I read quite a few of Frank Kane's Johnny Liddell novels and
stories back in the 1960s. I was a Mike Shayne fan and Kane
was also published by Dell and, as with the Shayne reprints,
the covers featured quite luscious redheads. I was a sucker
for redheads in the 1960s marrying one in 1968. My God,
nearly forty years ago...wonder how she's doing...
Dragging my mind back to Frank Kane, the thing that bothered
me about Kane is the fact that he recycled characters, plot
elements, and dialog from story to story. Much of that would
pass an inattentive reader by but he sometimes did this with
very distinctive bits of business. There was one oft repeated
bit where a bad guy would offer Johnny Liddell a cigarette
and Liddell would hand it back saying, "No thanks. I prefer
tobacco in mine."
Kane was a trade publication writer and public relations guy
who became a regular writer for radio shows such as
"Gangbusters" as well as the pulps. The first Liddell novels
appeared in hardback just after World War II. He later became
a regular scriptwriter for television programs such as "Mike
Hammer" in the late 1950s. Some of those Hammers are fun to
watch as I discovered when I bought VTs of a dozen or so a
few years ago. It is hard to overlook the snubnosed .38
revolver McGavin as Hammer carried in the series. From
reading Robert Turner's autobiography, Frank Kane was the
official or unofficial story editor for the Hammer
series.
So I enjoyed Frank Kane back in the day but I actually
preferred the novels of Henry Kane. No relation to Frank,
Henry Kane had a breezy patter to his dialog that I found
funny forty years ago. Goodness knows how I would view it
today.
Richard Moore
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Mark Francis
<mingus2225@...> wrote:
>
> I've only read a couple, but I rather enjoyed them.
A little over
> the top in the Spillane manner, lots of machine
guns. But the
> writing was strong, moved well with good humor and
an actual
> plot. I was unaware there were so many, although I'm
glad to hear
> it, at least to know I can read a couple more, if
not 25.
>
> The one I have at hand that I read is "Bullet Proof"
and it was
decent,
> although I don't know how well it stacks up against
the others.
>
> "Rachels, David" <RachelsDA@...>
wrote:
>
> I recently purchased on the super-duper-cheap 27 (!)
Johnny Liddell
novels written by Frank Kane. Secondary sources lead me to
believe that they are probably not very good, but I still
want to give one or two a try, which leads me to my question:
Does anyone have a favorite Frank Kane novel? If so, chances
are I have it, and I would hate to choose one to read (at
random) that is really bad if there is a much better one to
be sampled.
>
> David
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
<-------------------<---------------------------<-------<>------->--
------------------------->--------------------->
>
> http://groovetime.blogspot.com
- Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with
Yahoo! Mobile.
Try it now.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
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