Black Gat – Page 2 – Larque Press | The Digest Enthusiast

Reviews March 5, 2023

Dr. Gatskill’s Blue Shoes by Paul Conant

Soon to be reprinted as Black Gat Book No. 44 by Stark House Press.

Paul Eugene Conant (1906–1968) wrote only three novels. This was the lone entry under his real name, the other two were as by Gene Paul. Gatskill’s presents a swell premise: Lieutenant Peter Hanley finds himself at the Whitman-Bourne Clinic, unable to remember how beautiful Narcissa Maidstone was killed. Did he do it, as several of the higher-ups in the force believe, or is he innocent as his boss, Inspector Battle, presumes?

Dr. Gatskill, her boss, Dr. Holmka, and a few nurses are tasked with prompting Hanley’s memory for the truth. Hanley was at the murder scene, he either did it himself or witnessed who did. Gatskill administer’s successively larger doses of sodium amytal that leave Hanley sedate and dreamy. Sometimes he’s talking to the docs, sometimes he thinks he’s talking aloud, but it’s all internal narrative. Conant handles the transitions in and out of Hanley’s dazed consciousness with aplomb. The Lieutenant’s memories creep slowly back from his subconscious mind as he relives snippets of the past; the big mystery and the reader’s need to know driving the story forward. The struggle inches ahead over the first 100 pages or so. Some of it is a bit repetitive, but Conant does a good job of keeping things as fresh as possible. As Hanley’s memories return, the pace quickens, the twists turn, and the final chapters bring a satisfying wind-up to an unusual mystery story.

Reviews January 28, 2023

Object of Lust by Charles Runyon

Object of Lust by Charles Runyon (alias Mark West)
Black Gat No. 43

Bombshell, Marian Morgan is bored with her husband, Dewitt Morgan, who works too much and pays her too little attention. She copes with liquor until the day she nearly dies. The close-call that rocks her world, and has her looking at her rescuer, Lewis Leland, in more than gratitude. That is, until his inner psychopath starts showing.

It’s a character-driven story, and the characters are all driven by sex. Thinking about it, engaging in it, and then reflecting on it. That gets pretty tedious in other sex books I’ve read, but Runyon does an admirable job of giving his original publisher exactly what they ordered along with highly readable prose, tucked inside a terrific crime story.

If I had to shelve this novel in a bookstore, I’d reluctantly forego the crime section and place in firmly in erotica. It’s 75% sex and 25% crime. The final chapters are particularly gripping as all that bedsheet steam finally gives way to different kinds of excitement and tension.

The final pages include a Runyon bibliography and a short bio. Black Gat No. 43 will be widely available February 20, 2023.

Uncategorized July 24, 2022

Blood Alley by A.S. Fleischman

A prolific author, Albert Sidney Fleischman wrote novels as A.S. Feischman and Sid Fleischman. Blood Alley was his eighth novel and draws from the cultural and geographic sides of his experiences in the Far East during WWII. Later in his career, Fleischman wrote primarily children’s stories. Blood Alley is unique in that he wrote both the novel and the screenplay for the Batjac film production starring John Wayne and Lauren Bacall.

American Merchant Mariner, Tom Wilder, is taken prisoner by Chinese Communists after they seize his ship. He is sprung from prison through a carefully planned escape bought and paid for by the town of Chiku Shan, whose residents need a ship’s captain familiar with the waters off the coast to aid their to Hong Kong. The only ship they have access to is a wood-burning, stern wheeler, capable of a top speed of about eight knots.

The story is rich with intrigue, dangerous scrapes with discovery throughout Communist territory, and steeped in local customs and topographic detail. Although the part of the movie Tom Wilder was originally cast with Robert Mitchum, Wayne eventually got the part; and reading the book, it’s far easier to imagine Wayne as the nearly one-dimensional, macho-man Captain Wilder than Mitchum.

Stark House does fans of Gold Medal’s 1950s PBOs a real service by bringing this one back to print. It’s a thrill-packed adventure with a terrific introduction by David Lawrence Wilson, who knew the author prior to Fleischman’s death in 2010 at age 90.

Stark House provided the novel for review. Publication release: August 2022

News March 10, 2022

Killer by Robert Silverberg

Coming soon: Black Gat No. 37.

Originally published as Passion Killer by Don Elliott for Sundown Reader in 1965, this sleaze paperback seems like an odd choice for the Black Gat imprint. Maybe it’s an experiment to test the waters. Weighing in at 163 pages, I’d guess well over three quarters of this is one boring soft-core sex scene after another. Marie and Dolores’ cups runneth over explicitly above the waist, but anything below is a mere hint and a wink other than their rear ends that are described a lot like their tatas sans nipples.

The plot that moves intermittently forward as interludes between all the sex scenes ain’t bad. It could’ve easily been the basis for a good crime novel about a rich dude who hires a hit man to snuff his wife so he can marry his much younger, voluptuous girlfriend. Obviously, Silverberg can write. Unfortunately, the soft porn dominates too many pages and I couldn’t wait to finish unfulfilled.

Collectors will want this volume to keep their Black Gat runs complete, but I hope if Stark House continues with this genre they’ll spin it off in a line of its own.