ROYAL FLUSH (Jake Samson and Rosie Vicente Series) - Softcover

Singer, Shelley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1880284332 ISBN 13: 9781880284339

Publisher: Daniel & Daniel Publishers, 2015

Synopsis

BEASTS OF THE BLOOD-STAINED JACKBOOT is a special edition in the popular Pulp Mayhem series that showcases one of the most vivid strands of illustrated pulp, dedicated to tales of Nazi marauders during World War 2. The 22 stories included here portray Nazis as evil torturers and killers, whose victims were almost invariably scantily-clad, large-breasted female captives. It should be noted that rescuers, and sometimes the victims themselves, nearly always prevail against the threat of these vile monsters of war, who are never glorified but always shown as despicable and sadistic criminals. Artists featured include Norman Saunders, Norm Eastman, John Duillo, Vic Prezio, Walter Popp, and Syd Shores; the 22 stories in the book are: BEAUTIES FOR THE NAZI ARTIST OF AGONY; A BED OF FIRE FOR THE BOUND BEAUTIES OF NORWAY; DAMNED BEAUTIES FOR THE NAZI HORROR MUSEUM; GOLDEN NUDES OF THE MAD NAZI SCULPTOR; SECRETS OF THE NAZI HORROR CASTLE; THE BEHEADING OF ANNA; SCREAMING VIRGINS FOR THE NAZI RITES OF AGONY; HITLER’S BABOON TORTURES IN MABUTI; HITLER’S HUMAN GUINEA PIGS; LUST REVENGE OF THE DEPRAVED NAZI CAT MASTER; NUDE LUST SLAVES OF HITLER’S RUSSIAN MONSTER; SECRET HORROR CAGES OF THE NAZI DWARF; THE BLOOD-SOAKED QUEEN OF BUCHENWALD; BRIDES OF TORMENT FOR THE SS BEASTS; I WAS A LUST SLAVE OF THE VOLKSTURM NYMPH SQUAD; A SOFT BRIDE FOR THE SLITHERING MONSTER FROM HELL; NAZI MADHOUSE ZOO OF RAVAGED WOMEN; HITLER’S INFERNO OF BRANDED WOMEN; FANTASTIC LUST PLOT OF THE NAZI HARLOT SPY; TEENAGE NAZI SHE-WOLVES OF BERLIN; THE VIOLENT VENGEANCE OF THE NUDE PARTISAN HUNTRESS; and DACHAU’S MISTRESS OF TORTURE.

About this title

About the Author

Shelley Singer's five previous Jake Samson mysteries include Samson's Deal, Free Draw, Full House, Spit in the Ocean, and Suicide King. Each can stand alone. She is also the author of six other novels, including the Barrett Lake series (one of which received a Shamus Award nomination), and of several anthologized short stories. She lives in Marin County, California, where she teaches writing at workshops, in college classrooms, privately, and on-line.

From the Back Cover

Jake and Rosie Are Back

Laid-back private eye Jake Samson is now living in mellow Marin County,a and he's working for a new boos, former assistant Rosie Vicente. This time, they're going undercover, infiltrating an ultra-right-wing group to help a young warrior named Royal who wants out. The problem is, the last time someone tried to leave the gang, he ended up dead.

The disguised investigators risk their lives as they follow a beerhall trail of convoluted connections, bizarre secrets, and outright lunacy. Then someone else dies, and the violent, raving, group suspects Royal and our two detectives of treachery. Jake and Rosie must move fast to keep one step ahead of the terminal incompetence of the leaders and their troops, who seem more bent on offing each other than on world domination.

Reviews

``I'm still a skin,'' Royal Subic tells Jake Samson. ``I just don't want to be an Aryan Command skin anymore.'' With that fine moral distinction, Jake, who's been on sabbatical ever since Suicide King (1988), is back in actionnot as Rosie Vicente's unlicensed p.i. boss in Oakland, but as her unlicensed operative in San Rafael. Are the skinheads in Marin County mellow? Not according to Royal, who wonders who killed Command member Richard Kramer, especially now that he's heard that the Command is planning a murderous new campaign whose first target will be right-wing radio ranter Preston Switcher. (Why kill a conservative? Because it'll create mass confusion when the Command's next target is Cary Frasier, leftist leader of ``The People.'' Go figure.) Even though Royal's only a plumber's helper, he offers Jake $5,000 to infiltrate the Command, and Jake, relying on his Aryan-looking nose, agrees to get his non-Aryan hair bleached and straightened in order to pass. It's an easy enough job, partly because the Command members who flock to Thor's Bar and Grill are so nondescript except for their slogans, and partly because so many of them turn out to be undercover agents for the police or the FBI that Singer seems to be rewriting G.K. Chesterton's fantasy, The Man Who Was Thursday, without the punch line. In fact, spotting the killer in this halfhearted return is much less fun than trying to answer Jake's plaintive question: ``How many ringers we got, anyway?'' -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"one of the nicer guys in the private eye business, who operates in a relaxed, casual style without need for macho posturing"

Self-effacing PI Jake Samson is understandably nervous about infiltrating the local Marin County neo-Nazi group, the Aryan Command. After all, he is Jewish. In his sixth appearance (after Samson's Deal) with brash boss Rosie Vicente, his sense of decency, keen wit and logical mind do much to carry a slow-moving, muddled narrative. Trying to save a friend's goddaughter from a ruinous romantic entanglement with Royal Subic, a disenchanted neo-Nazi who is too terrified to defect from the group, Jake goes undercover as an aspiring right-wing extremist. He begins by frequenting a skinhead bar. After meeting with some predictably loathsome habitu?sAsneering racists, menacing bikers, brooding wannabesAJake realizes that the group is indeed dangerous and might have murdered Royal's friend, who also had wanted to defect. Conspiracies abound: will the Aryan Command assassinate a talk-show host? Are members of a leftist group responsible for the murder of one of the right-wingers? Is the Aryan Command connected internationally? Are there other infiltrators besides Jake? It is soon impossible to untangle the many, thinly stretched subplots that snake through the novel. To complicate matters, Jake finds himself ambivalently attracted to one of the Command's more attractive members. Could she be an Israeli agent? Some surprising twists, and Jake's sharp-edged humor, help rescue the novel from its incessant and needless convolutions.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The unlicensed Jake Samson now works for his former employee, licensed private eye Rosie Vicente, in Marin, CA. As a favor to a friend, and because he grudgingly likes Royal, the skinhead kid in potential trouble, Jake infiltrates a neo-Nazi group to learn of its plans to murder an outspoken radio talk-show host. Rosie aids and abets Jake and Royal, as all three risk exposure and possible death. Great bar scenes, a wonderfully wry narrative, and the obvious nonsexual affection between the Jake and Rosie will have readers clamoring for more. Singer is a Shamus Award nominee.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this sixth entry in Singer's Jake Samson private eye series, Jake's former assistant, Rosie Vicente, has become his boss, and he's living in mellow Marin County. Jake's oldest friend, Artie, is watching over a teenager, Deeanne, while her parents cavort on vacation. Deeanne has a boyfriend named Royal who wants to break with his skinhead former pals, who are part of an East Bay neo-Nazi group, but fears the group will kill him if he tries to distance himself from them. Deeanne enlists Jake to help Royal, and Jake and Rosie go undercover with the Nazis. Before it's over, one needs a program to sort out the nasties from the not-so-nasty and the undercover Nazis from the real thing. Somehow Jake finds time along the way to fall in love with Sally, his real-estate agent. This is a well-plotted series peopled with likable characters in understandable situations. Singer tells a dramatic story without drenching readers in gore or resorting to gratuitous sex. Budd Arthur

Edition details

• Publisher: Daniel & Daniel Publishers
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1880284332
• ISBN 13: 9781880284339
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 100