Testament by David Morrell

I discovered David Morrell via the movie version of First Blood. A tie-in edition came out around the time of the release and soon after I found Blood Oath, new then and released in paperback with similar artwork.

I read somewhere that Testament was a really great thriller and found a nice copy of the 1975 Fawcett paperback edition at my go-to shop, The Book Nook.

The reviews from the cover, like this one, are correct:

"WARNING: Do not read this book alone -- or at night -- or with the doors unlocked." - Worcester Sunday Telegram. 

 It's a grim and relentless experience, a modern Western that builds to a brutal conclusion and a wrap-up that's heart-wrenching but appropriate.

Testament is the story of journalist Reuben Bourne, and we meet him as the first line foretells on "...the last morning the four of them would ever be together: the man and his wife, his daughter and his son."

The family cat's killed by poison, and Reuben quickly learns he's the target of a fanatic named Kess, a businessman heading a chemical and electronics company called Chemelec. (Speaking of milk, if you've never encountered Morrell's chilling short story "Dripping" seek it out in one of his collections or in Best American Noir of the Century.)

Kess is also the head of a militia-style organization, The Guardians of the Republic, a group with ties to many other similar shadowy groups whose numbers, when combined, he says rival that of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The group grew out of a hunting trip in which Kess and friends were accidentally fired on by another hunter. Surrounding the man, they taunted him and fired near misses for a day before relenting.

That's a chilling template for what's in store for Reuben and family.

In articles about militia groups following an interview granted by Kess, Reuben failed to deliver the expected puff piece, so Kess wants revenge.

After another family tragedy, Reuben realizes the authorities can't really help and plots an escape route across brutal Midwestern terrain and forest land. It's all before the internet we know now and long before things like Google Earth, so Reuben's reliant on maps and topographical charts.

That sets up one of the novel's coolest set pieces as he and his family discovered an undocumented ghost town with intact buildings and a surviving resident who offers a bit of aid and comfort.

Kess' men are never far behind, however, and Reuben's soon faced with more violence and a moral dilemma that builds to that conclusion I mentioned before.

It's a perfect thriller, a mature and sober excursion that's still an exciting read and still relevant.

Impulse buy here.

The Case of the Worried Waitress

I find Perry Mason is not quite a household name among my twentysomething students these days. That's a pity, though on the bright side, some of his cases seem to be available on Kindle, waiting to be discovered.

I picked up a late series entry recently, and it holds the same fast pace, circuitous plotting and curiosity-piquing situations that readers enjoyed for decades in Mason's heydey.

This tale appeared in print in 1966, right at the end of the Raymond Burr TV series run, so it seems to have escaped adaptation, but it still comes alive on the page today.

It's not Mason's greatest adventure. The courtroom scenes come late in the story in the form of  a preliminary hearing, but there are enough twists and puzzles along the way to keep things intriguing.

As is often true, things get rolling when Perry and his assistant Della Street go to lunch. The eatery manager warns that their waitress bought their table from another server. It's a practice when deployed when a big tipper's on hand and the waitress is likely to see some ROI.

The manager fears it's not a tip but Perry's legal expertise that's made him a desirable customer. That's exactly the situation with the title's Katherine Ellis.

Instead of turning her away, Perry, with his usual soft spot, arranges to hear her story for the cost of an over-tip.

Seems Katherine has just lost her father. She's in her early twenties and has had her comfortable lifestyle ripped away from her because dad wasn't a saver, hence her current position.

Hatboxes full of hundreds
She's moved to L.A. to live with her Aunt Sophia, who's a bit of a cipher. Aunt Sophie pinches pennies, seemingly broke after her "husband" died on a golf course and left all his money to his ex. Despite the penny pinching, Aunties takes costly cab rides to a local factory to hawk pencils at the gate. Oh, and she has hatboxes full of money in her closet. HATBOXES! It's 1966.

Uh, oh. Perry warns she's now in danger of being accused if that hatbox dough goes missing. He urges her to get out of the house immediately. That may seem a little extreme, but soon that's exactly what's happening. Aunt Sophia's gentleman friend's on hand to demand finger printing when not hundreds of thousands but a $100 bill goes missing. It's 1966 dammit, and Perry informs his private-eye-on-retainer Paul Drake that fingerprints can be lifted from cardboard hatboxes now.

Perry steps in to avoid the finger printing even though Aunt Sophie's beau has a private investigator of his own on hand. The guy's from a legitimate firm and not backing a lot of the shenanigans.

Paul's army
Deploying a small army of Paul Drake's nameless, faceless operatives on his own dime, Perry vows to get to the bottom of things to satisfy his own curiosity. Gardner had similar passions, so you can buy it. Perry's so famous he has to be loaded, and all he does is work.

The operatives turn up more strange behavior including a blind woman who trades off with Aunt Sophie on the pencil-selling gig, but before Perry can put things together the aunt's brained into a coma and Katy's charged with attempted murder, or something like that, because at just about the time of the subbing she went back to the house to pick up comfortable shoes. She's on her feet all day as a waitress.

Perry and Paul are soon staking out the aunt's residence, gathering more puzzling clues, running afoul of Lt. Tragg and executing Perry-level schemes to bring out the truth.

All of the odd elements eventually tie together, and Gardner wraps things up in his deft, professional way despite this being about seven or so books from the end of the series. It's not the best introduction to Perry and misses some of the nail-biting from earlier books in the series, but it's still fun and fast with tension and surprises.

Impulse buy? This one's not on Kindle at this writing, but browse Gardner titles here.

And at Open Library.

Tanner's Twelve Swingers

Signet edition

I'm a member of a Facebook group where people share photos of favorite books and acquisitions and discuss great books and stories from the past. Recently I posted a few Lawrence Block titles from my library including a few of the Evan Tanner Fawcett Gold Medal editions I acquired back in the day.

I used to read Block's column in Writer's Digest, and that often sent me out to my favorite used book store back then, The Book Nook in Alexandria, LA, to look for titles he mentioned. I was fortunate. This was the early eighties, and The Book Nook had been around a while and housed holdings stretching back into the '60s at least.

I found Two For Tanner, Tanner's Tiger and Here Comes a Hero there and loved the semi-comic action adventure the books offered, a product of the '60s, James Bond-inspired spy craze.

Later I acquired Jove re-issues of The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep, first in the series, and The Cancelled Czech and then the last book, Tanner on Ice, when it came out in 1998.

When I posted my collected pic, someone on Facebook noted Tanner's Twelve Swingers was his favorite, and it occurred to me I'd never sought it out though more re-issues had come along since my bachelor days when all of my disposable income could go to books.

What should I happen to run across when I was up in DeLand, FL, at my new favorite used bookstore, the Family Book Shop, but the Signet re-issue from 1994.

Fawcett Gold Medal edition

I'd love to find the original Fawcett edition, but for the moment it was a great find, and a great opportunity to rectify the deficiency in my Tanner reading.

My new favorite Tanner
I have to agree, it's now my favorite title too, kind of a perfect storm of Tanner elements, character, humor, offbeat politics and high adventure.

For the uninitiated, Tanner, who had the sleep center in his brain destroyed by shrapnel in Korea, never sleeps. He spends his time researching, reading and writing term papers and dissertations for lazy grad students. B plus guaranteed. And he has a passion for political lost causes that's drawn him peripherally into espionage work for a shadowy U.S. intelligence agency with a chief that thinks he works for them.

A complicated set of circumstances finds Tanner on the road as this tale begins. He's doing some border hopping through central Europe, on his way to Latvia to rescue the lost love of an old friend. Her name's Sofija, and he met her in 1964 at the Tokyo Olypmics where she competed as part of the Soviet Women's Gymnastics Troupe. It's the mid-sixties as the story unfolds.

A good portion of the tale unfolds on Tanner's journey up through Yugoslavia and Poland, traversing border fences and resting in the homes of acquaintances with similar political passions.

There's a great feel, even a warmth, to the little stops along the way including many revolutionaries and lone farm with an erudite and lonely young widow. All along the route Tanner acquires excess baggage including a Yugoslav polemicist and his manuscript who becomes a handy sidekick as the story unfolds.

Once in Latvia, Tanner discovers Sofija has a sister, and they have a horde of teammates who'd also like to escape from behind the Iron Curtain. (Block's original title for the book was The Lettish Tomatoes, since it followed the Cancelled Czech, but that title was changed by Fawcett.)

Everything in the tale sets up a challenging, rollicking and intricate finale as Tanner devises an exit strategy for the team along with assorted bits of microfilm, manuscripts, Chinese tracts and a young heir to a lost throne.

It's exciting, funny and a thrill-a-minute as plans fall apart and Tanner's forced to re-think his options. There's a payoff for just about everything mentioned in the book's setup as a new plan arises, and Block's enjoyable style and turn of phrase shine atop it all.

I'm late to this book, but it's great fun and a great taste of another era's leisure reading.

Impulse buy for Kindle