Ace reporter Doc Wasabassco was on the scene at the Hard Case Crime 50th Anniversary party last week at the Explorers club.

Pulp editor Charles Ardai was talking up a new series of books called The Adventures of Gabriel Hunt. The series is intended to be to pulp adventure fiction what Hard Case Crime is to pulp crime fiction with gorgeous painted covers and seat-of-the-pants storytelling all in the service of the sort of globetrotting, high-adrenaline yarn you might have found once in a novel by H. Rider Haggard or Indiana Jones film (the first three, not the last one).

Hanging out in the Explorers Club was like being in Bruce Wayne's Manor, made all the better by the sultry GiGi La Femme singing torch songs.

The first Gabriel Hunt novel will arrive in bookstores next May and you can see Gigi La Femme perform live (with a lot less clothing) in Revealed Burlesque this Wednesday night at Under St. Marks theater in NYC.