The entry for Tom Barling in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, has been extensively revised, and corrections, deletions and other changes appear now as you see below in Part 19 of the online Addenda.

   The other entries in this post come from Part 27, the paperbacks chosen largely because I had copies on hand to obtain cover images from. These are the ones you’ll also find below.

BARLING, TOM. 1936- . Add year of birth and full name: Thomas F. R. Barling. British author of eleven crime novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. Series character: Charlie Dance, an ex-London gangster who in three books battles various crime syndicates and his own former mob. [Note: The author is not the same Tom Barling who is a comic illustrator and an animator on the 1973 TV series of The Addams Family.]
      _Dance with Death. Pocket, pb, 1988. US reprint of Smoke Dragon (Corgi, 1988). Correction: Previously stated to to be the US edition of God Is an Executioner.
      _Dance with the Devil Pocket, pb, 1988. See Smoke Dance (Corgi, 1988).
      God Is an Executioner. Corgi, UK, pb, 1987. Correction: There is no US edition and SC: Charlie Dance does not appear. Delete the previously stated setting. [A ruthless gang of terrorists explodes into Matthew Pepper’s new life and kidnaps his wife and son, leaving no trace of them. ]
      The Smoke. Corgi, UK, pb, 1986. Add US edition: Bantam, pb, 1986. (Delete conjecture that the US title was Dance with the Devil.) SC: Charlie Dance. Setting: London, 1960s.
      Smoke Dance. Corgi, UK, pb, 1988. (Correct date.) Add SC: Charlie Dance. Setting: London, 1960s. (Add the time period.) US title (?): Dance with the Devil (Pocket, 1988). [Book 3 in the series: Charlie awakens the day after his birthday party to find that his wife has been killed and his illegally accumulated fortune has been stolen.] Note: Shown is the cover of the 1991 hardcover UK Severn House edition.

      Smoke Dragon. Corgi, UK, pb, 1988. Add US title: Dance with Death (Pocket, 1988) and SC: Charlie Dance. Setting: London, 1960s. (Add the time period.)

DEPTULA, WALTER (J., JR.) ca.1934- . Series character: Frank Arrow, born Franco Arronelli, a professional thief who steals what others have stolen and returns it to its rightful owner for a fee. [This is a complete entry for the author. Numbers in brackets indicate the correct chronological sequencing.]
      The Death List of Rico Scalisi. Curtis, pb, 1974. Add setting: New York City. [#3.] [Arrow’s estranged father is the target of a vengeance-mad mafioso.]

      Naked Mistress. Curtis, pb, 1974. Setting: Hawaii, Mexico. [#2.]
      Wine, Women … and Death. Curtis, pb, 1974. Setting: Hawaii. [#1.] “He had hot jewels and broads on his hands and every cold killer in Hawaii on his tail.”

FREEMAN, MARY E(LEANOR) WILKINS. 1852-1930. See author’s entry under Wilkins-Freeman, Mary E(leanor).

KAYLIN, WALTER. 1921- . At one time a resident of Old Lyme, CT. Occasional short story writer in the 1950s; author of one crime novel included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Another Time, Another Woman. Gold Medal, pb, 1963. Muller, UK, pb, 1964. Add setting: California. “… I had covered up manslaughter then. Now I had to cover up a murder.”

WILKINS-FREEMAN, MARY E(LEANOR). 1852-1930. Add as a new author entry. Ref: CA. Born in Randolph, Massachusetts; married Dr. Charles M. Freeman in 1902. (Her name is sometimes given as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.) Noted American writer, known best for her stories centering around New England life.
      -“Doc.” Gordon. Authors and Newspapers Association, 1906. Published in the UK as Doctor Gordon (Unwin, 1907).
      _Doctor Gordon. Unwin, UK, hc, 1907. See “Doc.” Gordon.

WILLIAMS, ALAN (EMLYN). 1935- . Son of actor-playwright (George) Emlyn Williams, 1905-1987, q.v. Brother of actor Brook Williams; briefly married to Maggie Noach, noted literary agent for children’s authors. Newspaper correspondent and author of eleven espionage-adventure novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV.
      The Brotherhood. Blond, UK, hc, 1968. US title: The Purity League (Putnam, 1969). Also published in England under the US title (Panther, 1970). Add setting: Europe. [Journalist Magnus Owen and a beautiful undercover agent named Maya take on a sinister network called the ‘Brotherhood of Virtue.’]
      _The Purity League. Putnam, US, hc, 1969. Panther, UK, pb, 1970. See: The Brotherhood (Blond, 1968).

WILLIAMS, (GEORGE) EMLYN. 1905-1987. Father of author Alan (Emlyn) William, 1935- , q.v. , and actor Brook Williams, who appeared in numerous films and London stage productions. Noted Welsh actor and dramatist; author of two criminous novels cited in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, along with three crime-related plays.

BORDERLINE. Universal Pictures, 1950. Claire Trevor, Fred MacMurray, Raymond Burr, Jose Torvay, Roy Roberts, Charles Lane. Directed by William A. Seiter.

   I was sold a bill of goods by Oldies.com when I bought this DVD. The last line of the promotional copy on the back cover says, and I quote: “MacMurray’s icy cool performance and Trevor’s jittery energy create a chemistry that ignites this classic film noir.”

   Film noir? It is to laugh, and believe it or not, even with another bravura performance by Raymond Burr as a thuggish dealer of dope in Mexico, you (the audience) were supposed to.

   What a strange combination. Is this a noir film disguised as a comedy romance, or a comedy romance disguised as a noir film? My vote’s on the latter.

   The only problem is – well, I’ll get back to that. Here’s the basic story line. Claire Trevor plays Madeleine Haley, aka Gladys LaRue, a Los Angeles policewoman in Mexico to see if she, as a woman under cover as a dancer and/or gang moll, can get some evidence on a slick crook named Pete Ritchie (that’s Raymond Burr, in fine form, as always). Fred MacMurray enters the film as Johnny Macklin, aka Johnny McEvoy, a henchman of an opposing gangster intent on taking over Ritchie’s trade.

   And the two of them, Trevor and MacMurray, take a trip up north together with a bird cage, complete with parrot, a music box, both filled in hidden compartments with packages of unspecified contraband. Both think the other is crooked, but somehow seeing beyond that, both begin to fall in love with each other. (Even so, Clare Trevor modestly sleeps with a gun in her hand in the room they stay in overnight together.)

   Which is the way the movie goes, as well as the prevailing wind, until they reach the border, which is where the question becomes, does duty take over? I’ll not answer that, as I may have revealed too much already, but what I will say is that whatever type of movie this, it falls apart completely from this moment on. (And maybe I have a larger tolerance for misguided ventures like this than you do.)

   The problem is, for a romantic comedy, there are too many shootings and dead bodies to be completely funny, and for a film noir, there is simply too much silly nonsense going on. Pete Ritchie gives a good chase, but even that end of things fizzles out without so much as a bang.

   Most of these entries are from Part 27 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. All but one of the books came from the lot I bought at the Windy City show, so the images of the covers you see were easy to come by.

   The one exception referred to in the first line above is the newly expanded entry for Alfred Mazure, which is as it appears now in Part 26.

COULTER, STEPHEN. 1914- . Pseudonym: James Mayo, q.v. British journalist and author; served in World War II as one of American General Eisenhower’s staff officers. Under his own name, the author of eight espionage/adventure novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, four of them published in the UK only.

LANCASTER, DONALD. Pseudonym of William (Leonard) Marshall, 1944- , q.v. The book below was commissioned to be written after the disappearance of the series creator, Ian Mackintosh, 1940-1979, q.v. The book is extremely scarce.
      The Sandbaggers: Think of a Number. Corgi, UK, pb, 1980. Novel based on the characters in the TV series. Add SC: Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden) & Willie Caine (Ray Lonnen).

MACKINTOSH, IAN. 1940-1979. Correct both dates and spelling of last name (from MacKINTOSH). Born in Inverness; commissioned in the Royal Navy. Author of eight crime and thriller novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV; among these, three were novelizations of TV series the author created (Warship) or wrote and produced: Wilde Alliance, and the book below, about an elite British Intelligence covert operations unit. Mackintosh himself died in mysterious fashion. According to a Wikipedia entry, during the third season of The Sandbaggers in July 1979, he and a girlfriend were declared lost at sea after their single-engine aircraft strangely disappeared near Alaska after a radioed call for help.
      The Sandbaggers. Corgi, UK, pb, 1978. Novelizes two episodes of the TV series: “Always Glad to Help” and “A Feasible Solution.” Add setting: London, Cyprus. Also add SC: Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden) & Willie Caine (Ray Lonnen). [Shown also in the cover image below is Diana Keen as Laura Dickens.] See the author’s entry for Donald Lancaster for a second book in the series.

MARSHALL, WILLIAM (LEONARD). 1944- . Pseudonym: Donald Lancaster, q.v. Under his own name, the author of many mystery novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. His best known series is the one that chronicles the adventures of the policemen who work out of the Hong Kong’s Yellowthread Station, beginning with Yellowthread Street (Hamish Hamilton, UK, 1975).

MAYO, JAMES. Pseudonym of Stephen Coulter, 1914- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of eight spy/adventure novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, six of them with sexed-up British super spy Charles Hood, billed as “the toughest of tough agents.” Four of the Hood books were also published in the US.
      The Man Above Suspicion. Heinemann, UK, hc, 1969. SC: Charles Hood. Add setting: Windward Islands, France, Austria, London. [Shown is the cover of the 1970 Pan paperback edition.]

MAZURE, ALFRED (LEONARDUS). 1914-1974. Pseudonym: Maz, q.v. Under his own name, add the following titles. SC: Sherazad, a “sexy top agent of an ultra-secret organization,” in all titles.
      Sherazad on a Trip. Mayflower, 1972
      Sherazad Uptight. Mayflower, 1974
      Welcome Sherazad. Tallis, UK, hc, 1969. Setting: London, England. “The Mystery of the Vanishing Film Starlets.” [Also shown is the cover of the Panther paperback reprint edition.]

WHITE, ALAN. 1924- . Pseudonyms: James Fraser, Alec Haig, Bill Reade & Alec Whitney. Born in Yorkshire, England. Under his own name, the author of 18 spy and mystery novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, three of them marginally. Series characters include Detective Inspector Armstrong; and Captain Colson of the British Special Services, a veteran of numerous commando raids during World War II.
      The Long Midnight. Barrie, UK, hc, 1972. Harcourt, US, hc, 1974. Setting: Norway, World War II. Delete SC: Captain Colson. [Two men are sent to Norway, 1943, to uncover a traitor to the Nazi resistance. Shown is the cover of the 1973 Pan paperback edition.]

THE SAINT. 1997. Val Kilmer, Elizabeth Shue, Rade Serbedzija, Valery Nikolaev, Alun Armstrong (as Inspector Teal), Roger Moore (voice only). Based on the character created by Leslie Charteris. Directed by Philip Noyce. [Novelization by Burl Barer; Pocket, 1997.]

   My first reaction? Beware of movies about fictional characters whose creators are not included in the on-screen credits. That’s what the common wisdom says, or if it doesn’t, it should.

   Be also wary – this is my own advice – of movies that begin by telling the childhood origins of the character. Especially when said character’s exploits extended for well over a fifty year period (1928-1983) – under the control of said creator if not always written – without the creator ever finding the need to chronicle the characters origins, which are always (perhaps) best left to the reader’s imagination.

   The reviews of this movie were almost universally bad, although in some cases as if reluctantly so, but – and this is a big but – the reaction of ordinary civilian reviewers (on IMDB, for example) have been almost universally positive. Some call it their favorite movie of all time, others while not going that far, admit to having watched it over and over again many times.

   Why the great disconnect? I’ve thought it over for a couple of days now, and I’ve listened to the director’s voice-over commentary, which (as usual) pointed out any number of items I missed the first time through, and I think the division of opinion comes down to this.

   Those who liked the movie did not know anything about Charteris’s character – a devil-may-care adventurer with an ever-present twinkle in his eye as he swindled the bad guys’ loot right from under their eyes – nor did they know anything of Roger Moore’s TV version of the character (much less George Sanders in the movie versions).

   Roger Moore, I personally liked in the role, although (as I remember) he was a little stiff and not quite as rakishly (more impishly, perhaps) devil-may-care as I would have liked.

   But Moore stopped playing the Saint in 1969, which (I’m guessing) is well before most of the viewing audience for this new version was born, and Val Kilmer is all they know (and all they got). Which may sound snarky, and if so, I mean only 30 to 40 percent of it.

   For in fact, if you take the character he plays – he is not even Simon Templar yet, as this revisionist story would have it – without an idea of who he is to become – I think you might even enjoy watching this tormented loner, unsure of his true identity, a thief with undated Internet gimmicks and capabilities – not to mention his many disguises which are as varied and clever as they are numerous – and seeing him grow into someone whom the director refers to as “worthy of Sainthood.”

   Thanks, of course, to the love of a beautiful woman, Dr. Emma Russell, played by Elizabeth Shue, an expert on cold fusion, the formulas for which some scummy post-Communist Russians would love to get their hands on.

   That Emma Russell acts like she is sixteen years old and has never been within two feet of a man before is very nearly beside the point. She is innocent and vulnerable, and she is what Val Kilmer’s character needs to shake up his life and start him over again. (He certainly needs it.)

   It also does not seem to matter that cold fusion does not seem to work, then or now, even though when a miracle is desperately needed in the movie – and in the middle of Red Square yet! – a miracle is certainly what indeed does happen.

   Emma Russell’s heart condition also seems improve greatly as the movie goes on. Perhaps it is all the running she does, or edging her way with Simon along the icy flank of the Moscow River, or escaping with him through the city’s underground tunnels. Exercise like this is just what the doctor ordered. Or needed.

   An earlier version in which she dies in the end was wisely, wisely reconsidered. The ending is a bit of a muddle anyway, but if her cheery optimism had been squashed in the end like a bug, the audience would have roundly booed. I would have, at least, and loudly.

   My second reaction, then, ignoring the fact that movie is about a character I think I should know — but as the film goes on, I realize in frustration (if not something akin to anger) that I do not — with my expectations suitably altered, I enjoyed the movie considerably more the second time through than I did the first.

   But will I ever watch it again? The future is hazy on that, but the possibility is higher than the chance that I will ever watch a version with George Sanders in it more than once. One with Roger Moore in it, from TV? Yes.

   Uploaded this morning, about 10 minutes ago, with no links or cover images added yet, is Part 27 of the ongoing online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.

   I haven’t had a chance to look through this new set of addenda carefully myself, but I recognize quite a few of the pieces of information that I’ve sent Al in the last few weeks, including data he didn’t have about some of the British espionage paperbacks I bought at the Windy City show. Lots of newly discovered settings from other sources too, along with new authors, titles and series characters, not to mention newly discovered new editions with title changes, plus a few deletions and other corrections too.

   I’ve fallen behind in the annotations which I do for the Addenda, adding images and links and so on, but as I get to them, I’ll be posting them here, as I always do. More later, in other words!

[UPDATE.]   Later the same day. The comments that follow were produced by Al’s statement in this installment of the Addenda that:

BROWN, CARTER. Note: Some books published around 1960 may have been written by authors other than [Alan Geoffrey] Yates.

   This doesn’t entirely agree with the rumors I’ve heard, which have suggested that it was the later ones that Yates may not have written. (His books began to appear in the US in 1957 or 1958, then continued until 1984 or so. Yates died in 1985.)

   See the comments for more.

   As a collector of mystery fiction, I always accumulate duplicates whenever I buy assortments of books. They may be large lots I have to buy all of, including ones I have, or my memory’s bad, and I simply buy the same book twice. Or I may be buying to upgrade the condition of a book I already know I have.

   In any case, I’ve been selling my duplicate books since the early 1970s. In fact, the first few issues of Mystery*File in printed form were combinations of fanzine and sales lists. A few of you besides myself may be still be around from those early days, in fact I know so, and I know who you are.

   Even back then I was interested in putting together checklists, such as for the Dell 10 cent paperbacks, the mystery Ace Doubles, the Avon Murder Mystery Monthly’s, and so on. It didn’t cause any problems, except when once in a while someone wanted to order books in the checklists and not the from the portion containing the books for sale.

   This was very early on in the hobby of collecting paperbacks, and I wish I could have kept it going. Every once in a while, though, I ran out of time or energy or both, and I had to cease doing Mystery*File. But I’ve always started it up again, sometimes under other names — like Fatal Kiss — and in other formats, including a long stretch as a letterzine, sometimes with my reviews, sometimes not. After perhaps the first seven issues, though, the sales lists were separated from the mystery zines I did, no matter the content.

   Printed zines are fine, but they’re a lot of work. There’s no question that I like this present online blogging format best. The Internet and the things that can be done online are simply marvelous. Links and images, and fixing mistakes so that no one even remembers they were there — it’s wonderful. I’m 66 now, and while I’ve lost an exact count, I’ve been doing this for something like 35 years. Truthfully, though, it does seem like more than yesterday!

   And I’m still selling duplicate paperbacks. The Internet has also changed how book selling is done, there’s no doubt about it. I’ve been sending printed lists out for a long, long time, and making a lot of close friends in doing so. Unfortunately my mailing list has dwindled down to no more than 30 names. Most buyers now use Amazon or www.bookfinder.com to find the books they’re looking for, quick and simple. There’s hardly a need for a want list anymore. Look it up, click a button, and zap, it’s in your hands a week or so later, even many considered to be scarce not so very long ago.

   So now I use Amazon and Biblio.com to sell my books, and almost always one at a time. I’ve decided that I’ve sent out my last printed list, even though I know some of the customers I’ve had for a long time will miss them.

   And so I’m in the process of completely revamping the inventory I have — and I’m getting closer now to telling you what this particular blog post is all about. I will be eliminating a lot of books that are too common or which do not otherwise sell well. I’ll be thinning out the stock of books I’ll be offering for sale, making room in the process for my own books — space really is the next frontier!

   Before I start disposing of books, though, I thought I’d make you an offer. Currently I offer discounts of 10, 15, or 20% off, depending on how many books you buy. Until two weeks from today, May 18th, you’re welcome to take a double discount [20, 30, or 40%] off any purchase from the stock I now have on hand.

   Check out them out at http://mysteryfile.com/Books/mystery.htm. It’s a long, only partially organized list of around 2000 books, nearly 370K in size, and it contains a small section of hardcovers too. There’s a link at the bottom to another list of gothic paperbacks, and you can order those as well.

   In a sense, I feel as though I’m coming full circle, ending the printed lists as I am, but with this post combining them with M*F for this once and only time.

TONY DUNBAR - The Crime Czar.

Dell, paperback original; first printing, November 1998.

   My first reaction, when starting to read this fifth recorded New Orleans adventure of only slightly sleazy attorney Tubby Dubonnet, is that it takes place before hurricane Katrina came along. What a sorrowful scab on this country’s face that city is now. There’s a lot of atmosphere in this book, more or less a continuation of the preceding one, and I’ll get back to that aspect of it in a minute.

   The background of eccentric native inhabitants and local cuisine is combined with a hand-brewed melange of hoodlums, crooked politicians and judges, and the laissez faire approach to life of Tubby himself to produce a potpourri of wackiness and Southern charm. (Well, I concede that crooked politicians are not charming, nor is the occasional violence that rips its way into the tale that Tony Dunbar has to tell in The Crime Czar, but there you are.)

   The Tony Dunbar novels so far, as expanded upon from the listing in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. All take place in New Orleans, Louisiana.

         # Crooked Man. Putnam, hc, 1994. Berkley, pb, 1996

         # City of Beads. Putnam, hc, 1995. Berkley, pb, 1996.

         # Trick Question. Putnam, hc, 1996. Berkley, pb, 1997.
         # Shelter from the Storm. Putnam, hc, 1997. Berkley, pb,1998.
         # The Crime Czar. Dell, pb, 1998.
         # Lucky Man. Dell, pb, 1999.
         # Tubby Meets Katrina. NewSouth, hc, 2006.

   And of course I have a couple of comments. The story in The Crime Czar seems to pick up right after Shelter from the Storm ends, leaving some open, unanswered questions as it does so. It is strange, then, to see the series switch not only from hardcover to paperback in the transition, but from one publisher to another as well.

   The other obvious comment is that I did not know about this most recent book in the series until about five minutes ago, and I want to read it. Mr. Dunbar is obviously in love with the town where he lives – even with my having read only the one book in the series so far, I know this – and I need to know what he has felt and presumably still feels about the destruction (if not the rebuilding) of the city that was New Orleans.

   I’ve ordered it online today.

   As for The Crime Czar, as mentioned up above, the story reads like a Chapter Two, and I’m sure it would have helped to have read Shelter from The Storm before it. The ongoing crime-tinged saga that is Tubby Dubonnet’s life does not seem to come in pre-packaged segments. It is, instead, continuous.

   Tubby’s target in the book at hand: the man who seems to be behind all of the crooked wheelings and dealings in New Orleans, and for one instance in particular, the death of his friend Dan, left severely wounded in the earlier book.

   Add to the tale a hooker named Daisy, boiling mad at the death of her new boy friend; a gang of Vietnamese gunmen, aiming to avenge the shooting of three of their countrymen; and Marguerite, upon whom Tubby is sweet, and another leftover from the previous book, having managed to flee with a fortune in jewelry. Don’t ask. I didn’t, and the story still went down swell.

   It — the story — isn’t a major one, mind you. A minor caper, that is all. When one judge with his hand out goes down, another one pops up immediately. When one crooked cop is caught with his pants down, another one comes along with no delay. The fun is in the reading, though — a joyous, fun-loving affair for the most part, Big Easy style.

    NOTE:  No crawfish were harmed in the writing of this review.