho by planting bombs in strip joints. With the Met presumably keeping Mary Whitehouse and Cliff Richard under 24 hour surveillance, Regan is out there getting his hands dirty in pubs, greasy spoons, unlicensed premises - any place he might land a titbit of useful gossip. It also helps that his current bird, Sally - "You're a big girl. In more ways than two!" - is earning her crust as an exotic dancer.
Regan already knows who is behind the campaign - top villain Arthur Keane and his henchmen, Charles Prescott and Willie "The Flasher" Milner - but he's lacking concrete evidence. So he hits on a master-plan which, much to his superiors' delight, involves his blackmailing minor criminal Jimmy McBray into converting his proposed drinking den into a strip club. With Regan's Sally and Carter's latest nympho perform disrobing duties, you can bet opening night will boast a full house of men in soiled raincoats, but will a few photo's of birds with "big knockers, smiling faces" be enough to flush out the bombers.
Damn, how frustrating! 'Balham' (anyone know who he was/ is?) has done so neat a job of capturing that special Soho ambiance i will have to hunt down the novel. Dialogue is supremely un-PC with the swearing turned up to eleven.
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Feb 9, 2011 19:51:55 GMT
Grrr where's my copy ?
KC
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 10, 2011 7:52:59 GMT
Michael Arlen - A Man Called Falcon: "It's years and years, Chief Inspector, since I burst out crying because a policeman didn't like me." That's Gay Stanhope Falcon of St. James Square, suave, sophisticated, lady-killer about town, a man who makes his living from "engaging in dangerous enterprises." When first we meet him, he's just burst in on celebrated international model Diana Temple at her West London flat for a swift manhandle of her baubles. Diana is involved with a crack team of insurance fraudsters headed by her supposedly missing husband Henry and local bad egg Harvey 'Chappie' Morgan. Henry Temple is already in the frame for one unsolved murder and all evidence suggests that Diana is next on his to-do list. Against all his inclinations, Falcon forms an uneasy alliance with Chief Inspector Poss and Sergeant Daisy to set a trap for the killer using Diana as bait. When the trio burst in on Temple as he's throttling his wife, Poss reckons they've their man banged to rights, but Falcon hasn't finished showing off just yet and, to protests of "You beast! You filthy sneaky romeo!", fearlessly exposes the REAL cold-blooded killer. According to Peter Haining (and, even better, pulphack!), this was Michael Arlen's solitary 'Gay Falcon' adventure which is a swizz, although surely it must be the only short story ever to inspire a fifteen strong series of movies (great fun they are, too) and scores of radio episodes?
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Feb 11, 2011 16:33:18 GMT
My copy arrived today with it's Oxfam 89p sticker proudly brandished! Actually it cost a penny plus post but anyway. Can't wait to get stuck in tonight after Buffy naturally , really like the fact each story gets it's own intro of the starring detectives!
KC
edit : Just read The Avengers What's A Ghoul Like You Doing In A Place Like This ? which was brilliant . I've read both of Peter Leslie's Avengers books DEADLINE and DEAD DUCK so it was great to get a chance to read this too. He really captures the spirit of the show very well and it's nice to see the Tara King era in print.
Also The Professionals The Christmas Killer was a fun short read !
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Feb 11, 2011 19:15:29 GMT
Haining mentions in his introduction that it was based on the episode You'll Catch Your Death, but it sounds nothing like it!
Gotta agree! I'll try and give it a watch in the interests of research like...
KC
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 11, 2011 20:16:23 GMT
Dead glad your book arrived, KC. i was pretty confident you'd enjoy those two. Turns out the Peter Leslie is from the 1969 Avengers annual, so full marks to Haining for thinking to look there! The one thing I can't quite come to terms with is that godawful boring cover. It was getting on my nerves so, I took off the dustjacket only to find it's printed on the book!
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Feb 11, 2011 21:20:35 GMT
Yeah fucking Jimmy Nail on the cover but no delicious Avenger girl?! I think it should of been titled Crimebusters too with pix of Regan giving a felon a kicking , Bodie ogling a lady etc...
Needless I like this tome - thanks pal.
KC
|
|
|
Post by lemming13 on Feb 12, 2011 14:44:42 GMT
Personally I print up my own dustjackets if one is too boring; easy enough to knock up a template for a standard sized book, and then I can put anything I like on it. Vault has been handy for that.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 12, 2011 17:48:52 GMT
Yeah f**k**g Jimmy Nail on the cover but no delicious Avenger girl?! I think it should of been titled Crimebusters too with pix of Regan giving a felon a kicking , Bodie ogling a lady etc... KC Orion, Tiger, Bounty and the rest of the remainder specialists did the same with their other Peter Haining omnibuses - Vampire, Frankenstein , TV Late Night Horror, Television Detectives, etc. To these eyes it's an unimaginative concept to begin with, but it might work better if those responsible had put some thought into selecting exciting stills. Maybe we should take lemmy's lead, scan the original dustjacket, perform a custom job and teach 'em the error of their ways!
|
|