Soldier of Fortune #3 - Spoils of War

Author Peter McCurtin launched the Soldier of Fortune series of men's action-adventure novels in the 1970s starring Jim Rainey, a Vietnam War veteran who became a mercenary. The series ran from 1976 through 1978, and was resurrected for a continuation from 1984 through 1985. Mostly, the series was authored by McCurtin, but Ralph Hayes also penned seven installments. I've had a blast reading the series and continue the enjoyment with the third installment, Spoils of War, written by McCurtin and published by Tower in 1977. 

The series begins with Rainey on a business trip in Jerusalem. In and out of getting laid by a beautiful language expert, Rainey learns through the grapevine that a notorious assassin named Maltese has been hired by an unknown banana country to kill him. These opening chapters have Rainey prowling the streets finding informers that could lead him to Maltese instead of the other way around. In the fast-paced, explosive early chapters, Rainey and Maltese square off in a hotel and those scenes alone are worth handling a filthy old paperback for an hour or two. 

These books have a pattern similar to the Assignment series by Edward S. Aarons. The hero is hired or assigned an international case involving the overthrow of a dictator, protecting a targeted leader, or quelling a rebellion. The pattern is the hero learns the history of the conflict, scouts the lay of the land, and then hires locals to train for assistance in stopping the global danger. 

In Spoils of War, Rainey takes a $3,500 per month job to fight for the Christians in Lebanon. The Lebanese government is experiencing a conflict between the Muslims and Christians (no shit) that they want to keep as peaceful as possible. But, the Muslims have been angered so they have captured a Christian village and have begun to systematically execute villagers each day until their demands are met. Lebanese's central government doesn't want to involve their military for fear of panic and hysteria. So, a discreet operation to retake the village and kill the Muslims is where Rainey's services are required. 

Needless to say, this series is exceptional and McCurtin's plotting is superb. Not only is the curtain jerker skirmish fantastic, but once the plot unveils with Rainey's newest gig, the novel hits a new level. What I love about these books is Rainey's interaction with the local governments and training killers. I also really admire Rainey's attitude that he will fight for any side if the money is right. But, his golden rule is once he's accepted and committed to one side, he is never convinced or lured to the enemy with more money. He is a man of his word and I find that admirable. 

Spoils of War is brutally violent, fast-paced, and chock-full of gunfire, fisticuffs, traitors, assassins, murder, and some surprising dialogue on the absurdity of these types of wars. If you love men's action-adventure novels, you need to be reading this series. Recommended!

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Gutter Road

Many authors have shied away from their early work in the sleaze/soft-core paperback market, but science-fiction royalty Robert Silverberg has made peace with his checkered past allowing Stark House Press to reprint his steamy crime-fiction-adjacent works. The latest vintage reprint is a double, including his 1964 novel Gutter Road, originally released under his Don Elliott pseudonym.

The paperback begins with 38 year-old, married accountant Fred Bauman picking up a stacked female hitchhiker (Reviewer Note: Silverberg is totally a breast man). The young babe is Joanne, and she strikes Fred as a sex-positive kinda gal with an aggressively flirtatious streak. In fact, she teases Fred into such a sexual lather that he forces himself upon her in what we’d call a date-rape by today’s standards.

After their car-bang is fully consummated, Joanne shifts gears and blackmails Fred. She wants $5,000 or she’s going to the cops with a load of his DNA to report his suburban ass for sexual assault. She gives him a couple days to pull the money together before disappearing into the night.

We quickly learn that this isn’t Joanne's first rodeo. In fact, the date-rape-blackmail game is her go-to source of income. Previously, she worked as a prostitute and a dominatrix, but the fake-rape business just pays better. She also has a vibrant, consensual sex life with a hoodlum named Buddy, and Silverberg certainly knows his way around a good 1960s-style sex scene.

There are a handful of side characters and family members in the novel, and Silverberg gives us a peek into each of their secret sex lives. Some of this felt like filler, but it was always well written and compelling. The problem with Gutter Road is that there’s not much of a story arc throughout the novel other than the beginning and the resolution. Otherwise, it’s really just a cycle of sex scenes among the cast of dysfunctional characters.

I will add that the last part of the book finally becomes a crime novel once Fred decides to deal with the problem of Joanne the blackmailer head-on. The climactic sequences are pretty great and in total keeping with the dark, violent, twisty conclusions of the best Manhunt stories from the same era.

Overall, I enjoyed Gutter Road. It was an interesting glimpse into societal norms and taboos from 60 years ago. Even with his early sex books, Silverberg could deliver interesting characters and some damn fine prose with a violent conclusion. I’m glad he and Stark House are making these old novels available.

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Barsoom #01 - A Princess of Mars

In the same year that he created and authored Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs also introduced readers to John Carter of Mars, an equally adored and respected character that would surface in the author's bibliography from 1912 through 1941. The first appearance of Carter is in A Princess of Mars, originally published in All-Story Magazine from February through July, 1912. This novel-length adventure is an original tale that cornerstones the Barsoom series.

After the Civil War ends, Virginia Confederate veteran John Carter heads west to prospect for gold. With his partner, Carter finds a gold vein in the dry rocky desert of Arizona. When his partner agrees to head to town for supplies, Carter suspects that the Apache tribe of Native Americans will attack him. Riding in pursuit, Carter discovers his friend has been killed by the warriors. Hoping to avoid death himself, Carter stumbles upon a sacred cave that is actually a “stargate” portal. In a blink, Carter is surprised when he looks around at his surroundings. He is on Mars!

Burroughs spends some time for world building, but the short version is that Mars, called Barsoom, is inhabited by various races of intelligence that wage war with each other. Carter finds himself a prisoner of green, tusked Martians known as Tharks. Carter wants to locate other humans, and is shocked to find Dejah Thoris, a captured princess from Helium, a red “humanoid” Martian race.

The narrative is a bit clunky, but the premise is that Carter rises through the ranks of the Tharks while falling in love with Dejah and befriending a Thark warrior named Tars Tarkas. Eventually, Carter leads the Tharks against Helium's enemy Zodanga to achieve peace between the red and green. As the book closes, readers learn that Carter spent nine years on Mars, but it ends with the character unexpectedly back on Earth wondering what befell his friends on the red planet.

I'm motivated enough by Princess of Mars to pursue reading more installments. I much prefer Burroughs' Tarzan novels thus far, but this first Barsoom novel was entertaining enough. The story is a showpiece for science-fiction fantasy, inspiring countless authors and filmmakers. One can journey down any pop-culture or literary rabbit hole to learn more about the series and its legacy. If you love science-fiction, the Barsoom series is probably already on your shelves. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Conan - Lair of the Ice Worm

“The Lair of the Ice Worm” was authored by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. It was first published in Conan of Cimmeria, a 1969 omnibus published by Lancer Books, then later by Ace. The story was also published in the Sphere Books collection The Conan Chronicles and adapted into comic book form in Savage Sword of Conan #34. 

The story picks up after the events of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" as a twenty-something Conan is trudging through the snowfall in Aesir. A short distance away, Conan sees a young woman being attacked by savage men resembling Neanderthals. Soon, Conan is slicing his way to the woman's rescue, but his horse is killed in the battle. In an eerie premonition, the girl warns Conan of something ominous called a Yakhmar, but Conan (and readers) isn't sure what that is.

Finding shelter in a cave, Conan makes love to the girl by the firelight. He awakens to discover the girl is no longer in the cave. With the icy conditions outside, Conan fears something may have happened to her. Outside, he follows a trail that leads to two skeletons, one of the girl and another of his horse. Both have been picked clean of all flesh and oddly enveloped in ice. Conan begins to think that this Yakhmar thing is actually a Remora, a giant vampire-like worm. Feeling responsible for the girl's death, Conan tracks the worm's trail to an icy cave. Will he escape this fiendish assault of Remora?

An eerie atmosphere and ambiance prevails throughout this short fantasy story. There's the obvious elements of horror, complete with a worm-like creature squirming under the icy tundra. It was this sort of vibe that made me think of Lovecraft in a broader horror sense. The early battle with the savages was written well and contained the sweeping adventure that REH's Conan stories frequently possessed. As an aside, the brawny hero had no resistance in bedding down the beauty of the story, another obvious trope of Conan storytelling.

Overall, this was another great short story told by de Camp and Carter. It certainly fits into the Conan of Cimmeria collection alongside "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and "Queen of the Black Coast" in terms of extreme locations. There's nothing about the story to really dislike. Recommended.

The Gilded Hideaway

Peter Twist was a pseudonym employed by a U.S. Air Force veteran and Civil Engineer named Charles Peter Hewett (1922-1980) for a single novel called The Gilded Hideaway released as an Ace paperback in 1955. The book has found new life as part of a triple-shot of Ace paperbacks released by Stark House under the title Three Aces due in May 2023.

The novel’s opening paragraph sucks you right in:

“You may remember reading a few years back about a guy who stole a hundred thousand dollars and skipped. The newspapers played him up big for a while and then said he had been caught and the money recovered. That was a lie. He was never caught. I was the guy.”

Our narrator is Robert West, a Long Island office manager for his uncle’s general contracting business - building garages and whatnot for suburban families. He’s clearly growing restless of his conventional life with his shrew of a wife and his dead-end job. He’s a man with a lust for adventure and larceny in his heart.

Robert embarks on a pretty elaborate bank fraud scheme, and if you have an appetite for white collar crime, you’ll likely enjoy this aspect quite a bit. However, the majority of the novel is the getaway when Robert makes his way to Mexico with the dough in search of a new life.

The novel becomes a bit of a relationship drama with romance evolving in Mexico, where Robert is laying low. Stick with it, though, as the crime story finds its way back to the paperback’s central dilemma as Robert learns that he’s not as hard to find as he hoped. And, yes, there’s some brain-splattering violence for the action fans.

The biographical information I have on the author indicates that he lived and worked in Mexico for much of his adult life. In many ways, the novel is his way of explaining the culture, regions and people of Mexico in or around 1955. The author’s choice of the pen name “Twist” was deliciously on-the-nose as the twists and double-crosses come fast and furious as the simple plot ripens.

And what an ending! If you can handle some dark and sick scenes of violence, you’ll love this book as much as I did. My only regret is that the author never wrote another novel. If you have this one yellowing on your shelf, drop everything and read it. If you don’t, pick up the Stark House reprint. You won’t regret it. Buy it HERE.

Red Sonja #03 - When Hell Laughs

The fiery redheaded barbarian, created by Roy Thomas Jr. and Barry Windsor Smith, first appeared in Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian #23. Since then, she's flourished as a prominent character in Conan's Hyborian Kingdom, created by Robert E. Howard, and pop-culture. I've been slowly reading the Red Sonja paperback series, consisting of six original novels published by Ace between 1981-1983. Enjoying the first two installments, I was hoping the third entry, When Hell Laughs, would continue with the same quality. To my surprise, this is the best installment yet.

After a few pages of When Hell Laughs, I came to the conclusion that the book's authors, David C. Smith and Richard Tierney, were inspired by the 1981 theatrical film Escape from New York. In that film, all of Manhattan is surrounded by a wall and inside are the worst hardened criminals, each sentenced to life terms on the prison island. Inside the walls, it is a total martial law with prisoners having complete freedom to do anything they choose. No guards, no cells, just total anarchy. 

In this Red Sonja novel, the Isle of Os Harku, situated on the Shirki River in Aquilonia, serves as a giant prison isle. The worst traitors, thieves, and murderers are sent to life sentences at Os Harku. The island's prisoners are ruled by the prisoners themselves with a survival of the fittest way of life. In particular, readers are introduced to the novel's chief villain among villains, a Shemite sorcerer named Athu. He learns that a portion of the island is a shunned hillside called Swordskull. It is here that Athu makes a pact with an ancient god to free him from prison. In exchange for corpses and blood, this god will create a way for Athu to escape.

On the river, Sonja is enjoying some rest on a passenger ship sailing down the Shirki River. In these early pages, the character is perhaps the most “human”, enjoying comfy quarters and an actual bed. Further, she looks in a full body mirror to examine her figure and eats at a large buffet table with wealthy aristocrats. It is a really interesting aspect to the character that is rarely seen. But, the contrast plays into the narrative later as Sonja debates the posh life versus the unruly nomadic one. The ship's festivities come to a violent end when a storm, created by this ancient god, crashes the boat onto the rocky coast of Os Harku. 

Although it borrows from other stories, and the premise of Escape from New York, the concept of this ship and its passengers becoming trapped on an island of psychotic maniacs is really clever. As the ship washes up on the shore at night, the authors describe what the passengers immediately see – shadows with knives running in the horizon, figures walking towards the boat, crazy men with crude weapons falling on top of the boat from the darkened trees. Obviously, this is atmospheric survival horror at its best. 

As the panic begins to ensue, Sonja realizes she is the only one with a weapon. Eventually, the narrative expands beyond the confines of the ship to incorporate two rescue crews, internal strife between key villains, and Athu's frightening promise coming to fruition. The finale is rock-solid as Sonja and survivors fight a giant mud monster. 

Needless to say, the body count is extremely high with gory action and suspenseful adventure befitting of the book's ominous title. From the story's exciting premise and concept to Red Sonja's human elements being presented in a new way, this book is worth every penny. It will fetch a higher amount on the market, mostly for Boris Vallejo's cover art, but don't let that steer you away.

Black Mouth

We continue to make our way through horror author Ronald Malfi's bibliography, including his prior publications as well as brand new ones. The Brooklyn native's debut, The Space Between, was published in 2000. His 2011 novel Floating Staircase was nominated for a Bram Stoker award. Collectively, the author has 27 novels and novellas published with his newest, Black Mouth, released in 2022. 

Black Mouth has a familiar horror premise that was popularized by Stephen King in his iconic novel It. The concept is that troubled adults reunite to combat a terror they experienced in their childhood. In this case, Jamie, an alcoholic construction worker, receives a notification that his mother has died. Facing his fears, Jamie returns to West Virginia to reunite with his disabled brother. But, the duo begin to experience the horrors from their childhood regarding a mysterious one-eyed magician. The terror stems from a black pit leading to the town's closed mining shaft.

The supporting characters are Mia and Clay, both of which were Jamie's childhood friends that experienced the trauma as well. Jamie contacts them and soon the foursome are reunited to track down the magician. The author includes a wild card with a hooker-killing lunatic that is also haunted by the magician. The narrative travels from present day events to the 1990s, offering two time periods for readers.

Black Mouth offers a wild emotional ride as these adults, and kids, face small town horrors as well as their own personal traumas. The idea of the evil magician reminded me of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, with an elevated dose of violence and murder. While disturbing, Black Mouth never offered any truly chilling scares, instead focusing on a more visceral level than physical. There were a few surprises, some laughs and cries, and a genuine, heartfelt camaraderie between the characters that helped solidify the story. While not Malfi's best, the talented author is still miles ahead of his contemporaries. Black Mouth is a recommended read. 

Get your copy HERE.