“Vengeance is Mine” is the sixth 'Buffalo Hunter' book. It was released by Manor in 1978 and continues the saga of vigilante/hunter O'Brien. Author Ralph Hayes loves creating impossible moments for this protagonist and “Vengeance is Mine” is no different.
The opening pages has O'Brien out hunting for buffalo with his trademark Sharps. He receives some unwanted visitors at his campfire and quickly finds himself staring down three barrels. Two are Cameron boys – an older brute named Darcy and his violent 12-year old brother Billy Joe. The third, Emmett, is a hand on the Cameron farm. When the shooting begins, O'Brien ducks behind some horses and can only watch as Darcy accidentally shoots Billy Joe. O'Brien then kills Darcy. Emmett runs off to the Cameron ranch to report that O'Brien killed Darcy and Billy Joe in cold blood.
Ranch owner and father Silas Cameron and his two remaining sons put a warrant out for O'Brien's arrest. Soon, a posse catches up to the surprised O'Brien and they violently assault him. On the verge of death, O'Brien is then tied to a horse and dragged through the desert rocks. Emmett and the posse leave O'Brien to die under the hot sun. But it will take more than that to kill this seemingly immortal cowboy.
An old rancher named Jarvis stumbles on the dying O'Brien and brings him back to his house. After nursing him back to health, O'Brien gains his strength and begins to help the old man with hunting and farming as repayment. While he's out hunting, more baddies stumble upon Jarvis, tie him to a chair and ruthlessly beat him. When they learn that Jarvis has no money or belongings, the group decides to kill him. But, O'Brien is hunting them from outside and Ralph Hayes absolutely shows no mercy. Our Buffalo Hunter SLAUGHTERS the group with a combination of knife, fists and bullets. This is the 70s and this western series is about as violent as it gets.
As O'Brien is getting back on the buffalo trail, he's arrested in Willow Creek by a backwoods sheriff and deputy. They throw him in jail and then work out a way for the town to lynch him by spreading rumors that O'Brien is a child killer. Meanwhile, Silas has paid a quick draw gunfighter named Waco Kid to hunt down O'Brien and kill him. As O'Brien is treed with a noose at the hands of the town, the Waco Kid shows up to save O'Brien...just so he can drag him back to Cameron and kill him there. Later, O'Brien kills Waco only to find that he is now hunted by the law, Cameron and a ton of drifters and hardmen looking for O'Brien's head for reward money.
On the run with his Sharps, knife and Winchester rifle, O'Brien finds that a specific bounty hunter named Certainty Sumner is on his back trail. He heads to the town of Sulphur Creek, a familiar place to fans of the series. This town was freed from outlaws by O'Brien in the first book, “Gunslammer”. Only now the town has reversed their outlook and wants to sling up O'Brien for money. The finale has a vicious cycle of violence as events come full circle and O'Brien fights a town, the law, bounty hunters and Cameron.
What is really interesting about this book is the appearance of Certainty Sumner. In this one, Sumner is a bounty hunter and really a bad guy. But, Hayes has two later novels featuring a bounty hunter named Wesley Sumner (“Lawless Breed”, “Way of the Gun”) – who may or may not be the same guy. In those books, Sumner is a more likable character but still a killer. If you read this particular novel...well you get what eventually happens to Sumner. But I won't ruin it for you.
If you like Ralph Hayes, then you will certainly love this novel. It has all of the characteristics that make this author so enjoyable – clearly defined good guy, vile criminals, over-the-top violence and a lighting fast pace. “Vengeance is Mine” is just about the best of the series, but I still have a handful of these books left to read including a few that Hayes says are at the top of his writing game. We'll see how it shakes out...but this one is really hard to beat.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Stephen Frances apparently sold over 10 million copies of his popular “Hank Janson” series, but his “John Gail” spy novels never gained much sales traction during their seven-book run. This is a particular shame as the novels were a gritty and human take on the James Bond spy craze that dominated men’s adventure fiction in the 1960s.
John Gail is an operative for PLEADON, a shadowy, private spy organization financed by a group of benevolent millionaires seeking greater justice and security around the world. As “Hate is for the Hunted” opens, Gail is growing bored and restless in London living the life of a millionaire on his benefactor’s dime. He is itching for more assassin work and wants his next clandestine assignment. This is particularly fascinating since he started the series as a broke, pacifist, Philosophy major selling encyclopedias door-to-door in London.
The new assignment involves locating and rescuing a sexy female PLEADON operative who has fallen off the grid during an undercover assignment as a prostitute in a high-end brothel. Could the female agent’s disappearance somehow tie into the recent death of another operative who was involved with exclusive and secretive hedonist society?
While the first three John Gail books were espionage and political adventures, this one is more of a straightforward undercover investigation novel. The secret society penetrated by Gail is pretty interesting - think “Eyes Wide Shut” meets “Django Unchained” - until the story evolves into “The Most Dangerous Game” territory. Frances’ plotting and pacing are superb. My only quibble with his writing style is his instinctive pulp author habit of using exclamation points to build excitement in the narrative! This was a practice that action writers should have outgrown by 1968! Although it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story, it was definitely hard to ignore!
Overall, this was a decent paperback for the genre and era, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good as books 1-3 of the series. This one stands alone as its own story more so than the first three novels, but the overall quality is diminished a tad. It’s still a good, action-filled story with plenty of kinky sexual situations and shocking violence - as well as an excellent final 50 pages. Recommended.
Postscript - Series Order Controversy:
There is some confusion regarding the proper numbering of the John Gail books. According to Stephen Frances’ biographer, Steve Holland (author of “The Trials of Hank Janson”), the John Gail series was originally released by U.K.’s Mayflower Books in the following order:
This Woman Is Death
To Love and Yet to Die
The Sad and Tender Flesh (The Ambassador’s Plot)
Hate is for The Hunted
The Sweet Shame of Fury
The Caress of Conquest
Cry for my Lovely
However, Award Books only released volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 in the United States. You’ll need to find British editions of books 5 and 7 to be a completist. Moreover, none of the paperbacks have been digitized into eBooks, and my sources in contact with the author’s estate tell me there are no plans to give the John Gail books a new life in the 21st Century. And that’s a shame.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Carter Brown (real name: Alan Yates) was a British author living in Australia who wrote mystery paperbacks about American detectives. His most popular character was police detective Al Wheeler, and the books in that series were a ton of fun.
It was quite a publishing coup when Stark House Books won the right to reprint early Al Wheeler books that were never published in the U.S. The second volume of Stark House’s Carter Brown collection contains a helpful introduction by Rick Ollerman followed by three Al Wheeler books originally published in Australia in 1956:
“No Harp for My Angel”
“Booty for a Babe”
“Eve, It’s Extortion”
The story synopsis said that “No Harp for My Angel” takes place in Florida (home of Paperback Warrior Headquarters), so that was the one I chose to read and review this round.
As advertised, the short novel opens with California police detective Al Wheeler on holiday in Ocean Beach, Florida. Because he’s on vacation and because this is a Carter Brown book, he spends a fair amount of his vacation time trying to get laid. This quest leads Wheeler to hit on a hot chick in a bar whose date is Johnny Lynch, the mysterious new tough guy in Ocean Beach who owns a gambling joint. An altercation ensues putting Wheeler on the wrong side of Lynch’s ire - as well as Zero, Lynch’s right hand man, who looks and acts like an “overgrown gorilla.”
With the central conflict of the paperback firmly established, Wheeler is pressed into service to investigate the disappearances of several young women in Ocean Beach since Lynch and his goons blew into town. Because Wheeler has no legal authority in Florida, he assumes an undercover persona to conduct his investigation.
Thereafter, it’s a pretty standard mystery novel. The sex in 1950s Carter Brown is rather toned down compared to his work in later decades, but the story structure is about the same. His work has always been an easy - but satisfying - read. He wasn’t necessarily a master of the genre, but once he figured out his formula for success, he rode that pony for a long time and sold a lot of books in the process. No harm done there.
As time has gone by, Carter Brown paperbacks have become scarce on used bookstore shelves. As such, the Stark House revival of his work is coming at exactly the right time, and “No Harp For My Angel” is a fine entry-point into this iconic series. Recommended.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Narc was a violent 7-book run published between 1973-1975. The debut, simply titled Narc, was released by Lancer (Enforcer, Conan). The remainder of the series was published under the Signet brand. The author's name on the cover is Robert Hawkes, but this is really Marc Olden of Black Samurai fame.
The “Narc” is John Bolt, a former New York City blue who comes down hard on police corruption. Lying in a hospital bed, Bolt meets a guy named Craven and is told about the Department of Dangerous Drugs (D3). They offer him $25,000 a year, ten weeks of training in DC and assignments all over the country working strictly narcotics. The book opens six years into Bolt's career with D3. Our hero is in La Playa with five other narcotics agents to arrest Antoine Georges Peray, a major player pushing $2 billion in heroin. This opening scene has a convoy of cars carrying Peray, Bolt, agents and local enforcers to the airport. Peray's guerilla fighters descend on the convoy in an effort to free their man. In what could be the best opening pages of any book, we find Bolt using a .45 and sawed-off shotgun as he weaves between and under cars cutting off the guerillas at the knees. His own men turn on him and we immediately realize that Bolt is an absolute badass. It's a massive firefight that has Bolt utilizing grizzly methods to bring Peray into the US. Unfortunately, this opening scene is really the best part of the book. The rest is about average.
The novel focuses on a high-profile dealer in the US named St. James Livingston. Livingston has shut down all of the drug traffic in NYC while awaiting a massive shipment from Peray. His drought has increased tensions and hostilities in the city with users needing fixes and dealers needing cabbage. With Bolt capturing Peray, it clogs up the pipeline. Needing the drugs and the big payout, Livingston puts hits on Bolt, including targeting Bolt's girlfriend Pavanne. There's numerous side stories including Peray's daughter and a former colleague named Zan. The narrative is propelled with Bolt infiltrating gangs, Narc teams and collaborating with local law enforcement to stop Peray's shipment of white death into New York.
This Narc debut is an effective, gritty 1970s action vehicle. While the beginning is clearly the best Olden has to offer, the average continuation of the storytelling is worth the price of admission. With Olden's writing style I was reminded of the equally good The Liquidator run by Larry Powell. It's a similar character with both authors writing in the same vein. Quick, punchy with equal shares of dialogue and action – Narc is definitely a good start to a well-respected series.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
The prior 'Hunter' novel, debut “Scavenger Kill”, introduced us to former Green Beret John Yard. In that book, Yard is presented as a wealthy entrepreneur who guides big game hunts in the Nairobi area of Africa. He teamed with his colleague, African police officer Moses Ngala, to stage the first “vigilante” styled hunt and kill. The target was an unscrupulous pharmaceutical company headed by a gelatinous villain named Lavalle. “Scavenger Kill” was on an international scope, ranging from Canada to London. I liked Ralph Hayes ambition to write in a more epic fashion and he continues that trend with this second series installment.
“Night of the Jackals” begins at Camp Pritcher Army base in Georgia. It's a special forces training facility ruled by a notorious Hitler-like Captain named Ernst Rohmer. The opening has a young black man, Wendell Jefferson, ordered to do the old “dig a grave and then fill it back in” routine. His superior, Sergeant Pruitt, issues an abundance of thunderous racial slurs and threats, provoking Jefferson to attack him. The end result is imprisonment in the stockade.
Wendell's brother, Aron, a decorated Vietnam veteran, visits the stockade demanding to know what has happened. He quickly discovers Pruitt's racism and that Rohmer is running the base. It's here where we learn that Rohmer had fought for the Third Reich, and later contracted his services all over the globe as a commanding soldier of fortune. Aron experienced Rohmer's atrocities in Vietnam firsthand and questions why the Army would want a cutthroat dictator training it's men (the reader does too).
Later, a drunken Pruitt and Rohmer fatally beat Wendell in his cell. They politically escape punishment, track down Aron and leave him battered and near death. How does this connect to 'The Hunter'? Aron and Moses Ngala (the series' co-hunter/hero) are old friends. Aron knows Moses is in law enforcement, so he reaches out to him (in a weird scene where it seems Aron ran into Moses by accident). Regardless, Moses and the series protagonist, John Yard, discuss the events from the prior book and decide to do another vigilante job to kill Rohmer and end his reign of terror.
Without spoiling too much of the second half, Yard and Moses travel from Africa to Paris trailing Rohmer. The result has both of them fighting for the Syrians over the Israel border. It's a wild chain of events that completely spins “Night of the Jackals” from vengeful vigilante to espionage thriller before covering a battlefield saga and planting the story in a brutal prison. Author Ralph Hayes hits every single sub-genre of Men's Action Adventure in one fell swoop.
Like his 'Stoner' series, the action shares some of the same exotic locations – African deserts and villages like Lagos and Nairobi. Hayes has mastered “prison fiction”, perhaps building off of 'Buffalo Hunter' debut “Hellhole”, a gritty western set in a ruthless Mexican prison. Additionally, 'Stoner' installment “The Satan Stone” mirrors that same prison scenario in Africa. Now, the finale of this novel has both Yard and Moses inside a violent prison-styled base ran by the sadistic Rohmer. It's repetitive, often using the same sequence of events, but Hayes does it so well that it's the story we want him to tell. At this point in time, this author could be my favorite of the genre. It's a bold statement, but I'm not searching the used stores this hard for any other author.
Buy a copy of the book HERE
In 1961 - around the beginning of his crime fiction career - Lawrence Block submitted a hardboiled private eye novel to Fawcett Gold Medal called “Coward’s Kiss.” When it was finally published, someone at Fawcett changed the title to “Death Pulls a Doublecross.” Decades later when Block began reprinting his early works, he changed the title back to “Coward’s Kiss” where it remains available today as a Kindle eBook and a well-performed audiobook.
Ed London is a stereotypical hardboiled private-eye and when we meet him, he is working on an unusual assignment. He is tasked with quietly removing the corpse of a sexy female murder victim from a Manhattan apartment and then dumping the body in Central Park for later discovery by authorities.
We quickly learn exactly why an otherwise good and ethical PI would do something so uncharacteristically evil. I won’t spoil it here, but it’s a satisfying enough reason that drives the rest of the story. The other big driving storyline is a missing briefcase with unknown contents that good guys and bad guys are both trying to locate - giving the paperback the feel of a NYC treasure hunt inside a standard whodunnit.
It’s fun to read Lawrence Block’s early work with the knowledge that he went on to be a grandmaster of the mystery genre. No one would classify this book as one of his greatest hits, but you can see the greatness in its infancy. The book was never boring and had plenty of violence, gunplay, blood, and death. A nice romantic sub-plot develops and our hero gets laid a couple times. There really is something for everyone in this short paperback.
If you’ve ever read a mystery novel before, you won’t have much difficulty solving this one. However, the joy of a Lawrence Block book isn’t the destination, it’s the ride. This one is a fun journey. Recommended.
Postscripts
“Death Pulls a Doublecross” (or “Coward’s Kiss” if you prefer) was originally written as a TV tie-in novel based on “Markham,” a private-eye series starring Ray Milland that aired for one season in 1959–1960. Block liked the finished product so much, he never submitted the TV tie-in version and edited it as a stand-alone mystery novel for Fawcett Gold Medal.
The character of Ed London would have been a natural for a series of hardboiled mystery novels. Block never brought the character back for any more paperbacks, but London starred in three novellas published in Men’s Adventure Magazines in the 1960s. All three novellas have been compiled in Block’s collection of his early short fiction, “One Night Stands and Lost Weekends.”
The other Ed London stories are:
“The Naked and the Deadly” from “Man’s Magazine,” October 1962, reprinted in “Guy, December 1963.
“Stag Party Girl” from “Man’s Magazine,” February 1963, reprinted in “Guy,” February 1965.
“Twin Call Girls” from “Man’s Magazine,” August 1963, reprinted in “Guy,” August 1965.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Author Robb White concentrated on juvenile fiction, writing nearly 30 novels between 1935-1985 (he passed away in 1990). Along with novels, he teamed with horror director William Castle to pen screenplays, including classics like “House on Haunted Hill” and “The Tingler”, both featuring the iconic Vincent Price. Along with feature films, he wrote television scripts for “Perry Mason”, “The Silent Service” and “Men of Annapolis”. His 1956 novel “Up Periscope” was adapted to film in 1959 starring James Gardner (later to be spoofed in 1996's film “Down Periscope”). His most identifiable work is the 1972 young adult title “Deathwatch”, a Scholastic mainstay in school libraries in the 70s and 80s. The novel was adapted for film twice – 1974's “Savages” starring Andy Griffith and 2015's “Beyond the Reach” starring Michael Douglas. The fact that it received film treatments twice speaks volumes. It's simply a fantastic story.
Young Ben is a college student who works as a hunting guide in what I presume is a California desert. His client is a pompous Los Angeles businessman named Madec, who is in the desert for a week with Ben hunting bighorn sheep. In the opening chapter, Madec claims he sees horns on a mountainside and fires. Unfortunately, Madec mistakenly shot an elderly prospector. Ben hands his own rifle to Madec and hikes down the mountain to gather a sheet for the body and to drive the Jeep a little closer. Upon return to the corpse, Madec makes a plea and attempts to bribe Ben into disposing of the body and continuing on the hunt. Ben refuses and things get rather grim quickly.
Madec then leaves Ben in the desert in his underwear with no food or water. He knows Ben will never make the exhausting 40 mile trek to freedom, but will stand by and “harass” Ben. Thus, White's narrative is fully developed. Ben makes a run for it, hoping to survive harsh conditions and Madec's rifle shots. The bulk of the story is Ben's will to survive under the most extreme conditions. While catering to young adults, it cuts no corners. Ben's feet start to erode off as he walks on hot and jagged rocks, losing blood while becoming dehydrated. His saving grace is finding an old sling-shot, which he uses to his advantage to hunt and defend.
While the “hunt human prey” adventure story is compelling, the author steps up with the book's closing chapters. Seamlessly, the book changes locations from desert to sheriff's office. It's this portion that showcases more of a legal drama, recapping the events from both Ben and Madec's points of view. It's just as fascinating as the fast-paced desert survival yarn. Overall, White's “Deathwatch” is a classic adventure tale that's still in print.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
