112 Books

I have been keeping a movie-watching log for several years, but 2012 is the first time I thought to keep a record of the books I read during the year. My total: 112, which is probably about average for me.

First book of 2012: TOM BROWNING’S TALES FROM THE REDS DUGOUT by Tom Browning & Dann Stupp

Last book of 2012: REASONABLE DOUBT by Philip Friedman

Of the 112, only six of them were re-reads:

NIGHTMARE USA: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE EXPLOITATION INDEPENDENTS by Stephen Thrower

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS by Mike Wallace (I re-read his autobiography after his death)

I SPY: A HISTORY AND EPISODE GUIDE TO THE GROUNDBREAKING TELEVISION SERIES by Marc Cushman & Linda J. LaRosa

ROD SERLING’S NIGHT GALLERY: AN AFTER-HOURS TOUR by Scott Skelton & Jim Benson

LIVE FROM NEW YORK: AN UNCENSORED HISTORY OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE by Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller

REASONABLE DOUBT by Philip Friedman

Hardcover: 32

Paperback: 67

Trade paperback: 13

I read no book electronically in 2012.

Counting by genre:

Fiction: 78

Action/Adventure (mainly men’s adventure novels of the 1970s): 16

Crime Drama: 10

Mystery/Thriller: 43

Science Fiction: 5

Western: 6 (the first westerns I have read in my life)

Non-Fiction: 32

Biography: 2 (James Garner and Mike Wallace)

Comic Books: 11

Film: 7

Sports: 2

Television: 10

From the 1930s: 4

1940s: 2

1950s: 5

1960s: 15

1970s: 25

1980s: 6

1990s: 7

2000–2011: 43

2012: 5

Ace Double paperbacks: 15

Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child: 15

Harry Bosch novels by Michael Connelly: 2

Lew Archer novels by Ross Macdonald: 2

Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout: 1

Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner: 3

Other authors read more than once:

David Ellis: 5

Edward S. Aarons: 3

John Callahan: 2

Lionel White: 2

Louis Trimble: 2

Ralph Hayes: 2

Tom Weaver: 2

Ten recommendations:

THE DEATH OF THE FUHRER by Roland Puccetti

THE DOOMSTERS by Ross Macdonald

GOD SAVE THE FAN by Will Leitch

I WANT MY MTV: THE UNCENSORED STORY OF THE MUSIC VIDEO REVOLUTION by Craig Marks & Rob Tannenbaum

MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY by Sean Howe

NIGHTMARE USA: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE EXPLOITATION INDEPENDENTS by Stephen Thrower

REQUIEM FOR A SCHOOLGIRL by Robert Rossner (as Ivan T. Ross)

THE SIMON & KIRBY SUPERHEROES by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby

THE SUICIDE PLAGUE by Ed Naha

THE TOWER by Richard Martin Stern

How many books did you read this year?

Random TV Title: Most Wanted

Popular tough guy Robert Stack’s third television series (five years after THE NAME OF THE GAME) was not much different in concept from his first, THE UNTOUCHABLES. In the 1976 pilot movie for MOST WANTED, Stack again played a righteous cop leading a team of younger detectives against crime in the big city. Of course, being the 1970s, one of his new team was a woman, and the criminals were nastier and sleazier.

Los Angeles is being ravaged by a series of rapes and murders of nuns. It’s a cinch Eliott Ness never handled a case so lurid. The mayor (Percy Rodrigues in a role clearly based on L.A.'s real mayor then, Tom Bradley) taps Captain Linc Evers (Stack) to run a special unit dedicated to solving high-profile crimes. Evers’ hand-picked staff: streetsmart undercover narc Charlie Benson (Shelly Novack, who had been on the final season of ABC's THE F.B.I.), empathetic psych Lee Herrick (Leslie Charleson), and computer whiz Tom Roybo (Tom Selleck).

Created by MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE producer Laurence Heath, who wrote some of that series’ best episodes, the Quinn Martin production suffers from Heath’s script, which spins its wheels sending the Most Wanted team after a cultist, even though the audience is already aware of the killer’s identity. There is novel interest in the rough technology used by Roybo to solve the case, and most of the performances, particularly the actor playing the killer, are quite good.

Selleck, who appears awkward, and Charleson didn’t make the leap to series (some QM personnel had misgivings over Selleck’s voice), and the ABC show starred Stack, Novack, Jo Ann Harris (RAPE SQUAD), and Hari Rhodes (THE BOLD ONES) as the Mayor. Director Walter Grauman, an old hand (he directed the STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO pilot for Martin), handles the crime drama well, and the film’s ratings were strong enough to give MOST WANTED a Saturday night slot. The strong supporting cast includes Jack Kehoe, Marj Dusay, Kitty Winn (THE EXORCIST), Robert Doyle, Sheree North, Fred Sadoff, Joyce Dewitt (THREE’S COMPANY), Richard Lawson, and Roger Perry.

Patrick Williams composed the pilot's score, but when the MOST WANTED series premiered in September 1976, it had a new theme written by Lalo Schifrin:

A Savage World Without Mercy

BLOOD OATH is the second of Leisure Books' surprisingly long-running series of men's adventure novels about Mafia-killing madman Johnny Rock aka the Sharpshooter. Published in October 1973, it's also one of the sloppiest, and that's saying a helluva lot for one of literature's all-time sloppiest series.

Peter McCurtin wrote the initial book, THE KILLING MACHINE, under Leisure's "Bruno Rossi" house name. When Russell Smith came in to pen the sequel, he jettisoned all the established facts and open storylines McCurtin had created. John Rocetti is now named John Roccoletti (subsequent books would go back to Rocetti), and Iris Toscano is gone and replaced by a new character named Jane (more on her in a moment).

As with other books in the Sharpshooter series, BLOOD OATH is plagued with editorial mistakes due to having been intended as an entry in Belmont Tower's Marksman series. Rock is occasionally called "Magellan" (the name of the Marksman), and Jane is introduced twice as Terri White, the Marksman's romantic interest. Honestly, these characters exist only to be abused and raped, which happens to Jane near the end of BLOOD OATH and to Terri in HEADHUNTER.

It's pretty clear that Smith was just making shit up as he goes along. He has Rock kidnap a policeman and two journalists, strip them, photograph them, and bound in an attic, which is where they still are at the end of BLOOD OATH with no indication of what Rock plans to do with the photos. Smith builds up to a big violent climax, which takes place mainly off-page with the nastiest villain being dispatched in a throwaway sentence on the last of 156 pages.

Plot finds the Sharpshooter renting a country home near the small town of Xenia, New York, where he discovers Mafioso Attilio Fanzago has set up an estate. As mobsters go, Fanzago ain't bad. He deals only in merchandise like electric typewriters and eschews dope and prostitution. Still, he's Mobbed up, so Rock hates him and has to destroy him. Which he does in the most hamfisted and juvenile prose possible.

Did I enjoy BLOOD OATH? Well, yeah.