Broadsword Calling Danny Boy: on Alistair MacLean. Louis Shalako.

"Broadsword calling Danny Boy."

Louis Shalako

 

On Alistair MacLean.

I was just watching the 1979 film of Alistair MacLean’s Bear Island.

It has been said that the quality of his work was uneven. You could say that about any writer, if one compares the first thing they ever wrote against the last thing they ever wrote, along with some of the really great stuff when they were at their peak. Of course their work was variable, and so is mine and so is yours.

Author John Creasy wrote something like six hundred books, and there are a few in there, which I have read, where one wonders how it actually got published in the first place. Truth was, he was grinding them out relentlessly, at the dining room table, and trying to feed a family, when the going rate for a novel might have been a measly twenty-five pounds.

(How in the hell do you even do that? - ed.)

There is a big difference between six hundred books and twenty or thirty, that difference is the luxury of time.

I wanted to talk about Alistair MacLean due to the number of films that were adapted from his works.

First, a little background.

“In 1941, at the age of 19, MacLean was called up to fight in the Second World War with the Royal Navy, serving with the ranks of ordinary seaman, able seaman, and leading torpedo operator. He was first assigned to PS Bournemouth Queen, a converted excursion ship fitted for antiaircraft guns, on duty off the coasts of England and Scotland. Beginning in 1943, he served on HMS Royalist, a Dido-class light cruiser. There, he saw action in 1943 in the Atlantic theatre, on two Arctic convoys and escorting aircraft carrier groups in operations against Tirpitz, and other targets off the Norwegian coast. He took part in Convoy PQ 17 on Royalist. In 1944, Royalist and he served in the Mediterranean theatre, as part of the invasion of southern France and in helping to sink blockade runners off Crete and bombard Milos in the Aegean.” (Wiki)

Where Eagles Dare consistently ranks among the top five war adventure films of all times, and that’s pretty good company to be keeping for any writer. The Guns of Navarone is an acknowledged classic, one I have viewed many times. Force 10 from Navarone, another classic film.

Alistair at about twenty.

In terms of comparisons, River of Death is quite terrible, at least in the film version. And I have read the book, in fact I used to check for new titles at our local mall book shop, way back in the days when we had time, money, and plenty of hair on the old noggin…a leather jacket and a seventeen-hair mustache, if you really want to know.

Fear is the Key, this film has one of the best car chase scenes ever. What might have been described in the book is fully brought to life in this one. MacLean loved sending things over cliffs, for example vehicles in Where Eagles Dare and Guns of Navarone, as well as Bear Island. There are probably others, and this is one reason why they’re called action-adventure stories. Oh, yeah. In Breakheart Pass, a train goes over a cliff.

He wasn't exactly messing around, when it came time for things to go off of cliffs.

H.M.S. Ulysses, his first novel, was based on his wartime experience in the Royal Navy.

This accounts for some of the naval themes, arctic themes, for example Night without End. There are lots of ships in his novels, Golden Rendezvous for example.

The list of actors that have appeared in the films is impressive. Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, Vanessa Redgrave, Harrison Ford, Robert Shaw, Rock Hudson, Charles Bronson, Christopher Lee, Patrick McGoohan, Carl Weathers, Lloyd Bridges, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Hawkins, Robert Morley, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, the list, ladies and gentlemen, goes on and on and on. Barry Newman, Ben Kingsley, John Vernon. Richard Harris and Anne Turkel, Burgess Meredith and David Janssen, John Carradine.

Robert Vaughn and Donald Pleasance and Michael Dudikoff in River of Death, just to name a few more. And I know I’ve left a few out—I had to, there’s just too many films and too many names.

Gregory Peck, David Niven, Richard Widmark, Ed Lauter, Ben Johnson, Charles Durning, Richard Crenna. Gia Scala and Irene Papas. As I said, this is a very long list.

Throw in a hundred more character actors, whose faces you might recognize, and whose names may be vaguely familiar, and you start to get the idea of just how successful Alistair MacLean actually was. Patrick Wymark and Michael Hordern, in Where Eagles Dare, for example, these actors each have very long lists of credits, starring and supporting roles, in film and theatre. Barbara Bach and Michael Byrne in Force 10 from Navarone is (or are), just one more example, then there were Mary Ure and Ingrid Pitt. Jill Ireland.

These are just a few of the ‘vapid females’ (essentially, Bond Girls), in what are called stories ‘of good Englishmen and bad Germans’. Which would appear to be an entire genre in itself, at least when a good writer gets hold of it.

It’s different for everybody of course, but when I read these books and saw the films for the first time, I was a young man, impressionable, an inveterate reader above all else. I soaked it all up like a sponge.

These are the stories that make a young man’s fancy turn towards writing a few stories of his own someday…

The books that kind of stick to your ribs, like soul food for the adventurous home-boy.

When I fantasize about my own humble bookshelves, which I do from time to time, (if only we had money!), this would be one box set I might be willing to pay money for—just for the purposes of study, scholarship, and maybe even stealing a few ideas here and there as a writer myself. Maybe even just learning a little something at the knee of a master. Or maybe it’s just some kind of an escape.

It always was, an escape.

There is nothing wrong with a little escapism, at the time we probably needed it, and there are times when we still do.

In which case, we will always have someplace to go.

I have written a critique of Where Eagles Dare, and you can read it at the link below. I describe it as ‘a series of plot holes flying in close formation’, and yet I still enjoy the film, just as much as I did the book, such a very long time ago.

MacLean figured out how to make it work for him, and perhaps that is the real lesson here. I have no idea of who the reader is, I have no idea if the lesson is relevant to you, although plenty of folks write, and plenty more dream about it just as I did. I can only hope you enjoyed reading this story.

No, ladies and gentlemen, it turns out the lesson was for me.

And why not.

I’ve always needed plenty of stimulation.

END

Plenty of stimulation.

Alistair MacLean. (Wiki)

When Eight Bells Toll.

The Golden Rendezvous.

Fear is the Key.

Night Without End.

Breakheart Pass.

Where Eagles Dare: A Series of Plot Holes Flying in Close Formation.

Why I Love Louis L’Amour.

On Agatha Christie.

Louis Shalako has books and stories, ebooks and audiobooks, available from Google Play.

 

Thank you for reading. The blog is acting rather wonky today, and trying to get the text all in the same shade of black has defeated me.

#Louis

 

 

 

 

 

2023 In Review. It Was a Very Good Year. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

A couple of weeks ago, I began my new audiobook on Google Play. It’s been a long year.

My attention was wandering, and I basically saved it as a draft. I’d probably had enough, at that point. I went off and did other things for a couple of weeks. I was grabbing free, public domain short stories from the internet, finding images, publishing them, putting in links and posting them all over. At some point my eyes were rolling back into my head. I couldn’t focus for the life of me…I’d probably had enough, by that point.

I'm back at it now, no rush, no hurry, no worries. My Criminal Memoir will be available as an audiobook within a day or two.

So, 2023 was fairly productive, after a hiatus of some years. It took me three winters, to write a mystery novel, A Stranger In Paris, the ninth of the Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery Series. That was three winters where I wrote about 20,000 words, and long periods in between when I didn’t write a damned thing except the very occasional blog post. Publishing that on Smashwords, Kobo, Amazon, and finally, Google Play, I saw the notice. Click here to publish your book as an audiobook narrated by AI.

People are scared shitless by AI, and no one can blame them. They know themselves best. They are at a distinct disadvantage, one has to presume.

I thought, why not, why not learn how to use the fucking thing. I have all these books and all these stories. A series of assets, and it’s all about tending that little garden. I spent the next five months, producing what turned out to be around one hundred and thirty audiobooks in terms of full-length books and short stories. I have five different pen names, writing in any number of genres. I now have 285 titles up on Google Play. This does not account for paperbacks in two different sizes, or a number of different ebook formats available from Smashwords, just to clarify. Where I failed, was in getting that up as an approximately 4x7 paperback on Lulu (dot) com, where I have sold exactly three books since 2011, and I will never see a penny from that website…so far, I haven’t even attempted to produce a paperback of that book on Amazon. I was completely used to making paperbacks through Createspace, which was purchased by Amazon and is now a dead portal. I suppose it’s time to learn a new trick—

Having done all of that, all within a few months, I started looking around, and I had this story, The Black Orb, which had originally been published by New Myths. It had been hanging around in a folder on my desktop, the big hurdle there was the question of a cover image and a half-decent book cover.

I bit down hard on the bullet, and found a free, black and white, public domain image and produced a book cover, got an ISBN number, wrote some kind of half-assed blurb and published that as an ebook on various platforms, and as an audiobook on Google Play. I found the material and published One Million Words of Crap. I didn't even have to write it, only collect it, format it, and publish it in the usual fashion.

All of this is free to do, incidentally.

When I went to publish my new ebook on Lulu (dot) com, they wanted $4.99 to publish an ebook. They claim two million authors, (all of whom are happy and successful), that part is credible enough. It is also a drop in the bucket compared to some other platforms, and the truth is, I have sold exactly three books there since I joined the platform fifteen or more years ago. Why in the hell would I ever want to do that.

By this time, it was October, I was looking at a long, boring winter square in the eye. I had been thinking of writing my memoirs, I had some other ideas, but I just started writing. I wrote down a heading, and then just said what I thought. Whatever I could recall, from a certain period of my life. I didn’t even have to lie, to write fiction…that one’s about 54,000 words. A bit short for a novel, but this one is non-fiction. 

Publishing that, chapter by chapter, on my blog, was a motivating factor. People expect you to follow through and to finish that thing.

So did I.

That is exactly what I did.

At the present time, I need to go back, publish two paperbacks through Amazon’s KDP portal, assuming I can trim and fine-tune the book covers for A Stranger In Paris, and My Criminal Memoir.

I have three ebooks hung up due to formatting issues at Smashwords, in terms of wider distribution through iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, etc. Basically, I just got tired and parked it for a while. If I could trouble-shoot all of that, I would be just about caught up for 2023, and that would be that.

In that sense, it was a very good year.

I have no idea of what I might do next.

No promises, okay.

#Louis

 

END

 

A Stranger In Paris. Amazon.

One Million Words of Crap.

My Criminal Memoir. Google Play, (Audiobook).

The Black Orb.

Louis Shalako on ArtPal.

 

Thank you for reading or listening, whichever the case may be.

 

#Louis

 

 

 

A Stranger In Paris. Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #9, Pt. 6. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

Police were conducting inquiries in Montmartre, with some vague directions from Madame Daniau, and there was every likelihood of them finding the loft of Monsieur Saulnier.

Eventually, and that was the key—with the rent not being paid, sooner or later the landlord would come looking, and now, press coverage was mentioning names. Police are seeking the whereabouts of Monsieur So-and-So, anyone with information is encouraged to contact police, in person or by telephone at this number. The same could be said for Jean Cariveau

Uniformed officers, finding bi-weekly cheque stubs in his desk drawer, had attended the factory where he worked.

His employer hadn’t seen him in a couple of days. A good employee, he would be missed. 

His locker revealed nothing of interest, and his fellow employees had been hesitant, although everyone agreed that he had been a nice, polite young man. For that matter, the apartment had been unoccupied. The gentleman in question hadn’t simply been keeping quiet up there and hiding out from his landlady, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, this was negative evidence. 

It didn’t lead to an identification, although now they had a set of full prints…presumably of the man in question. It didn’t prove a damned thing, with no possibility of matching to any of their bodies. It didn’t prove he hadn’t just gotten fed up, chucked everything, and moved to the South Seas to paint, another Gauguin perhaps, or to study lizards or molluscs. Whatever. 

At this point, they could not prove otherwise.

All they had, so far, was speculation.

Hopefully, the banks would cooperate and they would soon get some financial information on their victims…at this point in the investigation, they could hardly be compelled. There had been a few other finger-prints from a few other individuals. There were at least more questions to be asked, and hopefully, Madame Bernier would be able to shed some light on that when more junior officers followed up.

One had to assume, taking such interest in her young tenant, she would have had some idea of who had been coming and going…perhaps only the maid, perhaps the lady herself—a delicate question to ask, but Maintenon thought not. There had been at least one or two others, judging by some solo prints and some other partials, and at this point, they were grasping at straws when it came to leads.

At this point, they had no real reason to ask her for a set of prints.

There was the question of resemblance between their two victims. The problem there was, the second victim was five centimetres shorter, a few kilos lighter, and all indications were that Jean had brown eyes and lighter, almost blond hair. Seven hundred francs on him. What was that money actually for? There were other resemblances, although perhaps not physical. 

These were more a matter of circumstance—the influence of the ladies, older women both, the fact that those reported missing were single males of a certain age and background, and all of this meant nothing.

It was still all just bullshit.

***

They’d gotten a lucky break. A tip from a landlord, one who read the papers assiduously, as the man had assured them, led them to Paul Saulnier’s loft-style apartment. There was no doubt as to the tenant, there were letters and papers and more than anything, finished and unfinished musical scores abounded.

Their key fit…it had not fit the door to the lady’s apartment. This did not necessarily prove that their victim was Saulnier. It was, however, evidence of some close connection, and the odds were that their victim would, eventually, prove to be Saulnier.

Maintenon was fishing, poking, prying open reluctant cupboard doors and yanking on jammed kitchen drawers.

There was a crummy old upright piano, as well as a classical guitar, a flute and some other obscure instruments, a bit dusty but otherwise serviceable to a budding composer, seeking inspiration perhaps or maybe just working out an obscure passage for the horn section…a seven-piece set of drums, which must have been wonderful for the neighbours.

There was some evidence of meal preparation, although the washing up had been done…

“A talented man.”

Andre raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Really?”

Gilles nodded, holding a musical score. Saulnier had been using commercially-available printed blanks, with the lines and the treble clef on the left side where it belonged, and a couple of blank lines where the artist had filled in the title and the name of the composer.

A Stranger In Paris, by Jean-Paul Saulnier. Maintenon wasn’t sure that in needed to be capitalized, but admittedly didn’t know much about music publishing. Or maybe Saulnier just didn’t know that much about spelling—or accepted writing style—the rest of it seemed all right, though.

As for the police, they had their own accepted style book. The ultimate icon of a decadent society.

As someone somewhere must have once said.

The lyrics would appear to be sentimental, perhaps even haunting—if enough people ever heard it, it might very well have become a hit. There was no date, and the sheets were cleaner, more dust-free than some of the stacks on the upper shelves along the back wall of what must have once been a living room. The actual bedroom was tiny, the kitchen an organized mess, the bathroom not very clean but still organized for such a small space.

This particular one would appear to be complete, with a total of four sheets.

“I didn’t know you could read music.”

“Oh, I can read it, I just can’t play it. But this one looks musical enough. Note the change of key and tempo at the third refrain. It’s a bit daring, even for modern tastes.” Maintenon hummed a few bars, nodding appreciatively.

Picking up more sheets, they appeared to be hasty sketches of set decorations, coloured pencils and watercolour, what looked like Art Nouveau, backdrops and quite a few sheets of what looked like choreographed steps for couples, single dancers and the supporting troupe…a complex series of actions onstage, all laid out on paper.

As if in complete afterthought, down low and hastily scrawled in pencil, ‘the collective’.

Maintenon wondered what it meant, perhaps some avant-garde dance group somewhere. 

Maybe it was the title of an opera. A thing like this would take a fair number of people to pull it off. It’s the sort of thing the writer would have to deal with, if he ever had become a success.

There were a couple of thumps and faint voices from the other side of the door. A building of great age, he’d been noticing just how quiet it was, up there on the fifth floor, under the tiles. 

No buses, trams or the Metro up here. The stone and masonry walls, easily a metre thick, had been thickly plastered over, or framed and panelled and painted and varnished on the inside.

There was a light rap on the door from the uniformed constable stationed outside.

Presumably.

“Yes?”

The door opened a few centimetres and a pair of watery, pale blue eyes regarded them with some air of mischief. Through the crack, they could see a darker male bulk sort of hovering beside him, only half of a face as of yet.

“Yes?” Voice lower, Maintenon repeated the question.

“Sorry, sir. Sirs. It’s just that this gentleman claims he lives here—”

There was a startled gasp—

The face was gone, the door banged shut then slightly open again. There were grunts and heavy breathing, and hard shoes clunked and slithered on dusty old boards.

“Argh.”

“Sir. Sir—”

The door swung wide, and one angry young man, the officer still clinging to an arm and his belt, stood in the doorway, face red from exertion and the climbing of all those stairs.

“I say. Who in the hell are you, anyways?”

Andre turned and engaged Maintenon’s eye.

"Well. That's fucking torn it."

“Monsieur Paul Saulnier, one must presume.” Well, that’s torn it, thought Andre.

Especially as Madame Daniau had so very positively identified the body in the morgue as her Paul.

Merde.

***

Tall, spare and with a certain lean and hungry look, Roger Langeron was Prefect of the Paris police. Subordinate to the Minister of Justice, it was one step below, literally, from cabinet rank.

He’d never let that stop him, or the fact that he had been a life-long civil servant, with little actual police experience, from using his so-called hands-on approach. Sooner or later, he was bound to show up, with plenty of questions and a few ideas of his own. Where other men might have had a comb, he had a brush. Langeron favoured longish hair, the grey at the temples carefully corralled by dye elsewhere and by regular and professional trimming. With a face like that, sooner or later, he’d wind up on a banknote, as some were fond of saying.

He’d been reading the papers, of course, the silence in the squad room punctuated only by the ticking of the clock on the wall and the cooing of the doves on the window ledges. The sound of the gusting wind foretold another long, cold winter, and just around the corner too. Just then, the setting sun must have dropped below the lowering clouds, lighting up the far corners with a garish, hot orange light.

Langeron sighed.

“Unbelievable.”

“Yes, it’s true. We have nothing to hold him on—a missed identification by the lady, and a day or two absent without explanation, well. That doesn’t mean much.” The only trouble was, they still had a body or two on ice and no idea of whom they might have belonged to. “With no basis for a charge or an arrest, we had no very good right to search him. When we identified ourselves, he clammed up and asked for a lawyer—why, is a very good question. Surely he has nothing to fear from some unconnected, anonymous victim in an alley.”

Also, how would he know what it was about? Theoretically, he didn’t—

“You didn’t search him…for what, exactly?”

“How about a door key?” It came out harsher than Gilles meant.

Appearances aside, Langeron was anything but a fool.

“Hmn.” Brushing a speck of lint from his trousers, Roger nodded. “Ah. He shows up at the loft, just when the police are there—and one has to assume coincidence. One has to assume, that he still has a key.”

And almost any idiot could have two keys. Almost any rental agreement would specify at least a couple of keys…right? One could get a key cut for twenty centimes, and no questions asked, at any one of a thousand places. And that was just in town—assuming one wanted to be careful about it.

One had to assume that he wasn’t somewhere in the neighbourhood, nursing a cold coffee in some sidewalk bistro, and watching for the flics to arrive. Which they must do in some due course—assuming any kind of foresight, any kind of a plot—

Hmn.

Any kind of assumption was a bad thing, as stated clearly in the manual. Yet the key was clearly significant, assuming it didn’t belong in the dead man’s pocket to begin with.

But what if it did? That opened up another whole line of inquiry, all of it requiring manpower.

As Gilles had said, it was still all just bullshit—

So far, anyways.

Even Langeron could see that, as the cold dead eyes of a salamander momentarily took in Andre, and Hubert kept his head down, taking whatever notes he could.

Andre spoke.

“What’s sort of interesting, is that he was wearing a ring.”

“A what? Oh, a ring. Huh.”

Saulnier, at least, had a ring. At the time. At the only time of direct observation.

“Yes—exactly.” Maintenon shook his head. “It’s one of those things, either it means everything, or it means nothing. And yet, if we are to have any hope whatsoever, of solving these crimes…it will almost inevitably be something. One, single, tiny, little thing, that gives it away.”

It would be the first thread. Pull on that, and whole damned sweater would unravel. Yet, at this point, Gilles just couldn’t see where to begin.

Langeron chewed on that for a moment.

Langeron had a brush where others might have a comb.

“And what about our second victim?”

“Merde. It’s the same thing again. A young man, absent from his workplace for a day or two. A few days at best. He had the weekend off, right. Then he doesn’t show up for a couple of days. It does not seem to be a money problem. They were not in trouble, they were not known to the police. Not known to be gamblers, or to frequent the race-track. No known love interests, other than the landlady, so to speak. So far, the second gentleman hasn’t turned up. As for an identification, Madame Bernier could not or possibly would not, say. Of course, she was hysterical. She is also the product of generations of sexual repression of the regular sort. And once again, the body has few if any unique marks, scars, tattoos, birthmarks. This is not evidence. It tells us nothing as to motive, if any, nor does it give any hint as to the identity of the killer.”

Then there was the poker chip in the pocket of victim number two. If he wasn’t a gambler, didn’t work in any such establishment, what was it doing there?

“Well. We need to tell the press something—”

That was his problem and Maintenon thought otherwise. He would tell them nothing at all, if he thought he could get away with it.

“Tell them we are pursuing all possible leads.”

Langeron snorted, and gave his head a distinct shake. He grinned, and in his case it was sincere.

Some real humour there. It quickly faded. He rubbed his polished cheeks for a moment, completely unconsciously.

“All right, Gilles.” He sighed, deeply.

He could only push so hard, and Maintenon was probably the best man for the job.

If anyone could catch such a lunatic, it would be Gilles.

“That was a pretty good speech the other day, or so I hear.” He’d been out of town, oddly enough—

“Thank you. Thank you very much.” The truth was, the speech hadn’t been very good.

Langeron probably knew that too.

For some reason, Maintenon just wasn’t built for making speeches. It wasn’t his métier.

END

Louis has all kinds of books and stories on Google Play. Many of them are free.

Images. The internet, mostly Public Domain.

Part One.

Part Two.

Part Three.

Part Four.

Part Five.

Thank you for reading.