Customer Reviews

The Last Pin

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Talk about long awaited! For those readers who ever encountered the writing of Howard Wandrei's stories as a pulp magazine colector, like myself, this first collection of his mystery stories is welcome indeed. The writing may not be "classic" in the sense that Hammett or Raymond Chandler are, but compared to other pulp writers it is definitely above average & surely very entertaining. Most readers will find themselves pleasantly surprised. The frosting on the cake is editor Dwayne Olson's fascinating introduction where you will learn what an interesting character Howard Wandrei himself was!

This collection of pulp stories from the 1930s era is loaded with a bent outlook on the seamy side of life. Considered risque at the time of publication, they still read well today. Blazing guns, hard drinking PIs, crooked politcos, and vicious thugs usually surround a dame in distress and death is always close-by. Howard Wandrei was a versatile writer in several fields and these mysteries are no exception.

I enjoyed this collection, far more than I expected to, but I'm a little ashamed of having enjoyed it. The writing is vigorous, the stories well-paced -- Howard Wandrei, for my money, writes much better than his more famous brother Donald --, and the plots generally preposterous in their details. Most of these stories are the kind that were called "spicy" back in pulp days -- lots of nudity, with the fact of the nudity but not the nudes themselves closely, even lecherously, described. Gunfights, car chases, nude girls, unmixedly evil villains, heroic rescues, more nudes, narrow escapes, and nudes. I say check it out, but don't expect timeless literature.