Frank Castle (author)


Frank Pulliam Castle was an American author of western and crime fiction. He wrote as Frank Castle, Frank P. Castle, and under the pseudonyms Steve Thurman, Val Munroe, Cole Fannin, Jack Slade, and Helen B. Castle.

Biography

Castle was born May 8, 1910 in Stanley, New Mexico, one of four children of Wilbur and Ruby Castle. When he was nine, the family moved to Southern California, where he grew up. He attended San Fernando High School and the University of Oklahoma, majoring in journalism, after which he served in the U.S. Navy from 1940-1946. Following his service, he returned to Southern California. He married Helen Louise Bevillard June 26, 1946 in El Sereno, California. She was born November 21, 1915 in Racine County, Wisconsin, daughter of Arthur Earnest and Anna Loiuse Garratt. She had previously been married to Arthur Nestor Bevillard. Helen was a nurse, and Frank would later write a couple of nurse romances under her name. She died December 26, 1986, in Los Angeles, California. In 1988 he moved to Lebanon, Oregon, where his two living siblings resided. He died September 18, 1994 at the Villa Cascade Care Center in Lebanon, Oregon.

Literary career

From the late 1940s onward, Castle made his living as a writer of western and crime fiction, first for pulp fiction magazines and then, beginning in the early 1950s, as a novelist. He branched out into movie and television tie-ins, mostly for younger readers, historical fiction and romance. In addition to his own name, he used a number of pen names in his writing, principally Steve Thurman, but also Cole Fannin for his juveniles, and his wife's name Helen B. Castle for his nurse romances. His contributions to Belmont/Tower's Lassiter series of Westerns appeared under the house name Jack Slade, and he employed Val Munroe for soft porn. His writing career wound down in the early 1970s. One of his late crime novels did not find an American publisher, and only appeared in Finland, in Finnish translation.
Castle's short fiction appeared in Ace-High Western Stories, Best Western, Big-Book Western Magazine, Complete Western Book Magazine, Exciting Western, Fifteen Western Tales, Fighting Western, .44 Western Magazine, Frontier Stories, Leading Western, Mammoth Western Quarterly, Mammoth Western, The Man, New Western Magazine, New Western Magazine, New Western Magazine, The Pecos Kid Western, Ranch Romances, Rangeland Romances, The Rio Kid Western, Star Western, 10 Story Western Magazine, Texas Rangers, Three Western Novels Magazine, Thrilling Ranch Stories, Thrilling Ranch Stories, Thrilling Western, Thrilling Western, Top Western Fiction Annual, Triple Western, 2-Gun Western, Two Western Books, West, Western Ace High Stories, Western Aces, Western Love Romances, Western Novel and Short Stories, Western Novels, Western Rodeo Romances, Western Short Stories, Western Story, and Western Story Magazine.

Western novels

  • Move Along, Stranger
  • Border Buccaneers
  • Gun Lightning!
  • Gun Talk at Yuma
  • Vengeance Under Law
  • Dakota Boomtown
  • Fort Desperation
  • Blood Moon
  • Guns to Sonora
  • King of the Frontier
  • The Hungry Gun
  • Brand of Hate
  • Escape from Yuma
  • ''Lobo''

Lassiter series (as Jack Slade)

  • Sidewinder
  • The Badlanders
  • Hell at Yuma
  • Ride Into Hell
  • ''Blood River''

Crime and suspense novels

  • The Violent Hours
  • Dead - and Kicking
  • Lovely and Lethal
  • Murder in Red
  • Night After Night
  • Sanitarium of Tears
  • Wild in the Night
  • ''The Sowers of the Doom''

True crime

  • ''"Baby Face" Nelson''

Romance novels (as Helen B. Castle)

Historical novels

  • ''Nero''

Novelizations

Television tie-ins (as Cole Fannin)

  • Gene Autry and the Golden Stallion
  • Roy Rogers and the Brasada Bandits
  • Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys
  • Roy Rogers and Dale Evans in River of Peril
  • Rin Tin Tin and the Ghost Wagon Train
  • Sea Hunt
  • The Rifleman
  • The Real McCoys: Danger at the Ranch
  • Leave it to Beaver
  • ''Lucy and the Madcap Mystery''

Soft porn novels (as Val Munroe)

  • Carnival of Passion
  • Tender Hearted Harlot
  • After Hours
  • Sex Fever
  • The Naked View
  • Second-Year Intern
  • ''Doctors & Wives''

Short fiction

  • "B. Perrin, Proprietor"
  • "Bad Year, Bad Time"
  • "Beef, Bullets—and a Blonde"
  • "Beware That Yankee Lass!"
  • "Beware the Side-Winder Breed!"
  • "Blizzard Fugitive"
  • "Blow, Devil Wind!"
  • "Born Bad"
  • "Brasada Quest"
  • "Brothers in Blood"
  • "Burned-Out Range"
  • "Calamity Canyon"
  • "Choring for Board"
  • "Code of the Buckskin Breed"
  • "Command of the Damned"
  • "Coyote's Stooge"
  • ""Crawfish, Dude, or Drag Iron!""
  • "Curse of the Lost Trevinos"
  • "Cute 'n Caressable"
  • "Death Be My Judge"
  • "The Death Dealer"
  • "Death Rides Close"
  • "Destiny at Devil's Hole"
  • "Duty Rider"
  • "The Faceless Dead"
  • "Firewater Feud"
  • "Girl Behind a Star"
  • "Girl on His Mind, Gun in His Hand"
  • "A Gray Beard Buys In with Bullets"
  • "Gun Fight"
  • "Gun Shy"
  • "Gun-Hawk from El Paso"
  • "Gunman's Choice"
  • "Gunsmoke Crossing"
  • "Gunsmoke Graze"
  • "He Was at Grand Basin"
  • "He Wore a Gun His Wedding Night"
  • "Her Wild Brother"
  • "Hideout for Hoodoo"
  • "High Country Manhunt"
  • "Hot Lead Legend"
  • "Husband for a Redhead"
  • "Kid Lawhawk"
  • "A Killer Will Come Out of Texas"
  • "The Last Gun-Wolf"
  • "Loco Like a Texan"
  • "A Man's Job"
  • "Minx in the Moonlight"
  • "Mule Train from Ajo"
  • "Night in San Marcos"
  • "No Grass Is Free"
  • "Nobody Wins a Range War!"
  • "Once a Ramrod"
  • "One Against the Lynch-Mob"
  • "One Hell of a Blonde"
  • "One Night in Laramie"
  • "One-Man Woman"
  • "Outcasts of Bitter Wells"
  • "Outlaw"
  • "The Outlaw Takes a Blonde"
  • "Owlhoot Gal"
  • "Plew-Hunters for Perdition's Frontier!"
  • "Powdersmoke Parole"
  • "Powdersmoke Party"
  • "Queen of Satan's Crew"
  • "Queen of the Wild River"
  • "Range Bum"
  • "Rider from the Past"
  • "Riders of the Rio Moon"
  • "Rope Enough"
  • "Saddlepards—Until Guns Show!"
  • "The Scarlet Sign"
  • "Second Chance Sixes"
  • "The Sixgun in His Saddle-Roll"
  • "Someone to Side a Man"
  • "Summer Puncher"
  • "Take That Grass"
  • "Talking Cowboy"
  • "Tell It to the Texans!"
  • "Texans Die Hard"
  • "Time to Kill"
  • "Tough Road to Texas"
  • "Tough Town"
  • "Trail of the Seven Dead"
  • "Water Brings War"
  • "'We're Packing Irons This Time, Circle H!'"
  • "When Hell Hit Tascadero"
  • "Whiphand of the Wild Bunch"
  • "Widow of the Brush"
  • "Wild Night in Dodge"
  • "With Savvy or a Sixgun?"