I finished three books during this week, as well as one pulp magazine issue.

Books

1. Scarlet Riders: Pulp Fiction Tales of the Mounties, ed. by Don Hutchison — as an anthology, the usual mixed bag, with some stories straightforward adventure (e.g., “Red Snows,” by Harold F. Cruikshank, and “Doom Ice,” by Dan O’Rourke) and some rather more fantastic (e.g. “Spoilers of the Lost World,” by Roger Daniels, or the Lester Dent stories starring the superhuman-seeming Silver Corporal); recommended for fans of the setting or genre.
2. Terrible Tuesday, by Don Pendleton — Mack Bolan’s war on the Mafia draws closer to its end in this, the 34th book in the series, as he takes aim at the recrudescence of organized crime in California; mildly recommended.
3. The Menacers, by Donald Hamilton — the 11th volume in the espionage series sees secret agent Matt Helm sent to Mexico to assist in extracting a woman who claims to have seen a flying saucer, but there’s much more going on; as always, there are plenty of twists in the plot, and this one offers a rather unexpected conclusion, too; recommended.

Continuing Reads

1. A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away, by humorist Irvin S. Cobb — a collection of 366 amusing anecdotes published in 1923, which I’ll be reading at the rate of one per day.
2. More Heart Throbs — the sequel to the similar Heart Throbs, an anthology of prose and verse selections, often sentimental in nature, submitted by the general public and famous people, published in 1911; I’ll be reading one or more pages (as needed for the selections) per day throughout the year.
3. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, translated by Sir Richard F. Burton in the late 19th century — I hope to read all ten volumes as well as the six supplemental volumes this year.
4. Orlando Innamorato, by Matteo Boiardo, translated by Charles Stanley Ross — I hope to finish this Renaissance Italian epic this year.

Magazine

1. Ace-High Western Stories, February 1947
   Contents:
   • “Prairie Pirates of the Big Muddy!” by Norman A. Fox — a novella in which a young man tries to find the man responsible for his father’s being blamed for a murder he did not commit and ends up in a similar situation himself; mildly recommended.
   • “Lead Upon the Waters,” by Kenneth Sinclair — a short story in which a sheriff attempts to prevent a private gun battle and bring about justice as well; not particularly recommended.
   • “The Coffin-Filler’s Syndicate,” by Barry Cord — an entertaining novella in which a pair of men looking for their old friend, who is missing and presumed dead, tackle the outlaws presumably responsible; recommended.
   • “Death’s Tunesmith,” by Giff Cheshire — a short story whose protagonist is an itinerant piano tuner who decides to help out a hotel owner bucking a crooked saloon boss; recommended.
   • “Dry Wells Rebels,” by D. B. Newton — a novelette in which a man who had decided to run from trouble finds the courage to face a criminal combine; mildly recommended.
   • “Boothill’s Watchdog,” by Sebastian Brand — a short story with another unusual protagonist, an aging cowhand who is willing to sacrifice his own happiness to keep the daughter of his former boss from a grave mistake; mildly recommended.
   • “Gun-Guards for the Devil’s Drift-Fence,” by Joseph Chadwick — a novella in which a ranch owner turns range detective to find his father’s killer and must also take on the gang threatening the ranch and herd of a man whose daughter he comes to love; mildly recommended.
   • Other items include an editorial supporting statehood for Alaska; a brief illustrated biography of Hank Fletcher, a prospector who became “the Saint of Virginia City”; and a short account of an Idaho town that was flooded when a dam failed.