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Post by dem bones on Aug 30, 2013 8:10:22 GMT
Thanks to my superb navigational skills, yesterday really did become a world tour for pulphack and me as we took approximately eight hours to hoof it from Charing X Road to Spitalfields via the oh-so scenic route. Rendezvous point Lovejoys is closed for 'refurbishments' (i.e., pending renewal of sex licence), so already one much-loved hunting ground off limits, but we both scored heavily across the road in Any Amount Of Books. Unfortunately, I'd already blown most of my budget (smirk) on four cans of Fosters at "competitive"/ second mortgage West End prices, but enough left to nab an as-new copy of Anthony Horowitz's More Bloody Horowitz for sick squid and Martin Roberts & John M. Ford's 2005 horror anthology, Assembly Of Rogues (with tragic misspelling of title on cover; details to follow) at £1, the latter spotted by my eagle-eyed companion after I completely overlooked it. Copping this 2nd hand meant forgoing the DVD & CD bonus pack, but impressive (all male) line-up - Simon Clark, Ramsey Campbell, Paul Finch, and Mark Morris all present and correct - suggests book is real meat in this particular sandwich. Should you happen to be in the vicinity, Any Amount Of Books is well worthy of your attention. There's a three-four shelf mixed SF/ Fantasy/Horror paperback section just inside the door, but be sure to explore the basement, too. After a swift pint in the Witherspoons now operating on site of former Marquee Club Mk. II, was time to test out a new improved short cut taking us the miniscule distance from New Oxford Street to Commercial Street via Liverpool Street, St. Pauls, Bodmin Moor, Ben Nevis, Arctic wastes, etc., until we eventually arrived back in God's own country, and - relief - reasonably priced off-licences, for Spitalfields Market leg of black pilgrimage ( "Some say that the Gates of Hell can be found in the shadow of Christchurch. When the gates open, who knows what will crawl out?" - Ed Buchan, Whitechapel. Series 4 hits the screen next Wed). It is all a bit Shoreditch trendy/ yuppie slime territory for personal taste, but a few old school traders are grimly hanging on in there and you can land the occasional pulp treasure if your luck's with you (Syd Bentliff's Horror Anthology for £1). A refuel on the church wall and it was time for mr. hack to make good his escape and me to bump into another dear friend i'd not seen in ages and get lost again within a mile of home. Thank you very much for the pleasure of your company, mr. hack, and I hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did! |
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Post by pulphack on Aug 31, 2013 7:42:37 GMT
To be fair, the erratic navigation worthy of Scott and Oates was as much down to me... Meeting outside Lovejoys, we turned right and headed in a huge circle that took us to Piccadilly Circus - where Dem asked where we were going and I said I was following him, to which he answered that he thought it was the other way round - and back again, we eventually reached Any Amount Of Books, which is - er - 50 yards to the left and across the road from Lovejoys. After a start like that, it was no wonder that we did an unintentional Iain Sinclair of the City and East End...
Echoing what yer man says above, although the yuppification and lovie-fication of the area means that the buildings are a bit spruced up (or even rebuilt hideously in some cases), the fact that this is going on while the real residents are slowly getting poorer and more marginalised just around the corner does leave a bitter taste. Or maybe that was just the Fosters. Regardless, I couldn't help thinking of all the old John Creaseys I read where he remarks on the City ending and the East End beginning at Aldgate Pump, with cold-eyed greed on one side and warm heart community on the other. The boundaries have shifted a bit and the legacy of the Iron Lady means that there really is very little of community left (though mobilsing against the yuppies may be changing this), but the gist is still the same.
Which doesn't detract from an excellent day with yer man, who magically whipped out pen and paper in the Weatherspoons and with a few deft strokes noted the programmes that have debugged my laptop, for which I am heartily grateful. As, indeed, I am for the bag of books he passed over to me (clearing out, Dem?) - I have, as he might have guessed, already read and enjoyed 'The Wildcats Of St Trinians'. Now it would seem retro, in 1980 I can see why it flopped - it's a retread of the '67's '...Train Robbery' with the rich kid of an earlier film ('Bells...' I think, offhand) substituted for the cash hoard. It must have seemed dreadfully old fashioned then, though it's really no different to the two recent reboots. Frank Launder writes in a style that's very 1950's, too, and yer average Armada reader of the time must have been bemused. Me? Loved it... Still wonder why it's never been on video or dvd, though.
I would recommend the basement of Any Amount - the stock changes fairly rapidly, and they have a great selection of old hardback fiction. It's cheap, but then if you get a dustjacket it's ex-library, battered, or both. Reading copies, as they say. I picked up Nancy Spain's first crime novel, three Herbert Jenkins list thrillers (one pre-war, two immediately post), a Cherry Tree pre-war paperback murder mystery and two Sydney Horler's (a paperback Tiger Standish which seems to mix his juvenille football yarns with his 'sophisticated' thrillers, and the wonderfully titled 'The Worst Man In The World', which just begs the reply...) all for twenty quid. That'll keep me quiet while her ladyship watches this new celeb dancing thing on the box...
It was a good day with a lot of talking (well, there was time on that walk) and fine company. Thank you for that, Dem.
Trans-Siberia next time?
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Post by pulphack on Aug 31, 2013 7:46:48 GMT
Oh, and I forgot - Dem, that Horler I couldn't remember the title of was 'The Evil Chateau'. That's right, the chateau itself is obviously bad, not the people in it... Yet, as we know, despite everything that seems to make him appalling, in attitude and style, Horler is strangely compelling!
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Post by jamesdoig on Aug 31, 2013 7:55:24 GMT
To be fair, the erratic navigation worthy of Scott and Oates was as much down to me... Sounds like a lot of fun. Be great to browse Any Amount of Books - he's the guy behind the old Bookride blog. He was flogging a copy of RR Ryan's No Escape for 90 quid the other day. |
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Post by dem bones on Aug 31, 2013 19:40:32 GMT
Sounds like a lot of fun. Be great to browse Any Amount of Books - he's the guy behind the old Bookride blog. He was flogging a copy of RR Ryan's No Escape for 90 quid the other day. Any Amount Of Books is among the last of the great Charing Cross Rd. stalwarts and full of surprises, not all of them at heart attack prices. Found copies of Paul Finch's Groaning Shadows and Joel Lane's The Blue Mask on a recent visit, and it's a rare thing to come away empty handed. I hope Lovejoys reopens as they've always had a good stash of Wordsworths ( Australian Ghost Stories featured in the window display), and it's delightfully sleazy. Directly opposite stands The Porcupine, a popular Aussie hang-out, or it was when last i was in there a few Christmas Eve's back. mr. hack, I think the malodorous, brain-frazzling reek of my decades old industrial-strength Hai Karate may have played no small part in messing up our sense of direction. That "Be careful how you use it" sticker is there for a reason. Maybe we should muscle in on the tourist industry with an "authentic Jack the Ripper walk" - everybody else has and they're all rubbish, so one more wouldn't hurt. It's not like anyone's gonna realise when we wander off route and, once we get bored with it, we can always drag our customers to a pub of "great historical significance to the case." The Wildcats Of St Trinians is quite possibly the oddest of the Armada paperbacks, enjoyed it far more than the very dated D. B. Wyndham Lewis Terror Of St. Trinians. Incidentally, contrary to initial suspicion, the photo inset is intact - or at least, I found a second copy in slightly better nick, and the pages are identical. Sydney Horler. Have only read his classic The Curse Of Doone - featuring the most ludicrous dénouement in vampire fiction - and some horror shorts, but The Evil Chateau and The Worst Man In The World? You can tell they're class by the titles alone. Have you any Horler football novel recommendations? I know he contributed The Ball Of Fortune to the Aldine Football Library, but that's not the kind of thing turns up every day. If and when we explore the record fair, will try drag you around some of the areas few remaining proper (read disreputable and thoroughly insalubrious) drinking dens. Best not wear anything bearing the slightest resemblance to a Celtic FC shirt. Will explain nearer the time .... |
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Post by pulphack on Sept 1, 2013 9:22:03 GMT
Ah well, the Hai Karate... I wasn't going to mention this, but it would explain why every barmaid in the Montague Pryke asked you if you were being served. Either that or the fact that it was empty apart from us and they were deseperate to try and look busy...
I like the idea of an authentic JTR walk that wanders about - most of them really are terrible anyway, who would know if we were headed in the right direction? I went on one as a schoolboy which reeked of 'making it up as you go along', and I also know a gentleman who does one who also claims to be related to Robin Of Locksley and to be the illegitimate son of Bela Lugosi (which, when reported to Bela Jnr cracked him up, allegedlly). With this - er - calibre of competition, we could clean up.
Now I like the Wyndham-Lewis St Trins, but I see what you mean about dated. I had to put myself in the right mindset for its rather mannered style. Frank Launder is much more approachable. But it is very odd for an Armada - possibly the only one to have swearing in it, for a start, as the word 'bugger' cropped up, much to my surprise for an ostensibly kids title of that era. There are also some references of a double entendre nature that are a trifle bizarre in this context. I suspect FL may have been bemused when it emerged on a children's imprint.
As for the wonderful (ahem) Mr Horler - I've read a couple of serial episodes of his football stuff in old Howard Baker collected Gem or Magnet volumes, where they were back-up stories, and they were really rather tame stuff. I suspect he knew very little about the game, judging from what I read, although of course it was different back then, etc etc. Apart from a Tiger Standish novel that I read about 20 years back in a Cherry Tree pre-war paperback (which someone probably nicked and sold as I haven't had it for years) that was uber-Sapper, the only other title apart from The Evil Chateau that I've read in recent years was The Man From Scotland Yard, which was - as the title would suggest - from his 'I'm the new Edgar Wallace, you know, and I'm using his desk just to prove it' phase. It was mundane by Horler standards, but a decent romp akin to EW as written by Billy Bunter. So the footy and Sapper madness of the first Tiger Standish and the wonderfully titled The Worst Man In The World are eagerly awaited (I'm reading the Nancy Spain first, which is - um - eccentric, to say the least). For what it's worth, The Evil Chateau is no Curse Of Doone, judging by what I've heard, but it does have an evil criminal and his blind perverted mother who likes to torture women. It's as sleazy as you could get away with, but with a veneer of prurience that stopped it being a backstreet only book. The main narrative, with its Riveira and sinister castles with secret passages vibe, is a bit like Dornford Yates meets E Phillips Oppenheim, but as written by a man who cannot escape the overbearing aura of the Amalgamated/Fleetway offices.
On a different tack, I watched a Harry Worth dvd this morning, and was struck by how much Count Arthur Strong borrows from him visually - there's also a verbal and stylisic influence which isn't as apparent on radio, but only becomes clear when added to the visual. A bit like Vic Reeves doing Harry Worth, really. Which is a recommendation, by the way...
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Post by dem bones on Sept 2, 2013 13:43:09 GMT
I like the idea of an authentic JTR walk that wanders about - most of them really are terrible anyway, who would know if we were headed in the right direction? I went on one as a schoolboy which reeked of 'making it up as you go along', and I also know a gentleman who does one who also claims to be related to Robin Of Locksley and to be the illegitimate son of Bela Lugosi (which, when reported to Bela Jnr cracked him up, allegedlly). With this - er - calibre of competition, we could clean up. Small world. The bride provided illustrations for one of his Jack the Ripper papers, and have had a few dealings myself. He's the dream interviewee. No need to bother with any questions, you just hit RECORD and leave him to it. Have a copy of his extraordinary Robin Hood - Unmasked (privately printed, n.d.) and It's fair to say, his theories are ... unique to him, but no more ludicrous than anybody else's. Was a time when we exchanged Christmas cards. The first year, the great man was going through a 'Saucy Jack' phase, so the card centred around a photo of him clutching a medical bag while sheepishly brandishing a knife at the camera. The next, from a Mr. 'Bela Blasko', saw him sporting full Dracula regalia with a black bin liner for a cloak. Unfortunately, the following year's festive season coincided with a short-lived re-flowering of his Crowley/ Sex Magic interest, and this time we were treated to a massive throbbing dick scrawled in black marker pen. Hadn't seen him for ages until one evening he led a youthful party of Europeans into The Brown Bear. I'm not sure the pub has anything whatsoever to do with the Whitechapel murders, but was genuinely pleased to see him making a success of it. Still have the postcard of the Ripper's London he gave me that night, and it's one Solar Pons would be proud of. For what it's worth, The Evil Chateau is no Curse Of Doone, judging by what I've heard, but it does have an evil criminal and his blind perverted mother who likes to torture women. It's as sleazy as you could get away with, but with a veneer of prurience that stopped it being a backstreet only book. I'm on the case! I'm so on the case! Have you read much William Le Queux? Haining reprinted a couple of his shorter efforts, and I've made several false starts on his bizarre Rasputinism In London (Cassells, 1919), a 'true' account of evil red anarchist activity in our beloved capital dressed up as a novel. Would I be right in guessing that Sidney Horler's football stuff is very much the kind of thing that would later be adapted as comic strips and, occasionally, short stories for popular sixties & seventies comics? |
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Post by pulphack on Sept 3, 2013 7:28:31 GMT
Bela Blasko - good lord, I'd forgotten that one! He's a very nice bloke but a bit beyond eccentric. He used to follow Chester - my mate's band, not the footy team - and send long rambling letters and - once - a tape and photocopy sleeve of the private press album he made in the seventies. The music was very Charles Manson folk - not bad, but kind of what you'd expect, although for him to know that back then was quite a rare thing. The sleeve was of him crouching naked in a pentagram with a knife dangling over his unconcealed bits. Nice photo... I remember what looked like flowery curtains and G-plan furniture in the background, but that may just be wishful thinking! Given his interests, I should have realised you'd recognise him!
I can confirm that there is no football in The Evil Chateau (it's in the mountains, and a pitch would slope too much even for Yeovil or Barnet), but The Worst Man In The World (the third novel of Dr Paul Vivanti, apparently) has a chapter called The Astounding Affair Of The Vanishing Footballers, and a cursory glance at Toger Standish reveals he plays for the Swifts, there is a Kensington FC (who may or may not be the Swifts - I'll find out in due course), and there are matches against Blackburn Rovers and Aston Villa. Once I've finished editing a mss this week, I'm so on those two next! From what I recall, his juvenile footy tales were just like the kind of thing Tom Tully cooked up for the comics of our youth - fictional teams of eccentrics meet adventure and real life players and triumph with a fluky last minute sixty yard free kick, etc... a bit like watching Orient this season.
William LeQuex I've read very little of - a speculative tale of forthcoming war in a Moorcock anthology of Edwardian fiction, and some detective/spy stories in The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes et al. He seems very formal, very Empire, and a bit dull. His interest in conspiracies might make him worth a second look, though. It's just that Edwardian/late Victorian style... it's very stodgy compared to the better Victorian writers and the post-Four Just Men and Riddle Of The Sands new style.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 3, 2013 7:30:24 GMT
Tiger Standish, that is, and not Toga Standish the Roman hero of derring-do... Bloody typing.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 12, 2013 8:07:31 GMT
Bela Blasko - good lord, I'd forgotten that one! He's a very nice bloke but a bit beyond eccentric. He used to follow Chester - my mate's band, not the footy team - and send long rambling letters and - once - a tape and photocopy sleeve of the private press album he made in the seventies. The music was very Charles Manson folk - not bad, but kind of what you'd expect, although for him to know that back then was quite a rare thing. The sleeve was of him crouching naked in a pentagram with a knife dangling over his unconcealed bits. Nice photo... I remember what looked like flowery curtains and G-plan furniture in the background, but that may just be wishful thinking! Given his interests, I should have realised you'd recognise him! I Always had him down as a renaissance man but the solo album is a new one on me! Am familiar with the 'never mind the warlocks' photo - and the circumstances under which it was taken - but to elaborate would be to risk troll infestation on a scale hitherto unimagined even on here. Purely on the evidence of Rasputinism In London LeQuex doesn't do much for me, either (hence the false starts), though tomorrow he'll probably be one of the all time greats. Thanks for all the pre-war football fiction suggestions. Tiger Standish and The Worst Man in The World sound just what i'm after, now it's just the small matter of finding copies. |
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Post by pulphack on Sept 13, 2013 16:28:55 GMT
Well, the unexpected arrival of a 10 month old mini-Mrs PH (all her grandaughters are uncannily like her - it's very Stepford if you ask me)has put work on slow and poor old Sid on the backburner until next week. I have been thinking about him while walking the dog, though (as you do) and wondering why he hasn't lasted while Edgar Wallace - the man he wanted to be - has endured more, and even the likes of Sapper and Sax Rohmer are still republished, even though their casual racism is frowned on. I think Sapper is worse thann Horler as he has bully boy thuggism in the mix, while Horler's heroes are too much like grown up Harry Whartons to be that callous - just dim. As for Rohmer, he actually usues the racism of his leading men towards Fu Manchu against them at times, which is oddly sly. Incidentally, Wallace was ahead of the game here - in Captain Of Souls a poor black man is convicted and sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit - he becomes the hero when his soul is transmuted by fate into the body of the rich white guy who has framed him, and he spends the rest of the book putting right the sins of the now dead antagonist. An interesting take on Vice Versa. All of which is besides the point - I was also thinking about Bulldog Drummond and what a tosser he is, and how Leslie Charteris changed the rules by creating Simon Templar, who is cynical and worldly but has compassion, while Drummond is just a thug - but it took Charteris several unsuccessful novels with Drummond-lite heroes to develop the new idea. Which brings me back to the conclusion that Horlers heroes and ideas are foever stuck in a Boys Own world where other writers took them further, and also he was a follower and never an innovator. Having said that, he does tell a fast-paced yarn, even in chapters where bugger all actually happens. Yes, the dog has very long walks...
I did read about half of The Worst Man In The World before the little one rocked up and I had to babysit while the Mrs was at work, and it's a feuillade, the first story of which starts with the murder of a footballer! Amd that's before the chapter about the missing ones! Vivanti - the villain (hey, it's even spelt a bit like it!) - is part Italian, which of course explains everything in Horler's world. He also has unnaturallty full red lips, and a huge and misshapen skull that of course denotes a big brain and great intelligence. Our Sid, literal? Surely not... I had to stop at a chapter called The House Of Horror... well, say no more...
Bela Blasko - you know, the Chester crew called him Son Of Drac because of the Lugosi thing, but the weird thing is that it is just about feasible, despite the scoffing of Bela Jnr. SoD/Bela claims that his mum was a theatre usher who was seduced by Lugosi on the last tour of Dracula he did in the UK - the one that was promoted by Richard Gordon, went bust, and caused Gordon to enter the film biz by striking the deal for Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire, the fee for which was Bela's passage back to the USA. That would actually tie in with Bela Blasko's age. Maybe he's not as eccentric as he sounds? Very odd bloke, but very likeable.
Anyway, more on Sid when the baby's gone home...
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Post by pulphack on Sept 16, 2013 17:29:53 GMT
So anyway, I finished The Worst Man In The World today, and although I suspect that it's only me and Dem who are interested and I could just pm him, I'll carry on anyway, as it looks like Tiger Standish will have to wait til the end of the week while I catch up on work stuff. The Stepford baby has gone home, leaving chaos in her wake, and now I need to knuckle down! But first...
The Worst Man In The World? Not really. Quite bad, not a nice lad, and very bad to his mother in all likelihood, but not that terrible really (Nb - Eric Morecambe gag: he's very good to his mother - never goes home). Written in 1928, I suppose pre-Hitler this kind of villainy was the height of bad manners, but would have looked a little shallow later on.
Bad points: Horler's habit of cutting away at what could have developed into serious shudder-pulp moments, and his other bad habit of relying on coincidences that go beyond suspension of belief into sheer aghast awe at the audacity of it. He also has a tendency to reveal 'clues' and deduction AFTER the event, so that it looks really confusing rather than clever.
Good points: that sheer bravado of story-telling that is so Magnet/Gem/Boys Own etc desperately trying to be grown up. I once read a Private Eye review of Catherine Cookson that wanted to slag her but grudgingly conceded that it was the breathless sincerity of her own belief in her story that drove the reader on: Horler had this, too.
Apart from the fact that Vivanti is suspect purely because he's Italian, the infamous Horler racism and imperialism doesn't really surface, so you can focus on the fun stuff. In fact, Vivanti is Fu Manchu-like in his fleeting appearances in each chapter (as said before, this is a feuillade and I'd guess it was originally a serial), and the real focus is Peter Reppington, a cross between a secrret service man and a private eye - he has rooms in the Albany, and speaks in that flippant manner that marks him as of the period. He'd like to be Bulldog Drummond, but he's too polite, and anyway he liked footer and rugger so he's too sporting be a thug like Drummond. His secretary is Elsie Summers, who has a slow-burn romance of the 'when we catch Vivanti I will marry you' variety, though htye do at the end even though they haven't. It's her brother who is the footballer killed in the first chapter, and her quest for vengeance is the actual driving force of the story. In many ways, she's a stronger and far better drawn character than Reppington, which again is not what you'd expect.
Chapters titles promise so much but let you down on pure sleaze: The Evil Vineyard, With Death The Croupier, The Scarlet Sin, The Mind of The Slayer, The Case Of The Sinister Philanthropist, The House Of Horror, Through The Gates Of Darkness and The Curious Episode Of The Swearing Ghost... well, of course they let you down, but with such fun along the way you don't really mind. The Astounding Affair Of The Vanishing Footballers concerns Vivanti and his millionaire evil capitalist backer (again, not what you'd expect from arch-Tory Horler - I would have thought Bolsheviks powered by Russian gold!) buying a burgeoning second division football team who are gunning for promotion and then siphoning off the fit young men for gland transplants when they get injured and 'sign for an American team'! It's as if Jack Walker had actually been an evil capitalist when he bought Blackburn Rovers (ok, he was) and then instead of financing the Premiership title had sold Alan Shearer's kidneys to a Mexican hospital (which would make Match Of the Day livelier, at least)...
Thoroughly recommended to all fans of borederline daft bonehead thrillers.
I note that The Evil Chateau was written in 1929, while Tiger Standish was written in 1932 although my edition is a rather nice Hutchinson paperback that was probably from 1937-ish - it's no6 in the crime series, while The Man From Scotland Yard is no14 and is dated 1938 from the original owners handwritten note inside. They have dustwrappers (on a paperback, no less) and are in very good nick - good quality paper, and have lasted better than, say, the Cherry Tree Paperbacks I've had from the same era. I only mention all this because they have sales figures on the front - Tiger Standish was in its 64th thousandth, while The Man From Scotland Yard was in its 125th thousandth, which shows you how popular Horler was back then, and yet forgotten now! I'm surprised Tiger sold half the other title, as the Standish series was one of the few things that survived in any form - I remember seeing them still around in libraries when I was younger, and he was still mentioned by older people on things like Looks/Sounds Familiar in the same breath as Drummond and The Saint (my mum being 46 when I was born meant that this generation of entertainers/writers/etc was a big presence in the house when I was young.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 20, 2013 7:47:28 GMT
All except Dem will no doubt be pleased to know that this is the last post on Horler - at least until either of us find more of his inestimable work!
Tiger Standish - well, why the reviews printed harp on about him being the new Edgar Wallace and it being confirmed by this book are beyond me, as the only thing he has in common with the master is the 'hero saves damsel in distress and marries her at the end' motif that everyone was using in thrillers back then anyway... Horler overwrites while Wallace was spare. There are numerous occassions where characters who are just entering the action or have been absent for a while need things explaining. Instead of a 'He was rapidly filled in on events, and then..' you get one of the characters tortuous explaining everything - even when they don't have to - and usually in speeches that are an excuse for Horler to show off his grasp of character and dialogue - ie. terrible jokes for Standish, and execrable dialect for others. For Gods sakes, there's two characters who do this in one chapter within space of six pages! Incidentally, there are numerous examples of appalling cockernee and zummerset dialects here...
The Horler anti-semitism is confined to a few references that make you wince but can be ignored, while with this and The Worst Man In The World it seems to be the Italians who are really the target of his ire - Vivant in the latter, and a character called Carlimeri in this, who ends up being throttled to extinction by Standish while he's confined to bed to a damaged knee (Standish, that is - and it's the second villain he strangles this way in the space of five pages).Oh, the Germans do get a brief slagging in the second to last chapter, too.
Really, this is a bare-faced Bulldog Drummon rip - the nicknames are a giveaway, true, but there's also the Tiger/Sonia Devenish relationship, which is Drummond/Phyllis in carbon copy. The main villian, who is the head of a syndicate, is called Rahussen - a nice Swedish sounding name like Petersen. And of course Tiger is a part-time affilaite of the secret service, like Drummond, as he prefers to play a free hand.
The plot is simple: Sonia's stepfather cheated the syndicate and now he is dead they think she has the loot. She, of course, knows nothing, and Standish steps in to save the day... Except he doesn't, oddly, as he is captured and confined to bed with a damaged knee, and the actual denouement comes via the deus ex machina of Sir Harker Bellamy, head of Q1 (ie British Intelligence - though with Tiger attached you do wonder about the second word), along with a detachment of men who raid a country house and effect rescue. Bellamy, apparently, appears in other Horler thrillers.
Where it scores is that, as I've said before, Horler isn't as nasty as Sapper, even though it seems he'd like to be. Standish is a likeable idiot rather than a fascist oaf like Drummond, and is a Greyfriars schoolboy in the adult world. Despite the explanations mentioned above, it still rips along at pace, Horler's storypaper training serving him well. You'd think that the exposition was to boost word count if not for the fact that Horler seems to love the excuse to break into accents and terrible jokes before speeding on. And then, near the end, where Standish strangles two men while incapacitated, we get quiet sordid and graphic for a couple of pages, which actually seems ill-judged against the tone of the rest of the book - yet these passages show Horler could have truned his hand to shudder pulp territory if there was a market in the UK back then.
And of course there's the football - a quick bit of googling shows that the first few Horler books were footy novels, and this bears up the few storypaper things I've seen. It would appear he broke into novels on the back of his juvenile CV, and then decided to move into a more commercially lucrative area. A calculating writer, he also wrote a book about the business of writing - but at £17.50 on abe for the cheapest copies, I'll pass for now! Anyway, he did obviously love the game as the two dedicated matches that cover four chapters at the beginning and in the last third of the book are very nicely written, and do feel like an entusiast at work. Although he can't resist the second climaxing with a diving aeroplane that distracts the crowd while a dodgy centre half in the pay of the syndicate cripples Standish so that he can be abducted in a fake ambulance... "Melodrama? What's that?" as Mr H might have said...
Again, boneheaded but also a lot of fun. Bill Pronzini has Horler about right in his 'Gun In Cheek' (or was it 'Son Of...?' - they're still boxed up, so can't check off hand)chapter. He's terrible in so many ways, yet if you're in the mood, there's still a lot there that shows why he was such a huge seller in his day. For all his faults, he could deliver.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 21, 2013 8:46:33 GMT
All except Dem will no doubt be pleased to know that this is the last post on Horler .... judging from the response, there's possibly an element of truth in that, but for me this is among the best (multiple) posts we've had in ages - would go so far as to say your commentary has the makings of a top Paperback Fanatic article if and when Justin runs a back to the between the wars special. Or you could incorporate it into a piece on the lovely Hodder postwar uniform yellowback series? I'm not sure they reissued all of Horler's novels, but a cursory google reveals they certainly did Tiger Standish Does His Stuff, The Screaming Skull and The Man Who Died Twice. You'd sold me on The Worst Man In The World even before 'The Astounding Affair Of The Vanishing Footballers' came into the equation. Re Sapper/ Bulldog Drummond. Was making slow but steady progress with The Black Gang in the Wordsworth Omnibus before I landed a copy of Bull Dog Drummond: His Four Rounds With Carl Peterson (Hodder, 1941) - the same collection in it's original, uncensored form. This threw me off my stride as, of course, i'd rather read the novels in all their pre-sanitised ghastliness, and it meant starting all over .... will get around to it eventually, but not yet, not yet. In the meantime, also landed two of his non-Drummond short story collections - The Dining Club, The Man In Ratcatcher - which, as you mention elsewhere, are absent of fascist and racist sentiment, and they're also decent for the occasional horror and/ or supernatural outing. Dennis Wheatley's another who voiced anti-Italian sentiments ( Strange Conflict), but then he seemingly held a prejudice against everyone bar Tory-voting Englishmen, especially foreigners, foreigners with hare-lips, socialists, reds, union members ( 'fledgling traitors'), more foreigners, etc, etc., but, perversely, over time i came to enjoy Dennis's diatribes at least as much as i did his way with a black sorcery thriller. Gateway To Hell is just .... incidentally, was recently sent two original weird football stories by a certain Mr. Vince Grinstead, so, should he be reading this, would like him to get in touch and advise me on how to proceed as would love to run 'em on Vault! |
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Post by pulphack on Sept 23, 2013 7:13:14 GMT
The Wheatley comparison is very apt - they do both hate anyone who isn't Tory and English (Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are a bit suspect becuase of that Celtic tinge, obviously), and write patronisingly of anyone who isn't at least upper-middle class, and yet you can treat them like the dodgy uncle whose views after a few brandies you ignore at Xmas as he burbles away in the comfy chair, as he's part of that very furniture, and anyway they can tell a good story. I feel the same way about the slightly later ex-Postman (a description which always arsed him off no end) JT Edson.
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