Any-who, Peter McCurtin was the man responsible for the Assassin which started it's life with Dell Publishing but McCurtin worked as an editor at Belemont-Tower and they must not have cared for one of their own publishing a series somewhere else, that or Dell didn't want anymore books past three and McCurtin just changed the names and continued the series at BT. Now "Boston Bust-Out" isn't going to change a person's life with it's deep seated looking at the inner psyche of a vigilante. THANK GOD. Briganti is a total unstoppable killing badass who is always a bit of a uncaring prick, but that comes with the territory of Men's Adventure fiction. One bit I liked is that he looses his cache of weapons early in the book and as he kills mafia goons he keeps picking up their fallen weapons to rebuild is stash. Sorta like he's a video game character. He loves his guns and they are talked about in full detail. He makes particularly good use of a .44 magnum and a .22-250 varmint rifle. But the gun-porn isn't as overbearing as it got to be in 80's Men's adventure or a Death Merchant, he just causally expands on his knowledge of bullets and such. The story is as thin and the paper it's printed on, but moves a nice clip from mafia-murdering to drinking vodka to mafia-murdering. He's out to fuck up the mob in every way shape and form and that's all you need to know. The whole thing is done before you know and ready for the next adventure. McCutin is a solid writer who know his business and leaves out the parts that you don't want to read about.
Peter McCurtin also created the Soldier of Fortune series about hard-as-nails mercenary Jim Rainey
who kicked ass through 18 adventures across the globe. McCurtin's name is on the front of #7 "Operation Hong Kong" but the author is really the prolific (and great) Ralph Hayes who besides writing his own series's like "The Hunter," "Cominsec," "Stoner," and "Check Force" he also wrote as McCurtin and Nick Carter for Nick Carter: Killmaster. Rainey is a mercenary who spends his non-war time as a weapons salesman and after a quick bit of revenge at the beginning. He heads to Hong Kong to sell his super-cool dart-gun (which sadly doesn't reappear) to his old Special Branch buddy where Rainey is hired be the British to quell Communist rioting and uprising. It's got the usual questionable treatment of women (be questionable I mean TERRIBLE) and old fashion politics. Hayes is a top-shelf paperback writer and "Operation Hong Kong" is a fast-paced ass-kicking tale of the the unrest in pre-handover of Hong Kong who fills the book with colorful characters and very fast action. The book is full of very hard-boiled riot scenes, GRUESOME murders and intrigue. The book works more as a cop/espionage adventure rather then a war or men on a mission tale but Rainey is a cut-throat merc through and through and he gets gets more and more pissed as the bodies pile up and pot that is Hong Kong boils over. I'm glad I have several Soldier of Fortunes to read (all by Hayes by accident) and will have to complete my collection.
"In the Hour Before Midnight" by the legendary Jack Higgins is both a tale of the mafia and a rugged story of the mercenary life and the differences in the codes that they both live by. Jack Higgins is a helluva writer especially in this era, before he became a massive success after "The Eagle has Landed" but having wrote enough to fully form his impressive skill set. The "hero" of the book is Stacey Wyatt the grandson of a Mafia capo who became a hard-bitten mercenary by the hands of Sean Burke (Jack Higgins loves the name Sean) and how his two lives collide during a mission to rescue a kidnapped women from bandits in the treacherous kills of Sicily. Deception and dirty dealing mafioso's get in his way and he has to solve most of his problems with his quick-draw action or Kung-fu grip, maybe. In a lot of ways this books is more set-up then execution. We go through Wyatt's pain, misery and questioning his abilities after nearly being broken in a hell-hole of a prison. The actual "mission" is over quickly and kinda doesn't amount to much, but Higgins sprinkles enough daring-do and intrigue to keep you turning the page. Higgins is a classier writer then most who put out this sort of fiction but he is still very much a pulp-mind author. He knows the pace and action are the key ingredients to his work but he executes them nearly perfectly. The idea of honor is something that he plays with frequently whether it is honor between killers, spies, soldiers on opposing sides, Higgins is obviously likes exploring the concept. After Higgins became a big time author and as he went along he had a tendency to spin his wheels and play in the sandbox sometimes. But he's such a good writer that even when he's not firing all on all cylinders he produces a book worth reading. That being said it's generally a safer bet to pick up an early Higgins. I particularly like Paul Chavasse series which is James Bond but in the rougher and tougher Higgins style. The Simon Vaughn books are also quite good, although they all seem to feature a DIFFERENT Simon Vaughn, so there's Higgins repeating himself again.
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