The Treasure Hunters:Howard Baker/Wilfred McNeilly

[Calenture]

Star, 1972.

A Richard Quintain novel.

The Beast

Like a sore thumb, the motive for murder stood out. A camera. Seamus McCarthy had sworn he would take a photograph of the mythical Beast as it rose up out of the waters of Lough Schull on the stormy west coast of Ireland. And when McCarthy was found horribly mangled, his camera was missing, the superstitious whispered that it was the Beast.

Richard Quintain was not a man to be taken in by ghosts and monsters. But he knew that if he was to get the killers he would have to solve a mystery nearly 400 years old.

What was the secret of the sunken Spanish galleon in the Lough?

And what were the ex-Nazi Huhnlein brothers doing in peaceful County Cork?

I was going to leave others to comment on authors like this covered in the forthcoming Paperback Fanatic. But as I found that my favourite book shop in Redruth (about the only one, in fact) didn't close down at Christmas but moved to another address (The Redruth Book Shop, now at the foot of Station Hill, advt if you're passing through) and at the back of the shop under a bottom shelf I found this one, I can only hope Andy Boot is around and can chip in with information on this.

But if anyone else wants to, feel free.

Andy has a great article covering Howard Baker and others output in the new PF.

Order it here!

[dem bones]

Well looking forward to the esteemed Mr. Bugg's Saxon special. As to The Treasure Hunters you only have to look at the cover to tell it's gonna be a classic.

[severance]

Well this is a bit spooky, just bought a copy of this off ebay barely one hour ago - the 1967 Mayflower edition

Thought it might be a contender for the badly-posed photo covers thread...

[Calenture]

admin said:

Well looking forward to the esteemed Mr. Boot's Saxon special. As to The Treasure Hunters you only have to look at the cover to tell it's gonna be a classic.

What I can tell you about the Andy Boot article without spoiling things for people much more knowledgeable on the subject, is that it's definitely the goods and I found it both entertaining and educational. And I'm bitterly regretting having lost or given away "Desmond Reid's" Frenzy in the Flesh. Can't even find the cover online now, but the scan's in Paperback Fanatic.

(edit): Just seen Sev's post after posting this. I think there are quite a few names here who'll want to make an input to PF's letters pages this time!

[Steve]

calenture said:

I'm bitterly regretting having lost or given away "Desmond Reid's" Frenzy in the Flesh. Can't even find the cover online now

_{Macfadden, 1968 (orig. Mayflower Dell, 1966)}

"When unidentified floating bodies surfaced in the waves off a secluded little French island, Detective Sexton Blake embarked on one of his most chilling adventures. The decaying castle inhabited by the Vicomtesse de Gaillac held many mysteries. The curious old woman lived off paintings by her famous deceased son - horrible, tormented paintings that could only have been done from the grave."

[pulphack]

The Mayflower cover is better, but in a similar vein. A very fine book - sleazy, but in that restrained way that only Brit pulp writers who had lived through the Hank Janson trials could be. Lots of implied sadism and sex, which always works better for me because you then let your mind go... or does that just say something about me?

As far as The Treasure Hunters goes, I've had a good look through the Blake Library fourth series, and can't find an obvious source for it, so perhaps (shock!) it's a new title. Or it takes a Blake and really messes with the locations. The only Irish titles there are have little to do with ex-Nazi's and ghostly galleons. Without geting a copy and reading it, it's hard to judge.

Great covers, though - very simlar to the Mayflower title 'The Trail Of The Golden Girl' by Rex Dolphin (5th series, no.40). This Blake, though, takes place in Cornwall and has no ex-Nazi's or ghostly galleons. I like typing that... and Dolphin was a real paperback writer, not a Baker pseudonym. Like Martin Thomas, he had a thing about stories involving the gees.

[Calenture]

steve said:

_{Macfadden, 1968 (orig. Mayflower Dell, 1966)}

Right book, Steve, but wrong cover. Mine had the hanging girl (as I think does a third edition) but my copy showed her in profile. Still baffles me that it's gone as it was my only Sexton Blake and I was sure I'd decided to keep it for that cover.

Re: The Treasure Hunters:

I'm seven chapters into that one one so far, my first Baker (unless I've read pseudonymous books), and it's well written and entertaining.

Without going into a synopsis yet (Sev will probably finish it before me, and if he does I'll look forward to his review), Baker seems knowledgeable about nautical history and also about aqualung diving. There are small details there which I suspect weren't learned from books and there's a lot of confidence in the writing.

Definitely eerie that Sev got his copy at the same time as I found mine.

[severance]

pulphack said:

As far as The Treasure Hunters goes, I've had a good look through the Blake Library fourth series, and can't find an obvious source for it, so perhaps (shock!) it's a new title. Or it takes a Blake and really messes with the locations. The only Irish titles there are have little to do with ex-Nazi's and ghostly galleons. Without geting a copy and reading it, it's hard to judge.

After some investigation worthy of Richard Quintain himself, I can safely say this is a re-write of Wilfred McNeilly's Terror Loch originally published in 1962.

First lines of Terror Loch:

The great galleon came staggering down the westerly gale towards her death.
It was the 25th of August in the Year of Our Lord 1588, and to leeward lay the cliffs and rocks and hills of Donegal.
The ship was the San Ignacius...

First lines of The Treasure Hunters:

The great galleon came staggering down the westerly gale towards her death.
It was the 25th of August in the Year of Our Lord 1588, and to leeward lay the cliffs and rocks and hills of County Kerry.
The ship was the Santa Maria...

So the only question remains - why is Baker rewriting someone else's Blake, unless McNeilly didn't write Terror Loch

[pulphack]

brilliant bit of work, sev! i must admit, i just dug out the bill baker and wa ballinger titles to go through. it is a little odd that it's a re-write of a macneilly, but then again...

so is 'dark ways to death'. although mcneilly finished the title, it was taken and adapted by baker and mann to suit their guardians proposal, and substantially rewritten by mann for the selling package (all guardians titles wre partially written by mann and baker for book fares) before mcneilly was drafted in to finish it. now, everything that ANY writer wrote for Press ED was owned by the company,and this included the whole of the Blake fifth series (the mayflowers).

so what if Baker had some dodgy deal going whereby his fourth series Blake writers for Fleetway were actually not selling direct to Fleetway, but through a third party? that would be very Bill Baker.

alternatively, it could be that McNeilly sold a rewrite as a Quintain, which was then pushed out as a Baker as Baker and Ballinger had become 'house' names for the series. certainly, he never issued any press ed related titles under his own name (that i'm aware of so far).

not that it really matters, i suppose. it's just that these things become baffling when there are no answers, and we all love a mystery, right? even dem - as long as there's the odd vamp or two in there.

[pulphack]

sorry, forgot to add this: everyone who wrote under their own names for the SBL did their own work. anything fiddled with came out as Desmond Reid or Richard Williams. so McNeilly is definitely responsible. in fact, that makes the diving and naval references all the more understandable, as he was knowledgeable on these subjects (baker was better on seedy london, and probably tax law avoidance).

also, the mayflower cover i was referring to a few posts above was Frenzy In The Flesh (reading it, i'm not clear on that) - that one really is a belter. you must find it again, rog, it's a real gem.

[Calenture]

As the story opens, Richard Quintain is aboard a flight bound for America to uncover a huge insurance swindle, lovely secretary Julie Wellesley sleeping in the next seat. A storm forces the plane back to Shannon where Quintain receives further news of the swindle – news that persuades him he needs a holiday and peaceful County Cork is as good a place to stay as any. From Quintain’s previous air born nightmares about crashing into the sea, it’s a short step to the golden girl aqualung diving in Lough Schull. “The swimmer in Lough Schull was revelling in this magic. The swimmer was a girl with long blonde hair that streamed behind her to the middle of her back. It was hair jewelled with bright, iridescent bubbles.”

She sees a huge hulk lying below on the Lough bed. It’s exactly what the reader’s expecting, because the two previous chapters have related the watery end of the Spanish ship Santa Maria, which, breaking away from the Spanish armada has been driven by the storm into Lough Schull. And there are evil deeds committed aboard her before the end.

The scene switches to the back parlour of Riordan’s Hotel at Ballydeross, where Seamus McCarthy, fisherman and butt of most of the bad jokes, is insisting loudly that he did see the Beast to the amusement of other locals. Quintain and Julie Wellesley stay out of the argument and McCarthy leaves the pub swearing that he’ll take a photo of the monster the next time it appears. But before the evening is over, local policeman Sergeant Costello bends his ear and asks for his help with a strange case of murder.

One that happened four hundred years ago.


I'm actually nearly at the end of the book, but that's as much as I can write tonight. More later.

[Calenture]

The next exciting installment of this story, which our leading authorities now believe to actually be the work of Wilfred McNeilly.

Or parts of it that might or might not have been rewritten by Mr Baker, anyway.

Seamus McCarthy has left Riordan’s Hotel at Ballydeross in his usual drunken stupor, swearing that he’ll prove the existence of a monster in Lough Schull by pohotographing it – and predictably will soon be found dead in the water, a smile upon his face.

Before this however, Quintain has been approached by Michael Costello, who has an equally intriguing problem for Quintain. He wants him to solve a murder that happened four hundred years ago!

His daughter swimming underwater in the lough had chanced on the wreck of an old sailing ship, and entering it had seen a decomposing corpse on the floor of its Great Cabin, a knife in its back.

His daughter is of course the girl glimpsed earlier, and Quintain’s first sight of her is as striking as the readers’ impression of her diving:

“The door opened... and delight walked into the room.

“Delight had long, golden hair, glorious blue eyes, and a figure which might have been expressly constructed for the purpose of gladdening hearts wearied by the ugliness of the world. Delight was tall, and her legs were slender and shapely. She wore a thin shirt-blouse stretched taut over firm breasts, and the shortest shorts Julie Wellesley had seen in a very long time.

“Costello cleared his throat. ‘My daughter, Norah.. Norah, this is Mr Richard Quintain and his secretary, Miss Julie Wellesley.’

“Norah smiled at them both. Quintain looked at her with considerable appreciation, but Julie’s reaction was less spontaneous. She was thinking, rather resentfully, that no girl had the right to be so beautiful...”

Galleons and girls, McNeilly – if this is his writing – does both pretty well.

Costello has come to this part of the world because of the story of the Santa Maria and it’s sunken treasure. The name of the ship’s captain, Castillo, is not such a far remove from Costello, who believes he is descended from him.

But only if the man on the floor of the ship’s Great Cabin was not Castillo.

Quintain agrees to take on the case and see the wreck for himself.

[Calenture]

Third exciting instalment:

Richard Quintain, Julie Wellesley and Norah Costello dive down to the sunken hulk of the Santa Maria... but in the Great Cabin, the four hundred year old corpse has disappeared!

But there is a knife on the floor.

“Quintain could see that the blade was more extensively corroded at one end than at the other. A clearly visible line of demarcation crossed the blade half-way along its length from the hilt.”

This could only mean one thing...

Norah Costello was telling the truth.

It also raised the question, Were they alone in the sunken ship?

Then the hulk shudders as something unimaginably huge brushes against it. When the three regain the surface, the girls say that they saw some huge shape approaching below. They have no time to discuss whether this could have been a shark before they’re disturbed by screams from outside, coming from the direction of the beach. A girl is lying unconscious by the waters’ edge. When she’s had a chance to recover, Quintain quickly decides that she’s shamming a state of shock and amnesia – conveniently, she can give no explanation for her presence on the beach. Quintain quickly dubs her Miss Amnesia and decides to keep an eye on her. And when they visit Cork, he spots a doorman with a shady past who he knows at the Munster Hotel and arranges to have her watched.

As we leave them, Sean McCarthy will soon make his ill-fated one-way fishing trip.

Julie Wellesley, left behind while Quintain goes to Cork with Miss Amnesia, is jealous.

Quintain himself has been adopted by a party of the local stinking rich and been invited to join them as they gatecrash an arts festival.

And Miss Amnesia has made her getaway, but Quintain spots her soon whirling in a flame-coloured dress on a nearby dance floor. She gets away before he can reach her, and he learns that she’s known locally as ‘The Countess’.

[Calenture]

Feb 3, 2008 14:43:41 GMT dem bones said:

Well looking forward to the esteemed Mr. Bugg's Saxon special...

Well at least it proves someone reads my posts, if only to perpetuate my mistakes.

But it's a terrible thing when people use irony like this.