Time Out of Joint - Philip K. Dick

Yes, he thought. I’m the man with the KICK ME sign pinned on him. No matter how hard he tries he can’t whirl around fast enough to see it. But his intuition tells him it’s there. He watches other people and gauges their actions. He infers from what they do. He infers the sign is there because he sees them lining up to kick him.

Belmont Science Fiction

First thing out of the way...this is the longest unintentional break I've taken from my postings here. I think my reasons are good though. First off, I attended NOIRCON 2014 in Philadelphia at the end of October. There I got to meet a lot of nice writers whose works I'm a huge fan of. Writers like Christa Faust, Vicki Hendricks, and Jonathan Woods to name a few. And yes, writers are kinda weird, but in a good way. Had lots of fun and am looking forward to reading all the recommendations I came home with. 

My second reason for the lapse in posts is...War and Peace. Yes, the International Heavyweight from Russia had me in a battle of wills from which I emerged triumphant! Just the thought of picking up another book seemed a betrayal of my mission which began sometime back in 1980 and as suffered through multiple failures since. This time, though, I started it and made it back alive. 

Anyway, on to the matter at hand, this nifty little pulp treasure from the mind of Philip K. Dick. This one I found used in a Zia Records of all places. Never know what treasure will turn up in the most unusual places.

Like most fans of the late writer’s work, I was introduced to Philip K. Dick’s novels via the movie Blade Runner. I remember plunking down my money to see Blade Runner back in 1982 when it was first released. My girlfriend at the time wasn't particularly jazzed about seeing it, and was audibly bored throughout the flick. I resisted her persistent urges to ditch the flick for some other movie like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial or Grease 2 instead. I’d recently discovered the novels of Raymond Chandler and was completely immersed in the noirish, dystopian world that that Ridley Scott had created for the movie. Yes, the theater was more than half empty, and yes, my girlfriend thought the movie sucked, but I didn’t care. I was hooked. (For the record, this same girlfriend managed to force me into seeing Grease 2 that summer in payback, justifying my questioning her taste in everything but boyfriends!) Blade Runner seemed to provoke everything in me that first turned me on to Science Fiction as a kid. I had to find this guy Dick’s books and check them out for myself.

That year I consumed easily a half-dozen of PKD’s novels, including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the inspiration for Blade Runner. I wish now I still had those paperback novels of his that I had then, seeing as how they’re practically impossible to find now in used bookstores without getting gouged. Back then, the unsettling nature of the novels, wrapped in pulpy trappings appealed to my own unsettled personality. I won’t admit that I actually “got” the paranoia soaked in the sometimes fevered prose offered in those paperbacks, but I wasn't exactly connecting with anything else offered back then either. But that’s another story.

This is a long way of getting around to my introducing you to wonderful yet paranoid weirdness that waits for anyone picking up Time out of Joint which was first serialized in New Worlds Science Fiction in 1959 to early 1960. It’s a deceptively simple set-up for what could easily be a “cold-war comes to Main Street” novel in the 1950s. We’re introduced to Vic Nielson, a grocery store manager, his lovely wife Margo, and their young son, Sammy. Also living with the Nielson’s is Margo’s brother, Ragle Gumm. Ragle Gumm is a bachelor and mathematical genius who earns his living winning a daily contest called “Where Will the Little Green Man be Next?” offered by the local newspaper. Gumm has been winning this contest each day for almost three years, and the strain of winning is beginning to take its toll on him.

The town is described in those fine details the best writers can seemingly capture without effort. Margo drives a Volkswagen, the family watches Sid Caesar on television, Sammy has a fort in the backyard, the neighbors Bill and June Black, share cocktails and bowling invitations with the Nielsons, and The Kinsey Report has exposed suburban fantasies. One of the neighbors also drives a luxurious Tucker automobile. An unearthed classic called Uncle Tom’s Cabin by an unknown writer named Harriet Beecher Stowe is a new book club selection. No one listens to radio. Better Homes and Gardens offers recipes for chicken and peanut butter casseroles. And the mothers in the neighborhood have filed a petition to have the city demolish the old house foundations at the edge of town.

Meanwhile, Vic Nielson reaches for light switches that don’t exist. Ragle Gumm sees a gas station disappear. Sammy’s radio retrieves voices from the sky. Ragle Gumm finds a phone book with unassigned numbers. And a magazine un-earthed from the ruins at the edge of town feature an unknown movie star named Marilyn Monroe. It’s all rather unsettling for Ragle Gumm.

We have a hodge-podge of leaks in our reality, he said to himself. A drop here, a couple of drops over in that corner. A moist spot forming on the ceiling. But where’s it getting in? What’s it mean?

As the uneasiness builds, Ragle Gumm becomes entwined in a potential love affair with his neighbor June Black. Mr. Lowery from the newspaper is pressuring him to keep winning the contest. Bill Black is more and more intrusive into the Nielson’s home, and Ragle Gumm is convinced that his life as a contest winner is an empty joke. An existential crisis looms before him. His urges to run away mount. And all the while, the hints keep dropping that things are not what they seem. 

And the paranoia ever tightens. He hears his name on Sammy’s radio. He sees his picture in magazines. And every attempt he makes at leaving town is a nightmarish experience in persecution. And when was the last time you saw anyone in a Tucker?

And there ya go...Next time, I promise (?) not to take so long between posts. Even if it's only a promise to myself. Unless I happen to meet this chick Anna Karenina I've heard talk of....

White Witch

You never know what you'll turn up just digging through the miscellaneous record bins in the used stores. For example, a couple of weeks ago I found this cool relic from the past.

White Witch - Capricorn Records - 1972

The second I saw this cover I pretty much knew that I had to buy it. And at $5.99 it was over and done and sold. Later on I looked White Witch up online and discovered that they're from my hometown of Tampa Florida. I was in grade school when this record came out, so anything White Witch was doing at the time went way over my radar. I did have a have a favorite babysitter who might have been into them, who knows...she kind of had her finger on the pulse of the rock scene at the time. (No wonder I had a crush on her, but that's another story.)

Released in 1972 on Capricorn Records, White Witch is Ronn Goedert: lead vocals, Buddy Pendergrass: organ, piano and mood, Buddy Richardson on lead guitar, Beau Fisher on bass guitar and Bobby Shea on drums.

Musically, they're all over the map on this, their first of 2 albums. I've seen online that many people prefer their second album to this one. This record does his its "swing for the bleachers" feel about it, but you can't blame the band for that. Tampa Florida wasn't the sort of place to find fame and glory back then. I understand they opened for Alice Cooper and other big names at the time. From the music on this record it sounds like they would have been a good time live.

So, for your listening pleasure, here is a cut from White Snake named "Illusion". It's a wild one!

Doc Savage - The Red Skull

In stature, he was a giant, although proportional with such symmetry that only his relation to the size of the door in which he stood showed his bigness. His every line—the metallic tendons of his hands, the columnar cording of his neck—denoted great physical strength. The man had the gigantic muscles of Samson.

Bantam, May 1967, Cover art by James Bama

This giant is, of course, Doc Savage himself! The Red Skull by Lester Dent, under the house name of Kenneth Robeson, was the 6^th Doc Savage adventure, published in Doc Savage Magazine in August 1933. In it, Doc Savage and his pals Monk, Ham, Renny, Johnny and Long Tom, take face off against a whole lot of skullduggery in the wild desert country of Arizona. It’s through the manic events in New York in the first half of the novel that wind up getting them all there, however. First, Doc Savage and his pals have to deal with assorted dead bodies and kidnappings, thanks to an hombre named Buttons Zortell and the rest of his goons. Buttons Zortell earned his moniker thanks to a pair of button-like scars on both cheeks; souvenirs of a bullet once blasting through his mouth. That’s right, a bullet through the choppers! How’s that for an identifying physical attribute? Also, Buttons and his gang all speak an interesting version of English I’ll call “Goonspeak”. Shakespeare would not be impressed, but your grandparents might.

Like all superhero capers, Doc Savage adventures are only as thrilling as their villains. We all know that Doc always triumphs over evil, so no one reads these wondering how it will all turn out in the end. They read them for the villains. In this outing we’ve got a lot of hooligans (too many!) from the Wild West who deliver each line in a mishmash patois of cowboy-gangster lingo like, “I’m the jasper what’s gonna ventilate your hide unless you spill the beans right quick!” Even Doc himself has to adopt the lingo when disguised as one of the outfit. This tough outfit works under the command of an ornery hombre that goes by the handle of Nick Clipton. Not exactly a name that’s going to put mortal fear on one’s ass, but maybe Lester Dent was running out of menacing monikers to pick from. Regardless, right off the get-go we’re clued in that Nick Clipton is a fake name for the real mastermind behind the dastardly hijinks. Ultimately we learn that only one of three likely candidates is the chief villain: Nate Raff, Richard O’Melia or Ossip Keller. The trouble is, Doc and his pals have all three of these wily tomcats hampering their investigation.

Also tossed into the mix is the gorgeous Lea Aster. Lea is Monk’s personal assistant, secretary and Girl-Friday, rolled up into one. She’s also handy with a high-heeled shoe when it comes to rapping goons on the noggin with it. Unfortunately, Lea also has a habit of getting kidnapped. Still, I liked Lea. I’m a firm believer that the boys need a strong dose of feminine guts and wiles on their side when it comes to taking down evil masterminds. Usually that’s the role that Doc’s cousin, Patricia “Pat” Savage, takes on. I don’t know how often Lea turns up in Doc Savage adventures. For all I know this was Lea Aster’s one shot at glory as this is the only Doc I’ve read with her in it.

Sounds confusing? Well, it sort of is. Events go from an abandoned Native American ruins, to a “subterranean world of red-hot lava,” to a trouble prone dam site. At stake is an “irresistible power that can level mountains!” It’s a pulp adventure that is literally all over the map. But this is why we’re fans of this stuff! It’s wild, wooly and utterly ridiculous. And we like it that way.

Lots of bullets get thrown around in this caper, in addition to fist fights, gas attacks, poisonings, repeated kidnappings of a hot damsel, and…I already said it…skullduggery! In other words, it’s a typical Doc Savage yarn from early from his career. 

Nick Carter - Danger Key

The image on the screen shifted to Julie Baron. She lay strapped to a table. Beside her, Dr. Orff was preparing his surgical instruments. “This will be Dr. Orff’s first opportunity to operate without unaesthetic since Matthausen,” crooned Judas. 

Award Books, 1966

Yikes! Things look dire for Nick Carter’s girl, Julie Baron, in this 16^th “Killmaster espionage chiller “Danger Key.  Published in 1966 and written by Lew Louderback, Danger Key brings back Nick Carter’s nemesis, Mr. Judas. But wait, there’s more!

In this one, Carter is assigned to clean up the mess after sloppy CIA agent Ralph Benson lets alcohol and loose lips result in the death another CIA agent from a nasty hit and run out on a desolate Florida causeway. The murdered agent was assigned to monitor recent Cuban refugees. The killer being a mysterious blonde seen driving a “speeding white convertible.” A nearby fisherman witnesses the hit and makes it to the dying agent in time to hear his last words uttered through bloody lips, “Pa…okay…” What the hell does that mean? Well, that’s one of Carter’s jobs to find out.

The dead agent had been assigned to trace a certain Cuban refugee who is believed to be Mr. Judas in disguise. Judas is someone whom AXE is familiar with, and with that, Carter is called in. Carter takes over the case disguised as Ralph Benson who has been sidelined. Carter’s job as Benson is to investigate the murder of the dead agent while making enough obvious mistakes to lull the enemy agents, especially Judas, into revealing themselves and their dastardly designs on the free world.

As Benson, Carter makes the rounds of Big Pine Key, and ends up in a fisherman’s bar where he allows himself to be picked up by a wild party girl name Ingra Brand. Ingra was the girlfriend of the guy killed in the hit-and-run, and the main suspect in his death. She also drives a sporty little white convertible. Ingra’s companion is a spooky cat introduced as Dr. Orff. Carter learns that Orff is personal physician to Professor Brand, Ingra’s father, who lives in a guarded estate in a community known as Senior City. Ingra seems to swing wildly from lusty party girl to sullen wallflower, and it’s Carter’s luck that he meets her at the peak of a bad case of hot-pants. She takes him out to a lonely spot on the beach where they screw each other silly in the sand and surf. And it’s stuff right out of a bodice-ripper:

Each movement was a stab of ecstasy. She gasped suddenly, tore at his lips with her teeth. Her fingers clawed his chest. He swore softly and pulled her arms away, pinning them at her sides without losing his stride. Her movements quickened convulsively in time with his, and then in one last crazed moment they both forgot the hard sand beneath them, the distant surf, their separate identities—all but the exquisite bursting inside them as their whole beings seemed suddenly ignited, then liberated and free, floating away from the world on wave after shuddering wave of ecstasy…

Meanwhile, the two of them have been followed by the local sheriff and his deputy. They wait for Carter and Ingra to finish bumping fuzzies before pouncing. Carter manages to dispatch the deputy quickly enough with a karate chop to the throat, but has his hands full with the sheriff, who it turns out, is an expert sumo wrestler! Ultimately Carter is taken down, arrested and drugged with some kind of truth serum that makes him reveal that he’s not the real Ralph Benson. After recovering from his drugged state, Carter jumps the sheriff and kills him, and in the process discovers that the sheriff was in fact an Asian agent in disguise and not the corn-pone boob he presented himself as.

Later, Nick Carter finds the real Benson has been murdered. Worse than that, Carter also learns that while drugged up, he’d also been injected with a weird serum that enables his enemies to follow him via some kind of radioactive isotopes in his bloodstream. Senior City seems to be one of those wrinkled cities full of retirees that dot the Florida coast, but instead turns out to be chock full o’ Chinese agents disguised as chrome-topped old Caucasians thanks to plastic surgery. And all this in the first 40 or 50 pages!

As you can see, there is more plot in this novel than you can shake a stick at! In the space of 156 pages there are murders, karate chops, disguises, plenty of hot sex and cold blooded killings to go ‘round. There are also more than enough villains to fill half a dozen novels. Everything from an agent nemesis to a wheelchair bound professor, a kooky-possibly-psychotic nympho, an evil twin (yes, an evil twin!), villainous senior citizens, a reclusive billionaire with an appetite for live porn and, last but not least, an evil Nazi bastard with a taste for medical torture! Man, take your pick for a favorite evil cliché and you’ll likely find it here in Danger Key.

Luckily Carter has his main squeeze, Julie Baron show up to help him take down the bad guys. I would have liked to have seen more of Julie Baron kicking ass and taking names, but back in the 60s it seemed that women spies were used either as honey traps, or disguised as secretaries to snoop in filing cabinets. And she does her part in getting captured by the Evil Nazi, forcing Carter to go and rescue her.

It’s all in good fun! Cool 60s spy stuff for the inner spy in all of us!

Goodbye, Janette - Harold Robbins

With one leap, he caught her arm before she reached the door. He dragged her back into the room. "It seems to me, Janette, that you're acting like a baby. And you know what they do to babies when they don't behave? They get spanked!"

He sat down on a chair and pulled her across his lap face down. His hand rose and fell with an even rhythm. At first there was pain, then she felt a warmth spreading through her buttocks into her loins. Her cries began to turn to a soft moan.

Pocket Books

This dramatic little scene between father and step-daughter occurs early on in Goodbye, Janette. Published in 1981 it got a deserved spanking by critics but still managed to sell well. I ripped through it in one weekend and, while I can't say I didn't like it, I can tell you that if you're going to read only one Harold Robbins novel, this one isn't it.

The action mainly occurs in Paris and is drenched in Eurotrash bad behavior and overflowing with characters with deep pockets and shallow brains. Janette is the daughter of Tanya, a survivor of WW II prison camps. Tanya is brought to Paris by a kindly German officer named Wolfgang, who is jettisoned from the novel rather quickly. In his place is the cad Maurice, who marries Tanya as a business arrangement of sorts. Right off the bat we can see that Maurice is a dick. And so can Tanya. But then she gets a glimpse his certain special (humongous) endowment and goes weak in the knees in expectations. Maurice, in addition to being a cad, is also bi-sexual. And he gets off on sadomasochism.

In addition to having Tanya to get freaky with, Maurice also has Tanya's daughter, Janette, to molest. It's not really clear who Janette's father is, or I missed that part in the beginning of the novel. Anyway, Janette grows up into a sullen teen who shares a twisted relationship with Maurice that eventually results in her becoming a sex slave to him and his transvestite boyfriend, Jerry.

He smiled, "Remember, Janette, without pain there is no pleasure." He put his hands under her buttocks and raised her toward him. 

Janette grows into a beautiful woman, and something of a ruthless headcase, thanks to her messed up childhood. Tanya leaves the novel in a failed attempt at killing Maurice. But before she departs, she gives Janette a younger sister, Lauren. Lauren is saved from the sexual abuse by Maurice by getting to live in America with Johan, Wolfgang's old business partner. Janette, meanwhile takes over control of various business interests involving cosmetics and fashion.

There is a lot of financial skulduggery and kinky sex talk that move the novel along, but none of it particularly interesting. Okay, maybe there are a few lines I might try out the next time I'm at a swingers party, but other than that, not much worth noting. Janette isn't a compelling enough character to make you really care what happens to her. Instead one reads the book mostly to see if Robbins is going to throw more crazy sex stuff into the game like he did in the first sections of the novel. Lauren returns to Paris to visit her big sister Janette, and gets involved with a creepy English fop in a doomed relationship. She also wows the fashion world, but decides that she's not interested in making tons of money like Janette. Instead she'd rather get high on the various recipes of weed her California boyfriend perfects.

All in all, it's rich people living life without consequence, looking for their next high, their next screw or their next conquest. And in the end, it's Harold Robbins looking for his next buck. That said, I did very much enjoy Joe Kenney's take on this novel at his terrific blog, which you can also check out here.

Assignment -- Lili Lamaris - Edward S. Aarons

She began to laugh, and then to taunt him, moving suggestively around him, then pressing close to him, entwining her long legs around him. Durell swung an arm around her satin-smooth waist and forced her back to the bunk, then stepped away. His face was dark with anger. The girl looked at him, tried to laugh derisively, and choked on the sound and began to shiver and sob. Durell stood looking down at her for a long moment. His pity was gone. He felt only a dull, pulsing anger, a moment of puzzlement, a quick shift of perspective like a change in the pattern of a child's kaleidoscope when the crystals are overturned. Durell put a blanket over her and lit another cigarette and listened quietly to the sounds of her sorrow and despair. 

Fawcett Publications

We go back to 1959 with Sam Durell on this, his 10th assignment in the series that lasted until 1976, with his 42nd case. So far I've only read a few of the older Durell novels, starting about a year or so ago with Assignment--Stella Marni and I haven't been disappointed yet.

In this caper, CIA Operative Sam Durell is called to Rome to pick up where another agent, Purdy Kent, left off after getting his throat slit in alleyway. Durell doesn't have a lot of details to go on, only that he's supposed to make contact with another agent, Harvey Shedlock for further information once he arrives in Rome. Harvey Shedlock has been in the cold way too long and has developed a bad case of nerves. Purdy Kent's murder has only increased his paranoia and fear. Kent was considered a consummate professional in the spy game, and that someone was able to sneak up on him and slit his throat in an alleyway is cause for deep alarm. Durell learns from Shedlock that the dead agent had been getting close to a certain Lili Lamaris, a world famous ballerina who has recently taken up an unlikely romance with Mitch Martin. Martin is one of those "new breed" of hoodlums with strong ties to American mobsters, drug smuggling and money laundering. Money used to fund communists in their war on America. Durell's job is to pick up where Purdy Kent left off and find Mitch Martin and put a stop to his nefarious dealings. The key to finding Martin is Lili Lamaris, a somewhat naive, and it turns out, unstable young woman with bad taste in men.

Durell has barely landed in Rome when he discovers he's being tailed by a man in a green Panizza hat. Not only that, but his cover is blown when Dante Lamaris, Lili's father, shows up in Durell's hotel room with a job offer for Durell to assassinate Mitch Martin. Dante Lamaris is a shady Greek tycoon who seems to have most of the police force in his pockets. He also knows all about Durell's assignment, thanks to a blabbermouth Colonel Powelton, the military attache to the Ambassador and liaison to the CIA's K section in Italy.

So, right of the get-go we see that Durell can basically trust no one on his assignment to nail Mitch Martin's ass. And it's not going to be easy for him. He's going to get jumped, beaten, tortured, shot at, seduced, tossed in the slammer, seduced some more, knifed, and double-crossed before getting to the bottom of things. Along the way he's got to deal with a spoiled rich girl with a monkey on her back, an agent with a bad case of nerves, a psychotic killer with a fondness for knives, an evil wheelchair bound German doctor, and a hot-blooded Roman prostitute before the last bullet plugs the last evil mastermind behind this tangled caper.

Recommended for fans of hardboiled cold war spy stuff.

The Tough Guys - Mickey Spillane

"A good nympho can get a lot of guys killed."

Published in 1969 Mickey Spillane’s The Tough Guys is a collection of 3 magazine stories from the early 1960s. All of them are proof that the short novel format is where Spillane shines. I’ve read a number of his novels and have almost always finished them thinking that they could have used some tightening up. Especially the ones featuring Tiger Mann, or the awful The Delta Factor, which was just plain boring.

Signet Books

These three stories rocked. This is the Spillane that kicks the teeth in, especially in “Kick it or Kill!” and “The Seven Year Kill” with their torn and frayed heroes, psychotic goons and curvalicious babes. The third story “The Bastard Bannerman” is no slouch, but compared to the other stories here it goes maybe 10 or 20 pages too long. It’s still a good yarn, but it’s up against some stiff competition in this trio.

In “Kick it or Kill!” Kelly Smith takes a trip to the country for some much needed R&R and time to heal from a leaking gunshot wound earned in the line of duty as a cop. The first day in he’s pegged for trouble by the local fuzz who try sticking their noses into his business. Then later that evening he watches two punks pushing their weight around a small diner. Kelly Smith waits maybe two minutes while they smack a local kid around before stomping their guts out in front of the other diners. He soon discovers that the pair of goons report to the local wealthy recluse, known as Mr. Simpson, who lives above town in the mansion on the hill. Not much is known about Simpson, other than he nets talent from the local girls to hire out as entertainment for his “out of town” bigshot friends. A few of these girls return from their gigs fucked up and damaged. A couple of them hooked on the funny powder. Some just go missing permanently. Kelly gets wind of some heavy syndicate guys showing up in town and floating around Simpson’s estate. Then he has some more run-ins with the goons, and saves a broken and damaged chick before making it his business to bust Simpson’s little orgies for good. Helping Kelly out is Dari Dahl the sexy owner of the motel where Kelly is staying. Dari’s kid sister, Flori Dahl, was one of Simpson’s former hired girls, cast aside only to take a swan dive off a tenement in New York. Dari’s brilliant plan involves hiring herself out as entertainment for one of Simpson’s sick ‘n twisted soirees. What follows involves kinky hi-jinks, flying teeth, broken bones and spattered brains. 

I stepped between the window and the draperies, entirely concealed, then held the folds of the heavy velvet back. It was a small theater in the round. There was a person shrouded in black tapping drums and that was all the music they had. Two more in black tights with masked faces were circling about a table. They each had long thin whips, and whenever the drummer raised the tempo they snapped them, and sometimes they simply brought them against the floor so that the metal tips made a sharp popping sound.

She was there in the middle, tied to the table. She was robed in a great swath of silk.

In “The Seven Year Kill”, Mike Hammer…I mean Phil Rocca, is recovering from a nasty hangover in a flophouse when a desperate little twist pursued by a pair of goons chooses his pad to hide out in. The goons bust in on Phil Rocca as he’s waking from a long drunk and slap him around for a couple minutes before buying his story that he has no idea about any screwy dame hiding out in his pad. The goons believe him and split. A few minutes later our lamb on the run reveals herself to Rocca with a story of returning to New York to find her father, who has contacted her by letter to come to the city and reunite. The trouble for Rocca is that the dame’s pop, Rhino Massley, is the same mobster that put the fix in on Rocca sending him into a couple year stretch in the slammer on false charges. Rocca was once a redhot journalist chasing down a story on Massley, before he got framed on a bum rap and left to swing by his editors. Will Rocca agree to help our girl find dear old dad? You bet your ass he will, just for the pleasure giving Rhino Massley a terminal case of lead poisoning. The only problem is that Rhino Massley is supposedly dead, having succumbed to TB out in Arizona while Rocca was in the pen. Not only is Rocca interested in finding Massley, but so are the syndicate boys, since Massley has hidden away all kinds of damaging records on their business. Word that he’s still alive has the rats on the loose. Lots of blood, fury and broken teeth in this one too.

The final story in the trio is “The Bastard Bannerman”. In this one Mike Hammer…there I go again…is Cat Bannerman, the bastard child of wealthy, and long deceased, Max Bannerman. Max Bannerman died when Cat was in his early teens, leaving Cat to the mercy of his uncle, Miles Bannerman and his two asshole sons, Rudy and Ted Bannerman. Cat returns to the old estate after splitting the place when he was all of 14 years old. In the meantime, Miles Bannerman and his two sons have pretty much done nothing with their wealth except use it to abuse everyone else in the town around them. Rudy in particular has built up a solid rep as a jerkoff wannabe playboy and punk. Cat returns to the manor just in time to see his favorite cousin Anita Bannerman engaged to a sketchy fop named Vance Colby. Vance Colby has ingratiated himself into the Bannerman tribe under the pretext of helping them clear up a looming scandal. He acts as mouthpiece and advocate for the family after Rudy has gotten himself tangled up in a murder of a local nightclub promoter over the promoter’s round-heeled wife. Also in the scene are a couple of syndicate muscles pushing their weight around the Bannerman estate with Vance’s blessing. It all reeks of a squeeze play in the works, with Vance standing to gain from the misery while winning the girl’s hand. Cat could care less what happens to Rudy, Ted and Uncle Miles, but decides that he owes it to Anita to help extricate her from the Bannerman web of misery. Lots of ass-kicking, slapping, slugging, and gunplay also keep this yarn popping.

If you need your dose of tough guys doing some bad shit, then look no further than this tight collection. Easy to find.