Derrick Ferguson Boxes With BAREFOOT BONES

File Size: 469 KB

Print Length: 110 pages

Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited

Publisher: Fight Card Books (August 14, 2013)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00EKTX9MI

If the daytime Soap Opera ever makes a comeback, Bobby Nash could give up writing thrillers, New Pulp action adventures, science fiction and make a good living writing for them. Before you laugh yourself into a heart attack, let me explain. Soap Operas were excellent at making sure their characters were constantly miserable and unhappy with their lot in life. If anybody in a Soap Opera had so much as a minute of happiness, you knew it wasn’t going to last long.

Now, I don’t mean to call BAREFOOT BONES a Soap Opera at all. But what I am saying is that Bobby Nash (writing as Jack Tunney) does an outstanding job of making his hero miserable. Matter of fact, the first half of the book the protagonist is hit with one emotional sucker punch after another. This is a guy who’s life is so bad that it actually gets better when he enlists to fight in the Korean War.

James Mason is a broomstick thin kid living on the wrong side of the tracks in a small Georgia town. He and his mama are so poor he can’t even afford shoes. That and his painfully thin appearance earns him the nickname of “Barefoot Bones” and it’s a name the town bullies love to yell in his ears as they’re beating the living daylights out of him.

Things change when James is taken under the wing of Old Man Winters who teaches him how to box and control his temper, make it work for him in a fight. previously, James had thought of Old Man Winters as being just the town recluse who kept to himself. But James soon learns that there is far more to him. James and Old Man Winters even become friends and since James is now able to successfully defend himself against the bullies, his life starts to look a little better.

But that’s before James experiences several devastating tragedies and is forced to go on the run, living as best he can by stealing and begging until making his way to Chicago. And it’s when he meets Father Tim Brophy, the Battling Priest of St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys that his story really gets going.

Bobby spends a considerable amount of wordage dealing with the sad childhood of James Mason and that might disappoint those who want to see more action in the ring. Oh, there’s plenty of that, don’t worry that you won’t get your share of boxing action in the ring. This is a Fight Card book after all and when it comes to depicting fight scenes in the ring, Bobby Nash delivers the goods. But what I think he’s going for here is telling the story of a young man whose real opponent is the crummy life he’s been given, a life that he fights every day. Compared to that, stepping into the ring with a flesh and blood opponent is gravy.

And to tell this story, Bobby does it in simple, uncomplicated prose. Since BAREFOOT BONES is told in first person, Bobby tells it in simple sentences, using simple words. It’s a very appropriate storytelling technique as our narrator is a boy/young man of limited education.

So should you read BAREFOOT BONES? Sure you should. If you’ve been reading the Fight Card series of books then you don’t have to be sold on this one. If you’ve never read a Fight Card book, this is a good one to start with. If you’re a fan of Bobby Nash who has read his other books then by all means read this. One of the pleasures of reading a Fight Card book is that you get to read a story by a writer like Bobby Nash who might never have written a boxing novel, or even thought about writing one. It’s a win-win situation all the way around for both the writer and the reader. He gets to stretch his creative muscles in a new direction and we get to read the results. Enjoy.

Fight Card: Brooklyn Beatdown

Brooklyn – 1954. Bare knuckler brawler Levi Kimbro battles his way through the bloody backroom ghetto bars of Brooklyn in pursuit of his dream of owning his own business. It's a hard and vicious road he walks and it becomes even more complicated when he falls hard for the electrifying Dorothea McBricker.

Dorothea's brother, Teddy, has fallen under the influence of notorious gangster Duke Williamson – a powerful man who is pressuring Levi to join his stable of fighters or face off against the human killing machine, ‘Deathblow’ Ballantine.  A knock-down, drag out, Brooklyn Beatdown is brewing, and Levi will need every ounce of his fighter’s heart if he wants to save not only himself, but the woman he loves ...

Available NOW for your Kindle!

Derrick Ferguson Has THE CUTMAN In His Corner!

Back during the heyday of the Classic Pulp era there were magazines devoted to just about every type of genre you could think of or that publishers thought they could sell to the entertainment hungry public.  Most of us are familiar with the hero pulps, the western pulps, the science fiction pulps, the horror pulps.  But there were far more than that.  You had your spicy pulps which was the safe name for what was pretty much soft core porn.  There were gangster pulps, railroad pulps and sports pulp.  And a sub-genre of the sports pulp was boxing pulp stories.

If you’re at all familiar with the boxing pulp genre it’s probably because of Robert E. Howard and his champion boxer character Sailor Steve Costigan.  Even though Howard is best known as the creator of Conan, King Kull and Solomon Kane he wrote more stories about Sailor Steve Costigan. 

It’s probably inevitable that in the New Pulp Renaissance we’re enjoying right now that the pulp boxing genre should also enjoy a revived popularity and it’s a genre that’s well represented by the the Fight Card series of books in general and THE CUTMAN in particular.  It’s the second book in the series but you don’t have to have read the first one in order to enjoy it.  The books are credited as being written by Jack Tunney but that’s a “house name”.  The first book “Felony Fists” was written by Paul Bishop and THE CUTMAN was written by Mel Odom and it’s a terrific read.

First off, it’s set in Havana, Cuba during a period of history that fascinates me; the period when American organized crime worked hand-in-hand with the Batista regime, turning Cuba into a playground of illegal activity.  It’s here that the cargo ship Wide Bertha docks and it isn’t long until one of its crewmen, the two-fisted Irishman Mickey Flynn runs afoul of the henchmen working for small-time gangster Victor Falcone.  And this in turn leads to Mickey having a beef with Falcone himself who has aspirations of moving into the big time by currying favor with Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

The boxing angle comes into the story due to Falcone’s sponsorship of savagely brutal  backroom boxing matches which is dominated by his fighter, the human buzzsaw “Hammer” Simbari.  Simbari is a bloodthirsty sadist who derives extreme satisfaction from beating men half to death in the ring and the inevitable battle between Mickey and Simbari is written with a great deal of tension and suspense as we’ve seen what Simbari can do and so has Mickey.  And he’s not all that sure he can take Simbari.

Not that he has any choice.  In a series of plot twists I wouldn’t dare reveal here, the fate of Wide Bertha and her crew rests on Mickey’s exceptional boxing skills, skills learned from the legendary Father Tim of St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys in Chicago.  Mickey’s got no choice but to climb into the ring with this near unstoppable fighting machine. 

THE CUTMAN has got a lot going on besides the boxing.  There’s a whole host of supporting characters that added greatly to the flavor and atmosphere of the story.  Colorful, delightful characters that reminded me of those great supporting actors in those classic black-and-white Warner Brothers crime/gangster movies of the 30’s and 40’s.  In fact, that’s exactly how THE CUTMAN reads, like an old fashioned Warner Brothers movie.  The crime elements are interwoven with the well written fight scenes and there’s even a romantic subplot with Mickey and a lusty gorgeous Cuban barmaid which doesn’t go the way romances in this type of story usually go.

So should you read THE CUTMAN? I certainly would recommend it.  It’s a solid page turner that does exactly what I think a pulp story should do; keep you asking; “what’s going to happen next?”  It’s very well written with snappy, slangy dialog and good descriptions of the fight scenes.  At all times we know exactly what’s happening and why.  I’m most certainly going to be keeping my eye out for future volumes in the Fight Card series which are available as e-books only and you should too.

Format: Kindle Edition

File Size: 299 KB

Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited

Publisher: Fight Card Productions (November 11, 2011)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services

Language: English

ASIN: B0066E93MK