Mountain Majesty #01 - Wild Country

The 1990s proved to be a fruitful era for pioneer westerns. While the mid-to-late 1800s frontier was typically the backdrop for western storytelling, these early pioneer sagas were different. Instead of gunslinger showdowns, cattle rustlers and the U.S. Calvary dominating the western fiction, authors like James Reasoner, William W. Johnstone and David Robbins often placed their westerns in earlier time periods in locations west of the Mississippi River. Six-guns and repeating rifles were sacrificed for tomahawks and flintlocks that captured the essence of the true frontiersman.

One of these series titles was Mountain Majesty. The series lasted eight total installments and was published by Bantam between 1992 and 1995 under house name John Killdeer. According to my research, the first six novels were authored by science-fiction, western and fantasy author Ardath Mayhar and the last two by David Robbins. My introduction to Mayhar and the series is the debut novel titled Wild Country (with beautiful gatefold artwork by Tom Hall).

The book centers around two protagonists who are culturally different. One is Cleve Bennett, a young man who runs away from home after being whipped mercilessly by his abusive father. When his mother attempts to intervene, Bennett's father turns his rage on her. On the defense, Bennett ends up assaulting his father and makes a wise choice to just leave his family and head into the majestic Northwest Territories to learn trapping.

The second series character is a Cheyenne woman named Second Son. After besting most of the male warriors in physical combat, Second Son achieves a level of respect that makes her a “man” within the tribe. She spends most of the narrative hunting, trapping and eventually fighting with a despicable French trapper named Henri Lavallette.

These 1990s pioneer sagas typically showcase the same genre tropes, and this one is no different. Readers are thrust into the Cheyenne customs and traditions when young Bennett is incorporated into the tribe through various physical trials. It's the proverbial “fish out of water” element that captivates the central story-line. While there isn't a lot of action, the tribe does face the villainous trapper and consistently feuds with the Blackfoot tribe.

If you enjoy early entries in The Last Mountain Man, Sacketts (chronologically) and Wagons West then certainly you'll enjoy this as well. From a writing perspective, I think the delivery and plot could have used some spark to compete with the above mentioned titles. Otherwise, this is another solid 1990s pioneer western that's sure to please.

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S.O.B.s #01 - The Barrabus Run

Author Jack Canon spent a majority of his action-adventure storytelling career firmly planted in the Nick Carter: Killmaster series. Canon penned over 40 novels of the series in the 1980s, but he was also contributing to a team-based combat series for Gold Eagle called S.O.B.s. The series debut, The Barrabus Run, features not only Canon but also two additional authors – David Wade (Executioner, Super Bolan) and Robin Hardy – all writing as Jack Hild. This team-commando series was published from 1983 through 1989 with a total of 33 installments. The Barrabus Run is my starting point with this beloved series.

The book's opening chapters introduces two key characters, protagonist Nile Barrabas and eventual team liaison and C.I.A. operative Walker Jessup. This early narrative explains that Barrabas was in the U.S. military from 1958 through his retirement in 1975. His career included extensive training at West Point before joining Special Warfare Training in Fort Bragg and Panama. The advancement led to his placement in a Vietnam Special Forces team. During the conflict, Barrabas received Silver Stars, a Distinguished Service Cross and the eventual Medal of Honor. Then he seemingly disappeared.

Now, Walker Jessup works for a shadowy Senator running administrative duties and delegating high-powered personnel into high-intensity situations. The Senator asks Jessup to run an operation in South Africa. There, the people of Kaluba are subjected to a puppet dictator and the U.S. wants to establish a different leader in his place – Noboctu. Only he is now being held prisoner by the puppet dictator's chief rival, a notorious terrorist named Mogabe. Mogabe wants to become the new dictator and is holding Noboctu prisoner until after Kaluba's elections are over. Follow me?

The formation of S.O.B.s (Sons of Barrabas or Soldiers of Barrabas) originates when this Senator requests that Jessup create a team of specialists who can do his international bidding. The team, described as a dirty strike-force, will perform assignments and tasks that are beneficial to America's security as well as its allies. To lead the group, Jessup picks Barrabas. The problem is that Barrabas has been off the radar performing international mercenary jobs. His most recent venture led to captivity in a Latin American prison awaiting execution. Jessup finds Barrabas there and makes him a deal. He'll spring Barrabas, ultimately saving his life, if Barrabas will come work for Jessup. 

Barrabas agrees to the deal and makes arrangements to recruit ten hardened operatives who fulfill the checklist for a team-based combat series – explosives, driver, sailor, Native American, general commando, etc. The wildcard is a female specialist who also serves as a doctor. The whole team makes for a dirty dozen.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the hell out of this series debut. I typically like my team-combat titles to feature no more than five members. It's easier to keep up with and a quick read through the recruitment stages. However, this trio of authors really made the recruitment compelling, an asset made even more valuable by making them a bit more vulnerable than the stereotypical “invincible white hats”. The obligatory training and exercise segments was paired with a narrative that featured Barrabas on solo assignments scoring guns, bombs and transportation. Otherwise, 11 people training for combat could have been uninspiring. 

When the mission begins, the authors never tap the brakes and provide for an explosive good time that served two distinct purposes – enjoyment and introducing a series villain in Karl Heiss.

If you love team-combat titles, S.O.B.s certainly seems like an easy choice. Based on this excellent debut, the series seems to possess the correct ratio of dialogue versus action. While this trio of authors will fragment, Robin Hardy takes over most of the series installments going forward. I hope to purchase and review more installments in the coming months. Stay tuned!

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Benedict and Brazos #01 - Aces Wild

Originally born in New South Wales, author Paul Wheelahan (1930-2018) began his career writing and illustrating comics like Captain Power, Sheena, Davy Crockett – Frontier Scout and The Panther.  By the 1960s, Australian comic publishing declined and Wheelahan joined Cleveland Publishing to begin writing western novels. From 1963 until his death, Wheelahan authored more than 800 novels using pseudonyms including Brett McKinley, Emerson Dodge and Ryan Brodie. My first experience with Wheelahan is his western series Benedict and Brazos. It was written under the pseudonym E. Jefferson Clay and ran 27 total installments throughout the 1980s. Since then, the series has partially been reprinted as ebooks by Piccadilly and glossy trade paperbacks through Bold Venture Press. The series debut, Aces Wild, is my first experience with Paul Wheelahan's work.

In the debut's third chapter, the reader learns that Duke Benedict was a Union Captain of Vermont's 10th Militia. Across Georgia's Pea Ridge was the enemy, Confederate Sergeant Hank Brazos. The Confederate’s mission was to escort a wagon containing $200K in gold into Mexico, a valuable treasury that was to eventually start a second Confederacy. At Pea Ridge, Brazos and Benedict face off only to find that they quickly become allies in fighting a bandit named Bo Rangle, the leader of a guerilla force calling itself Rangle's Raiders. After Rangle wins the fight, and steals the gold, Brazos and Benedict shake hands and go their separate ways.

After the war, Benedict becomes a sharp-dressed card sharp and womanizer. Brazos remains a burly brawler who saddle tramps from town to town. As destiny sees fit, the two run into each other in a hot-handed gambling town called Daybreak.

Wheelahan provides a number of narratives that entwine and capture the reader's attention. The first is that Bo Rangle has used some of the stolen gold to set-up a whorehouse governed by Rangle's lady-of-the-night Bellie. The second has a Christian woman's auxiliary hoping to eliminate Rangle's brothel through peaceful and political protesting. Third, a bounty hunter named Surprising Smith is leading a town posse after a trio of outlaws led by a vile villain named Sprod. With this crowded narrative, where do Benedict and Brazos fit?

Benedict is secretly searching for Rangle's gold while laying down some heavy swagger and charm with Rangle's flirtatious Bellie and Smith's luscious girlfriend. Brazos brawls his way through a few bar-room escapades and eventually meets up with Benedict and learns about his plan to find and recover the gold. Striking up a deal – sort of – the two work together to fight the outlaws and recover the gold.

The series' two main characters aren't necessarily the stars of the show. Often I found myself wondering just when the deadly duo were going to slap leather and gun down the baddies. In a rather abstract approach, Wheelahan prolongs the dialogue and set-up and allows some of the other action to play out in separate narratives. Eventually the duo gain some footing that culminates into the proverbial showdown, but it takes a little while to get there. It's clear that the author had plenty of irons in the fire with a busy narrative that has a little something for everyone. The through story originates with the missing gold and Benedict and Brazos deciding to ride off into the next books searching for Rangle and the treasure. That's the series premise and it's probably enough for readers to stick around to learn more.

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 88

On Episode 88 of the Paperback Warrior podcast, Tom and Eric have a heart to heart conversation about the future of the podcast. We also re-visit the life and literary work of Frank E. Smith, the Gothic paperback craze of the 1960s & 1970s, new Stark House Press releases, and Tom's secret work life is finally revealed! Listen on any podcast app, stream below or download directly HERE

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The Hard Corps #01 - The Hard Corps

After their re-branding from Pyramid, the Jove publishing house experienced a retail bonanza in the mid-1980s. At the height of post-Vietnam War action films like Missing in Action and Platoon, Jove launched a plethora of hard-hitting, hi-octane team-commando series titles like M.I.A. Hunter and The Guardians as well as the novelizations for Rambo II and III. Another series title that Jove introduced to the market was The Hard Corps. It ran eight total installments from 1986 through 1989 and was written under the house name of Chuck Bainbridge. In reality, the series was mostly written by William Fieldhouse (M.I.A. Hunter) and Chris Lowder (Deathlands #01). Fieldhouse's efforts are mostly the early volumes with Lowder writing the series' later installments. The eponymous debut, The Hard Corps, is my first experience with the series.

At 320-pages, this paperback is loaded from cover to cover with action. The book begins with The Hard Corps team liberating a Mexican couple from a terrorist group for a million bucks. This early onslaught showcases the five-man team in their element – violently blowing away the bad guys. After the mission, readers are introduced to the team and the series premise.

The Hard Corps is led by William O' Neal, a former Green Beret captain who excels in all combat situations. John McShayne is the team's primary caregiver, a Korean War vet that handles inventory, cooking and some accounting. Joe Fanelli is the obligatory explosives guy. James Wentworth is O'Neal's second in command and a samurai sword expert. Rounding out the bunch is Steve Caine, my personal favorite. Caine is sort of a loner, a survivalist who is comfortable in the wilderness, an expert in blades and designs various traps to ensnare and kill enemies.

These five guys are all Vietnam vets who served together as a fighting force in Southeast Asia. Now they are mercenaries with a unique relationship with the U.S. government. The C.I.A. and F.B.I. promise to leave The Hard Corps alone as long as they share their valuable intel and also agree to do a few odd jobs for the U.S. brass every so often. The team's C.I.A. liaison is a guy nicknamed Saintly.

The Hard Corps are probably the most organized and efficient team in action-adventure literature. Their compound is located in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest. It's here that they live, train, park their choppers and do all of the mission planning. As such, it's unusual when a small team of Vietnamese rebels land a chopper at the team's headquarters.

Unbeknownst to O'Neal and company, Saintly has instructed these rebels to find safety with the Hard Corps. The reasoning behind the safekeeping is that these rebels are being hunted by almost 100 Vietnamese government operatives. Before you groan and ask how this many communist soldiers are in the U.S. undetected, let me stop you. You see the Soviet Union's K.G.B. operatives have secret locations along the Pacific coast. It's easy for the K.G.B. to assist in getting these Vietnamese operatives through the U.S.'s southern border undetected. With this many assassins hunting the freedom fighters, the Hard Corps quickly realize that their unwanted guests have brought plenty of baggage. Their entire compound is surrounded and the rebels are their target.

Fieldhouse uses this double-sized debut to not only tell a story but to also dedicate whole chapters to each team member. In long backstories, Fieldhouse showcases each member's childhood and their natural evolution from the streets to the jungle. Some stories were captivating while others were a bit of a snooze. The book's central focus is simply The Hard Corps holding off waves of enemy forces with high-capacity guns and Earth-quaking explosives. The author's descriptions of guns and other weaponry was thankfully held to a minimum but the violence factor was amped pretty high. This series isn't for the squeamish.

At 320-pages, I mostly enjoyed the book but honestly skipped through some of the biographical sections. With so many of these titles, and so little time, I wanted the meat and potatoes action more than an emotional war story about brothers in arms. Regardless, The Hard Corps is one of the better 80s team-commando series titles and remains fairly respected decades later. If you like Phoenix Force, Eagle Force and S.O.B.s, you'll be at home with The Hard Corps.

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The Long Tattoo

During the 1960s, Jerrold Mundis used the pseudonym of Eric Corder to write five historical fiction novels about the American slave trade and its aftermath. While the books have chronological continuity with a few recurring characters, the author told me they can be read in any order as stand-alone novels. The Long Tattoo is his 1968 paperback about a black regiment fighting in the American Civil War. It’s available today under the Mundis name. 

Labe is a simple and good-hearted slave working as a blacksmith on the Crawford Plantation. One day, three men from the pro-slavery Confederate States of America visit the plantation asking Mr. Crawford to donate some blacks to help support the fight against the anti-slavery Yankees. Labe is volunteered for the job and the next daybreak, he’s off with the rebels. 

The conscripted men meet up with others of their ilk and are marched up to South Carolina under the crack of whips to construct a Confederate fort. Rumors start spreading among the men that if they defect to the Yankee’s side, they’ll be set free from the bonds of slavery. It’s also in South Carolina that Rafe first encounters Bryerson’s Butchers, an Alabama unit of straight-up killers and psychopaths with no patience for Yankees or blacks. 

Acts of cruelty and humiliation targeting slaves abound at the South Carolina fort. Meanwhile, word comes back from soldiers on the front line that the Union was not just freeing blacks but arming them and encouraging them to join the fight against the Confederates. As such, it’s no surprise when Labe slips away from his new masters and defects to the Federal side of the war. 

Labe falls into a Company comprised of escaped slaves under the command of a light-skinned educated black from Massachusetts. The training sequences that transform Labe from an undisciplined slave into a soldier and marksman were fantastic. The narrative lens widens to give the reader a look at the tactical decisions being made as Union troops roll through the South. 

It takes awhile to get there, but the combat scenes starring Labe’s unit are vivid and exciting. I would have liked more of them to emulate the brutality of an Edge western, but they were mostly satisfying - particularly as they lead to the reckoning between Labe’s guys and the terrifying Bryerson’s Butchers from earlier in the novel. 

Overall, The Long Tattoo was a good - but not amazing - combat paperback. The evolution of Labe from slave to soldier was well-told and the fictionalization of Civil War battles seemed realistic enough. The paperback was more historical fiction than pulp fiction, but worth reading if the plot concept appeals to you.

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The Violent Ones

Howard Hunt was a CIA operative, political burglar and author. Using his own name or pseudonyms including Robert Dietrich, David St. John, Gordon Davis and P.S. Donoghue, Hunt wrote over 50 crime-noir and spy novels in the mid-20th Century. Several of these were on Fawcett Gold Medal including the author's seventh novel, The Violent Ones. It was originally published in 1950 and most recently reprinted by Cutting Edge and Armchair Fiction. 

The novel stars Cameron, a rugged WW2 veteran who has recently been released from prison after paralyzing a man who was sleeping with Cameron's mendacious wife. The prison stint left Cameron with very little purpose and even less money. To solve both issues, Cameron travels to France to reunite with his old war buddy Thorne for a potential heist.

It's explained that during the war the allies dropped arms and gold to the Maquisards, a fierce underground band of French Resistance fighters. After the war was over and the Germans were gone, no one bothered to locate the whereabouts of these guns and riches. In 1945, the gold was cached by certain parties and left undetected. Now, five years later, Thorne finds himself in debt to a local gambling house and forced to make a daring venture to clear his account. Teaming with Cameron, the duo aim to move the gold to Switzerland undetected by authorities. After one night in the city, Cameron finds Thorne murdered. Who killed him? Who else is after the gold?

The upside is that Cameron is a great character, and I loved his backstory with the cheating wife and his two love interests in the novel. Both were just so sexy and Hunt expertly describes these encounters. The main problem, and there are many, is that Cameron isn't a formidable hero. He is routinely assaulted by the enemy and left to mend his wounds for another chance. He's just so average in terms of respectability but has the makings of a tough guy – war veteran, paralyzing his wife's lover, chick magnet. Further, I couldn't grasp the dense, overly contrived plot. Even Cameron seems confused with what's happening with the gold and just summarizes the confusion with a lackadaisical “I guess that makes sense?” statement.

My largest complaint is that Hunt uses this book as a way to boast of his knowledge of French locales and cuisine. Large parts of the book are in French – names, dialogue, food, wine, hotels, bars – and I found myself missing key moments of the story due to the language barrier. Hunt was a legit spy and his expertise in European affairs with the likes of Russian commisars, the Tireurs-et-Partisans, the FTP (?) and the Maquisards is impressive. I wanted a slick action-adventure novel with treasure seekers, paid assassins and beautiful women but Hunt failed to produce a compelling story among these unnecessary details. 

Nevertheless, I'm happy I read the book, and I still have a lot of respect for Hunt's writing and the numerous novels he produced. However, they aren't all gems and The Violent Ones proves that.

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