QUICK SHOTS: Mace #6: Year of the Boar by Lee (Len Levinson) Chang

    I needed a little shot of martial arts adrenaline with a hint of 70s sleaze, so I cracked open a book I've been saving for a special occasion. I do that every now at then with author's whose work I really like. There are only finite kinds of books like this, I can't just go to the drug store, or a truck stop and buy a brand-new Nick Carter: Killmaster novel, can I? So, the unread one become a little more important. I mean I can never read Shark Fighter or The Death of the Fuhrer for the first time again, right? Least with Shark Fighter, I have a pile of unread Len Levinson books waiting for me. 

    The book of course is Mace #6: Year of the Boar by paperback legend Len Levinson. Len (may I call you Len?) was really one of the best writers in the 70s Men's Adventure market. His series work on Super Cop Joe Blaze and The Sharpshooter, and his stand-alone thrillers and more literary works are all very entertaining reads. He's one of those writers like say, Michael Avallone, that can't help but inject a little of themselves into their work and it's for the better. 

    Too many of the paperback writers of the time didn't actually want to be writing a Sharpshooter book or a Peacemaker book. So, they wrote the books in a perfunctorily way and they either come off a little bland or often they read like a private eye novel because that's what the writer wanted to write or maybe Raymond Chandler was the only "fun" writer they ever read. But Len throws it all in when wrote these paperback assignments, the action comes quick and often, the characters have a real 70s New York vibe to them (when in New York) and they have a nice conversational town, like Len is just telling you a nice and violent story. 

    Now, the Mace series is the product of the 70s post-Bruce Lee kung fu boom, if you want to know more about that I suggest you go over to Steve Carroll Writes where Steve has a nice overview of the phenom and how it affected the spinner racks. Mace is the product of the, uh, warped mind of Joseph Rosenberger (if you've read a Death Merchant you know what I mean) who was working for Manor doing The Murder Master series at the same time. I haven't tackled a Rosenberger Mace book yet; I understand that they are a rough a read as a Rosenberger book could be. I have to be a special mood to tackle one of his books. All that being said, I have tons of those books, so why am I complaining? 

    Mace #6: Year of the Boar is Len's only entry in the series, it didn't last much longer but it's still a shame. I understand in Rosenberger's entries Mace is more of a CIA dude. Here he's simply a Martial Arts Master who runs a school and lives by his strict code and when the Mob tramples on his code Mace springs into action. It's a simple story but that's one of the things I really enjoyed. It played like a down-to-Earth-story Men's Adventure story, but Mace himself is nearly a superhero with his Chi being able to cure bullet wounds in no time and all his super-heroic bullet-dodging kung-fu fighting. And there's TONS of fighting in this book and once the Mob imports an evil Martial Arts Master to kill Mace, the whole thing is set to boil of. All of that plus arson, mob hits, attractive lady reporters, Chinatown vibes, fun made-up guns, and a little philosophy too.

    Like always in Len's work the side-characters a well-rounded in their brief appearances. Len pretty much always sticks with the protagonist of his book most of the time which sounds simple, but too many Men's Adventure books spend too much time with the bad guys or side-characters. Len spends just enough time to understand their goals and to show how evil they are. Mace himself is a bit of cipher, but that's pretty in line with what a Martial Arts Master would be, but he's a fun enough protagonist who likes to chew on matchsticks.

    This is one FUN book. Seriously, this probably tops my previous favorite Martial Arts paperback, Kung Fu Master Richard Dragon: Dragon's Fists as my all-time favorite now. It's got a shorter title to type too. Len's work is top-shelf and finding the old paperbacks have become a pricey affair once the work got out, luckily a fair amount of them have been reprinted and are eBooks, so they are easy to get. Go out and buy some RIHGT NOW. 

They Call Her Death Movie Review Plus Book Recommendations

I've spent the weekend in one of my natural habitats, the film festival I wander through them like a Bigfoot in the woods. In case you're wondering the other natural habitat is "used bookstore," for obvious reasons. My brain is fried from film, late-nights, free-drinks and a million new friends and conversations, but I'll do my best to be coherent. My first feature film that I wrote and produced, Arrive Alive, had its premiere at the Tallgrass Film Festival. It's the hometown fest and its WONDERFUL! Better than some much larger fests that I've been too, with a caring and cool staff and solid movie choices. Besides a murder's row of great movies to watch film fests are an incredibly fun place to meet new film-minded buddies. But more on that later. 

Early on Thursday of the fest I had my mind blown by a fellow Kansas filmmakers Austin Snell's new movie, They Call Her Death. A homage to my early (and continuous) film love, Spaghetti westerns. It was shot on glorious 16mm with vintage equipment and completely captured the style, grit, grim, blood and love of an Italian production from the late-60s. I think a lot of people have the wrong notion that Italian movies (outside of Fellini, Antonioni and the like) were all cheap knockoffs of American movies and are mostly jokes due to the dubbing, the Italian sense of humor and the Grand Guignol leanings of their violence. They were big dogs in the world film market, pretty much second only to the U.S. They were professional filmmakers bending the lines of filmmaking and crafting a new visual landscape out of necessity and artistic leanings. Obviously, Leone was quick accepted as the genius he was, but the rest had to struggle for their world-wide expectance. It's just in the era of boutique Blu-Ray levels are we seeing some wonderful new reappraisals of oft-looked-over directors and series. I'll watch the 100th Django knock-off or a Fulci cosmic-gore-picture over most modern film any day.

They Call Her Death is about pig-farmer Molly Pray (Sheri Rippel) hits the bloody trail of vengeance after a bounty hunter (Devan Garcia) kills her beloved husband (Patrick Poe). Along the way Molly grows and changes into a masked (shades of 66's Johnny Colt) stone killer as she uncovers the local conspiracy that may have had something to do with her husband's death. There are gunfights, gold bars, awesome miniatures, fisticuffs, explosions, blood and guts (literally) and some wonderful SUPRISING moments. The jolts of humor come from stress-relieve after shocking gore and the "stock" town characters, something EVERY western's needs, drunk dicks, barflies, sassy bartenders, and eventually Dané Shobe as the dedicated deputy who rides along with Molly. It's a hand-crafted movie that works incredibly well. It even veers into uncharted territories, let's just say Italian Horror was also on Austin's mind; to keep you guessing but I'm not spoiling anything.

Obviously, the dedication to the recreation of the feel of Italian cinema is commendable. But without solid characters to latch onto a homage can feel hollow, luckily you feel for Molly Pray. And interestingly she's not a totally innocent character. This isn't the standard "women's revenge" picture, though obviously stuff like They Call Her One-Eye is in its DNA, but Molly's a different kind of lead. She's a hard-bitten woman even before the death of her husband, perhaps a little "nicer" but not an innocent. 

If you're interested in this kind of movie, I'm sure you're aware of Grindhouse, the Tarantino/Rodriguez joint that pushed a lot of these kind of movies to the movie-nerd forefront. It also started a wave of filmmakers to make grindhouse-style films. Some good like Hobo with a Shotgun, others, uh, not good. Good news if that turns you off, because it's not that. It's not all faux-film grain and sepia tone for "effect," it's a well-crafted film with a certain look and it's so much fun that you forget all about the aesthetic and just chug along with the picture. Probably with a smile on your face or maybe wincing at the gore.

To be transparent, I have been hearing rumblings of this movie for a while. The film scene in Kansas is nebulous and small. I know a few of the people in it, one stayed at my house during the fest (Hi, Patrick!) and the other actor dies in my film as well. So, I was ready to see it and luckily it lived up to expectations. Also, I hung out with director Austin, make-up man Jake Jackson and producer Adam Jeffers. All cool dudes, but if I didn't LOVE the movie, I would have slunk into the night and not written this review.  

And here's the good news this week (through November 3rd, 2024) you can WATCH this movie (and mine if you want) buy purchasing a Virtual Pass to watch it before most folks and be super cool. 

Now, while I have occasionally done movie reviews in the past on the blog here, it has mostly devolved into a dedicated book blog, so I can't let you leave without some book recommendations if you watch They Call Her Death and have a hankerin' for bloody, spicy western books, there's some good 'uns. The Joe Millard's for the further adventures of The Man with No Name, George G. Gilman's Edge for their bloody violence, John Benteen's Fargo for some rollicking action, and a double dose of Joe R. Lansdale, one as Ray Slater for its rock-solid western feel and Dead in the West for the touch of the "weird western" sub-genre. 

Top Ten Stand-Alone Men Adventure Novels

Recently there was a big tornado scare at my house, it looked like it was going to Mucho-trouble. While getting the house battened down, I looked over at my "good" shelf, the bookshelf with the rare books and the cherished books. Panic struck and I had to squirrel away some choice books that I wouldn't want to be without. These aren't exclusively those books, but some are. Luckily the tornado never showed up and my books (and family of wife and cats) were fine. But it got me thinking about top ten lists and savers.

So, I decided to make up a little list. Now, I saved series titles for another list in the future, just focusing on stand-alones and series hopefuls. You know, where the weird stuff lies. Since I covered most of these books on the blog, it's a little primer to all the old reviews. Compiling the list was interesting as patterns emerged. I like private eyes; I hate Nazi's and love the 70s.

So, here's a list, the numbers don't matter. I can split hairs that much. 

1. Shark Fighter by Nicolas (Len Levinson) Brady

Len Levinson is a legend in the field. All of his books are incredibly enjoyable, especially his entries in the Sharpshooter and Ryker/SuperCop Joe Blaze series. But this is his crowning achievement. It's a wonderful mash-up of 70s obsessions, an Evel Knievel-style stuntman, Jaws-born shark frenzy, drug running, sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. It's a wild nail-biter when Taggart (the titular shark fighter) agrees to fight a shark on T.V. but he's also tangled up with women and non-shark related danger. It's a perfect rollicking manly tale.  

2. Dragon's Fist by Jim (Denny O'Neill) Dennis

Denny O'Neill wrote a lor of comic books and not so many novels. Also, most of those novels featured established comic book characters. This one is actually the origin of a comic character, Richard Dragon Kung-Fu Master who worked his way into the DC universe, thought never really used to his potential. Denny is a fantastic adventure writer (his take on Batman in the 70s is a favorite and a lot of the times feels very James Bond-inspired) and Dragon's Fist is Kung-Fu cinema on the page. It's my favorite over-all Kung-Fu book. It's a thrill-ride full of tons of fighting, a little introspection and characters you want to spend time with.  

3. Death of the Fuhrer by Roland Puccetti

I recently wrote a whole post about my love for this one, so I won't get too far into the weeds with it. But this is my all-time favorite Men's Adventure novel, as it has everything I like and its totally bananas. I suppose if your hero is out to kill Adolf Hitler and then fuck-up some Nazi shit, I'm there. Plus, there's brain transplants, sex baronesses, dark castles, motorcycle escapades. What more could you want in a pulp novel?

4. Cut by Jerry (Laurence James & John Harvey) Bronson

James Laurence and John Harvey, two British pulp writers in the 70s (though Harvey went and got respectable later) teamed up to produce the most distilled hard-boiled, grimy private eye tale I have ever read. It's a slim volume where P.I. Frank Regan uses his .44 Magnum (sometimes .45, two writers give 'em a break) to break up a snuff film ring. This is a dark, twisted Grindhouse movie on the page. It's got sleaze dripping off of it when you pull it off the shelf. It's also mean and violent. It moves so fast because it seems like the two writers were just trying to one-up themselves the whole time. So, it's the good stuff. 

5. Blaster: The Girl with the Dynamite Bangs by Lou Cameron

Lou Cameron is a writer with a tone of books to his name, mostly westerns. This was an attempt to make a "blue-collar" Men's Adeventure protagonist for the working-class Schmoes who read these books back in the day. So, its stars a construction demolition expert. I got three neighbors who do that same thing. Boomer Green is the titular Blaster who's down in South America tangling with old Nazi's and new Nazi plots. He keeps a .25 pistol in his shirt pocket and a lady on his arm. The occupational change is a nice switch from the various vigilantes, spies and mercenaries that usually star in these books. and you know what? Explosions are cool.

6. Terror at Boulder Dam by Vince (Mike Newton) Robinson

This one comes out of the Mafia-front publisher Carousel and is one of the first works by noted adventure writer Mike Newton who later wrote books in the Executioner and Destroyer series. This is another private eye tale, where Las Vegas detective Brad Kendall comes up against a plot to blow up the (you guessed it) Boulder Dam by a group of KKK-like dickholes. There's plenty of barfights, showgirls, and gun-filled showdowns. It's a full-tilt boogie.

7. Dachau Treasure by Anthony DeStefano

Anthony DeStefano is mostly known for his kickass Mondo series of martial books. He was also a painter who did work with paperback covers. Dachau Treasure stars Stosh Jacobs, his eye-patch and his .44 Magnum. Stosh hunts down Nazi's and kills them after his experience in the Dachau concentration camp as a child. He's after the titular treasure to return it to the rightful heirs and to, again, kill Nazi's along the way. It's a wonderful slice of grimy pulp with action, gore and of (yet again) Nazi killin' along the way. 

8. The Sundance Murders by Peter McCurtin 

Peter McCurtin burned up the typewriter back in the 70s, penning way too many tough guy books to count. And that's all in-between being an editor at Belmont-Tower. Somewhere in there he wrote The Sundance Murders. it stars Berger, a sleazy tabloid reporter who keeps a cut-down Walther P-38 under his coat and has a nose for trouble. He's a classic McCurtin character. He drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, the ladies love him, and he likes trouble. It's pretty much a modern western, complete with terrible stereotypical depictions of Native Americans, which is a bummer. But Berger is a fun character, and I'm convinced he was originally the main character in the novel The Camp, which was started by McCurtin and finished by Len Levinson

9. Diamondback by James Reasoner 

Diamondback is a one-and-done (actually never printed until much later) Men's Adventure series by the always readable James Reasoner. Reasoner's novel Texas Wind is one of my favorite private eye novels of all time. This one feels like an 80s action TV show that never was. Tom Sloane is suddenly an ex-cop whose itchy trigger finger had gotten him in trouble. After some shenanigans he finds himself in the employee of a rich dude who wants his own action hero to take down the bad guys. So, Sloane gets guns, a battle van and takes on a paramilitary organization all by his lonesome. The Texas setting sets it apart from the rest of the pack of heroes at the time. It's a real shame this one didn't have multiple sequels. 

10. A Run in Diamonds by Alex (Bill Pronzini) Saxon

Bill Pronzini is a master mystery writer, who's rather soft-boiled series about the Nameless Detective is just wonderful, even if he doesn't shoot or punch people. With, A Run in Diamonds, Pronzini was tapping into his love of the pulp Black Mask by writing a well-seasoned crime tale about Carmody, a bodyguard/smuggler living in Majorca. He gets in involved with beautiful women and dangerous deals. This one reads like an updated 50s Fawcett Gold Medal paperback and was supposed to be the first in a series, hence the pseudonym. Carmody got a little bit of a comeback when Pronzini had the book reprinted (and edited) in hardback with a couple of short stories. 

The Perpetrators by Gary Phillips (Plus Bonus News)

    Okay, so I'm back (again) sorry for the lag in reviews on the blog. My attention has been divided with other work and getting a paid gig doing, well, this, writing about books. I tackle vintage horror books over here at Fathom Press though I do sneak a Men's Adventure book in here and there. Between that reading and finishing the first feature film that I've written and produced, a Neo-Noir called Arrive Alive, which is my little homage to Gold Medal paperbacks, I've been swamped. Then not to mention working on other film projects and scripts and this other BIG news...well I'll save that until after the review. Anyway, I've been a busy little beaver, but my goal is to read more (and more and more) here in the near future and write more reviews here. Sorry to bother you with this little pile of excuses and self-promotion (there's more self-promotion later, ugh) but here's today's BOOK REVIEW!

    I've mentioned before that in my teens/early 20s I was obsessed with private eye fiction and crime fiction in general. Going from Goosebumps to Fear Street to Hard Boys: Casefiles to Joe R. Lansdale and James Crumley. Then the classics of the genre, but what I think I was always searching for the most was the raw thrilling crime stories in the Crumley/Lansdale flavor. Tough dudes in trouble, plenty of fights, and bad, bad, bad guys. Some mystery/detective books gave me those little rushes. George Pelecanos with his Nick Stefanos books, Red Harvest, Mickey Spillane, etc. etc. But I read a lot of the genre, sampling whatever The Thrilling Detective Web Site told me was good.

    One day it told me that Gary Phillips was good. I dutifully went to my public library and read most of his Ivan Monk books and at least one of his Martha Chaney books. Phillips is one helluva writer, his characters always leap off the page and his action is tight and thrilling. He's written a lot of good stuff, in both prose and comics. His Angeltown graphic novel is fantastic and his short story (that I covered here) A Fox on Broadway is a short little blast of cool Men's Adventure. In my humble opinion, the Ivan Monk series is the some of the best often overlooked 90s crime fiction. Go check it out. Like now. Why are you still here?

    Oh, you're still there? Okay, anyway The Perpetrators was one of those books that fundamentally shifted my personal taste in books. All those private eye books had down time. Time for the P.I. to deduce the murder and wax philosophical and I had yet to discover the joys of (GOOD) Men's Adventure fiction. So, The Perpetrators was like a shotgun blast to my brain. It was the literary equivalent of my diet of low-budget action pictures that I was constantly watching at the time (still do) and that was just so fascinating to me. I didn't know a book could be all chase or all action. I thought you had to talk about sandwiches, beer, and love and stuff. It needled my mind for a while before I finally figured out there was other books like it out there and I was off and running with The Spider, The Executioner, The Penetrator and the rest. 

    The Perpetrators stars professional expeditor and badass Marley who's hired to take Lina, a drug queen-pin from point A to point B in 24hrs. That's it. In-between is a sea of bad guys are out to get them, like a couple randy sicko professional assassins, then car chases, ambushes, helicopters, rocket launchers, gunfights, witty banter and all that magic. Lina is a woman who is used to getting her way and Marley is a dude used to telling people what to do, so it's trouble, man. This is a slim novel that literally has a ticking clock printed on its pages counting down the 24hrs Marley's got, not to mention the illustrations that accentuate the peril. Phillips puts the gas pedal on the floor and then never lets up, it's a non-stop thrill ride. The pages go by fast, almost too fast, as I want more of it.

    I'm glad I took a little break from horrifying novels to get an adrenaline rush. I rarely read books more than once, luckily The Perpetrators is a good as a I remembered. It's a quick read that's easily available used or as an eBook. The original printed version is a very nice package, beautiful artwork throughout with wonderful cover. Check it out!

Start of the self-promotion. Be warned.

    If you're still hanging out, let me go ahead and tell you some big news. Before the end of the year I will be publishing my first short novel, Gunpowder Breath under my for funsies pseudonym Killroy. It's been a long-time coming, but it's all almost finished. Why do I mention it after a review of The Perpetrators? Well, after I finished the first draft I was thinking about where it came from, because it all sprang out of my mind rather quickly and The Perpetrators is on the inspirations along with a 100 B-Movie action pictures. So, thanks Gary!

    Check out the cover below, drawn by my awesomely talented wife (it helps to be married to an artist at times like this) and read the synopsis! Thanks! 

One Friday, Dick Mulligan, a washed-up mercenary on the ropes suddenly finds himself the target of a powerful Russian mobster after a drug deal gone south. With wave upon wave of killers after him Mulligan has to figure out why this mobster wants him dead and live through three incredible gunfights throughout a hellish weekend of booze, bullets, drugs, grenades, and punches as he tries to get to Monday alive.

A gonzo homage to 90s direct-to-video action movies and Men’s Adventure paperbacks, GUNPOWDER BREATH is a funny, rollicking short novel with too many guns, too many bad guys, too much ACTION!

Just how many people can Dick shoot in a weekend?

My Favorite Men's Adventure Novel: Death of the Fuhrer by Roland Puccetti

HOUSE-KEEPING: First off let me say sorry for letting the blog lie dormant for a while. At the end of last year, I was finishing principal photography on the first full-length crime-filled film I wrote/produced called Arrive Alive (coming 2024) and I also got a paying gig at Fathom Press to write reviews of vintage horror novels. So, please go check that out! Plus, I finished my first novel (of course it's action-packed) that will be published. All of that unfortunately has kept my leisure reading at a minimum. But I'm here to rectify that. 

And I'm going to have some spoilers in this post, you are WARNED.

There's a couple of books that hit me at the right time and place and lit a fire under my ass. It's usually something I read that puts flame to the creative fire that turns into a screenplay or (so far) unpublished books. One such back in my young days was The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley, which really started my hardboiled mystery reading. Then there was a week where the one-two-punch of Jonathan Latimer's Solomon's Vineyard and Philip Jose Farmers vastly underrated Nothing Burns in Hell fired up the little grey cells. Both of those were instrumental in some of my first (unmade) feature-length screenplays that had any merit. 

Then, up there high on the peak of my adventure fiction mountain is The Death of The Fuhrer. It's one of those "infamous" type of books. Bill Pronzini mentioned it in his Gun in Cheek book about "questionable" fiction. Paperback haunts like Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot and Glorious Trash have told tale of the wonders of the book and spread its laurels through the fans of Men's Adventure field. That's where I heard of it and immediately wanted to read it. 

See, I hate Nazi's. I hate old Nazi's, new Nazi's and Illinois Nazi's. To me they're THE cliched villain for simple fact that they are best. There's no good willing-Nazi. I never tire of reading or watching about people punching Nazi's. Great stuff, keep up the good work. If you have other ideas about this, we can step outside, and I can introduce you to my fists The Hamburglar and The Grimace. 

As you might have guessed, The Death of the Fuhrer is about Nazi-killing. It's mostly set in 1951 and Karl Gisevius is our hero here; he's sort of a jackass who does jackass-things but with the best intention: to kill the still-living Adolf Hitler. He doesn't hesitate in his goal to kill Hitler, as soon as he finds out he's on the way to kill Hitler he's on the trail. See, Hitler has lost his brain after the war. They left his body in the bunker, but his brain is now in the body of someone else. Karl is on the trail of his old buddy from before the war who was the brain surgeon who unscrewed Hitler's head, scooped out the brain and put it back in the body of someone else. 

This leads Karl to motorcycle jump through the gates of a castle and the introduction of a mess of Nazi's. Karl has dinner and gets the hots for The Baroness of the castle. Later he has sex with her, and we discover that Hitler's brain is in the sexy lady Baroness. BIG SURPISE and wildest thing I have ever seen in a widely distributed paperback, in this case a Fawcett Gold Medal book. I can see this kinda oddball thing being in a Manor or Major or Canyon book, but a Fawcett Gold Medal? Then it takes a pit-stop into a weird section of mind-controlled hero stuff, including the other infamous scene where Karl makes sweet love to a sofa. After that it's full-tilt boogie as Karl fights his way through the castle, eventually finding himself killing a guard without THE TOP OF HIS SKULL OFF, trying carefully to not spill his precious brain juice. He patches up the old noggin and finds a German Luger and starts the big Bond-ish finale.

Whew.

Roland Puccetti wrote three books as far as I can find, this one, one called The Trial of John and Henry Norton and a non-fiction book entitled Persons: A Study of Possible Moral Agents in the Universe. Neither of these books seem to be in the same spirit as The Death of the Fuhrer. But all of them dealt with the brain. The Trial of John and Henry Norton seems to be a quasi-Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde type novel and then his non-fiction work was also mind-related. So, I guess you can say he had something on his mind. He was born in Illinois and died in Canada in 1995. And that's all I know about him.

The Death of the Fuhrer was actually originally published as a hardback before the Fawcett edition. It was published in England as a hardback and had a paperback edition by Arrow. It's a little pricey now that it has a small cult following but shouldn't set you back too much for the Fawcett. All the editions have wonderfully different and sometimes spoiler-ish covers, you really can't go wrong. 

Why do I like this book so much? It's a rip-roaring time of a novel. It's slightly stilted and oddly seriously written which adds to its funky flavor with its hint of authorial madness that lurks behind each page. Puccetti most have LOVED the Men's magazines at the time, this is one of the few books that matches the flavor of the sweat mags. Nazi She-Devils, mad doctors, daring escapes, torture, sex, gunfights, it's full of it all. It really seems that Puccetti indulged in whatever vice was his (hey, it was the 70s) and tried to top every story he'd ever read in an issue of Man's Life or All Man.

And, dude, he did. 

I think the shear level of creativity and out-sider art feel of the books is what ultimately full engrossed me. There's no other book like it then or now and it seems like a pure distillation of Puccetti's interests and obsessions, so it's either completely honest or it's all just a lark of a book where Puccetti was just trying to push the boundaries higher and higher to make himself laugh. Because I do think he's tongue was in his cheek when he wrote it, at least a little bit. Hopefully.

It's a book full of ideas that gave me a bunch of ideas and not a cookie-cutter novel that was trying to be like every other Alastair MacLean rip-off. I love Men's Adventure series where it's comfort food, you can read about 'ol Mack Bolan and know there at the end Mack will be fine and ready to go killing Mafioso's in the next book. It's comfort food for a blood-thirsty soul. 

But every now and then you need to shake that up with something truly unpredictable. This is on the first in the Men's Adventure field to make me want to go out and find the weird stuff. I can't help but think of the weirdo-writers like our own Joseph Rosenberger or John D. (Hal Bennett) Revere or Doug (Loup Durand & Pierre Rey) Masters. That's enemy terrorist, where anything can happen. 

What can I say? I'm an oddball and it's a book after my own oddball heart. 

QUICK SHOTS: The Executioner #276: Levithan by Don (Gerald Montgomery) Pendelton

 

It's hard to believe that this is the first adventure of Mack Bolan I've reviewed here on the blog. The true Men's Adventure paperback boom started with our man, Mack. Sure, there's Bond roots, there's Mike Hammer roots, Matt Helm roots. But the idea of the numbered book with the continuing bloody adventures of a singular man pretty much started with War Against the Mafia. Book #1 is a stone-cold classis a slim masterclass in action writing. Then obviously after 30-something books Don Pendleton was a little done with Bolan and Gold Eagle stepped in with a plethora of ghostwriters. Some fantastic, some not-so-much. Thinking about it, I rarely dig my toe into the Bolan universe, I guess I think of them a bit to "normal" in the action-adventure field and I usually crave the wilder/weirder tales. 

That's called a lead-in. 

Probably like any series that gets into the high 200's things are bound to get a little odd. That's exactly what began to happen with the Bolan books (might have to read more of this late-period ones) and Bolan found himself fighting more sci-fi-type villains and more outlandish plots. So, in Levithan Mack Bolan fights Cthulhu. Oh, and Hunter S. Thompson is there too. 

The plot is kinda out there, more akin to a Destroyer novel (Remo kicked Cthulhu in #139 Dream thing) but it's Bolan who gets roped into heading off to a converted oil platform to take care of this monster that keeps killing people. The people are bad dudes, the mafia has team-up with a drug kingpin plus the evil CIA to turn the platform into a sovereign nation to allow all the drugs/prostitution they can get. Only a nearby evil cult has taken offense, and their tentacle-packed ancient god is angry and killing everyone on the platform. A lot of the book reads like a B-Horror movie with a secluded cast and a rampaging monster. 

To stop it Bolan is sent in with Dr. West from Miskatonic University (watch Re-Animator if you don't get that reference) and FBI Mallory Harmon who is an X-Files-kind of FBI agent. Harmon is the real star of the book. It's like an episode of an old TV show where they are trying to do a spin-off and the main characters take a backseat. Between her, Dr. West, the Hunter S. Thompson stand-in and the villains, Bolan doesn't have a lot to do. Harmon has surer footing in the weird trappings of the story and Bolan is just sort of "there." Not saying that he doesn't blow plenty of bad guys away with his Desert Eagle, but it was clear that Montgomery was more interested in Harmon and her underwear. There's lots of talk and scenes/descriptions of her underwear. Including her introductory bit where she blows away a Hills Have Eyes-type clan in her bra and panties. Then stands around talking to her FBI colleagues without dressing.

The guys from Able Team show up to help, Bolan's brother has a small B-story and there's stuff with the evil cult too. There's a lot of stuff jammed into this 200-ish page books. Which is ultimately it's down fall. I've heard rumor that it was supposed to be a longer Super Bolan book then got cut down which would make sense. Montgomery can spin a yarn though; I can't say I was ever bored with it. The action is rolls along quickly and the pages flew by so whatever quibbles I had; they were easy to get over. 

I imagine this bend on the Executioner series was a weird one for diligent readers to take at the time and it doesn't really seem like they ever got this odd again. Let me know if they do though! I had a fun time with this one and its Halloween season so it's nice to read about monsters and people with machine guns fighting them. Spooky.

QUICK SHOTS: Friday the 13th Part 3: 3-D by Micheal Avallone

For those who are going to read this in the future just have it known that I timed something out right in life and got this review of a FRIDAY THE 13TH film done and out on...dun, Dun, DUN...Friday the 13th. Hold your applause. This is ground zero for Jason Vorhees in the written word, which is a little surprising to me since the novelized just about everything back in the day. I've covered a few of the YA novels here but this is the first grown-up Jason novel I've read.

This one's got a bit of bad reputation within the Friday fans, most of them don't seem to think my man Avallone got the tone right of a Friday film. And, yeah, they are probably right. This is exactly the reason why I LOVED this book. I'd imagine that most fans of the movies had never read one of Avallone's works before (they're missing out) and they don't quite understand what Avallone puts down when he writes a book. 

You have to look at this way, over coffee or a beer Michael Avallone tells you the story of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 3-D and he tells it to you in HIS voice, with little asides, mind wanderings and also probably sticking his finger out almost directly in your eye during the 3-D parts. He doesn't resort to just a bland retelling of a screenplay in a different form, he spins a Michael Avallone yarn with the screenplay as a jumping off point. 

Case in point: the novel starts off with a quote from THE SATAN SLUETH! Avallone's sadly too short series about Phillip St. George III who battles the occult and other monstrosities, a little like SCOOBY-DOO for adults who like whiskey and cigarettes. So, The Satan Sleuth is cannon for Jason to fight now? Where's that book? This sort of thing is fairly common in Avallone's work, his best-known character that loveable private eye Ed Noon shows up in The Butcher when Avallone was writing them too. It's part of why I love his work, but I'd bet it flew over the heads of the kids and teenagers who only wanted to read about dismemberment then and now. 

Now, I also LOVE the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies. For my money they are the sturdiest, meat and potatoes slasher pictures of the 80s. They sort of blend together in my mind sometimes, but I don't think they ever sink to the lows of some of the entries in the other slasher franchises of the time. Having just participated in a podcast where we watched every HALLOWEEN movie from the original to the 2nd Rob Zombie film, I can tell you the highs might be higher with HALLOWEEN, but the lows are much, much lower.

The novelization follows the movie pretty closely, though there are difference since Avallone was working off of an earlier script. Some kids come to Crystal Lake to stay for the weekend, but uh-oh Jason is there. Part 3 is the one where Jason finally gets his hockey mask and were everything is right in the world. Buts it's a "faceless white mask" in the book, still better than a burlap sack. It's slice and dice, and crush and stab past that. Avallone breezes through the book and seemingly had a good time with it. Even though I doubt slashers where his thing. Having read some of his other works in the horror genre like THE COFFIN THINGS and his work in the gothics, he was more traditional in his horror taste I mean he did ghost write for Boris Karloff after all. 

Michael Avallone is one of my favorite writers, I can't seem to dislike a book of his so I'm biased but if you go in with the right mindset, I think it'll be a good time for the reader. Problem is this, like every 80's slasher franchise novel is ridiculously hard to come by and very expensive when you do. Being an Avallone fan this was a my "white whale" for quite a while before I bite the bullet and scooped it up for around $50 which wasn't the worst deal sadly. I'm glad I did though. Sometimes in collecting you have to open your wallet to make the itch go away.

Oh, and no, no parts of this book required 3-D glasses.