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