Introduction to HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1975) by Don Pendleton
Friday, 14. July 2006, 22:48:24
A Sherlock Holmes novel on an Aggressor page! Has Aggressor Brad gone mad? Actually yes but that happened a long time ago and isn't relevant to this review. In this instance I'm not reviewing the novel but rather the introduction by the anti-Godfather of the Aggressor movement Don Pendleton (calling him the Godfather just seemed wrong).In the 70s Ballentine reissued the Holmes books with introductions by other authors such as Ellery Queen, Joe Gores, Nicholas Meyer, P.G Wodehouse and Ed McBain. Pendleton opens his with this rather short dream he had:
The tall man in combat black paused in the open doorway, icy eyes probing the cluttered interior of the upstairs flat at 221b Baker Street. A huge weapon in flat-top leather miltary web rode at his right hip. Other belts crossed the chest, bandolier fashion to support various munitions of war. A small but impressive automatic weapon dangled from a neck cord to rest at waist level, the grips inches removed from powerful hands.
Across the room near a small desk by the window stood a rather ascetic looking man of unimposing mein, toying with an unlighted clay pipe which he held loosely in both hands. Tall, spare, he presented an almost indolent figure as he gazed dreamily into the bowl of the pipe, head bent, hawklike nose twitching delicately. But then that head swiveled into a confrontation with the figure in the doorway, the eyes suddenly sharp and piercing, an air of alertness and decision radiating from that chisled face to belie that earlier impression of indolence.
The visitor visibly relaxed, shoulders slumping forward with an almost relieved motion. The eyes went from ice to cautious warmth as he announced in flat tones, "You are not the enemy."
"An obvious deduction, my dear fellow." the man at the window quietly replied.
"Stay clear. I'm blitzing ."
"To be sure," said he of the hawk nose. "I shall remain clear, I should say, by at least one half a century."
"Live large," the other said. "Live long." He spun on his toe and was gone, as quickly and as silently as he had appeared.
"Halloa!" cried another man who had just entered from a rear bedroom. "Did you see that fellow, Holmes?"
"You may rest assured, my dear Watson, that I did indeed."
"Who the blazes is he? Such an outlandish costume! Is the poor fellow berefit of his senses?"
"Not at all, Not at all," Sherlock Holmes muttered,"That fellow and I, old friend stand but a pair of parables apart."
"What nonsense is this, Holmes?" Dr Watson spluttered. "will you forever set me to chasing enigmatic pronouncements? Which pair of parables have you in mind?"
"Elementary, my dear Watson," the great detective said quietly, returning again to the dreamy introspection of his pipe. "Entirely elementary."
Pendleton then talks about how he had this dream just after he agreed to write this introduction and he felt there was a deeper meaning which was eluding him.
Holmes and Bolan have more in common than it would appear at first glance - Holmes has no offical standing he has set himself up as a consulting detective, Bolan has no offical standing he set himself up as an avenger, both men are more concerned with justice rather than the law.
Pendleton then goes on to talk about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, making a point to reference Doyle's spiritualism and to defend it. According to the official Don Pendleton website Don along with his wife Linda wrote TO DANCE WITH ANGELS about mediumship.
Perhaps the pair of parables Holmes refered to are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Don Pendleton.
WIDGETIZE
Anonymous # 16. July 2006, 23:36
I read Pendleton's Ashton Ford psychic detective sereis and found rather dull. His Joe Copp private eye series is one of my favorites of that genre, though.