Every day is fete day when Brad Steiger's back in town, delivering 34 quick hits in 128 pages for this above average entry about STRANGE MEN AND WOMEN! Steiger runs down a roster of "doers of good and agents of evil" throughout history, and although we might quibble with descriptors (does Charles Leale, the young doctor who tried to save Lincoln's life, really count as "strange" and not simply heroic?) Steiger manages a nice turn, avoiding the filler junk that piles up in so many of his other Popular Library entries. No folk remedies or biting bug eyed monsters here, just loads of historical weirdos and fakirs!
Steiger gives us some tried and true heavy hitters like the Countess Bathory, Burke and Hare, and William Yeats, who has turned up somewhere before in Steiger or Smith's work for his interest in the spirit realm. Psychic "thoughtographer" Ted Serios is another repeat offender, but Steiger can be forgiven for some minor recycling as he picks some real dynamite entries to repeat, like the one for Dr. Jeanne-Marie-Therese Koffman, the woman who hunts Abominable Snowmen! She's after Zana the Ape Woman, who long time readers will remember from multiple ABSM volumes by Smith, Steiger, and the rest. Here's Steiger's potpourri approach at its best, truly engaging and interesting as opposed to dull and deadening.
Steiger is deep in midcentury Lost Cause mythology when writing on Belle Boyd, infamous womanly spy for the Confederacy - she defends Southron honor by shooting a Union soldier dead and passing messages for Confederate generals, all while looking ravishing. Treason in defense of slavery is apparently no vice if you can make it sexy! To be fair, Steiger also includes a chapter on a heroic southern soldier, one Major Robert Anderson, who stayed true to his oath and defended Fort Sumter from Confederate cannon. More sexy ladies include the possibly apocryphal lady pirate Mary Anne Blythe, who cavorted with Blackbeard according to Steiger's telling, and the aforementioned Countess Bathory.
That sickly orientalist haze creeps back in a chapter on Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, the famous French conjurer who was tasked with a "magic mission" to pacify the Marabouts of Algeria. It seems that the natives are restless, indeed they're downright "unpredictable and impulsive" for no discernible reason that civilized Europeans can see! This is a fascinating story, actually, and a shame that Steiger can only give us the white (magic) man's burden. We also get the usual washed up "psychic" stars like ol' Ted Serios, Gerard Croiset, and Peter Hurkos, with Steiger's usual credulous writing, plus spiritualist Mina Crandon who tussles with Houdini as "Margery of the Spirits" and, according to Steiger, proves her psychic mettle! About that ... "Investigators who studied Crandon concluded that she had no such paranormal ability, and others detected her in outright deception." Too bad. The same goes for psychic healing superstar "Dr. Tony of Manila" who Brad also puffs up as some sort of heroic figure. The prize winning dream of Dr. Otto Loewi gets reused from another volume by Steiger, though honestly I've forgotten which one. Ya gotta hit your page counts ya know!
Overall a good read, but as usual those jerks at the Paperback Library think they're too good to give us a table of contents:
1. The Ghoul of Paris (5)
2. The Four Year Life of a Genius (7)
3. Water Dowser Deluxe (9)
4. Escape Artist of the Korean War (12)
5. The Doctor Who Kept Lincoln Alive (16)
6. America's First Secret Agent (19)
7. The Dream That Won a Nobel Prize (23)
8. John R. Brinkley, the Great Rejuvenator (25)
9. Burke's the Butcher, Hare's the Thief, Knox the Boy Who Buys the Beef (30)
10. The Russian Woman Doctor Who Hunts Abominable Snowmen (35)
11. The Man Who Takes Pictures With His Head (37)
12. George Devol, King of the Mississippi (41)
13. The Woman Who Collected Coffins (49)
14. The Rebel Officer Who Defended Fort Sumter (52)
15. Rhymes From the Spirit World (57)
16. The Death Wind (60)
17. Belle Boyd, the Confederacy's Shapely Spy (64)
18. The One Man Lost and Found Department (73)
19. The Man Who Invented the Mickey (75)
20. Gerard Croiset, Clairvoyant Extraordinary (78)
21. The Sailor With Nine Lives (82)
22. The World's Greatest Athlete (84)
23. The Buccaneer Who Wore a Bikini (87)
24. The Psychic Who Solves Crimes (90)
25. The Countess Was a Vampire (94)
26. The Teen-Ager Who Fought Off Eighty Men (97)
27. Dr. Tony, Manila's Man With the Healing Hands (102)
28. The Spy Who Became a Monster (105)
29. Joseph Dunninger, Master Mentalist (109)
30. Simon Gerty, the White Savage (112)
31. Margery of the Spirits (116)
32. Cartouche, Emperor of Crime (120)
33. The Magician and the Marabouts (123)
34. The Scientist and His Pet Ghost (127)
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| Get in line boys, she's taken! |
Paperback Library, 1967
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