W. A. BallingerCritiques

“With the compliments of the Jack Ketch Society.”

A society that kills killers! My vengeful heart loves this kind of thing! When a suspected murderer gets released, the 'Ketchers' grab them, pronounce them guilty, and hang them! Done and done!

Of course, the police are out to stop them, and a newspaper hires famous detective Sexton Blake to do the same! Can they catch the Ketchers? You gotta read it to find out!

I liked this story, and think it was just about the right length. Any longer, and I think I might have lost interest. I'm not sure if I liked the twist at the end, but overall, it was an enjoyable little read!

Good last sentence too! :

"You know," he said mildly, "I'd quite forgotten I was supposed to be dead."

Secret agent Peter Quintain is sent undercover on an Allied convoy to Murmansk. The convoys have taken a battering from the Germans, and the admiralty suspect a spy in the midst of the ships’ crews. Quintain’s task is twofold: unearth the traitor, and ideally prevent another attack. This is a competent but rather thin naval thriller. Some of the writing is overly dramatic, and the characters don’t really have much personality (except for the cartoonishly awful Fanshawe). I would definitely not rank this anywhere near MacLean (whose Ice Station Zebra and HMS Ulysses are much better reads). It is a quick read, though, so if this is the flavour of brain candy you like best and you aren’t too fussed about thin characterization, this might do the job.½

Not one of Peter Saxon's best. Readable but not as much fun as usual.

The Sexton Blake series began in 1893 and more-or-less dwindled to a halt in the late `60s. Initially the province of Blake`s creator, Hal Meredeth (real name Harry Blyth), it eventually incorporated the work of many writers, some `big names` (John Creasey, Hank Jansen), others less well-known.

Part of the attraction of the series, for me at least, is that it provides a cheap and cheerful method of encountering the works of a variety of writers. Inevitably, there is occasional `mission creep` as inidividual writers take our hero into adjacent genres, as in this Cold War thriller from series editor W Howard Baker.

A posse of bad guys plan to flood the West with counterfeit banknotes using plates designed by wartime Nazis. Who are the perpetrators ? Embittered Nazis ? Communists seeking to destabilise the West ? Or simply mobsters looking for massive profits ? Blake travels to Germany and America in pusuit of a solution, making a few friends and many enemies as he goes.

The plot is an ambitious one given the 64 page format, but Baker pulls it off with only the most minor fudging to get the thing finished within the allotted space. Ultimately, it`s entirely subjective whether one warms to this kind of detour into Cold War territory. It`s intelligently plotted, with a tolerable balance between action and intrigue, and the occasionally nod towards pulpiness. Personally, I found it was a bit like Chinese food ; it was enjoyable at the time, but at the end I didn`t feel like I`d had a full meal.

While I do enjoy a lot of Baker`s work, I have to admit I bought this one purely because I like the cover. Sadly, as the Rolling Stones once sang, "you can`t judge a book by looking at the cover."

The story begins as a gangster drives through the streets of the West End, seeking out the group of low-level hoodlums he uses to enforce a lucrative protection racket.

He finds them in a late `50s/early `60s coffee bar, peopled by bright young things and the not-so-bright young things our enjoying London`s night life. It`s here that alarm bells start to ring, as the description of the scene is both unconvincing and badly-written. It`s also borderline racist at one point, though it`s unclear if we are seeing the world through the eys of the author, or of his gangster creation.

The gangster in question is known only as The Big Man. Not too unlikely, but his henchmen go by an array of nicknames, some quite ludicrous - Fatso, Smiler, The Monster, Chi-Ann and (spot the odd one out) Marty. Later, for good measure, they are re-inforced by Spider and Pig-Brother. Collectively, they are known as The Mob. The sense that the author knows nothing about the world he describes is re-inforced throughout the story. We are repeatedly told that these lads are the product of the `Beat Generation`, but their taste in music runs to, among other things, Louis Armstrong and a version of Stupid Cupid, a song written by Neil Sedaka, for God`s sake ! Later in the book, the author appears not to know the difference between Beatniks (a rather studious strand of youth culture, keen on modern jazz and poetry, and whose main crime against humanity was propogation of the goatee beard)and the young louts in The Mob, who are described as largely sharp dressers, fond of leather jackets, and show no interest in tenor saxophones or blank verse at any point.

The Mob are instructed by the Big Man to attack a woman and her escort as they leave the night club she owns in the early hours. Ostensibly, the reason is that she has refused to pay protection money, but we later learn that she has also rejected his amorous advances (quite emphatically, by hitting him over the head with a bottle !). In fact, the attackers pick on her daughter, who is in the company of none other than Sexton Blake, seeing her home safely at her mother`s request. Acid is thrown in the girl`s face, leaving her scarred and in danger of blindness, and leaving Blake with the feeling that he has let them both down.

After a few American-style macho heroics, as Blake rebuffs police advice that he should not `go it alone` on this one, the story actually begins to take shape quite well. For once we see Blake uneasy and agitated, driven by a sense of failure. A scene where he talks to the girl`s mother is quite affecting, within the admittedly narrow limitations of the genre, and certainly new territory for Blake. At last, literally half-way through, the author seems to take the matter in hand, and we get something a bit more like a Blake story. Certainly, the closing scenes are among some of the best to appear in any SBL story, and at last we have the return of the tough, but intelligent and compassionate Blake we all now, as in this exchange with old friend Superintemdent Grimwald -

"You still want to be in for the kill - isn`t that it ?"

"There`s not going to be any kill - that`s how I want it."

Does he get his wish ? You`ll have to read it to find out.

One great bonus here is that the story did not reach the required 64 pages, so they are supplemented by a short story from the aptly-named Jack Trevor Story, The Penny Murder, which is excellent.

I`m giving this one a fairly poor rating, as roughly half of it is, in my view, a waste of space. However, as I say,when it is good it is very good. Had I graded Mr Story`s story separately, I would have given it 4 out of 5.

The half dozen Danger Man novels seem to be a fairly uneven bunch... Some don't even resemble the show in any sense, others are quite good. This one is one of the good ones.

Departure Deferred portrayed a John Drake I recognized, in a fairly good story which was in keeping with the show. I liked that the Drake character often didn't have a plan and winged things as they were flung at him - That's a particular trait of Drake's I like from the show. I'm also rather fond of the screen Drake on assignments that require him to take on another personality and while that's largely due to McGoohan's acting abilities, I also enjoyed the theme in this book - I thought Drake's internalizations about the preparation of his role were in keeping with the screen character and it was interesting to get a view into his head on the matter.

My star rating is within the context of this being a show novelization - Not as a piece of literature.

W A Ballinger was one of a number of pen-names adopted by Sexton Blake Library editor W Howard Baker, possibly influenced by his childhood hero Charles Hamilton aka Frank Richards aka Owen Conquest aka many other people, a writer of 1930s school stories.

Having previously written one or two Blakes, Baker became editor in the late `50s and is credited with having rescued the then-flagging SBL from possible extinction, attracting new writers like Jack Trevor Story and Martin Thomas and incorporating new characters into the stories.

By the time this story appeared in 1963, publishers and copyright holders Fleetway were getting ready to abandon the SBL. Baker must have been a worried man, but there`s nothing in this story to give that away.

The story is reminiscent to his earlier Walk in Fear (aka Every Man an Enemy), except that in this instance, Blake is brought into contact with the movie world rather than the publishing industry.

Although there is an element of satire, this one falls more firmly into `traditional whodunnit` category, but is a pretty good example of that genre nonetheless.

There are some good lines, particularly when Blake assures one character that he doesn`t as the other imagined, think of him as " a shark", then stands back to allow him through a doorway "Now you swim ahead" he says, courteously.

There are one or two good pen-portraits ;

"Geoffrey Tithe had lank, thinning grey hair and a face like a camel : haughty eyes, proud nose, and lips seemingly ready to spit.

He wore a faded green jacket and a derelict pair of corduroy trousers like twin badges of virtue."

Baker`s work seems to be a mixed bag. This is not quite as good as his very best stories, but still streets ahead of his worst. The writing has pace, and carries the reader along very agreeably, and the eventual solution is a surprise (or was to me at any rate).

Overall, a pretty formidable effort.

A very classy performance from SBL editor W Howard Baker here, not necessarily the kind of thing I associate with him.

The story is part mildly humorous detective story, part a satire on the publishing industry. More than once, I wondered if some characters were drawn from life, especially the more scathing portrayals.

The writing is often witty, with some very keen insights appearing here and there, as in this portrayal of one characters wartime RAF service ;

"They had been boys in 1940, contemptuous of death because they did not truly understand it ; unafraid because they were unable to appreciate that they were not immortal. They had taken risks because they hadn`t really divined the risks they were taking. They had lived dangerously, and the business of living had been a grand and glorious game.

But 1940 was seventeen years behind them now. They were all mature, reasonable, thinking men. Only John Bovis remained.

He was not mature. Often he was not even reasonable. Rarely did he consciously think."

There are one or two in-jokes here and there ; at one point Blake comments "I had some dealings with Edgar Wallace long ago." Shortly afterwards, one character expresses what may be Baker`s own experience of editing the SBL ; "Most of the trouble in my life, it seems to me, has been caused by one damned writer or another."

The plot is quite ambitious in it`s scope, and the writer seems reluctant to stay within the confines of one genre - is it satire ? comedy thriller ? traditional whodunnit ? . I thought I detected the hand of Jack Trevor story here and there, an impression re-inforced when a character from his The Season of the Skylark makes an unexpected appearance. Having said that, better men than me accept WHB`s claim to sole authorship, and I am far from being an expert on either man`s work.

Perverse though it may sound, I would not like every Blake story to be like this, but it is a personal favourite.½