December 14, 2025 • 37 mins
In this energetic year-end episode, Eric looks back at a wildly productive 2025 for Paperback Warrior — packed with reviews, interviews, collaborations, and behind-the-scenes adventures. He shares big milestones, surprising personal updates, and a rapid-fire countdown of his Top 10 Reads of the Year (spoiler-free!). Eric also teases exciting projects coming in 2026, including new partnerships, publishing work, and podcast appearances. It’s a fast, fun celebration of a landmark year and a perfect jumping-on point for listeners old and new.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello, Hello, Hello, and welcome to a brand new edition
of the Paperback Warrior podcast. I'm your host, Eric Compton,
leading you through this wild and wooly romp of paperback books, pulps,
old comics, and short stories. You can read hundreds and
hundreds of vintage fiction reviews on paperbackwarrior dot com and
follow along with interesting shopping videos shorts reels on places
(00:43):
like Facebook, x, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. This episode is
similar to a lot of year end wrap up shows
that you may have listened to already. Yes, twenty twenty
five comes to an end. I try to offer these
at the end of every year, and I really like
them because it not only wraps up the year, but
but it kind of provides a state of the union
addressed for the Paperback Warrior brand. It's really neat for
(01:04):
me to look back at the stats and events that
happen in twenty twenty five and sort of get a
pulse on how the brand is doing overall. How do
you think paperback Warrior is doing? Why don't you let
me know in the comments or by sending me an
email to Paperbackwarrior at yahoo dot com. You should also
be able to comment wherever this episode posts, no matter
the platform. So how does this episode shape up? Well,
(01:26):
that's a great question. I'm going to go over some
of the highlights of twenty twenty five. I'm going to
tell you about some of the projects I'm involved in
for the coming months, and we're going to go over
a few new book editions. I'm going to tell you
a little bit about what's happening in my personal life too.
And I feel like you guys and gals are family,
so why not, right, today's feature is my top ten
reads of twenty twenty five. So with that being said,
(01:48):
let's go ahead and get into the stats for Paperback Warrior.
I'm going to break these down into sections just to
give us a little bit of breathing room. And I
really like stats. I think it's really interesting to see
the footprint that we made in twenty twenty five. So
let's go over first how the reviews turned out for
this year. And this is what Tom and I wrote
for written reviews in twenty twenty five on paperbackwarrior dot com.
(02:13):
And go ahead and just take a guest now at
how many written reviews appeared on Paperback Warrior in twenty
twenty five. This number that I'm gonna give you includes
reviews we wrote for things like novels. It can be
comic books, it could be short stories, it could be magazines,
it could be short story anthologies, that kind of thing.
(02:34):
So the number of written reviews that we collectively did
was one hundred and fifty six, and that equates to
about three point three new reviews every single week. And
here's how they work out in terms of genres. I
wanted to see which genres generated reviews. So here's the
top three genres that we review. Action, which is condensed
(02:55):
to be military fiction, nautical adventure, espionage, vigilanti, and so forth.
We did thirty one action reviews. Horror comes in at
thirty five reviews. There's probably more of those simply because
the entire month of October is dedicated to horror. And
then coming in at the most crime fiction probably not
a surprise there. Crime fiction we did thirty eight total reviews,
(03:18):
and the rest they kind of break down like this,
young adult twelve, Gothic nine, fantasy seven, sci fi six,
and then miscellaneous, which are kind of like anthologies, magazines,
that kind of thing. At three of the one hundred
and fifty six reviews. The ratio was twenty one written
by Tom and the rest or by me. If we
(03:40):
look at the number of actual posts on Paperback Warrior,
because this can be post of articles, videos, podcast episodes,
those are all posts and including reviews, the total number
of posts that we made on Paperbackwarrior dot com is
two hundred and ten. That's a post about every other
day for twenty twenty five. It comes in at the
sixth most prolific year that we've had for post. The
(04:04):
highest number is still twenty twenty, which had three hundred
and eight post. I guess because we had a lot
to say in twenty twenty. We had a lot of
free time over our hands too. But beyond just posting
reviews on the blog, there was a flurry of other
activity too. So I want to look at something other
than just those those review posts and some of those
(04:24):
other types of writings that we did. I want to
look at what we did in terms of Paperback Warrior primers.
So we did Paperback Warrior primers on Kendall Foster, Crossing,
Lionel White, John Messman, Charles Williams, William P McGivern, Sidney Horler,
Harry Whittington, Norman Daniels, George Harmon Cox, Don Pendleton, and
(04:46):
the mac Bolin Universe Bill Gullick. These primers are quick,
five hundred to one thousand word essays about the author
and their literary career. And thanks to Tom for helping
me write these primers, because I used a lot of
his original notes and his old podcast scripts when I
wrote some of those, so I just pulled a little
bit of information from there, and then some other sources also.
(05:08):
So my question would be, if we do this many
reviews and this many postings, who the heck's actually reading
all this stuff? Right? Who's reading these reviews and these articles? Well,
according to the blog numbers for twenty twenty five, there
were two point five to three million views, So two
point five to three million views. That's really counting late
(05:29):
November twenty twenty four through late November twenty twenty five,
So two point five to three million views. Let's jump
over to podcast stats because I think that's a fun
number for this very podcast. I did fourteen episodes in
the style meaning my traditional presentation of talking to you
about books, reviewing a book or two, and presenting a feature.
So these traditional episodes I did fourteen of them, but
(05:52):
on top of that, I also did conversation episodes. So
for the conversation episodes, I did four four Guide to
Gothics with Nick at the Book Graveyard. I did a
collaboration with Nick at the Book Graveyard and Brian from
Bad Taste Books when we reviewed a Butcher installment. I
also did another collaboration with Brian tackling two young adult novels.
(06:16):
I did a collaboration with Zach Skiber reviewing Flowers in
the Attic, and the rest of the conversation episodes featured
interviews that included authors Jack Hatfield Junior, Paul Bishop, David Agronoff,
Greg Geffoon, Brian Barry, and John Shirley. And I also
interviewed Greg Sheppard from Starkhouse Press. So there was a
total of twenty seven podcast episodes presented to you this
(06:39):
year in twenty twenty five. And that's a lot, folks,
a lot of work. People ask me all the time,
why don't I produce more podcast episodes when in reality
I'm averaging more than one episode every two weeks. So
I'm still keeping it, keeping it flowing, keeping a rapid
fire release schedule, which is great. Now. I don't have
an exact number of how many streams the podcast gets
(07:01):
because some platforms don't report, Plus some people stream on YouTube,
so it's kind of hard to get a real pulse
on podcast streams. But of the reporting podcast streams, I
show twenty four thousand, four hundred and ninety three individual
streams of the podcast in twenty twenty five, so twenty
(07:21):
four thousand and four to ninety three individual streams of
the podcast. And you know what, I don't know if
that's good or not. I really don't know. I don't
know if that's a good amount of people. I don't
know if that's a bad bad amount. I don't know
if two point five to three million views on Paperback
Warrior dot com as a lot. I have no way
of judging this because I'm just so stuck in my
(07:42):
own world. I should probably branch out a little bit
in terms of what other people are doing to kind
of see what stats look like. But I'm just so
consuming my own universe and just trying to create content.
It's just it takes a lot of my time. I
wanted to jump over from reviews and podcasts. I want
to look at videos because I was really surprised by this.
I created one hundred and three short videos. These videos
(08:06):
are a minute or less. They're shorts. They also serve
as reels on Facebook and TikTok. These shorts are all
about vintage fiction. They're about contemporary horror books, old comic books,
pulp magazines, and really an assortment of author and artist information.
In case you haven't been watching these, just in the
past thirty or forty days, I've posted short videos on
(08:27):
Gil Brewer, Jim Thompson, Day Keen, John D. MacDonald, and
I even slipped in a video all about the horror
paperbacks of Ruby Jean Jensen. So you have one hundred
and three short videos just in twenty twenty five. And
by the way, there's a total of one hundred and
seventy five short videos for you to watch out there.
And if you don't want to kind of hunt and
(08:49):
peck on those videos, you could just watch a playlist.
You could just click the playlist that I made for you,
and you can watch that back to back. They'll show
you all the short videos in just under three hours.
For shopping videos, I posted nine of those, ranging from
places like Nashville, Tennessee, Roanoke, Virginia, the Orlando, Florida area,
and of course right here in Jacksonville as well. There's
(09:11):
a playlist of those and it runs about three or
four hours with my shopping videos all back to back,
so similar to the shorts, you can hit the playlist
and just watch them all. I also uploaded three audio
books or short stories that I personally narrated, The Tormented
by James mckemmey, Jack Finney's The Third Level, and also
Thomas Hyland's debut novella Guns Drawn, and that gives us
(09:33):
a great overview of the paperback Warrior happenings within the brand.
Before I finish up this wrap up, I wanted to
jump over some things that I had the pleasure of
working on outside of my own blog and videos for
twenty twenty five. Back in January, I took part in
a conversation with the Elusive Exclusive Book Society also known
as EBES, which sounds like a skin condition by the way,
(09:57):
And I did that with the YouTube channels the book Graveyard,
Pulp Mortem and Secret Fire Books, and we collectively reviewed
Ninja Master number one and that was a ton of fun.
If you hadn't got a chance to watch it. Go
back and look at any of those those YouTube channels
and you'll be able to find that video. I also
wrote introductions and an article in the New Men's Adventure
(10:19):
Quarterly number thirteen magazine, so be sure to check that out.
I helped sponsor this year's PulpFest and Pittsburgh and had
Paperback Warriors brand featured on the back of the festival's
program book, which is called The Pulpster. I might be
giving myself too much credit for this one, but I
had pitched an idea to Greg Sheppard at Starkhouse Press
about a short story written by Bruce Elliott called do
(10:43):
You Know Me? And this was a couple of years ago,
and I told him how much I love this story.
He ended up liking the story too, and he went
ahead and put together an entire short story compilation of
Elliott's work and made do You Know Me the lead
story and partial name of the book. So that was
kind of to see. I contributed a review of Bob
(11:03):
Dice and Wyatt Doyle's Shark Story Collection to Fathom Press's
owner and editor Justin I think he was putting together
an online story collection of shark tales, but I honestly
don't know if it ever came out, but I did
send that to him. I created a Wikipedia page for
artist ron Less, which turned out really well, if I
do say so myself. I still got a lot of
work to do to it. I just need to get
(11:24):
back to that. My interview with John Shirley made it
to Canada's number one site for Rockineavy Metal News, bravewords
dot Com, so that was exciting to see that on
their landing page. And I was mentioned on book Tubes's
leading voice on all things vintage fiction, that's Michael Vaughan.
I sent him a care package and he was kind
enough to mention me and Paperback Warrior a couple of
times on his channel. I also got mentions on Brian's
(11:46):
Bad Taste Books, Jake's Pulp Mortem, Jeff on Jeff's Cave
of Cool Books, the Vintage Paperback Reader, Jack Hatfield's Hatfield
Heritage Network, the pulp fiction blog That's Fiction with an
X Pulp Fiction Blog, Zach Skiver's book review Channel, Tim
at Secret Fire Books, and the Bookless Pete Channel. And
(12:08):
I also got to mention in the two fur put
out by Starkhouse Press for Edward s Aaron's Death in
a Lighthouse and Murder Money and Nicholas Litchfield, who's just
a great writer. He's a scholar. He writes tons and
tons of introductions for the stark House Press books. He
had pulled some information that I wrote about Edward essa
(12:30):
Eron's on the blog and he included that in his introduction,
which was really cool to see that. I'm a big
fan of what he writes, and him just mentioning my
name is it just gave me goosebumps. But anyway, jumping
ahead to twenty twenty six, I wanted to look ahead
at some of the projects I know that I'm going
to be involved in for next year. First, I just
talked with Greg at Starkhouse and he definitely's got some
(12:52):
intros for me to write on some of his releases
next year. I'm really excited about that. I love working
with him. I've written at least one for him that
I can remember, and that was the introduction to Lionel
White's two for Jailbreak in Mexico Run, which he put
out a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed writing
that introduction, So that's on the docket for next year.
For sure. I also have another project with Bill Cunningham
(13:14):
and Bob Dice next year. It's the Art of Ron
Lesser Volume three, and I've written introductions for many of
Lesser's action adventure series titles like Sobs Track Riker, The Marksman, Buchanan,
as well as primer style pieces on Jack Higgins and
Ernest Gann. It's going to be awesome. I can't wait
for you guys to see it. I'm also going to
collaborate with Nick at The Book Graveyard on a gothic
(13:37):
suspense article that we've been asked to write for the
blog Something is Going to Happen, which is hosted by
Ellery Queen's Mystery magazine editor Jackie Sherbou, So I'm really
excited about working on that. Speaking of Nick, I'm still
going to be teaming with him on a monthly basis
to review a vintage gothic paperback. The next one we've
got planned is Henry James The Turn of the Screw
(13:58):
and the film adaptation of called The Innocence. This episode
may have already aired by the time this podcast goes up,
so just check around. I hope to be on Terrence
Leahues podcast suit up or have him right here on
Paperback Warrior for a conversation. We're in talks now to
make this happen for early twenty twenty six. I'm also
going to be making an appearance on Nathaniel Hummel's Men's
(14:18):
adventure fiction podcast. Next year, I'll be on Billy Dunleavy's
magazines and Monstrous podcasts as well. We've been working that
out over the last month or two, so I'm hoping
to be on there very very soon. I'm a big
fan of what he does, and that's all I can
think of right now. I'm probably missing something important, who knows,
But that's enough to mention here on the show anyway.
(14:39):
And I wanted to branch off from here, and I'll
just talk a little bit about my personal life, although
I'd be remiss not to say that my personal life
in Paperback Warrior or they're seemingly a synonymous honestly. But
my daughter, she attends Flagler College here in Saint Augustine.
It's a private liberal arts college. One of her classes
has a project in which the students will a podcast
(15:00):
episode about a hot topic within environmental studies. Now, generally speaking,
neither one of My daughters have very little interest in
Paperback Warrior. They couldn't care less about my rock star status.
Here is a vintage book analyst. I'm not kid. I kid,
but no matter what I do here at Paperback Warrior,
no matter how important irrelevant I can make it sound,
(15:22):
they're not even remotely impressed. It doesn't help that neither
of them read books either. But my daughter mentioned to
a professor that I have this podcast and that I
might be a good resource for the students to use
for their podcast project. Her professor reached out to me
and asked if I wanted to present a lecture on podcasting,
like how to write a script, good interviews, engagement, and
(15:44):
really the technology behind recording and editing with various recording devices.
So I took her up on the offer, and I
led two lectures about the subject. In man, it was
a lot of fun for me. Not sure about the students,
but I'm sure they were really bored. But for me,
it was an absolute blast. And now I've got a
running joke in the house that I'm a college professor,
that I've been to the teacher's lounge on campus, and
(16:06):
then I even have a pipe and a smoking jacket.
But in my defense, the professor did compliment my teaching
skills in said I missed my calling. I'm sure she
was being very generous, but hey, I'll take it. The
bottom line is that Paperback Warrior was introduced to twenty
young minds, and that's a calls for celebration. I've never
had a cat. I've never owned one. I have three
dogs and that's been good enough for me. But my
(16:27):
wife and I were recently out to dinner down the
street at Ruby. Tuesdays. We go there to get the
salad bar and it's not a bad price for twelve
bucks on a random weeknight splurge. However, this time I
opted for adding a bowl of soup, and it literally
took forever to get the soup, so twenty twenty five
minutes for soup. My wife was pulling us out of
the parking spot and we were swinging onto the main
(16:47):
road and I saw something small sort of jump from
a bush. I told her to stop for a second
because I wasn't sure if it was a rabbit or
some other creature. I mean, this is Florida. It could
be a gator, it could be a face eating cannibal.
Crawling around. You just never know down here. So she
drove us over to the edge of the parking lot
there and we saw this ferocious animal that was actually
a very young cat, not quite a newborn cat, but
(17:10):
probably like six to eight months old. My wife got
out of the car and picked it up. And if
any of you are married, well you sort of know
that if your spouse spots something soft, furry and warm,
more than likely you're going to be living with that soft,
furry and warm thing for the next ten to fifteen years.
I tried to resist, and my wife put the cat
down a couple times. But the end result is the
(17:30):
cat's now named Maggie, and she's here at the house
with us full time, free lodging, free food, free snuggles
for her. So I don't think she's going to be
leaving anytime soon. In fact, I'll probably get booted before
she does. The moral of the story is stick with
the salad bar, guys, to stick with the salad bar.
The soup added an extra time for the cat to
emerge from wherever she was camping at. No soup, no cat.
(17:53):
That's the deal. I don't have much else on the
personal side of things, my wife and I may be
selling her house, maybe trying to downsize it at some point,
which has led me to sell most of my book
and comic collection. I'm going to continue buying books here
and there, but mostly just reading them and donating or
selling them afterwards. I'd like my to be red pile
to be my actual book collection, if you know what
I mean, just a small stack of books. I've also
(18:15):
picked up a second job to go along with my
full time job. They say age fifty is when you
start winding down, but with college and cat expenses, I
guess I'm just getting started. The job requires a lot
of travel, so I'm going to be spending a lot
of time listening to audio books and book tubers, so
I'm kind of looking forward to that. All right. So,
now that we've gotten the Paperback Warrior stats out of
(18:35):
the way, what's happening next year my personal life? What
do you say we do a top ten of twenty
twenty five feature. I'll hit the tune and kick it
off right now, right now. Okay, So I'm looking at
my top ten reads of twenty twenty five, and I'm
(18:55):
starting with number ten and working my way down to
the number one spot. It's a countdown. Number ten gets
us started. And this was tough because all ten of
these books were terrific. But there's got to be a
number ten for the basement, right, and that book is
deep among the dead men. This is the tenth best
book I read in twenty twenty five. This was the
(19:16):
first of three books written by John Blackburn to start
an adventurer named Bill Easter. The book was published in
nineteen seventy three, and in many ways you could say
the book is spy fiction, but really it's just one long,
awesome adventure. Easter begins the book by searching for a
treasure that's lying off the coast of a fictional African country.
(19:36):
But to get the treasure, there's a clever and fun
plot introduced that has Easter needing to assassinate the country's
recent dictator and reinstall the prior dictator so he can
trapes across the waters to get the treasure. This requires
that he share part of it with the captain of
the salvage ship and the dictator that he's helping regain power.
Of course, there's double crossing in British humor and satire,
(19:57):
and the book man It's just awesome. I love this character.
I love this book. I also read the series' second installment,
which is called Mister Brown's Bodies. It didn't make the
top ten, but it should get an honorable mention here
at the very least. Again, this book is deep among
the dead men. My ninth best read of the year
was the nineteen forty two war novel The Commandos. This
(20:19):
was authored by Brooklyn native Elliott Arnold and adapted into
a film in nineteen forty three for Columbia Pictures titled
First Comes Courage. The book stars an American soldier serving
in World War Two and operating covertly in Norway, a
country that was held in a vice script by Nazi Germany.
He's in love with a woman named Nicole, who's a
faithful spy for the Allies that's romanticizing a Nazi major.
(20:44):
She gives up her body in mind to the major,
then feeds Arnold in the Allies important information. But during
a mission, Alan is captured by the Germans and he's
sent to be interrogated by none other than the Nazi major.
It's an intriguing mix as these three people co exist
in a world of treachery, and violence. The book sent
me on a roller coaster of emotions and was just
(21:04):
so moving in the way it described war and its participants.
Don't miss out on a chance to read this incredible book.
Get it if he can again. The title is the
Commando's My eighth best read of the year was The
Iron Tiger by Jack Higgins. This was Higgins's eighteenth career
novel and it was published in nineteen sixty six as
a hardcover. It was later reprinted by Fosset Gold Medal
(21:25):
numerous times. It now remains in print today in physical
and digital copies. The book stars a World War II
veteran named Jack that served in the British Navy as
a pilot. He was dismissed from service and now works
flying into the bet smuggling arms to resistance fighters hoping
to repel the Chinese communist bodies. Asked to make a
special mission, a local village leader has a son that
(21:46):
needs a surgical operation in Chicago. A charity organization is
asked that a nurse named Janet fly into the village,
get the sun and fly to Chicago with him. The
man to fly in and out, of course, is Jack,
but thinks. They never go as planned in high adventure novels,
and soon the two find themselves grounded and facing Chinese forces.
The two of them, alongside villagers, must escape across the
(22:09):
border into India. So the book's like one perilous road
trip as the two faced danger in distress attempting to
make it to safety. This was par for the course
for Jack Higgins, with an admirable hero, British military intelligence,
a woman in need, and of course lots and lots
of gunfire. Again, this is the Iron Tiger, and you
need to read this book. This countdown is getting really
(22:30):
tough now. All these books are just so good. I
chose to list The Last Night to Kill Nazis as
the seventh best book I read in twenty twenty five.
And I know you're all probably tired of me talking
about those books, so I'm going to keep it short.
I reviewed the book on the blog I interviewed the author.
The book is like a mix of World War two
high adventure cross with something like a Brian Lumley vampire novel.
(22:53):
A vampire count finds his castle invaded by Nazi soldiers,
then later he ends up being rescued by the Allies
who use him as a type secret weapon to hunt
Nazis right after Germany's surrender to the Russians in Berlin.
There's a backstory, There's great characters, sweeping adventure, violence, gunfire,
just so many awesome elements to this high concept novel.
(23:13):
I love this book so much, and I'm looking forward
to the sequel, which David Agronoff told me he's writing again.
This book is The Last Night to Kill Nazis. My
sixth favorite read of the year is The Hound of
the Baskervilles. This is the fourth Sherlock Holmes novel, of course,
written by Sir Arthur Codan Doyle. It was originally published
in nineteen oh one in The Strand magazine and then
(23:34):
published in hardcover in nineteen oh two. In this book,
a doctor named Mortimer visits Holmes and Watson and explains
that a man named Charles Baskerville has died from a
heart attack. The weird part is that he died out
on the moors from cardiac arrest, and right beside his
corpse were giant hound prints. What type of dogs scared Charles?
It turns out that years before this murder, Hugo Baskerville
(23:58):
had kidnapped a local farmer's and then was apparently killed
by a large demonic dog. Is this same demonic dog
on the loose again? Did the dog frighten Charles to death?
Mortimer employs Watson to find the answers, and the last act,
Sherlock arrives to assist Watson in determining just what's happening
in this spooky swamp like region of England. This story
(24:20):
is superb. The writing's excellent, and of course the character
development with the suspects is set at just the right
pace for the discovery to be well earned. The Hound
of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It's a
mandatory read. Coming in at number five is The Private Wound.
This was written by Cecil day Lewis, which is actor
(24:40):
Daniel day Lewis's father. It was published as a hardcover
by Collins in nineteen sixty eight and in paperback by
Dell in nineteen seventy. The book is set during the
summer of nineteen thirty nine in Ireland. The main character
is a thirty year old British author named Dominic whose
car breaks down outside the rural village of Charlottestown. He
(25:00):
gets invited to rent a small cabin on a family
farm there, and he falls in love with a young
woman who's been married to the local farmer. The book's
first half narrative explores their relationship in a warm and
captivating way. It's literary, but man, I was fully invested
in this. The book second half is a really awesome
murder mystery when this young woman is found stabbed to
(25:21):
death on a riverbank. This was such a great novel,
with so many moving parts. It's a character study, it's romance,
it's crime drama. It's rooted in this spiritual dilemma and
features a fantastic side character that has a very violent background.
The book's ending had such an impact on me. I
love this book. I'm probably going to read it again again.
(25:43):
This is the Private Wound by Cecil day lewis number
four on My Rankings for best read of twenty twenty five.
Is Wolf cop This was authored by Richard Jessup and
was published in nineteen sixty one by Falseod Gold Medal. Thankfully,
Starkhouse Press has reprinted the book alongside the author's port angelique.
The book is a police procedural novel that features a
(26:03):
determined career cop named Tony Cirella. While the city isn't disclosed,
I assume it's a Midwestern city. I think maybe like
Cleveland or Saint Louis. Sorella works here as a police
sergeant and he's recently transitioned from robberies to homicide. Now.
The author's narrative is this winding plethora of unrelated cases
(26:23):
propelled by three rigorous crimes that compete for Sorella's time.
There's a homicide case that features maybe the same killer.
There's a large narcotics bus going on. There's a large
turf showdown with some of the primetime criminals. With the
enormous pressure of just trying to work these investigations. There's
(26:44):
this complex judicial hearing regarding Sorella's physical confrontation with this
young kid. This is a powerhouse police procedural and it
presents so many facets of the job. It's poignant, it's violent,
it's absolutely outstanding. Again, This is Wolf Coop by Richard Jessop.
John Messman's The Revenger series makes my top three reads
(27:06):
of twenty twenty five. The book is titled A Vendetta
Contract and This was the series' third installment, and it's
out now on Brash Books in a new edition. Vendetta Contract,
which was originally published in nineteen seventy three, once again
stars the series character Ben Martin, who's a Vietnam War
veteran that suffered the murder of his wife and son
by the mob. In this book, Ben is trying to
(27:28):
put all that behind him by working as a painter
in this small town just south of Indianapolis, but he
gets pulled back into violence when his girlfriend's brother goes
on the run from the syndicate. Ben's tied into it,
and eventually the mafia puts a hit out on Ben.
But this isn't any routine hit. Instead, they've employed an
outside assassin, a notorious sex fiend named Corbett, and Corbett
(27:52):
goes gunning for Ben and chases him across the country
through cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Vendetta Contract Man's It
isn't just the best installment of the Revenger series. This
could be one of the best men's action adventure paperbacks
I've ever read. It's high octane, it's got a mesmerizing
cat and mouse chase. It's just so good again. This
(28:16):
is the Revenger number three Vendetta Contract by John Messman.
It's out now on Brash Books and it makes my
top three at number three. My runner up to the
best book I've read all year is Lionel White's Run,
Killer Run. The book is White's first novel and it
was originally titled Seven Hungry Men. It was first published
by Rainbow Digest in nineteen fifty two, and as his
(28:39):
career swored, he revised the novel and made it Run,
Killer Run, and he sold it to Avon as a
paperback in nineteen fifty nine. Now, once again, stark House
Press has come on board and they've released this book
as a black gat book again as an affordable paperback
and ebook. But in the book, readers are introduced to
this guy named ran Coleman and he's just released from
(29:02):
prison as the book starts. But his freedom it was
paid for by this slick attorney named Borgman, and the
spring it wasn't charity care. Borgman has a plan to
knock off this armored car in downtown New York, with
a payout being over two million dollars. Now, like most
heist novels, the main event isn't the robbery, but the
(29:22):
fallout between greedy criminals clamoring to knock one another off
to get to the bigger payout. There's a touch of
nautical fiction in the book as the heist crew escapes
by boat on a passage to Miami. Along the way,
there's strong character development, there's an absorbing pace, and of
course plenty of double crossing. Alliance is being formed, and
this grand payout for the reader, featuring a shootout in
(29:44):
a swampy cabin. If you love crime fiction, this is
a must read. Like, you have to read this book again.
It's Run Killer, Run by Lionel White. All right, So
that gets me all the way down the number one,
my number one read of twenty twenty five. But before
I give you that grand reveal, I want to mention
a few honorable mentions that probably could have easily been
(30:06):
in my top ten if you asked me another day.
The honorable mentions for this year was The Autumn Springs
Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi. Now, don't be thrown
off by the title. It's a really silly title, but
this is a classic murder mystery as a masked killer.
Praise on The Wonderful Residence of an upstate New York
(30:27):
retirement home. Great book and not a far cry from
an early twentieth century novel by someone like Mary Collins
or Elizabeth Fenwick. It's just a great book. Again, it's
Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi. Another one
I really enjoyed was Hacking mal by Brian G. Berry. Again,
(30:48):
don't be thrown too much by the title. This is
a great men's action adventure novel. It's set in a
dystopian style twentieth century where the stock market has crashed
in society has into violent chaos. A company creates these
robotic suits that police wear, but they end up becoming
defective and it causes the police in the suits to
(31:09):
go on a killing spree. Again, this is Hacking Mall
by Brian G. Barry. And by the way, I also
liked his book Sharpshooter Terror. It's great. Other honorable mentions
go to Greg Gaffoon's The Rain Dancers, Jack Carney's Cry,
Brother Cry, Ben Benson's vintage State trooper novel The Venus Death,
(31:29):
and John Ferris's Win Michael Calls. You can look up
all these reviews on the Paperback Warrior dot com blog.
If you go to the desktop version, just click on
twenty twenty five. It'll show you all the months and
you can find all these books within the twenty twenty
five range. There, all right, So let's get to the
number one book for me in twenty twenty five. Ironically,
this book actually was published in twenty twenty five as well.
(31:52):
The title is The Silver Revolver by John Shirley. The
book introduces readers to a book editor and ex con
named Slim. His son dies from a drug overdose on
the same day that he experiences a mass shooter attack.
In a weird chain of events, Slim goes on the run,
thinking the police believe he was the mass shooter. While
on the run from the police, he's also on a
(32:13):
quest to bring down the drug cartel that supplied the
drugs that killed his son. And here's what I wrote
in my review online, this is just partial. The Silver
Revolver plunges both Slim and the reader into a narcotic
wasteland of pimps, hordes, drug runners, and their makeshift masters.
It's a noxious journey for Slim, who's a likable ex
con gone good forced to fast draw his way through
(32:37):
a twisty labyrinth of painted ladies and shady men. Shirley's
inclusion of Dulcett, who's a sexy, enigmatic hooker, uplifts Slim's
violent mission and adds a sexy exuberance to the story.
It reminded me of crime fiction's most dangerous couple, Dan J.
Marlow's Drake and Hazel. I'll be it less affectionate. The
Silver Revolver is a testament to John Shirley's blunt for
(32:58):
storytelling ability. It's an intense crime noar that transforms not
only the characters but the reader. Highly recommended again, that
was The Silver Revolver by John Shirley. It's out now
on Rough Edges Press in both physical and digital editions.
I also interviewed John Shirley and you could check out
that video on the PW blog or on the YouTube channel.
And I also read and reviewed John Shirley's Batman novel
(33:21):
Dead White, and it deserves an Oddwable mention as well.
It's a very cool book, all right. Before I finished
this off here and head on to start writing twenty
twenty six episodes, I want to tell you about a
couple of books I recently got. First off is a
package I received from Brian Brassfield. He's been kind enough
to send me a few packages in the past, and
he corresponds with me on Facebook Messenger. He knew there
(33:44):
was a couple of paperbacks on my wish list, and
I was surprised to find them in my mailbox just
a few weeks ago. The first book is After the
Rain by John Bowen. This is a Balantine paperback published
in nineteen fifty nine. The book is a post apocalyptic
novel at one hundred fifty five pages, and it's sort
of like the film water World. The entire earth has
(34:04):
been flooded with massive reins. There's a hero on a boat,
and even the cover of the book has a statue
of Liberty nearly underwater. I've read a ton of these
types of post apocalyptic books, and I'm happy to get
this one. The other book he sent me is titled
On My Honor, and I'm not sure who the real
author is, but the name on the cover is Malachi Black,
which I'm assuming is a pseudonym. The cover looks like
(34:26):
a straight up slasher book, with a bloody knife in
front of a tent, but it might be more of
a police procedural novel focusing on capturing a serial killer.
The killer could be a young boy. That's the catch.
So again, this is on my honor. It's a Pinnacle paperback.
It was originally published in nineteen eighty nine. I'm happy
to have it. Brian thinks for these two books. A
great supporter of the Paperback Warrior blog and our Facebook
(34:47):
page has been guest. He was kind enough to mail
me two books. He knows that the Paperback Warrior blog
has two of Frank Bonham's books reviewed. That of crime fiction.
I believe I reviewed Boonhoms in nineteen sixty three, novel
by her own hand. Tom reviewed the author's nineteen sixty
two book, The Skin Game, which was reprinted by Cutting
Edge Books. Bottom mostly wrote Western novels, but he wrote
(35:10):
these three crime fiction novels. This third one is called
One for Sleep. It was published by Fossil Gold Medal
in nineteen sixty and as you can imagine, that's the
Frank Bottom novel that Ben mailed to me. In this book,
readers are introduced to a tough parole officer named Sam Garrett.
Sam Garrett would show up again in The Skin Game.
He was in two of the Bottom's three crime fiction books.
(35:33):
The other book that Ben mailed me is titled The
Eighth Dwarf. The author is Ross Thomas, and this is
an Avon paperback published in nineteen eighty. Here's the synopsis
for this book, and I think you will agree with
me that this demands to be read. A crazed assassin
was knocking off Nazis in the rubble of post war Germany.
Nobody loves Nazis, but the Americans, British and Russians were
(35:56):
all looking for him, with no success. That's where the
comes in. All three and a half feet of Nicholas
Bascaro was drowning in a Beverly Hill swimming pool. When
Minor Jackson fished him out. He offered Jackson partnership in
a lucrative adventure. All they had to do was cross
a few borders, get seduced by a few women, and
beat a master assassin to the kill again. The name
(36:19):
of the book is The Eighth Dwarf by Ross Thomas.
Think you Ben? The last book I want to tell
you about is a new horror novel I received in
the mail. The title is The Grange and the author
is Zachary Hunkar. This is a new horror publication that
just came out. Here's the short synopsis. Fifteen year old
Odre Pratt and her father moved to a small town
(36:39):
in Pennsylvania to resolve the emotional fallout of her mother's death.
As they're embraced by the community, Odre discovers the town's
legacy of murder and human sacrifice, and she'll have to
fight for the lives of everyone she holds dear again.
The book is titled The Grange and the author is
Zachary Hunkkar, and that brings me to the end of
this episode. This one was jammed pack folks, and I
(37:01):
hope I successfully wrapped up twenty twenty five in a
fun and enjoyable way. For you. Remember to follow a
Paperback Warrior on Facebook x, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, archive dot org,
and you can send emails to paperback Warrior at yahoo
dot com. I don't demand any tips or donations, and
my content isn't hidden behind a paywall, but if you
want to help me out with expenses, just go to
(37:22):
the desktop version of Paperback Warrior and click on donate
on the upper right side. I'm telling you it would
be greatly appreciated. And now that's all for this time.
I'm going to catch up with you next year. Take
care and remember enjoy whatever it is you're doing by
for now.
Hello, Hello, Hello, and welcome to a brand new edition
of the Paperback Warrior podcast. I'm your host, Eric Compton,
leading you through this wild and wooly romp of paperback books, pulps,
old comics, and short stories. You can read hundreds and
hundreds of vintage fiction reviews on paperbackwarrior dot com and
follow along with interesting shopping videos shorts reels on places
(00:43):
like Facebook, x, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. This episode is
similar to a lot of year end wrap up shows
that you may have listened to already. Yes, twenty twenty
five comes to an end. I try to offer these
at the end of every year, and I really like
them because it not only wraps up the year, but
but it kind of provides a state of the union
addressed for the Paperback Warrior brand. It's really neat for
(01:04):
me to look back at the stats and events that
happen in twenty twenty five and sort of get a
pulse on how the brand is doing overall. How do
you think paperback Warrior is doing? Why don't you let
me know in the comments or by sending me an
email to Paperbackwarrior at yahoo dot com. You should also
be able to comment wherever this episode posts, no matter
the platform. So how does this episode shape up? Well,
(01:26):
that's a great question. I'm going to go over some
of the highlights of twenty twenty five. I'm going to
tell you about some of the projects I'm involved in
for the coming months, and we're going to go over
a few new book editions. I'm going to tell you
a little bit about what's happening in my personal life too.
And I feel like you guys and gals are family,
so why not, right, today's feature is my top ten
reads of twenty twenty five. So with that being said,
(01:48):
let's go ahead and get into the stats for Paperback Warrior.
I'm going to break these down into sections just to
give us a little bit of breathing room. And I
really like stats. I think it's really interesting to see
the footprint that we made in twenty twenty five. So
let's go over first how the reviews turned out for
this year. And this is what Tom and I wrote
for written reviews in twenty twenty five on paperbackwarrior dot com.
(02:13):
And go ahead and just take a guest now at
how many written reviews appeared on Paperback Warrior in twenty
twenty five. This number that I'm gonna give you includes
reviews we wrote for things like novels. It can be
comic books, it could be short stories, it could be magazines,
it could be short story anthologies, that kind of thing.
(02:34):
So the number of written reviews that we collectively did
was one hundred and fifty six, and that equates to
about three point three new reviews every single week. And
here's how they work out in terms of genres. I
wanted to see which genres generated reviews. So here's the
top three genres that we review. Action, which is condensed
(02:55):
to be military fiction, nautical adventure, espionage, vigilanti, and so forth.
We did thirty one action reviews. Horror comes in at
thirty five reviews. There's probably more of those simply because
the entire month of October is dedicated to horror. And
then coming in at the most crime fiction probably not
a surprise there. Crime fiction we did thirty eight total reviews,
(03:18):
and the rest they kind of break down like this,
young adult twelve, Gothic nine, fantasy seven, sci fi six,
and then miscellaneous, which are kind of like anthologies, magazines,
that kind of thing. At three of the one hundred
and fifty six reviews. The ratio was twenty one written
by Tom and the rest or by me. If we
(03:40):
look at the number of actual posts on Paperback Warrior,
because this can be post of articles, videos, podcast episodes,
those are all posts and including reviews, the total number
of posts that we made on Paperbackwarrior dot com is
two hundred and ten. That's a post about every other
day for twenty twenty five. It comes in at the
sixth most prolific year that we've had for post. The
(04:04):
highest number is still twenty twenty, which had three hundred
and eight post. I guess because we had a lot
to say in twenty twenty. We had a lot of
free time over our hands too. But beyond just posting
reviews on the blog, there was a flurry of other
activity too. So I want to look at something other
than just those those review posts and some of those
(04:24):
other types of writings that we did. I want to
look at what we did in terms of Paperback Warrior primers.
So we did Paperback Warrior primers on Kendall Foster, Crossing,
Lionel White, John Messman, Charles Williams, William P McGivern, Sidney Horler,
Harry Whittington, Norman Daniels, George Harmon Cox, Don Pendleton, and
(04:46):
the mac Bolin Universe Bill Gullick. These primers are quick,
five hundred to one thousand word essays about the author
and their literary career. And thanks to Tom for helping
me write these primers, because I used a lot of
his original notes and his old podcast scripts when I
wrote some of those, so I just pulled a little
bit of information from there, and then some other sources also.
(05:08):
So my question would be, if we do this many
reviews and this many postings, who the heck's actually reading
all this stuff? Right? Who's reading these reviews and these articles? Well,
according to the blog numbers for twenty twenty five, there
were two point five to three million views, So two
point five to three million views. That's really counting late
(05:29):
November twenty twenty four through late November twenty twenty five,
So two point five to three million views. Let's jump
over to podcast stats because I think that's a fun
number for this very podcast. I did fourteen episodes in
the style meaning my traditional presentation of talking to you
about books, reviewing a book or two, and presenting a feature.
So these traditional episodes I did fourteen of them, but
(05:52):
on top of that, I also did conversation episodes. So
for the conversation episodes, I did four four Guide to
Gothics with Nick at the Book Graveyard. I did a
collaboration with Nick at the Book Graveyard and Brian from
Bad Taste Books when we reviewed a Butcher installment. I
also did another collaboration with Brian tackling two young adult novels.
(06:16):
I did a collaboration with Zach Skiber reviewing Flowers in
the Attic, and the rest of the conversation episodes featured
interviews that included authors Jack Hatfield Junior, Paul Bishop, David Agronoff,
Greg Geffoon, Brian Barry, and John Shirley. And I also
interviewed Greg Sheppard from Starkhouse Press. So there was a
total of twenty seven podcast episodes presented to you this
(06:39):
year in twenty twenty five. And that's a lot, folks,
a lot of work. People ask me all the time,
why don't I produce more podcast episodes when in reality
I'm averaging more than one episode every two weeks. So
I'm still keeping it, keeping it flowing, keeping a rapid
fire release schedule, which is great. Now. I don't have
an exact number of how many streams the podcast gets
(07:01):
because some platforms don't report, Plus some people stream on YouTube,
so it's kind of hard to get a real pulse
on podcast streams. But of the reporting podcast streams, I
show twenty four thousand, four hundred and ninety three individual
streams of the podcast in twenty twenty five, so twenty
(07:21):
four thousand and four to ninety three individual streams of
the podcast. And you know what, I don't know if
that's good or not. I really don't know. I don't
know if that's a good amount of people. I don't
know if that's a bad bad amount. I don't know
if two point five to three million views on Paperback
Warrior dot com as a lot. I have no way
of judging this because I'm just so stuck in my
(07:42):
own world. I should probably branch out a little bit
in terms of what other people are doing to kind
of see what stats look like. But I'm just so
consuming my own universe and just trying to create content.
It's just it takes a lot of my time. I
wanted to jump over from reviews and podcasts. I want
to look at videos because I was really surprised by this.
I created one hundred and three short videos. These videos
(08:06):
are a minute or less. They're shorts. They also serve
as reels on Facebook and TikTok. These shorts are all
about vintage fiction. They're about contemporary horror books, old comic books,
pulp magazines, and really an assortment of author and artist information.
In case you haven't been watching these, just in the
past thirty or forty days, I've posted short videos on
(08:27):
Gil Brewer, Jim Thompson, Day Keen, John D. MacDonald, and
I even slipped in a video all about the horror
paperbacks of Ruby Jean Jensen. So you have one hundred
and three short videos just in twenty twenty five. And
by the way, there's a total of one hundred and
seventy five short videos for you to watch out there.
And if you don't want to kind of hunt and
(08:49):
peck on those videos, you could just watch a playlist.
You could just click the playlist that I made for you,
and you can watch that back to back. They'll show
you all the short videos in just under three hours.
For shopping videos, I posted nine of those, ranging from
places like Nashville, Tennessee, Roanoke, Virginia, the Orlando, Florida area,
and of course right here in Jacksonville as well. There's
(09:11):
a playlist of those and it runs about three or
four hours with my shopping videos all back to back,
so similar to the shorts, you can hit the playlist
and just watch them all. I also uploaded three audio
books or short stories that I personally narrated, The Tormented
by James mckemmey, Jack Finney's The Third Level, and also
Thomas Hyland's debut novella Guns Drawn, and that gives us
(09:33):
a great overview of the paperback Warrior happenings within the brand.
Before I finish up this wrap up, I wanted to
jump over some things that I had the pleasure of
working on outside of my own blog and videos for
twenty twenty five. Back in January, I took part in
a conversation with the Elusive Exclusive Book Society also known
as EBES, which sounds like a skin condition by the way,
(09:57):
And I did that with the YouTube channels the book Graveyard,
Pulp Mortem and Secret Fire Books, and we collectively reviewed
Ninja Master number one and that was a ton of fun.
If you hadn't got a chance to watch it. Go
back and look at any of those those YouTube channels
and you'll be able to find that video. I also
wrote introductions and an article in the New Men's Adventure
(10:19):
Quarterly number thirteen magazine, so be sure to check that out.
I helped sponsor this year's PulpFest and Pittsburgh and had
Paperback Warriors brand featured on the back of the festival's
program book, which is called The Pulpster. I might be
giving myself too much credit for this one, but I
had pitched an idea to Greg Sheppard at Starkhouse Press
about a short story written by Bruce Elliott called do
(10:43):
You Know Me? And this was a couple of years ago,
and I told him how much I love this story.
He ended up liking the story too, and he went
ahead and put together an entire short story compilation of
Elliott's work and made do You Know Me the lead
story and partial name of the book. So that was
kind of to see. I contributed a review of Bob
(11:03):
Dice and Wyatt Doyle's Shark Story Collection to Fathom Press's
owner and editor Justin I think he was putting together
an online story collection of shark tales, but I honestly
don't know if it ever came out, but I did
send that to him. I created a Wikipedia page for
artist ron Less, which turned out really well, if I
do say so myself. I still got a lot of
work to do to it. I just need to get
(11:24):
back to that. My interview with John Shirley made it
to Canada's number one site for Rockineavy Metal News, bravewords
dot Com, so that was exciting to see that on
their landing page. And I was mentioned on book Tubes's
leading voice on all things vintage fiction, that's Michael Vaughan.
I sent him a care package and he was kind
enough to mention me and Paperback Warrior a couple of
times on his channel. I also got mentions on Brian's
(11:46):
Bad Taste Books, Jake's Pulp Mortem, Jeff on Jeff's Cave
of Cool Books, the Vintage Paperback Reader, Jack Hatfield's Hatfield
Heritage Network, the pulp fiction blog That's Fiction with an
X Pulp Fiction Blog, Zach Skiver's book review Channel, Tim
at Secret Fire Books, and the Bookless Pete Channel. And
(12:08):
I also got to mention in the two fur put
out by Starkhouse Press for Edward s Aaron's Death in
a Lighthouse and Murder Money and Nicholas Litchfield, who's just
a great writer. He's a scholar. He writes tons and
tons of introductions for the stark House Press books. He
had pulled some information that I wrote about Edward essa
(12:30):
Eron's on the blog and he included that in his introduction,
which was really cool to see that. I'm a big
fan of what he writes, and him just mentioning my
name is it just gave me goosebumps. But anyway, jumping
ahead to twenty twenty six, I wanted to look ahead
at some of the projects I know that I'm going
to be involved in for next year. First, I just
talked with Greg at Starkhouse and he definitely's got some
(12:52):
intros for me to write on some of his releases
next year. I'm really excited about that. I love working
with him. I've written at least one for him that
I can remember, and that was the introduction to Lionel
White's two for Jailbreak in Mexico Run, which he put
out a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed writing
that introduction, So that's on the docket for next year.
For sure. I also have another project with Bill Cunningham
(13:14):
and Bob Dice next year. It's the Art of Ron
Lesser Volume three, and I've written introductions for many of
Lesser's action adventure series titles like Sobs Track Riker, The Marksman, Buchanan,
as well as primer style pieces on Jack Higgins and
Ernest Gann. It's going to be awesome. I can't wait
for you guys to see it. I'm also going to
collaborate with Nick at The Book Graveyard on a gothic
(13:37):
suspense article that we've been asked to write for the
blog Something is Going to Happen, which is hosted by
Ellery Queen's Mystery magazine editor Jackie Sherbou, So I'm really
excited about working on that. Speaking of Nick, I'm still
going to be teaming with him on a monthly basis
to review a vintage gothic paperback. The next one we've
got planned is Henry James The Turn of the Screw
(13:58):
and the film adaptation of called The Innocence. This episode
may have already aired by the time this podcast goes up,
so just check around. I hope to be on Terrence
Leahues podcast suit up or have him right here on
Paperback Warrior for a conversation. We're in talks now to
make this happen for early twenty twenty six. I'm also
going to be making an appearance on Nathaniel Hummel's Men's
(14:18):
adventure fiction podcast. Next year, I'll be on Billy Dunleavy's
magazines and Monstrous podcasts as well. We've been working that
out over the last month or two, so I'm hoping
to be on there very very soon. I'm a big
fan of what he does, and that's all I can
think of right now. I'm probably missing something important, who knows,
But that's enough to mention here on the show anyway.
(14:39):
And I wanted to branch off from here, and I'll
just talk a little bit about my personal life, although
I'd be remiss not to say that my personal life
in Paperback Warrior or they're seemingly a synonymous honestly. But
my daughter, she attends Flagler College here in Saint Augustine.
It's a private liberal arts college. One of her classes
has a project in which the students will a podcast
(15:00):
episode about a hot topic within environmental studies. Now, generally speaking,
neither one of My daughters have very little interest in
Paperback Warrior. They couldn't care less about my rock star status.
Here is a vintage book analyst. I'm not kid. I kid,
but no matter what I do here at Paperback Warrior,
no matter how important irrelevant I can make it sound,
(15:22):
they're not even remotely impressed. It doesn't help that neither
of them read books either. But my daughter mentioned to
a professor that I have this podcast and that I
might be a good resource for the students to use
for their podcast project. Her professor reached out to me
and asked if I wanted to present a lecture on podcasting,
like how to write a script, good interviews, engagement, and
(15:44):
really the technology behind recording and editing with various recording devices.
So I took her up on the offer, and I
led two lectures about the subject. In man, it was
a lot of fun for me. Not sure about the students,
but I'm sure they were really bored. But for me,
it was an absolute blast. And now I've got a
running joke in the house that I'm a college professor,
that I've been to the teacher's lounge on campus, and
(16:06):
then I even have a pipe and a smoking jacket.
But in my defense, the professor did compliment my teaching
skills in said I missed my calling. I'm sure she
was being very generous, but hey, I'll take it. The
bottom line is that Paperback Warrior was introduced to twenty
young minds, and that's a calls for celebration. I've never
had a cat. I've never owned one. I have three
dogs and that's been good enough for me. But my
(16:27):
wife and I were recently out to dinner down the
street at Ruby. Tuesdays. We go there to get the
salad bar and it's not a bad price for twelve
bucks on a random weeknight splurge. However, this time I
opted for adding a bowl of soup, and it literally
took forever to get the soup, so twenty twenty five
minutes for soup. My wife was pulling us out of
the parking spot and we were swinging onto the main
(16:47):
road and I saw something small sort of jump from
a bush. I told her to stop for a second
because I wasn't sure if it was a rabbit or
some other creature. I mean, this is Florida. It could
be a gator, it could be a face eating cannibal.
Crawling around. You just never know down here. So she
drove us over to the edge of the parking lot
there and we saw this ferocious animal that was actually
a very young cat, not quite a newborn cat, but
(17:10):
probably like six to eight months old. My wife got
out of the car and picked it up. And if
any of you are married, well you sort of know
that if your spouse spots something soft, furry and warm,
more than likely you're going to be living with that soft,
furry and warm thing for the next ten to fifteen years.
I tried to resist, and my wife put the cat
down a couple times. But the end result is the
(17:30):
cat's now named Maggie, and she's here at the house
with us full time, free lodging, free food, free snuggles
for her. So I don't think she's going to be
leaving anytime soon. In fact, I'll probably get booted before
she does. The moral of the story is stick with
the salad bar, guys, to stick with the salad bar.
The soup added an extra time for the cat to
emerge from wherever she was camping at. No soup, no cat.
(17:53):
That's the deal. I don't have much else on the
personal side of things, my wife and I may be
selling her house, maybe trying to downsize it at some point,
which has led me to sell most of my book
and comic collection. I'm going to continue buying books here
and there, but mostly just reading them and donating or
selling them afterwards. I'd like my to be red pile
to be my actual book collection, if you know what
I mean, just a small stack of books. I've also
(18:15):
picked up a second job to go along with my
full time job. They say age fifty is when you
start winding down, but with college and cat expenses, I
guess I'm just getting started. The job requires a lot
of travel, so I'm going to be spending a lot
of time listening to audio books and book tubers, so
I'm kind of looking forward to that. All right. So,
now that we've gotten the Paperback Warrior stats out of
(18:35):
the way, what's happening next year my personal life? What
do you say we do a top ten of twenty
twenty five feature. I'll hit the tune and kick it
off right now, right now. Okay, So I'm looking at
my top ten reads of twenty twenty five, and I'm
(18:55):
starting with number ten and working my way down to
the number one spot. It's a countdown. Number ten gets
us started. And this was tough because all ten of
these books were terrific. But there's got to be a
number ten for the basement, right, and that book is
deep among the dead men. This is the tenth best
book I read in twenty twenty five. This was the
(19:16):
first of three books written by John Blackburn to start
an adventurer named Bill Easter. The book was published in
nineteen seventy three, and in many ways you could say
the book is spy fiction, but really it's just one long,
awesome adventure. Easter begins the book by searching for a
treasure that's lying off the coast of a fictional African country.
(19:36):
But to get the treasure, there's a clever and fun
plot introduced that has Easter needing to assassinate the country's
recent dictator and reinstall the prior dictator so he can
trapes across the waters to get the treasure. This requires
that he share part of it with the captain of
the salvage ship and the dictator that he's helping regain power.
Of course, there's double crossing in British humor and satire,
(19:57):
and the book man It's just awesome. I love this character.
I love this book. I also read the series' second installment,
which is called Mister Brown's Bodies. It didn't make the
top ten, but it should get an honorable mention here
at the very least. Again, this book is deep among
the dead men. My ninth best read of the year
was the nineteen forty two war novel The Commandos. This
(20:19):
was authored by Brooklyn native Elliott Arnold and adapted into
a film in nineteen forty three for Columbia Pictures titled
First Comes Courage. The book stars an American soldier serving
in World War Two and operating covertly in Norway, a
country that was held in a vice script by Nazi Germany.
He's in love with a woman named Nicole, who's a
faithful spy for the Allies that's romanticizing a Nazi major.
(20:44):
She gives up her body in mind to the major,
then feeds Arnold in the Allies important information. But during
a mission, Alan is captured by the Germans and he's
sent to be interrogated by none other than the Nazi major.
It's an intriguing mix as these three people co exist
in a world of treachery, and violence. The book sent
me on a roller coaster of emotions and was just
(21:04):
so moving in the way it described war and its participants.
Don't miss out on a chance to read this incredible book.
Get it if he can again. The title is the
Commando's My eighth best read of the year was The
Iron Tiger by Jack Higgins. This was Higgins's eighteenth career
novel and it was published in nineteen sixty six as
a hardcover. It was later reprinted by Fosset Gold Medal
(21:25):
numerous times. It now remains in print today in physical
and digital copies. The book stars a World War II
veteran named Jack that served in the British Navy as
a pilot. He was dismissed from service and now works
flying into the bet smuggling arms to resistance fighters hoping
to repel the Chinese communist bodies. Asked to make a
special mission, a local village leader has a son that
(21:46):
needs a surgical operation in Chicago. A charity organization is
asked that a nurse named Janet fly into the village,
get the sun and fly to Chicago with him. The
man to fly in and out, of course, is Jack,
but thinks. They never go as planned in high adventure novels,
and soon the two find themselves grounded and facing Chinese forces.
The two of them, alongside villagers, must escape across the
(22:09):
border into India. So the book's like one perilous road
trip as the two faced danger in distress attempting to
make it to safety. This was par for the course
for Jack Higgins, with an admirable hero, British military intelligence,
a woman in need, and of course lots and lots
of gunfire. Again, this is the Iron Tiger, and you
need to read this book. This countdown is getting really
(22:30):
tough now. All these books are just so good. I
chose to list The Last Night to Kill Nazis as
the seventh best book I read in twenty twenty five.
And I know you're all probably tired of me talking
about those books, so I'm going to keep it short.
I reviewed the book on the blog I interviewed the author.
The book is like a mix of World War two
high adventure cross with something like a Brian Lumley vampire novel.
(22:53):
A vampire count finds his castle invaded by Nazi soldiers,
then later he ends up being rescued by the Allies
who use him as a type secret weapon to hunt
Nazis right after Germany's surrender to the Russians in Berlin.
There's a backstory, There's great characters, sweeping adventure, violence, gunfire,
just so many awesome elements to this high concept novel.
(23:13):
I love this book so much, and I'm looking forward
to the sequel, which David Agronoff told me he's writing again.
This book is The Last Night to Kill Nazis. My
sixth favorite read of the year is The Hound of
the Baskervilles. This is the fourth Sherlock Holmes novel, of course,
written by Sir Arthur Codan Doyle. It was originally published
in nineteen oh one in The Strand magazine and then
(23:34):
published in hardcover in nineteen oh two. In this book,
a doctor named Mortimer visits Holmes and Watson and explains
that a man named Charles Baskerville has died from a
heart attack. The weird part is that he died out
on the moors from cardiac arrest, and right beside his
corpse were giant hound prints. What type of dogs scared Charles?
It turns out that years before this murder, Hugo Baskerville
(23:58):
had kidnapped a local farmer's and then was apparently killed
by a large demonic dog. Is this same demonic dog
on the loose again? Did the dog frighten Charles to death?
Mortimer employs Watson to find the answers, and the last act,
Sherlock arrives to assist Watson in determining just what's happening
in this spooky swamp like region of England. This story
(24:20):
is superb. The writing's excellent, and of course the character
development with the suspects is set at just the right
pace for the discovery to be well earned. The Hound
of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It's a
mandatory read. Coming in at number five is The Private Wound.
This was written by Cecil day Lewis, which is actor
(24:40):
Daniel day Lewis's father. It was published as a hardcover
by Collins in nineteen sixty eight and in paperback by
Dell in nineteen seventy. The book is set during the
summer of nineteen thirty nine in Ireland. The main character
is a thirty year old British author named Dominic whose
car breaks down outside the rural village of Charlottestown. He
(25:00):
gets invited to rent a small cabin on a family
farm there, and he falls in love with a young
woman who's been married to the local farmer. The book's
first half narrative explores their relationship in a warm and
captivating way. It's literary, but man, I was fully invested
in this. The book second half is a really awesome
murder mystery when this young woman is found stabbed to
(25:21):
death on a riverbank. This was such a great novel,
with so many moving parts. It's a character study, it's romance,
it's crime drama. It's rooted in this spiritual dilemma and
features a fantastic side character that has a very violent background.
The book's ending had such an impact on me. I
love this book. I'm probably going to read it again again.
(25:43):
This is the Private Wound by Cecil day lewis number
four on My Rankings for best read of twenty twenty five.
Is Wolf cop This was authored by Richard Jessup and
was published in nineteen sixty one by Falseod Gold Medal. Thankfully,
Starkhouse Press has reprinted the book alongside the author's port angelique.
The book is a police procedural novel that features a
(26:03):
determined career cop named Tony Cirella. While the city isn't disclosed,
I assume it's a Midwestern city. I think maybe like
Cleveland or Saint Louis. Sorella works here as a police
sergeant and he's recently transitioned from robberies to homicide. Now.
The author's narrative is this winding plethora of unrelated cases
(26:23):
propelled by three rigorous crimes that compete for Sorella's time.
There's a homicide case that features maybe the same killer.
There's a large narcotics bus going on. There's a large
turf showdown with some of the primetime criminals. With the
enormous pressure of just trying to work these investigations. There's
(26:44):
this complex judicial hearing regarding Sorella's physical confrontation with this
young kid. This is a powerhouse police procedural and it
presents so many facets of the job. It's poignant, it's violent,
it's absolutely outstanding. Again, This is Wolf Coop by Richard Jessop.
John Messman's The Revenger series makes my top three reads
(27:06):
of twenty twenty five. The book is titled A Vendetta
Contract and This was the series' third installment, and it's
out now on Brash Books in a new edition. Vendetta Contract,
which was originally published in nineteen seventy three, once again
stars the series character Ben Martin, who's a Vietnam War
veteran that suffered the murder of his wife and son
by the mob. In this book, Ben is trying to
(27:28):
put all that behind him by working as a painter
in this small town just south of Indianapolis, but he
gets pulled back into violence when his girlfriend's brother goes
on the run from the syndicate. Ben's tied into it,
and eventually the mafia puts a hit out on Ben.
But this isn't any routine hit. Instead, they've employed an
outside assassin, a notorious sex fiend named Corbett, and Corbett
(27:52):
goes gunning for Ben and chases him across the country
through cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Vendetta Contract Man's It
isn't just the best installment of the Revenger series. This
could be one of the best men's action adventure paperbacks
I've ever read. It's high octane, it's got a mesmerizing
cat and mouse chase. It's just so good again. This
(28:16):
is the Revenger number three Vendetta Contract by John Messman.
It's out now on Brash Books and it makes my
top three at number three. My runner up to the
best book I've read all year is Lionel White's Run,
Killer Run. The book is White's first novel and it
was originally titled Seven Hungry Men. It was first published
by Rainbow Digest in nineteen fifty two, and as his
(28:39):
career swored, he revised the novel and made it Run,
Killer Run, and he sold it to Avon as a
paperback in nineteen fifty nine. Now, once again, stark House
Press has come on board and they've released this book
as a black gat book again as an affordable paperback
and ebook. But in the book, readers are introduced to
this guy named ran Coleman and he's just released from
(29:02):
prison as the book starts. But his freedom it was
paid for by this slick attorney named Borgman, and the
spring it wasn't charity care. Borgman has a plan to
knock off this armored car in downtown New York, with
a payout being over two million dollars. Now, like most
heist novels, the main event isn't the robbery, but the
(29:22):
fallout between greedy criminals clamoring to knock one another off
to get to the bigger payout. There's a touch of
nautical fiction in the book as the heist crew escapes
by boat on a passage to Miami. Along the way,
there's strong character development, there's an absorbing pace, and of
course plenty of double crossing. Alliance is being formed, and
this grand payout for the reader, featuring a shootout in
(29:44):
a swampy cabin. If you love crime fiction, this is
a must read. Like, you have to read this book again.
It's Run Killer, Run by Lionel White. All right, So
that gets me all the way down the number one,
my number one read of twenty twenty five. But before
I give you that grand reveal, I want to mention
a few honorable mentions that probably could have easily been
(30:06):
in my top ten if you asked me another day.
The honorable mentions for this year was The Autumn Springs
Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi. Now, don't be thrown
off by the title. It's a really silly title, but
this is a classic murder mystery as a masked killer.
Praise on The Wonderful Residence of an upstate New York
(30:27):
retirement home. Great book and not a far cry from
an early twentieth century novel by someone like Mary Collins
or Elizabeth Fenwick. It's just a great book. Again, it's
Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi. Another one
I really enjoyed was Hacking mal by Brian G. Berry. Again,
(30:48):
don't be thrown too much by the title. This is
a great men's action adventure novel. It's set in a
dystopian style twentieth century where the stock market has crashed
in society has into violent chaos. A company creates these
robotic suits that police wear, but they end up becoming
defective and it causes the police in the suits to
(31:09):
go on a killing spree. Again, this is Hacking Mall
by Brian G. Barry. And by the way, I also
liked his book Sharpshooter Terror. It's great. Other honorable mentions
go to Greg Gaffoon's The Rain Dancers, Jack Carney's Cry,
Brother Cry, Ben Benson's vintage State trooper novel The Venus Death,
(31:29):
and John Ferris's Win Michael Calls. You can look up
all these reviews on the Paperback Warrior dot com blog.
If you go to the desktop version, just click on
twenty twenty five. It'll show you all the months and
you can find all these books within the twenty twenty
five range. There, all right, So let's get to the
number one book for me in twenty twenty five. Ironically,
this book actually was published in twenty twenty five as well.
(31:52):
The title is The Silver Revolver by John Shirley. The
book introduces readers to a book editor and ex con
named Slim. His son dies from a drug overdose on
the same day that he experiences a mass shooter attack.
In a weird chain of events, Slim goes on the run,
thinking the police believe he was the mass shooter. While
on the run from the police, he's also on a
(32:13):
quest to bring down the drug cartel that supplied the
drugs that killed his son. And here's what I wrote
in my review online, this is just partial. The Silver
Revolver plunges both Slim and the reader into a narcotic
wasteland of pimps, hordes, drug runners, and their makeshift masters.
It's a noxious journey for Slim, who's a likable ex
con gone good forced to fast draw his way through
(32:37):
a twisty labyrinth of painted ladies and shady men. Shirley's
inclusion of Dulcett, who's a sexy, enigmatic hooker, uplifts Slim's
violent mission and adds a sexy exuberance to the story.
It reminded me of crime fiction's most dangerous couple, Dan J.
Marlow's Drake and Hazel. I'll be it less affectionate. The
Silver Revolver is a testament to John Shirley's blunt for
(32:58):
storytelling ability. It's an intense crime noar that transforms not
only the characters but the reader. Highly recommended again, that
was The Silver Revolver by John Shirley. It's out now
on Rough Edges Press in both physical and digital editions.
I also interviewed John Shirley and you could check out
that video on the PW blog or on the YouTube channel.
And I also read and reviewed John Shirley's Batman novel
(33:21):
Dead White, and it deserves an Oddwable mention as well.
It's a very cool book, all right. Before I finished
this off here and head on to start writing twenty
twenty six episodes, I want to tell you about a
couple of books I recently got. First off is a
package I received from Brian Brassfield. He's been kind enough
to send me a few packages in the past, and
he corresponds with me on Facebook Messenger. He knew there
(33:44):
was a couple of paperbacks on my wish list, and
I was surprised to find them in my mailbox just
a few weeks ago. The first book is After the
Rain by John Bowen. This is a Balantine paperback published
in nineteen fifty nine. The book is a post apocalyptic
novel at one hundred fifty five pages, and it's sort
of like the film water World. The entire earth has
(34:04):
been flooded with massive reins. There's a hero on a boat,
and even the cover of the book has a statue
of Liberty nearly underwater. I've read a ton of these
types of post apocalyptic books, and I'm happy to get
this one. The other book he sent me is titled
On My Honor, and I'm not sure who the real
author is, but the name on the cover is Malachi Black,
which I'm assuming is a pseudonym. The cover looks like
(34:26):
a straight up slasher book, with a bloody knife in
front of a tent, but it might be more of
a police procedural novel focusing on capturing a serial killer.
The killer could be a young boy. That's the catch.
So again, this is on my honor. It's a Pinnacle paperback.
It was originally published in nineteen eighty nine. I'm happy
to have it. Brian thinks for these two books. A
great supporter of the Paperback Warrior blog and our Facebook
(34:47):
page has been guest. He was kind enough to mail
me two books. He knows that the Paperback Warrior blog
has two of Frank Bonham's books reviewed. That of crime fiction.
I believe I reviewed Boonhoms in nineteen sixty three, novel
by her own hand. Tom reviewed the author's nineteen sixty
two book, The Skin Game, which was reprinted by Cutting
Edge Books. Bottom mostly wrote Western novels, but he wrote
(35:10):
these three crime fiction novels. This third one is called
One for Sleep. It was published by Fossil Gold Medal
in nineteen sixty and as you can imagine, that's the
Frank Bottom novel that Ben mailed to me. In this book,
readers are introduced to a tough parole officer named Sam Garrett.
Sam Garrett would show up again in The Skin Game.
He was in two of the Bottom's three crime fiction books.
(35:33):
The other book that Ben mailed me is titled The
Eighth Dwarf. The author is Ross Thomas, and this is
an Avon paperback published in nineteen eighty. Here's the synopsis
for this book, and I think you will agree with
me that this demands to be read. A crazed assassin
was knocking off Nazis in the rubble of post war Germany.
Nobody loves Nazis, but the Americans, British and Russians were
(35:56):
all looking for him, with no success. That's where the
comes in. All three and a half feet of Nicholas
Bascaro was drowning in a Beverly Hill swimming pool. When
Minor Jackson fished him out. He offered Jackson partnership in
a lucrative adventure. All they had to do was cross
a few borders, get seduced by a few women, and
beat a master assassin to the kill again. The name
(36:19):
of the book is The Eighth Dwarf by Ross Thomas.
Think you Ben? The last book I want to tell
you about is a new horror novel I received in
the mail. The title is The Grange and the author
is Zachary Hunkar. This is a new horror publication that
just came out. Here's the short synopsis. Fifteen year old
Odre Pratt and her father moved to a small town
(36:39):
in Pennsylvania to resolve the emotional fallout of her mother's death.
As they're embraced by the community, Odre discovers the town's
legacy of murder and human sacrifice, and she'll have to
fight for the lives of everyone she holds dear again.
The book is titled The Grange and the author is
Zachary Hunkkar, and that brings me to the end of
this episode. This one was jammed pack folks, and I
(37:01):
hope I successfully wrapped up twenty twenty five in a
fun and enjoyable way. For you. Remember to follow a
Paperback Warrior on Facebook x, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, archive dot org,
and you can send emails to paperback Warrior at yahoo
dot com. I don't demand any tips or donations, and
my content isn't hidden behind a paywall, but if you
want to help me out with expenses, just go to
(37:22):
the desktop version of Paperback Warrior and click on donate
on the upper right side. I'm telling you it would
be greatly appreciated. And now that's all for this time.
I'm going to catch up with you next year. Take
care and remember enjoy whatever it is you're doing by
for now.
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