Curtis Books #07203, 1972. First Printing in near fine condition. Tanning to the wrappers. Former owner's name is stamped on the verso of the front wrapper. Signed by Avallone on the title page. An Ed Noon Mystery.
Michael Angelo Avallone was a prolific American author of mystery and secret agent fiction, and novelizations based on TV and films. He claimed a lifetime output over 1,000 works, including novels, short stories, articles, published under his own name or 17+ pseudonyms. His first novel, The Tall Dolores 1953 introduced Ed Noon PI. After three dozen more, the most recent was 1989. The final volume, "Since Noon Yesterday" is, as of 2005, unpublished. Tie-ins included Man from U.N.C.L.E., Hawaii Five-0, Mannix, Friday the 13th Part III, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and even The Partridge Family. In late 1960s novellas featured U.N.C.L.E.-like INTREX. He is sometimes cited incorrectly as the creator of Man from U.N.C.L.E. (as in the January 1967 issue of The Saint Magazine), or having died March 1. As Troy Conway, Rod Damon: The Coxeman novel series 1967-73, parodied Man from UNCLE. An unusual entry was the novelization of the 1982 TV mini-series, A Woman Called Golda, the life of Golda Meir. Among the many pseudonyms that Michael Avallone used (male and female) were: Mile Avalione, Mike Avalone, Nick Carter, Troy Conway, Priscilla Dalton, Mark Dane, Jeanne-Anne dePre, Dora Highland, Stuart Jason, Steve Michaels, Dorothea Nile, Edwina Noone, John Patrick, Vance Stanton, Sidney Stuart, Max Walker, and Lee Davis Willoughby. From 1962-5, Avallone edited the Mystery Writers of America newsletter. Personal Life: He married 1949 Lucille Asero (one son; marriage dissolved), 1960 Fran Weinstein (one son, one daughter); died Los Angeles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_... http://www.thrillingdetective.com/tri...
Avallone published over thirty Ed Noon books over thirty years, two-thirds of them focusing on Noon as a wisecracking private eye and about one -third featuring Noon as a super secret agent who answered only to the President himself. I have found overall the private eye novels to be if the highest caliber and the spy novels in the series to be somewhat of a lower caliber.
Shoot It Again, Sam is probably the craziest spy novel you will ever read. It leaps around between what seems like a crazy LSD type trip to the transport of a coffin on a railroad to hobnobbing with Hollywood's elite and some time with the man in the White House. It's light reading. It's goofy. It's kitschy. It takes the reader on a journey into the world of Sam Spade and Peter Lorre.
The story, while fun to read, lacks an overall coherence and at times is simply silly stream of consciousness stuff. But, it's Ed Noon and no Ed Noon novel is ever bad. He's the goofiest, most wisecracking private eye ever.