It's inevitable that if you dig around your own shelfs enough, you find the forgotten treasures. I finally tracked down an elusive copy of Walter Wager's 58 Minutes that I'd been searching for and a wayward stack of the Dirty Harry books by Warner books. But I also dove into my trade-paperback and hardback shelves, which I honestly don't look at much. The mass market paperback is the finest book format ever created, and I'll die on that cross. So, I was surprised to find the second volume of the Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin lead Dead Man series that I didn't remember actually buying. I enjoyed the first volume immensely but got side-tracked keeping up with it. After an afternoon of bookwork, I decided on a treat.
The Dead Man series is the classic Men's Adventure set-up. A revolving door of authors tackling entries in a series built around a badass protagonist. Here it's Matt Cahill, a man who died in an avalanche until to be un-frozen, only to see the evil that a certain Mr. Dark has infected people with. Before you can turn your TV to The Fugitive or The Incredible Hulk, Matt hits the road searching for Mr. Dark and having adventures along the way. I suggest you read the first novel first to get the whole set-up, but after that they can be read at your discretion.
It had also been too long since I had read anything by James Reasoner, so I flipped this second volume to his entry Blood Mesa, cracked open a cold beer and started reading. Matt finds himself in New Mexico on a remote archeological dig as a truck driver. Naturally this dig on top of the titular blood red mesa and of course Mr. Dark's evil is a problem again. With its remote location, there's a bit of a "siege atmosphere" as the members of the dig turn into crazed killers, leaving Matt and his trusty axe to save the survivors. There's a little interpersonal drama, plenty of axe-action, some explosions, rotting people, ancient curse-stuff and a beautiful woman to fall for Matt. This is a quick, tense read, the length of The Dead Man novels is one of the series great strengths. They fly by and keep you wanting more.
Reasoner is a helluva writer. I always mention his private eye novel Texas Wind and his sadly aborted Men's Aventure series Diamondback whenever his name comes up, but the truth is you can't go wrong any of his work. He's a true-blue pulp writer cranking out wonderful adventure tales. He works a lot in the western genre, and he infused a little of that into this horror/action tale, and it really work for me. His entry it got me itching to read more of his stuff AND more adventures of Matt Cahill.
