As it says on the cover: They came for ancient treasure only to discover death, destruction and love….
Well, okay, we’ve all been there time and again, and continue to return to enjoy the adventure and the excitement and the intrigue!
So, I’m an all-day sucker for those ancient relics and ruined remains of lost civilizations. There’s a kind of romantic ecstasy to be discovered in such places. The imagination just runs wild. What kind of people lived back there, what were their passions all about, what drove them to do what they did? Why did they insist on offering young virgins to their lusty, passion-hungry gods of old?
Such questions can drive the mind to the very edge of madness!
Well, this ain’t no Time Travel sci-fi flick or novel. So such questions are left unanswered. This is just your basic adventure, a walk down a color-ful jungle passageway into the arms of….
Stop! You don’t want me to give it all away right here and now, do ya all?
But I loved these make-believe worlds in my youth and still enjoy re-visiting them from time to time. It is back to yester-year when the wonder-ful worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs flamed in blood to hot fire and raced young minds into adventures beyond the mundane boredom of every day life.
Okay. Life can be sweet. Lovely. Rich and passionate. Today’s world offers up the computer and the Internet and cable television and so many other wonderful electronic toys that sometimes it is simply difficult to keep up! So in such moments we can, if we so desire, step backwards make a graceful turn into the adventure zone!
And to add to the fun and games, I’ve inserted “Amazon Gold Fever,” which almost seems too real to believe! Or rather it is difficult not to be-lieve it actually happened to that poor fella who, for all I know, is still down there in South America seeking.
No! I won’t say more! Let his story reveal his nightmares for all to en-joy!
OPERATION: DOUBLE-CROSS
This book was written during a time when the world was, after World War II, locked in a Cold War between the two super powers: USA and USSR. This was radically changed under President Reagan. In 1989 the Berlin Wall was torn down and the USSR was shattered.
But during this period the world was held in a strange kind of balance, one that is now restructured under the terrible threat of a new kind of war-fare. Huge armies don’t need to face one another. Today a war can rage by the simple use of madmen willing to blow themselves up for the promise of a heavenly reward—or merely the belief that their families will profit by such violent acts. They see themselves as heroes! And since history is al-ways written by the winners, they may be considered that or monstrous fools.
The world religions all seek answers, and offer moral lessons; they all are powerful forces that have shaped civilization.
Islam is as spiritually uplifting to its faithful as the Christianity is to its believers. Both major religions are based on the same historical elements that formed early Judaism. All are a result of very ancient teachings handed down from generation to generation. And each had their own Prophets that inspired the major religious movements that are now in a hostile state of anguished conflict.
Enough to say, without in any way taking sides, that these power-blocks are pretty much after the same limited resources the planet offers us all.
History is filled with claims of Religious Ultimate Answers driving na-tions and empires into violent conflict. Are we, today, in any better posi-tion? Rome fell, as did the ancient lands of Mesopotamia. National bounda-ries fluctuate to satisfy the needs of their populations, and they are endless-ly redrawn.
So we come to today’s nightmare of horrors, conflicts between reli-giously dedicated power-blocks. Death comes fast and easy, life comes and goes like the flow of ocean waves. And the soldier or patriot or terrorist will give up their lives in this endless struggle for dominance.
The world of terrorists since 9/11 has changed how we all live, and has affected everything for this century. And in this book, I’ve managed to up-date the setting and time-frame to fit into this twenty-first-century reality.
MURDER TIMES 4
To me what is interesting about this book is that it was the first detec-tive story I ever wrote. I was somewhat concerned and even shy about the fact, and highly pleased when the publisher/editor commented on how much he liked it! In fact, David Zentner was very complimentary about the novel.
I found the writing quite intriguing, and the novel was a mystery even to myself right up to the end. I had a couple of alternative choices for a conclusion, and just sat back and watching what the characters did. If memory serves me correctly, Mr. Zentner actually suggested the solution used in the text.
Writing can be fun at times, but most of it consists of thinking and working and thinking some more before putting the words actually down on paper. In those days of eld I was using a typewriter, of course, and any major changes or revisions to the work resulted in sometimes painful retyp-ing of large portions of text. That made us penmen very hesitant to under-take any large-scale recasting of the manuscript. Today word processors enable authors to rewrite and re-edit almost at will. What a wonder!
So, when things ran smoothly and the thoughts flowed like the raging waters of the River Nile, it was either a great deal of fun or (occasionally) a terrible mess.
I started the book with the idea of examining the crime of rape. Does rape deserve the ultimate penalty of death? I originally didn’t believe that such an assault, however brutal it might be, ought to be punished with a trip to the gas chamber. My thoughts then were young and savage and rather innocent, I have to say. Life was much cleaner and clearer to me in those days.
Now, of course, I’ve changed and evolved—in fact, did so to some de-gree even in the course of penning this novel. The book was originally called The Rape Artist in ms. form, and was actually published as Love Me to Death under the pen name, Alex Blake.
Here it is again, revised slightly and updated a bit, to be read by a new audience.
SOFTLY AS I KILL YOU
This book was written as another one of those early mysteries, done somewhat with the typical style of the times. But there is more to the story than just a mystery.
The title comes out of a series of events, which I might as well offer up here and now, in this Introduction that didn’t appear in the book. The one used was part of the story itself. So, here, now, is offered a few words con-cerning the book’s title.
Who knows what the original title was. I don’t remember. A working title to sell the book to the publisher, who changed it to Two Timing Tart, which seemed a bit too “tarty” to me! And no lemon, either! Hate being late for a date [can’t ignore a pun from time to time!], social or business. And as to the other kinds of tarts, of the pastry type, well, this wasn’t a book about timing the cookin’ length of some pastry delight, real, imagined, dessert or female! And, of course, the publisher was playing a game with the womanly tart that was a two-timer! And not of the bakery type. And had nothin’ ta do with the prison kind of timers.
Now that we’re done with the lighter side of such matters, let me get down to the title I ended up picking when letting it be republished the se-cond time around by Powell Publications.
As noted else where in this book, Dad was doing the covers for these books and that was the deal made with the publisher. Only thing was, he got a bit on the seriously ill side, in fact something he was not about to sur-vive for very long. Cancer of the spine. And no disrespectful pun meant here: a killer.
Dad was not to survive for long. And his cover painting days were stopped after the last cover he did for my Images of Tomorrow!
I happened to have an uncle by the name of Louis DeWitt, another full-time professional artist who had always wanted to do cover illustrations and so I offered him up to fill in for Dad, while Dad was hospitalized. He willingly did a cover for the book (used in part on the Wildside edition).
Not having liked the original published title I decided to come up
with something better.
Which I did by going to a song book I happened to have and looking for possible title to pun around with and I discovered one that proved a winner: “Softly As I Leave You,” a lovely song which I’d always loved.
And with a little twist of a pun we got Softly As I Kill You. Which was a fitting title on several levels. Dad was dying. We knew that. And I dedicat-ed the book to the doctor who was taking care of these matters. Which gave it another implied meaning. So this book became a kind of tribute to my father insofar as the title was concerned and the timing of the publication of that version of the novel.
The novel itself? Well your normal mystery novel, illustrated by the back cover lines here now quoted as a teaser:
When Dan Benton learned that a long time friend was in trouble, he cut his weekend vacation short in Las Vegas and flew back to L.A.
From that point on he became involved in one of the most intriguing cases in his career as a trouble-shooter and private investigator.
A mystery that keeps the reader guessing until the final series of twists that leaves one electrified to the chair in shock.
Well, shocking at that might sound, give me a break: it is promo-material attempting to lash the reader into their chair, strap them down tightly in place and electrify them if they try to get up before finishing the book! Anything to keep the reader locked in tight ’til the last period.
The front cover offers:
Called off vacation, Dan rushed to the aid of a friend to become tangled in a mass of killing without any apparent motive!
That works for me, and is a nice closer for this introduction written es-pecially and only for this present book!
MISTRESS OF THE DAMNED
&
DEATH IN HER ARMS
This book is two short novels in one; more bang for the bucks, so they say in promo copy. Well, each was too short to make a full-size edition, so I said: double up, for fun for all concerned.
Both books have seen print previously in different forms. They are, in the present edition, somewhat modernized and “run past the author’s eyes” for a last revision. Ah, how wonderful that can be. In a case like this, it is a chance to look at things from a different perspective, from a more “mature” point of view.
Authorities on writing have said time and time again: revise, revise, re-vise. Writing is rewriting. Do your first, second, and final draft on a story and simply file it away for another day. Let it mellow and simmer down, and let your mind climb out of the state of mad ecstasy that made it possi-ble to set down on paper your golden words. And what horrors you’ll dis-cover the next time you pick up your “great artistic masterpiece.”
Sure, nice advice, and certainly a necessary part of the creative process. But what does one do when under the demands of making a living at the writing game and meeting hard to deal with deadlines? You write, doing the best job you can and send it off in time to meet publisher’s demands.
And you have to live with the end result.
Well, it is either that or endlessly sitting before the typewriter and hammering over every word of the opening line until one is satisfied that it is in the very best possible condition!
Of course, under those circumstances, ya put it in the drawer and pick it up a few days later when you’re in a cooler creative mood, and darn if those “golden words” don’t need total revision, or maybe even a total cut forever more.
Thus writing is a continual matter of making decisions one has to live with for the rest of their lives, like some condemned criminal!
Well, sometimes fate takes a turn and offers up a second chance and the writer can start fresh—within the given limits of deadlines to meet publish-er’s demands!
And so they are now presented.
ANY ONE CAN DIE
Some stories simply surprise the author, many years later. Many times one will cringe in horror and wonder how it was possible to have written such tripe. This one was a surprise in a nice sort of way
It was originally published as Appointment with Terror by John Da-vidson, which wasn’t at all a bad title, but later it was altered somewhat for its second run (after a normal translation in Europe) as the first half of Con-sider Yourself Dead by George Fredrics. Such a shady history to a suspense thriller.
Now, this time around, it is totally revised and expanded. But still the story of people caught in a horrible nightmare with a crazed killer who has just escaped from prison. A lifer with nothing to lose!
Sometimes a writer develops a villain who is totally without redeeming qualities, who one instantly learns to hate. I learned fast and was sucked into the story almost from the start, stunned by some of the antics that took place in that mountain cabin where a dozen people were snowed in and held captive by a sadistic madman. They did what he told them or died. In fact, chances were, they would all soon be dead! It was just a matter of when they died and in what order.
To some extent, the location was, to me, kinda based on my personal exposure to Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead, not far from where I live in Southern California. We don’t get snow down here in the lowlands, which are, in reality, more like a kind of desert that runs right into the blue Pacific! Desert is all around Los Angeles, even if broken by low mountains that become richly green in winter, and yellowish brown in summer. To see snow one has to seek the real higher mountains and there you have our “lo-cal” ski resorts and German style villa-type motels and country eateries. This is a lovely place to visit, and really a nice setting for this suspense novel.
It is somewhat interesting to revisit a story like this, even if it could turn into a nightmare of a different sort. Writers tend to either love or hate what they have set down on paper. Once printed it is too late to make changes. But not always! In this case I found myself quite pleased with what I dis-covered and even more pleased with how this revised version turned out.
MURDER MOST TERRIBLE
Story ideas come from strange places and circumstances. Not always full blown; and sometimes only with a vague concept, a setting, a seed. It can come from nothing but a visual impression, a moment in time that would normally have passed as nothing more than a nice, pleasant morning.
I remember the beach, ocean reaching out to the horizon, the sun baking bright and hot over the town of Santa Monica, California. And for some reason I thought about those islands out there, just peaking up from the blue ocean. For some reason it struck me as a neat setting for a book. Now, there must a story there somewhere! But beyond that feeling, there was nothing; no germ of an idea. But certainly this was a beginning.
So, like any dutiful writer, desperate for an idea for a story, the next time I sat down at my monster typewriter I fed it with paper and typed: CHAPTER ONE, went down a few spaces and wrote:
“Very few people have head of the small island off the California coast.”
And I was off and running. Well, sorta. It took a little more than the cute little “bikini-clad girl in her early twenties” to spark more than a mild interest in what kind of cutes she might offer up to my main character.
Well, truth is, I came up with a Murder Most Terrible, involving a young woman and her brother.…
A man I named Bill Johnson.
Well that was a better start. Now I had two characters. What next? Let’s see. Where’s he going in this small boat with this cute bikini-clad girl and why are they going there? Questions and questions, but no answers. Well, this young lady is sexy—to boot. And he’s not about to boot her into the ocean! Rather pull her into his arms, protectively, natch! Of course! Sure. If you believe that you’ll believe anything!
Hmmm…well, we have a sexy little issue here. So maybe the island they are going to is a place of Eros…well we’ll just call it Eros Island.
My, how ideas fly in an author’s face like the wind blows across the ocean waves. Well, okay, not his, but ol’ Bill Johnson’s who happens to have a sister….
Gosh I don’t want to get ahead of the ga
me and give the story up be-fore it has even been read!
But we can tease you with the fact that he discovered that the island is involved in a cult devoted to Pagan Rites. Why, as our hero soon discovers, some people actually lived there year around, while others just came on weekends for wild parties, no holds barred.
Actually ideas were flying wildly in my head, and I was imagining all sorts of wonderful and exciting things that had little to do with Murder Most Terrible! So it was time to complicate matters.
There is far more to things going on here than just a seedy swinging club of wild people on a weekend orgy.
Suddenly things began to get interesting, as the real secret of this cult was exposed followed by another murder, most terrible.
THE SEX CULT MURDERS
The hard-boiled detective has been a literary standard for decades, reaching a highpoint with Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer in the 1950s. I never met Spillane, although I shared an autograph session with him at a trade show—I mention this simply because Spillane died this week.
What I recall most of the Hammer books was how the ladies flocked to his standard, at which point he’d turn into a wild man, slam on his hat (those were the days!), and go rushing out of the place with his tail on fire. All of this seemed great to a young reader, although it was pretty tame stuff by today’s standards.
His books inspired me to develop several hard-boiled mysteries of my own during the early and mid-1960s. The Sex Cult Murders was my third such venture, if I recall correctly.
The writing was a voyage of discovery—I had no better idea of the out-come when I started than the reader did. As the tale developed, I learned where it was going when the characters moved in that direction, and dis-covered the solution to the mystery just before my fans did.
A plot line runs across the pages of a book. You start with a premise, and you see where it takes you. I always had a pretty good idea of the wordage with which I was allowed to work (paperback publishers in those days had very strict size limitations), and I tried to pace the story accord-ingly.