QUICK SHOTS: "Operation Nazi: U.S.A." by Joseph Gilman

Now what we got here is one of my White Whales. Between a general interest in the books that Manor put out back and the day and the tantalizing review of this book of the Glorious Trash blog, I knew this was a book for me. Unfortunately, it's one of those uber-expensive paperbacks that are to find and harder to afford or should I say justifying the price for. Whenever Joe Kenney over at Glorious Trash reviews something the price seems to jump up!

So, I finally found a copy at price I was willing to pay. I still paid a lot, don't get me wrong. But hey, money is just for buying books, right? RIGHT? Anyway, don't tell my wife. Joseph Gilman wrote a couple more books under his own name and then a couple of Nick Carter: Killmasters in the 80s but that's about the extent of my knowledge on him, other than now I'm a fan. I'll get this out of the way right off the bat, this is one of those tongue-in-cheek affairs that I enjoy so much. It's wildly over-the-top and Gilman seems to be having a ball with it. If you don't care for that kind of thing, it might not be your book.

This is the story of a Rain Allison who is also known as the Scorpion and his duties as a member of the Peacemakers, one of those hidden government assassination/trouble-shooting outfits that would be absolutely terrifying in real-life. He came into this outfit back-ass-wards and so convoluted that it's not really worth mentioning other than its wild, he was an insurance salesman and I like it. Rain is a badass who fucks up a lot. He's got that whole 70's-Post-Billy Jack-Native American-badassery going on only with a lot more firepower and his own "War Wagon" that has more gadgets than Bond's Aston Martin. 

He's out to stomp down some Nazi's which is one of my favorite things to read because fuck Nazi's. It's a race-against time novel only the race changes a couple of times. Rain drives around, kills Nazi's, pines for his lost love, talks about Native American stuff and his war-hero father, there's a kung-fu fight, an armored car-car chase, skinning people alive, the threat of poisoned water, revolvers with silencers. 

Oh, it's a total BLAST! It at times it almost reads like a companion novel to Kin Platt's Hitman series. They share a similar tone and wry approach to the conventions of the genre. The plotting is a lot stronger in Gilman's book then the last Hitman I read. It's also first-person narration which, coming from Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction, is my first love. Rain is a fairly funny narrator who still delivers the action and thrills. It does seem like the set-up to a series, though it does have a definite end. I wish there were more, my wallet doesn't but I do. So, I'll have to make do with Gilman's Nick Carter's one of which stars a female assassin named Raina out for vengeance...hmm...interesting. 

The Vampire Chase by Stephen (Stephen Mertz) Brett

One of the first books I reviewed on the blog was Stephen Mertz's "Some Die Hard" along with James Reasoner's "Texas Wind," as they both private eye yarns (the finest form of literature in my mind) and came out from Manor books. Manor is a publisher that I've grown to really enjoy for the years. Like a lot of smaller publishers back then it's really a crapshoot about what you get when you open a Manor book. Either you get something great like "Texas Wind" and "Some Die Hard" or get a particularly bad stinker. When I wrote about Mertz first book, I didn't realize that he wrote another one for Manor. Then I found myself in this truck stop on the highway that has a back room full of used books for truckers. It's not the first time I've found book-gold amongst motor oil, beef jerky and packs of No-Doz. Running my eyes along the spins, I spot the familiar Manor logo on the top of the spine and then see the "Stephen Brett" handle. Then it all clicks. I shuffle it in with my sparkling water and Doritos and get out of there with my treasure. Sometimes Christmas comes early.

Mertz's is a pro; I've enjoyed his writing longer than I knew who he was when he was working on the Mack Bolan's. His Bolan #43: "Return to Vietnam" is one of my favorite Bolan books (including Pendleton's) that I read after a vague reference to it online back when I was consuming a lot of 80's action movies, like "Missing in Action" and "Let's Get Harry." Mertz pretty much kick started the whole "got back to 'Nam and get the P.O.W.s thing," that was mainstay in action cinema. Then he went on to create "The M.I.A. Hunter" books with a similar set-up. He's a trendsetter. 

His second novel "The Vampire Chase" is a horror-tinged 70s set rock 'n' roll roller-coaster mystery. Steve Madison is an ass-kicking troubleshooter of a record label who pulls musicians out of jams and keeps things quiet. It's a refreshing hook/set-up for a detective book. This book is pure 70s rock 'n' roll radio. The Animals, The Who, Jimmi and Janis get name-checked, it's warm and welcoming for a guy like me who grew up with 70s hippie-musician parents. Madison and his .44 Magnum are turned loose to stop a series of brutal "vampire" murders. Now despite the groovy mustachioed vampire on the cover, there's no supernatural element the book. Occult, ritual Vampire slayings and Satan-worship? Sure. It's a really just a crackling (and well done) mystery about who in a set of characters on a rock tour is killing and drinking the blood of groupies along the way. I'm not ruining anything, no one suspects that the killings are actually a real vampire. And despite the Dracula cover it's clearly marked "mystery" on the spine. I think it's a little stronger of a book that Mertz's first Manor "Some Die Hard," (still love it) at least in pace. "The Vampire Chase" puts the pedal down on the first page and keeps it there until the final one.

In classic P.I. fashion Madison gets conked on the head a lot, folks try and set up for murders, run him over with trucks and slash him up as he plays head games with his group of suspects to rip the mystery apart. Not to mention tangling with crazy rock stars, ex-girlfriends, and new pistol-packing lady-friends. Madison is ex-musician himself and a through and through tough guy, but he isn't above getting emotionally involved. Speaking of Don Pendleton and Mack Bolan. I think there's a bit of Bolan in Madison. The rage he feels about the slayings of women, his own firmly set morals about the nature of "justice" and though it starts as a paying gig it soon becomes a quest of vengeance. It makes sense as Pendleton had a big impact of Mertz's writing career. Also, Pendleton was so good you probably ought to pay attention to what he was laying down. Not to mention there's a little bit of Mike Hammer in the mix too. There's even a little tip of the fedora to "One Lonely Night" in there near the finale. 

I can't tell you enough how much I enjoyed this book, I read in a couple of sittings. "The Vampire Chase" is a lot of fun for fans of private eye mysteries as well as Men's Adventure. The mystery is very solid, keeping you on your toes right till the end and the action comes frequent. The original Manor paperback (like a lot of Manors) is scarce, unless maybe if you hang out at truck stops. Luckily not only is "The Vampire Chase" is available as an eBook from Wolfpack Publishing, but there's also a paperback available as well. So, you have no excuse for not rushing out and buying it. And not only that 25 years later Mertz wrote the follow up "Fade to Tomorrow!" I'll be buying that here real quick.

Here's a bonus, I obviously love book as in the back of the novels, this one has an ad for "Dachau Treasure" by Anthony DeStefano another Manor I enjoyed as well as other quality Manor books.

Quick Shots: Dachau Treasure by Anthony DeStefano

Here's a short and to the point review (as short and to the point as long-winded me can provide) of "Dachau Treasure" by Anthony DeStefano who wrote the short-lived Mondo martial arts series. I have #3 in that series but haven't read it so this is my first taste of DeStefano's work a stand-alone Manor paperback riddled with so many typos I actually noticed and that's saying something cause I usually don't care.

"Dachau Treasure" opens up with Stosh Jacobs cleaning his .44 Magnum. BOOM. It got me there, probably. Stosh is the eye-patched bald guy on the cover. He got his eye-patch in the Dachau concentration camp as a boy. Now he hunts down and kills Nazi for they bounty on them. He's aided by his super 70's-brand "intellectual college boy" Eric, who acts like his nagging wife about how he should retire his life of badass Nazi-hunting, but is a good decoder and helper or something. Also along for the ride is the much more fun Alexoya a general thief and crafty/fun character. Anyway Stosh really wants the Nazi-jerkoff who took his eye and he gets a line on him and uncovers a bigger plot and starts hunting the stolen "treasure" of the Jewish people from Dachau to return it to the rightful people.

The first half of the book is rock solid Men's adventure with plus shag carpeting Stosh and his silenced-Webley revolver and his hot-rod Jaguar scream around beating and shooting information of of Nazi dicks. With brief intervals of  Eric whining about how killing Nazi's isn't the right thing to do. Stosh goes down to Mexico with Alexoya, tries some pot with some sweet ladies and with his buddy and some knock-off Smith and Wesson revolvers kills the man who took his eye. That part was a little rushed and it's a sign of what's to come. Seems like Stosh would have made a bigger deal about killing the dude he's been hunting for years, but hey, okay, I'm rolling along with the book enough.

Then the narrative slides into something else. There's a Nazi conspiracy. Stosh begins to wonder if he doesn't enjoy getting high and laid more then Nazi killing and it moves into the 70's conspiracy thriller novel: with Eric at the front. Eric is followed by mysterious Nazi agents through New York, runs one of them over with his car, hides out with his girlfriend and they have a couple good-long talks about how he shouldn't pick up one of Stosh's gun and protect himself if the Nazi's find him. They also smoke a lot of pot.  Stosh swoops in at the end to quickly save the day as DeStefano was rapidly reaching his minimum word count and the patented "Men's Adventure Rapid Ending" is in place.

I probably liked the book more then it sounds like. The first part was super-solid, nice fast well written action with heavy dollops of 70's grooviness and Stosh is a colorful character compared to the usual "Square-jawed hero" of these paperbacks. The book looses it's way but then wraps up in a pretty good action sequence. Its the Jekyll and Hyde of 70's Nazi-Hunting Men's Adevnture Paperbacks.

A Quintuple Blast of 70's Action

SO, I moved, I dunno, several thousand books last month from one house to another, plus all my other shit. It's as pleasant as it sounds. To break up the monotony and save my back, I read three slim paperbacks. Sorry about they super late reviews but sorting, organizing and cataloging has been quite the chore. But here's a bunch of reviews.

I started with "The Big Needle," after reading about on Paperback Warrior (a vastly more put together and comprehensive collection of entertaining reviews) I was intrigued because it was an early work of Ken Follett. The early pulpy works of authors who later became well-known can sometiems be excellent and other can be just a tepid and boring as most mainstream fiction. Paperback Warrior didn't care for this book, as I am VERY easy to please I came away from it wishing the final two chapters in the "Apples" Carstairs trilogy weren't so hard to find. I'd read them in a heartbeat.

Ken Follett as Symon Myles here creates "Apples" a swinging London building contractor out for revenge with his two girlfriends in tow. The book rolled over my eyes like a wonderful 70's Eurocrime movie, probably made with Italian and British money and probably staring Richard Harris, or maybe Michael Caine. Anyway Apples is a rough sort in a higher pay bracket, with a background in crime reporter and the military and most likely anything else the story might need at that point races off (literally) after finding out his daughter is in hospital after ODing. Not a lot of this book makes sense, I get that right out there in the open. Apples flip-flops from being pissed about drugs and drug dealers to banging any chick he can and the ideas about lesbian/bisexual are very back-asswards, but surprisingly Apples girlfriends are some of the better characters in the book. The story plays fast and loose with Apples trying to set up a drug buy to trap his prey, along the way he pulls a "French Connection" with a car packed full of heroin, drives in his super-cool Jaguar, does some businessman stuff, drinks and smokes weed. I think I like him because he's a lot hipper then the usual "drug-buster" character and Follett's tongue seems to be creeping through his teeth into his cheek throughout.

"The Big Needle" was a slim book, but "The Syndicate" by my friend and yours Peter McCurtin is practically a novella. The cover promises "Godfather" like insight into the inter workings of the dreaded Mafia, luckily that's just Belemont-Tower pulling your leg. James Broderick is a badass Mafia killer sent out by an aging Don to kill a dick-ass Nazi in ancient Irish castle built up like a fortress. Yeah, now that's a plot synopsis.

Broderick is a lot like most McCurtin's protagonists, kind of a wise-ass mixed with utter badass. That's about all you get or need to know. It's a wallop of a fun plot that probably could have used a second draft with a little bit more book injected into it. Maybe it was written in a booze-fueled weekend to catch a deadline by the balls. Yeah, that might be it. So, there's a Neo-Nazi bent on doing what Nazi's do best: fuck shit up and it's going to get in the way of the Mafia's operation. This is a nice idea and twist on the initial set-up. The fist bit plays like a spy story with a lone agent going to pick up his latest assignment from his boss, only the boss is the Don and instead of national interests its pure finical interests. Sooner or later this Nazi is going to cost he mob money and they aren't going to like that. Enter Broderick. So, tangles with goons, a Nazi-She-Devil or the Doctor Nazi-She-Devil variety, breaks out of a castle and kills who's gots to get kills. It's all over before you know it, which is a shame. Nothing is used to it's full potential but ts written in the McCurtin style which is professional action writing, it's okay but pales in comparison to his other work. It might have worked better within one of McCurtin's series works like as a Marksman, Sharpshooter or a Soldier of Fortune book.

The next book I read had some meat on it's bones "Lone Wolf #1: Night Raider," by Mike Barry or
Barry Maltzberg as it says on his taxes. I've been wanting to dip my toe into the pool of this particular series for a while but was informed that they HAVE to be read in order as it builds and builds over the series. So, I finally picked up a copy of #1 let it sit on a shelf for months, remember I wanted to read it and picked it up. That's how I roll.

Easily this is the best book of the five, it's a rock solid example of Men's Adventure Fiction. It's going up there in the hall of fame. Burt Wulf (get it?) is a Narc who's lady-friend is found dead by him after ODing. Basically his mind goes POP! and he decides to do the long road to revenge thing. It's not an original plot but Malzberg is a damned fine writer and continuously ratchets up the tension and lets Wulf's sanity slowly slip away. All the side characters are unique and interesting, with nary a stock character in the mix, like a mobster on a tear with a wife glued to the TV who doesn't pay attention to the world around her and the love he feels for his 10 year old Buick and Wulf's old partner, a African-American rookie who became a cop because people have to take notice of him when he's in uniform. Malzberg creates whole characters in little bits. The story is simple enough Wulf follows the trail of baddies, whooping their ass until he can move on the next one, much like a super bloody Mario Bros. Wulf's a dick and psycho but he's a thinker too and his solution to killing this episodes bad-guy is pretty clever compared to the simple "shoot-everyone" climax often used, but is also still satisfactory. It'll be interesting to see how Wulff gets crazier and crazier as the books progress. I also like that Wulf looks like Mr. Fantastic with a .45 on the cover.

Like a lot of fans of Men's adventure I'm an avid reader of Glorious Trash as it's practically the bible of the kinds of novels. It's a blog that has cost me a lot of money and much more joy. The review of Dean Ballenger's Gannon series has made my mouth water for a couple of years but I never held out much hope for tracking any of them down cause it's the same sad story, too few copies and too high of prices. With a coupon and a little (okay a lot) of cash I ended up with #2 "Blood Fix" and #3 "Blood Beast" and my tiny heart grew six whole inches. I dove head first in the insane world of the "little tiger" Gannon with his spiked brass knuckles, his .357, sweet Mercedes and a thirst for murdering the rich and evil. The rich is key word, the Gannon landscape has Depression-Era vibes, class warfare and out-dated slang fill the book. It's a book out of time simultaneously feeling, 20's, 70's and no time that has ever existed. It's a trippy R-rated comic book landscape with Gannon has a Batman/Punisher who boinks all the ladies and beats people to a pulp and shoots people to a pulp, ya know to help the downtrodden. IT'S AMAZING.


A small town gas station owner is set-up with a false rape-charge by an insidious rich guy out to buy the land the gas station sits on cause a highway is coming right by it. The gas station owner calls Gannon who's pretty famous for ass-kicking to come help him. Gannon likes ass-kicking so he rolls into town and faces off with a nasty killer and all sorts of goons. People die in horrible ways, people act like no humans ever have and Gannon is near superhuman in his ability to murder folk. The women  have it the worse in the book and none of them are particularly believable, so if you have a problem with that you might want to skip it. I prefer authors with distinct voices and Ballenger had that in aplomb. More then anything it reminded me of a 70's version of Carroll John Daly's Race Williams and Robert Leslie Bellem's Dan Turner stories. All three writers liked lighting fast-paced stories, their own vernacular and tough guy heroes. I'll be shelling out the cash of Gannon #1 fairly quickly. It's a shame Ballenger seemingly didn't produce more then a handful of novels but he wrote a lot for the sweat mags. I suppose he wouldn't be everyone's taste but if you like you mayhem with a little knowing humor you could do worse.

Frank Scarpetta was a lot of different guys, "Slaughter-House" Scarpetta was Russell Smith, who wrote a fair number of Marksman/Sharpshooter novels. This was my first Smith novel and it won't be my last. This was a bloody, goofy seat-of-the-pants affair that through logic out the window and replaced it was brains on the floor, fishing line used a grappling hooks and .38's, .45s, .357s, and .44's blowing Mafia's hoods heads, chest, and necks apart. Philip Magellan is the Marksman when he's not Johnny Rock The Sharpshooter. They are the same guy, plus they are also Robert Briganti AKA "The Assassin." Go to Lynn Monroe Books for the full-scoop on the ins and outs of The Marksman/Sharpshooter/Assassin series and a lot of the work that Peter McCurtin did as a writer and as an editor.

Magellan goes back to a carnival where he was a trick-shooter and since his new occupation is mafia buster the mafia is pulling strong arm moves and wanting protection money from said carnival. Magellan is pissed off by this and shoots a bunch of goons and starts an all-out war between carnies and the mob (I wish, that'd been cool) but he does get a lot of carnies killed in the process including the woman owner who's son is along for the ride, as Robin to Magellan's Batman. He comes in pretty handy as he casually owns a sloppily deactivated mortar that comes in handy when they want to blow a mob-honcho's house to pieces. Also luckily Magellan knows a place where the mortar shells are kept and also has a key for the building. That's some good luck. The book moves a fast clip of shootings told in grizzly detail. Magellan doesn't get laid which is a change of pace from the usual paperback hero, he seems to get his rocks off with the mafia-murdering he does. Really the book didn't make a whole lot of sense but the characters were wonderfully colorful and the plot is simply "death to bad guys." As a potato chip, the book rates very high. Russell Smith has made me a fan, I'm glad I have more of his work in the series and one of his stand alone's "Montego" as Robert Dupont.

Manor Eyes: "Texas Wind" by James Reasoner and "Some Die Hard" by Stephen Mertz

Manor Books never hit the big time. They had a few Men's Adventure series that are worth noting,  Andrew Sugar's bat-shit crazy Enforcer, Keller by Neslon De Mille (before his name took up more space on a book's cover then art) others with names like Aquanauts,  Bronson, Kill-Squad, Kung-Fu Featuring Mace, Nookie, Mondo, etc. etc. But along the way they published the first novels of James Reasoner and Stephen Mertz (writing as Stephen Brett) both are old-school private eye novels of a the highest quality. Both authors have had good careers in books with numbers on them, Mertz in the Bolan world, plus M.I.A. Hunter and others. Reasoner in westerns mostly with series like Longarm and Trailsman. Its clear they both love their private eyes though, both books are great tributes to the characters that came before but yet build on the concept of "one man vs. them all" that is the central theme of detective fiction and put it through the lens of their respective times and places.

"Texas Wind" is the best Mike Shayne novel ever written, but of course it's not it being the only novel-length appearance of Cody a Fort Worth private investigator. I couldn't help comparing the two as Cody and Shayne are some of the best representations of the classic version of the American Private Detective out there. I think Mr. Reasoner will appreciate the Shayne reference (if he ever reads this, yeah right!) as he cut his teeth writing Shayne some of the best novelettes for Mike Shayne Mystery magazine and has an affection for the character. Shayne has gotten the tag of "generic P.I." which is unfair in my opinion as Shayne lives in a clearly written world and he himself is fairly different in setting, temperament and habits then the cliched detective, that being said Shayne was ghost written and after a while the edges of his character were smoothed away. In a lot of ways Cody is a generic P.I. on the surface, a loner with an answering service, freshly bought Remington prints for his office, .38 and a sense of right and wrong. In lesser hands the book wouldn't be as FANTASTIC as it is. Cody pounds pavement, asks question, sinks his teeth into a case about missing college student and doesn't let go. Along the way he tangles with mafioso, gets beaten, shot at and at one point has a severed finger in his glove box. Cody is Shayne with sharp edges and a breath of excited first-novel writing that is sometimes magical.

"Some Die Hard" is about Rock Dugan (GREAT NAME) a colorful Denver-based hip 70's detective trying to figure out a flying locked room mystery. Dugan's a right tough guy with a .44 magnum, a stunt-man background and a love for books. Right after you meet Dugan he's reading a Perry Mason. I love things like in books. Influences on your sleeve. Dugan has to solve the death of a man who went up in a sailplane only to come down in it dead with a knife in his chest. Probably the only locked-sailplane mystery ever. Dugan's story has the hallmarks of a classic Gold Medal private eye paperback, crooked cops, the mob, rich evil people, etc. etc. But I got the Mike Shayne vibe from it as well. See back in the early Shayne days when eye-patched David Dresser (it makes a cool author photo) was still writing them Shayne had the hard-boiled "Black Mask" edge to him tempered by a bit of the screwball and a bit of the "classic detection/locked-room" bit; i.e. gathering the suspects into a room at the end of the book and verbally spewing the tale of his investigation until the killer was apparent.  This is a humdinger of hard-boiled tale that twists and fires on all .44 cylinders. Plus it's dedicated to Don Pendleton of  "The Executioner" fame. Super side-note: Pendleton wrote a awesome P.I. series of his own about Joe Copp, so add those to your list too.

Both writers have spoken about how Manor was a screwy place to write for so that probably killed the chance of Cody or Dugan appearing in other books, much to my chagrin. Cody did appear in some short stories in various places (including, you guessed in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine) they were all collected in "Fort Worth Nights," and it along with "Texas Wind," is readily available in paperback and ebook. Though Dugan was one-and-done, Stephen Mertz does now have a series set in the 70's about a tough-guy private eye named Kilroy that can be seen as a spiritual successor to Dugan. That's a terrific series, lean and mean detective stories that a few-and-far between these days. "Some Die Hard" and the Kilroy books are all in paperback and ebook too. So, you can have a lot of quality writing at your bloody little fingers pretty quick. The original paperback of "Texas Wind" and "Some Die Hard" aren't readily available. "Texas Wind" in particular is a pricey book, I got lucky when I picked mine up from one of the massive online booksellers, I rolled the dice on a no picture Amazon listing and came up lucky. It only took like fifteen years of looking. Yeah, man I lead a life worth living.