Hang Me In Hong Kong

HANG ME IN HONG KONG by Earl Norman. This is a Rick Shaw novel, published in 1976 by JADE ORIENT. Earl Norman (Norman Thompson) wasn’t a polished writer, but his novels set in Japan and Hong Kong were lots of fun. Thompson, a karate black belt himself, wrote excellent fight scenes, with some nice plots. Berkley Books published six of his Burns Bannion novels in the US, then Norman self published five of them in Japan, plus three not released in the US, and sold them through the military bases PX and Stars & Stripes to US military personnel in the Orient. Nine novels in all, featuring Burns Bannion, then a final novel featuring Rick Shaw that is extremely rare. Does anyone have this book for sale, trade, or will photocopy it for me if they don’t want to sell it?

Roppongi & Atami For Trade

FOR TRADE

Kill Me In Roppongi & Kill Me In Atami

Fadingshadows40@gmail.com

Burns Bannion #9: “Kill Me In Roppongi” by Earl Norman (Norman Thompson). In this final novel of the “Kill Me In …” series, Hedges sends ex-Stars & Stripes newspaperman, Addis Racquets to him for help. Racquets now runs his own small paper, and has received a death threat along with an ad. He hires Bannion to answer the ad, and find out what’s going on. Although Inspector Izawa and Hedges are mentioned, they have no active part in this story. It involves the IOON (International Order of Nationalists) Nazi organization. They are running an illegal abortion scheme in Japan, bringing women from all over the world that need an abortion, then blackmailing them to work as their sex spies. Unfortunately, this was the final Burns Bannion novel. Not a great series, but definitely a fun one with sex and karate as the main theme. The series was published by Berkley in the U.S., but distribution in the Far East must have been poor, so Norman Thompson, who had contacts with the military and Stars & Stripes, had the series printed by a Japanese publisher under his ERLE BOOKS Logo. This enabled him to get his books on the racks in the PX system of military bases, where millions of G.I.s became familiar with them. I don’t know if Berkley was aware of this double-dealing or not. Sadly, the ERLE Editions seem to have been printed without editing or proofing, so there are many typos in them. If readers have a choice, buy the American editions published by Berkley instead. Actually, I’m not sure if Berkley even published the last two stories or not.  This one is only 49k, kind of short for a paperback. I have a pdf of this one for trade.

Burns Bannion #6: “Kill Me In Atami” by Earl Norman (Norman Thompson). This one could have been a Bud & Lou comedy film. Bannion is hired by a wealthy widow, Mrs. Hikonami. She wants a renter removed from her estate. Legal action would take years, but she wants Bannion to see that he leaves early, even if it means a karate chop to back of the neck. But there’s more to the case, as he soon finds out. The widow’s husband was murdered by a karate blow to the back of the head, forcing the head into a sharp instrument, but everybody says it was a suicide. En route to the estate, Bannion picks up a ‘wooley booger’ girl (read the book to find out) who loves sex, but someone hangs him and pins a suicide note on his chest. Arriving at the mansion, he finds the widow’s sister, Fujiwara, and Mrs. Hikonami’s daughter, Asako.  The three women are exact images of each other. Over the next three nights, the power goes off, and one of them enters his room to seduce him, but he never knows which one. Except that it isn’t the 300-pound maid, who also knows karate. There are hidden passages behind a bookcase, tunnels beneath the mansion, and monsters lurking about the tunnels and an abandoned sanitarium nearby. More supposed suicides happen, men hanging in the tunnel, and Bannion’s wooley booger girl inside the sanitarium. This is one of my favorites in the series. Thought Hedges is mentioned, he isn’t in this story. Inspector Ezawa introduces Bannion to Mrs. Hikonami, and then we don’t see him any more. Oddly, this is the only Burns Bannion novel not reprinted in the ERLE Edition in Japan. It’s only available in the American Berkley 1962 printing. I might add at this point that the Berkley editions were well edited, while the Japanese ERLE editions were not. This Berkley edition paperback is for trade.

Kill Me In Tokyo

Burns Bannion #1: “Kill Me In Tokyo” by Earl Norman (Norman Thompson), 1958 from Berkley.  Burns Bannion had just been released from the U.S. Army in Japan, where he claimed he was entering college. Instead, he wanted to stay in Japan to study Karate. One night he’s in one of his favorite bars watching strippers when a drunk American approaches him, thinking he is a private eye. Bannion was actually wondering how he was going to make a living in Japan, and this sounded like his answer. The American hands him money, and asks that he find a missing girl for him named Mitsuko. Bannion figures there is 90 million people in Japan, and most of them are named Mitsuko, but needing the money he accepts. Bannion ends up neck deep in gangsters and karate killers. Though he is training with a 7^th degree black belt, Bannion hasn’t reached black belt level yet. Just about everyone he crosses is, but somehow the American comes out the winner. However, he is pretty well beat to a pulp before the story comes to a conclusion. One of my favorite scenes is after he takes some hard hits and kicks, but manages to get to one of his friends, the guy says, “Good Lord, it’s Frankenstein!” The story did have its moments, though it was a little loose at times, and some things were left open, which may appear in future stories. In 1958, this was one of the first really good karate series, and Thompson patterned it somewhat after the tough Mike Hammer. Well worth the read.