Conjurers by Marilyn Harris

The Conjurers
by Marilyn Harris
1974 Random House

A middle-aged woman houses hippie-type foreigners in her country estate in rural England.  Most of the book is about the mutual distrust between them and the traditional townspeople, punctuated with mysterious acts of ritual rape and murder.

At first I thought this one was too "literary" for me, but I'm glad I stuck with it.  The rituals were written in a stylized setting which contrasted nicely with the almost banal, matter-of-fact accounting of human butchery.  And I'm glad she did a swerve from the whole Wicker Man thing.

Crow 1 - Red Hills by James Marvin

Red Hills
by James W. Marvin (James Laurence)
1979 Corgi

Just to let us know what we're dealing with, the book opens with our hero Crow slapping a girl and shooting a dog.  It just gets worse from there.

Crow is a lieutenant with the US Calvary, serving under a psychopathic, alcoholic, cuckolded Captain.  The bulk of the novel is Crow using his cool head and measured tactics to take on Sioux raids under less than ideal circumstances.

In contrast to his calm demeanor in combat in his personal life he's pretty much a sexual sadist.  While there are plenty of psychopaths and borderline personalities among the Piccadilly Cowboy heroes, Crow is a full blown child-murdering, revenge torturing serial killer.

So we'll be seeing more of Crow in the future.

Available in Kindle from Amazon.

Read a sample.

Lazy Rivers of Summer - Caribbean Bay

Caribbean Bay

Korea

Hard to find good footage of this one, but some nice, tall, themed walls around the river.

Trash Menace Bookstore - Alfred Hitchcock Anthologies

Holloway House BH Series Checklist

BH001 Poor, Black and in Real Trouble - Jerome Dyson Wright
BH002? The Blood Arena - Paul L. Washington
BH003? A Case of Conspiracy - Michael Newton
BH004
BH005
BH006
BH007? Fronteras - Maximo Espinosa
BH008
BH009
BH010
BH011 Lena - Brett Howard
BH012 You Can Only Slide So Long - Donzell Thomas
BH013 Richard Pryor - Joseph Nazel
BH014 Cadillac Square - Sadie Tillman
BH015
BH016
BH017 Donald Writes No More - Eddie Stone
BH018 Never Die Alone - Donald Goines
BH019 Trick Baby: The Story of a White Negro - Iceberg Slim
BH020
BH021 The Investigation - Earl Saunders
BH022 One Drop of Blood - Brett Howard
BH023 Horror of Cabrini-Green - Bruce C. Conn
BH024 Kenyatta's Last Hit - Donald Goines
BH025 Streets of Ho's - Leo Guild
BH026 Swamp Man - Donald Goines
BH027 White Man's Justice Black Man's Grief - Donald Goines
BH028 Black Gangster - Donald Goines
BH029 Crime Partners - Donald Goines
BH030 Long White Con - Iceberg Slim
BH031 Airtight Wille & Me - Iceberg Slim
BH032
BH033 Inner City Hoodlum - Donald Goines
BH034 Street Players - Donald Goines
BH035 The Ultimate Game - Jesse Jones
BH036
BH037 Midnight's Daughter - Jesse Jones
BH038
BH039
BH040
BH041 Daddy Cool - Donald Goines
BH042 Black Girl Lost - Donald Goines
BH043
BH044 Dope Fiend - Donald Goines
BH045
BH046 Whoreson - Donald Goines
BH047
BH048
BH049 The Black Angels - Sterling Hobbs
BH050
BH051
BH052? Escape From Death Row - Omar Fletcher
BH053
BH054 The Detroit Connection - Fritz Hale
BH055 Devil Dolls - Joseph Nazel
BH056
BH057? Love's Fire and Glory - Brett Howard
BH058 Black Fury - Joseph Nazel
BH059
BH060 Every Goodbye Ain't Gone - Joseph Nazel
BH061
BH062
BH063 Sugarman - Thomas Shaw
BH064? Texas Passion - Leah Guild
BH065
BH066
BH067 Eldorado Red - Donald Goines
BH068 Black Godfather - Omar Fletcher
BH069 Cry Revenge - Donald Goines
BH070 Death List - Donald Goines
BH071 Kenyatta's Escape - Donald Goines
BH072
BH073 The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim - Robert Beck
BH074 The Predator - Jesse Jones
BH075 Death Wish - Iceberg Slim
BH076 Cocaine Fever - Mark Windsor
BH077 The Black Connection - Randolph Harris
BH078
BH079
BH080? Flight to Love - Beverly Joye
BH081
BH082 Harlem Hit - Roosevelt Mallory
BH083 San Francisco Vendetta - Roosevelt Mallory
BH084 Double Trouble - Roosevelt Mallory
BH085 New Jersey Showdown - Roosevelt Mallory
BH086 Billion Dollar Death - Joseph Nazel
BH087 The Golden Shaft - Joseph Nazel
BH088
BH089
BH090 Spinning Target - Joseph Nazel
BH091 Canadian Kill - Joseph Nazel
BH092
BH093 Love's Velvet Song - Geraldine Greene
BH094 Love Note - Barbara Howard
BH095 Snowfire - Kimberly Norton
BH096 Macking Gangster - Charles A Harris
BH097 Black Cop - Dom Gober

BH207 The Secret Below 103rd Street - Elwin Carter
BH209 Heartbeat - Joyce Lezan
BH213 Spring Embrace - Joyce Lezan
BH214 Passion's Surrender -Kimberly Norton
BH215 San Francisco Nights - Eudora Carroll
BH218? The Big Hit - James-Howard Readus
BH223 Sweet Peter Deeder - Odie Hawkins
BH224 Chicago Hustle - Odie Hawkins
BH226 Broad Players - Charlie Harris
BH227? Black Muscle - Laurence Blaine
BH228 Black Fugitive - Eddie Stone
BH229 A Play for Love - Yolanda Betrande
BH233 Whoredaughter - Charlie Avery Harris
BH245 Harlem - Tim McCanlies
BH247 Dark Road Home - Yolande Betrand
BH253 Bitch - J. Jason Grant
BH258 Chili: Memoirs of a Black Casanova: Odie Hawkins
BH263 Black Gangster - Donald Goines
BH265 Secret Music: A Book - Odie Hawkins
BH268 Some Like it Dark - Kipp Washington (as told to Leo Guild)
BH269 Airtight Wille & Me - Iceberg Slim
BH272 A Mississippi Family - Barbara Johnson
BH273 The Senator's Whore - Cindy Kallmer (as told to Leo Guild)

BH308 Players Book of Cartoon Humor
BH309 2nd Players Book of Cartoon Humor
BH319 Kicks is Kicks - Delia Brehan
BH329 Pseudo Cool - Joseph E. Green
BH331 Reunion - Mark Allen Boone
BH332 The Dowry - Ginger Whittaker
BH350 Death Merchants - James-Howard Readus
BH351? Borderline: The Case of Too Many Graves - W.J. Amos
BH352 About Courage - Mickey C. Fleming
BH353 Airtight Wille & Me - Iceberg Slim

BH411 Dorothy Dandridge - Earl Mills
BH414 Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim
BH415 Mama Black Widow - Iceberg Slim
BH416 Trick Baby: The Story of a White Negro - Iceberg Slim
BH417 Pimp: The Story of My Life - Iceberg Slim
BH418
BH419 Dopefiend: The Story of a Black Junkie - Donald Goines
BH420 Cold Black Preach - Robert H. DeCoy
BH421 Whoreson - Donald Goines
BH422 Black Gangster - Donald Goines
BH423 The Nigger Bible - Robert H. deCoy
BH424 The 9 Holes of Jade - Su-Ling
BH425 Ghetto Sketches - Odie Hawkins
BH426 The Black Queen - Delia Brehan
BH427 Honolulu Madam - Iolana Misuko
BH428 Struggle for Survival - James M. Jones
BH429 House Full of Brothers - Jon Palmer
BH430 Street Players - Donald Goines
BH431 White Man's Justice Black Man's Grief - Donald Goines
BH432
BH433
BH434 Gentleman Pimp - Andrew Stonewall Jackson
BH435 Harlem Hit - Roosevelt Mallory
BH436 San Francisco Vendetta - Roosevelt Mallory
BH437 Billion Dollar Death - Joseph Nazel
BH438 Backgammon: How to Play and Win - Donald Carter
BH439
BH440 Billion Dollar Death - Joseph Nazel
BH441 Black Girl Lost - Donald Goines
BH442 Golden Shaft - Joseph Nazel
BH443 Death List - Donald Goines as Al Clark
BH444
BH445 Crime Partners - Donald Goines as Al Clark
BH446 Swamp Man - Donald Goines
BH447 Eldorado Red - Donald Goines
BH448 Trickshot: The Story of a Black Pimp - Randolph Harris
BH449
BH450 Death Merchant - James-Howard Readus
BH451 Never Die Along - Donald Goines
BH452 Slick Revenge - Joseph Nazel
BH453
BH454 Sunday Fix - Joseph Nazel
BH455 Double Trouble - Roosevelt Mallory
BH456
BH457
BH458
BH459
BH460 Kenyatta's Escape - Donald Goines
BH461 Black Cop - Dom Gober
BH462 Canadian Kill - Joseph Nazel
BH463 Black Exorcist - Joseph Nazel
BH464 Daddy Cool - Donald Goines
BH465 Doomsday Squad - Dom Gober
BH466 The Case of the Deadly Triangle - Ronald Ayers
BH467 Inner City Hoodlum - Donald Goines
BH468 Black Assassin - James-Howard Readus
BH469? Black Bait - Leo Guild
BH470
BH471 Kenyatta's Last Hit - Donald Goines
BH472 New Jersey Showdown - Rooselvelt Mallory
BH473
BH474
BH475 The Shakedown - Joseph Nazel
BH476 The Big Hit - James-Howard Readus
BH477 Black Gestapo - Joseph Nazel
BH478
BH479
BH480 Black Starlet - Bobbye B. Vance
BH481 The Black Shrink - Dr. Phyllis James as told to Leo Guild
BH482 Supercock - Chuck Kelly
BH483 Death for Hire - Joseph Nazel
BH484 Supermouth - William Rotsler
BH485 Killer Cop - Dom Gober
BH486
BH487 Killing Ground - Dom Gober
BH488 Josephine Baker - Leo Guild
BH489 Black Hunter - Eddie Stone
BH490
BH491 Macking Gangster - Charles Avery Harris
BH492
BH493
BH494
BH495
BH496 Whoredaughter - Charles Avery Harris
BH497
BH498 Black Prophet - Joseph Nazel
BH499 Black Muscle - Laurence Blaine

BH 501-10 Classic Erotica titles
BH511 Donald Writes No More - Eddie Stone
BH512 Black Fugitive - Eddie Stone
BH513? Walking Black and Tall - Omar Fletcher
BH514 Cons and Lovers - Leo Guild
BH515? Coal - J. Jason Grant
BH518 Street Games - Eddie Stone
BH519 The Last Toke - Amos Brooke
BH522 Black Against the Mob - Omar Fletcher
BH524 Black & Deadly - Charles Avery Harris
BH525 Black Godfather - Omar Fletcher
BH528 Miss Annie - Omar Fletcher
BH529 Fast Track - Charles Avery Harris
BH531 Sweet Street Blues - Lawrence Blaine
BH532 Twenty Miles to Terror - Eddie Stone
BH534 Dugout Brother - J. Jason Grant
BH535? Battleground - Roy Gordon
BH538? Battleground - Roy Gordon
BH542 Con Man - Charles Avery Harris

BH601 Club Adam Swinger's Directory
BH602 The New Club Adam Swinger's Directory
BH603 Girls Who Do Stag Movies - William Rotsler
BH604
BH605 Brothels of Nevada - Robert Engle
BH606
BH607
BH608 Brothels of Nevada - Robert Engle
BH609 Death Wish - Iceberg Slim
BH610
BH611
BH612 Long White Con - Iceberg Slim
BH613 The Life: The Lore and Folk Poetry of the Black Hustler
BH614
BH615 Coal: The Saga of Coal From Slave to El Diablo Negrito - J. Jason Grant
BH622 White Man's Justice Black Man's Grief - Donald Goines
BH623 Never Die Along - Donald Goines
BH624 Swamp Man - Donald Goines
BH625 Crime Partners - Donald Goines
BH626 Death Wish - Iceberg Slim
BH628 Pimp: The Story of My Life - Iceberg Slim
BH629 Black Gangster - Donald Goines
BH634 No Place to Die - Joseph Nazel
BH636 Airtight Wille & Me - Iceberg Slim
BH639 Inner City Hoodlum - Donald Goines
BH641 Victim of Rape - Eddie Stone
BH642 Whoreson - Donald Goines
BH644 Street Players - Donald Goines
BH645 Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim
BH647 Eldorado Red - Donald Goines
BH648? Black Bait - Leo Guild
BH649 Daddy Cool - Donald Goines
BH651 Pachuco - Dennis Rodriguez
BH652 Paul Robeson: Biography of a Proud Man - Joseph Nazel
BH653 Stack a Dollar - Elroy Waters
BH655 Jewel: Undercover Cop - Genia Fogelson
BH656 Black Girl Lost - Donald Goines
BH657 Mama Black Widow - Iceberg Slim
BH659 Dopefiends - Donald Goines
BH660 Cry Revenge - Donald Goines
BH661 Kenyatta's Escape - Donald Goines
BH662 I Was Kidnapped by Idi Amin - Nefta Enzinga
BH663 El Grito: The Scream - Alfredo Alcala
BH666 Jesse Jackson: Biography of an Ambitious Man
BH667 Black Lady Luck - Joan Boren as told to Leo Guild
BH668 Louis Armstrong - Robert Hoskins
BH669 Kenyatta's Last Hit - Donald Goines
BH670 Trick Baby - Iceberg Slim
BH671 The Black Connection - Randolph Harris
BH674 The High Price of Gratitude - Janice Peters
BH676 The Girl Who Loved Black - Leo Guild
BH683 Bitter Grain - Michael Newton
BH685 Killing Ground - Dom Gober
BH696 Gentleman Pimp - Andrew Stonewall Jackson

BH707 Pimp: The Story of My Life - Iceberg Slim
BH709 Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim
BH712 Delta Crossing - Joseph Nazel
BH713 Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim
BH715 The Girl Who Loved Black - Leo Guild
BH717 Eddie [Eddie Murphy] - Marianne Ruuth
BH725 Triumph & Tragedy: The True Story of the Supremes - Marianne Ruuth
BH727? Menfriends - Odie Hawkins
BH727 Hollywood Madam - Lee Francis
BH729 The King Conspiracy - Michael Newton
BH731 To Kill a Black Man - Louis E. Lomax
BH732 Deadwood Dick - Stephen C. Levi
BH733 Donald Writes No More - Eddie Stone
BH741 Mama Solves a Murder - Nora DeLoach

BH804 Nigger Bible - Robert H. deCoy
BH805? Dorothy Dandridge - Earl Mills
BH806 Pimp: The Story of My Life - Iceberg Slim
BH807 Trick Baby - Iceberg Slim
BH808 Mama Black Widow - Iceberg Slim
BH812 Black Uprising - Joseph Nazel
BH814 Hell Has No Exit - J. Lance Gilmer
BH815 Hurricane Man -  Omar Fletcher
BH819 Chicago Hustle - Odie Hawkins
BH824 Death Wish - Iceberg Slim
BH827 Trick Baby - Iceberg Slim
BH828 Mama Black Widow - Iceberg Slim
BH832 Ivy - Clyde Bolton
BH837 As Far As Blood Goes - Rochelle H. Schwab
BH840 Jesse Jackson - Eddie Stone
BH841 The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim
BH842 Death Wish - Iceberg Slim
BH844 Magic Johnson - Joseph Nazel
BH850 Pimp: The Story of My Life - Iceberg Slim

BH925 X-Rated Video Directory

Confirmed as Holloway House, unknown number, may not be in BH series.

And Carry a Big Stick - J. Garrison
Belafonte - Genia Fogelson

Black Chicago - Odie Hawkins

Black in White Paradise - Amos Brooke

Black Renegades - James Howard Readus

Black Streets of Oakland - Leo Guild

The Busting Out of an Ordinary Man - Odie Hawkins

Dr. Feelgood - Jospeh Nazel

Doing Time - Amos Brooke

Dying is So Easy - Rae S. Stewart

Finders Keepers Losers Weepers - Jospeh Nazel

Great Lawd Buddha - Odie Hawkins

Hell is Forever - Gilmer Lance

The Hospital Plot - Charles Pugh

House Full of Brothers - Jon Palmer

Jackie Robinson: A Biography - Joseph Nazel

Khomeini: The Shah, the Ayatollah, the Shi'ite Explosion
The Last Toke - Amos Brooke
The Life and Times of Chester L. Simmons - Odie Hawkins
Lost Angeles - Odie Hawkins
Miss Annie - Omar Fletcher
The Pocket - J.B. Springs III
Portrait of Simone - Odie Hawkins
Satan's Master - Joseph Nazel
The Square Jungle - J. Jason Grant
Spider's Web - Joseph Nazel
The Studio - Leo Guild
Sweet Lucy - Players Magazine
Tides of Passion  - Genia Fogelson
Vietnam Blues: The Story of a Black Soldier - John B. Carn

Notes:
BH appears to be Holloway House's African-American line of books.  Other Holloway House books (mostly classic erotica reprints) have an HH designation.  The numbers weren't assigned in order and many titles had multiple entries.  There are some more biographies I didn't chase down.

With the exception of Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines, most of this stuff is painfully obscure.  These titles are stupid expensive on the used book market and most don't even have cover scans online.

Lazy Rivers of Summer - BSR Cable Park

BSR Cable Park
Waco, TX
5000 Ft?

Claims to be the longest lazy river in the world.  They also claim to have the tallest and longest water slide in the world, which it isn't and isn't.  A concrete trench of urine-filled brown water cram packed with drunken douchebros.

Things I Didn't Finish - Kid Calvert

Kid Calvert
Originally from Western Aces 1934-5
Altus Press 2015

Been on a bit of a western kick lately.  I've read and enjoyed some western pulp, and got this volume on the strength of it being a "pulp hero" type volume (implied more in the Amazon blurb than the text itself).  There are western pulp heroes (Zorro, Lone Ranger, Masked Rider, etc), but this appears to be a regular western pulp, without the outre elements of a Secret Agent X or the Doc Savage.

I say appears because I couldn't get that far.  It might just be me, but the bizarre sentence structure and obscure slang made it come across like Yoda doing a Yosemite Sam impression.  I shouldn't have to read a sentence three times to figure out "The cowboys rode their horses up a hill".  I may be dumb and lazy, but this is an oater, not James Joyce.

The more literate among you are welcome to try yourselves.

Click here to read a sample.

Available for Kindle from Amazon.

Lazy Rivers of Summer - Big Bird's Rambling River

Big Bird's Rambling River
Sesame Place
Langhorne, PA
1000 Feet



More theming than most, and lots of stuff going on.  It's integrated nicely into the rest of the park, though I can't help but think kids are going to throw french fries at you as you pass the eating areas.

Caleb Thorne 1

First Shot
Caleb Thorne 1
by L.J. Coburn (Laurence James)
1977 Sphere

Caleb Thorne starts out as one of the most distasteful western protagonists put to page, and I hope he stays that way.

He's a rich, bullying layabout who mocks the fighting men of the military and delights in killing them off in duels.  He's engaged to a girl of a rich family but is more interested in her mother.  Thorne has some mother issues, and by that I mean he's banging his mom.  Just shy of a full blown sex scene, it's made pretty clear he took his dad's place after he killed him, so he's got the whole Oedipus package going on.

After a pretty nasty sex scene of him with his mother-in-law to be during the First Battle of Bull Run, his fiance and mother both die in the conflict, giving Thorne his Batmanesque motivation to join the Union Army.

As luck would have it, his new commanding officer is the father of a man Thorne killed in a duel.  He's made the leader of a Dirty Dozen style special troop of condemned criminals forced to fight in suicide missions.  We wrap up with a quick mission to blow up a bridge.

I'm guessing there's going to be some Joseph Campbell thing where our hero undergoes a personal transformation to not be a such a horrible human being, but I hope not.  The series only lasted five issue - there's mention that Civil War books didn't sell well at the time.  I'm guessing because you risk alienating half of your reading public depending on what side your protagonist is on.

Read a sample

Get the Kindle ebook from Amazon

River Slide at Lalandia Water Park, Denmark

Lately I've been obsessed with Nordic indoor water parks, the kind that look like warehouses or airplane hangars filled with tubes and pasty white people.  Especially like indoor/outdoor rides (enclosed tubes don't count) - I like how this one has a double water curtain at the entrances.

Trash Menace Bookstore - Corgi Horror Fiction

Corgi Horror Fiction

New in the bookstore, horror paperbacks from publisher Corgi.  May not include reprints or more mainstream authors.  Links may be to different editions of the same title.  Shopping through bookstore affiliate links supports the site and keeps the trash coming.

Ali and His Gang vs Mr. Tooth Decay

Orbit / Futura Horror

New in the Trash Menace Bookstore - Orbit / Futura Horror

New in the bookstore, horror paperbacks from publisher Orbit/Futura.  May not include reprints or more mainstream authors.  Links may be to different editions of the same title.  Shopping through bookstore affiliate links supports the site and keeps the trash coming.

The Loch Ness Terror by Bron Fane (Lionel Fanthorpe)

The Loch Ness Terror
by Bron Fane (Lionel Fanthorpe)
Supernatural Stories 38 1960

http://www.peltorro.com/

Part of a series involving reporter of the supernatural, Val Stearman.  Stearman receives news of a Loch Ness Monster sighting and visits a professor, who fills some pages with Loch Ness lore.  The professor recognizes Stearman from his articles:

"Don't I remember you from the black magic cult incident?"
"Yes, that was me."
"And then you faced a ghoul in the next issue."
"Right again."

At least ten times by my count.  Ten f*$#ing times he recaps prior issues.  We're now almost 2/3rds of the way through the "story".

Stearman goes scuba diving in the Loch and gets snatched up in Nessie's mouth.  Nessie takes him to an underwater grotto and psychically send him visions of men shooting down and slaughtering Loch Ness monsters.  Stearman returns to the shore and was it all an hallucination?

Horrible, just horrible.  It's like he's been told to write a story, obstinately refuses to and just rambles for pages, then reluctantly gives us two pages of "stuff" before slamming it shut.  If anything, it's harder to drag out nothingness for that long as opposed to just making up a story.

I'm glad I read more Fanthorpe before blowing all my allowance on all the cheap ebooks available on Amazon.  I can't even hate-read him anymore.

If you hate yourself as much as Lionel Fanthorpe hates the reading public, you can read it for free here.