QUICK SHOTS: Aquanauts #1: Cold Blue Death by Ken (Manning Lee Stokes) Stanton

The Aquanauts is a Lyle Kenyon Engle joint, which means he thought it was a good enough paperback idea to commission veteran pulpster Manning Lee Stokes to crank out 11 volumes. Our hero is William Martin aka Tiger Shark aka, the, uh, Aquanaut. A deep-sea commando with enough underwater gadgets to make G.I. Joe jealous. It's a delicious idea for a paperback hero, unfortunately everything in the books tastes a bit stale.

Manning Lee Stokes wrote a lot of books. He started out in comics, writing Seven Seas Comics and like the second graphic novel ever The Case of the Winking Budha. Then he wrote some mystery novels, including the pretty solid (from what I heard) The Grave's in the Meadow. After a while of not setting the publishing world on fire as himself he became names like Nick Carter (Nick Carter: Killmaster), Paul Edwards (John Eagle), Jeffery Lord (Richard Blade), and the like. Also, like pretty much any paperback writer of the time, he wrote westerns and some porn. I like his work with Nick Carter and John Eagle, which would be the place to start if you're interested in his work.

I have the full run of 11 books in The Aquanauts. I got most of them in on foul swoop at the wonderful Gardner's Used Books in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The rest I picked up here and there on the internet. They have some of coolest and wildest covers on any of the 70s Men's Adventure books. The first time I tried reading one I was disappointed and bailed on it pretty quickly. I still kept buying them though. That's called "a sickness."

But as I finish up my next book The Grill-Master, which is the first in a series, I decided to do an unofficial series here where I look at the first book in long-running series. This series isn't too long running, but I figured what the hell, it's my blog. Maybe I just wanted to punish myself, because I knew I was in dangerous waters.

So, Cold Blue Death introduces us to, I'm just going to call him Tiger. He was a 'Nam Vet (obviously) and a frogman (obviously) who gets recruited to be an ocean commando/spy guy by he's given a bitchin' submarine called the KRAB, an underwater dart gun and a bunch of other spy toys. The set-up is a little like Engle's other series Nick Carter: Killmaster mixed with John Eagle: The Expeditor. Only with the fun dialed down to 2.

His mission? It involves a dead Navy man in the Bermuda triangle, nuclear threats, sunken treasure, hot ladies, evil guys named Toad and other groovy 70s action stuff and when the action starts...it's over pretty quickly. Tiger Shark is a fairly boring "standard issue hero," outside of ogling ladies he only thinks of the mission and doesn't seem like he'd be fun to have a beer with. Then the rest of the book is mostly plodding and just over-stuffed with words, descriptions and threads that don't add up to much. It's pretty clear Stokes was making it all up as he went. Probably with a bottle of amber liquid nearby for stamina as he pounded out the keys.

This was a slog to get through. At times it felt like wading through knee-deep water (water, Aquanauts, get it?) and then every now at then Stokes would remember he was writing for entertainment and throw something awesome in there to keep me going. If I hadn't committed to this little "read the #1s" series I got going, I probably would have put this one back on the shelf like I did with the last Aquanauts I tried. But I am glad I finally read one of the damned things. Too bad it wasn't better. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: The Penetrator #1: The Target is H by Lionel (Mark Roberts) Derrick

It's hard to believe it's taken me this long to get around to reviewing a Penetrator novel here. Before the blog, I read a two-fistfuls in pretty quick succession and it as a series is high on my list of favorite Men's Adventure series. Then promptly didn't read one for years. Too much Hardin in my life. Wait.

It's a funky bunch of books that sometimes feel like a Roger Moore Bond film, sometimes an episode of Baretta or Banacek or Lookwell. Wait. and other times it's a bloody orgy of death and destruction. It's got a lot of the buzzword-trappings of the 70s. The interest in Native American history, "computers," obviously the mafia, and Mark Hardin aka The Penetrator's hideout really feels like it's the playset to a very violent series of G.I. Joe-knockoffs. (Go to YouTube and watch the Lookwell pilot starring Adam West. You'll thank me)

But I hadn't read the first Penetrator, in fact I rarely read the first installment of series like these. I guess I'm afraid of dull set-ups. But as of this review, I'm VERY close to finishing the first novel in a series that's very much a throwback to the heroes of 70s. It's the first, full-length novel that I'll publish. My first book, Gunpowder Breath, didn't really get to the full word count; it'd be a novella or a novelette if it had ever got the chance to be published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. This one, *TITLE REDACTED* is the length of a Gold Medal paperback or a Gold Eagle adventure, so it's good and I might even try to find a real publisher for it (let me know if you got any suggestions, ha!) so I have bragging rights. 

All that to say, writing the first in a series got me to think about all the first installments I had avoided. So, as I finish the first draft and go into the second I thought I might see how others did their first installments. So, I dug out the Butcher #1, Death Merchant #1, Executioner #1, etc. etc. some of which I have read, but it was ages ago to take a look at again. So, keep an eye out of this unofficial series of #1s here on the site. 

All that to get to Penetrator #1: The Target is H. This one it's an odd-numbered book in the series so it's written by Mark K. Roberts (Chet Cunningham handled the evens) who wrote a lot in the Men's Adventure field, writing the Liberty Corps and Solider for Hire books as well as westerns and, you know, anything that made him a buck. Respect. He's a pretty solid action writer, with a real meat 'n' potatoes style. I think I generally prefer Chet Cunningham though. I've read a bunch of the adventures of Mark Hardin, but I don't really remember if I'd ever really read one of his. I must have but there's been a lot of books ran through my brain over the years.

Obviously, this is a set-up novel for a long-running series. Mark Hardin is a 'Nam vet who comes home battered from his work overseas. Hardin doesn't know what he's doing...for like three pages and then he's on his quest to kill the mafia for killing the love of his life. It's an incredibly swift set-up, so swift that I had to re-read to double check if some pages weren't missing. It gets through with his backstory (most of which is provided for in with faux-record and stats at the beginning of the book) in ten pages before they introduce his secondary characters and his secret lair. Then bingo-bango he's off a-murdering bad guys. 

Mark Hardin is super similar to the rest of our buddies, Mack Bolan, Bucher the Butcher, Johnny Rock, Philip Magellan, etc. etc. He's got a little more fantasy/pulp hero vibes going on with his sidekicks the mad scientist and Native American buddy and gadgets. It'd be easy to make an illusion to The Spider or Doc Savage, but maybe he's just a little more like John Eagle, Expeditor. Either way he's a cool dude. I think I dig this series because of this exact flavor. Hardin doesn't mull of his mission to take down the mafia; he hangs up in a desert lair with his buddies and then goes out and fucks shit up. Seems like a fine life. 

The Target is H has Hardin taking down a heroin ring on his quest to rid the world of mafia scum. These books are a little wilder/gorier than the usual Executioner but never hit Destroyer levels of funny. There's plenty of shoot-outs, mafia goons, fightin' and particular gruesome bit with sticky firebombs that's pretty gnarly. Here everything is a little loose and Roberts/Cunningham hadn't fully locked in the character or the world which is some of the charm of reading early series books. They are wild and the beginning, get "standard" in the middle and usually devolve into some wild again toward the end. 

These used to haunt nearly every used books store I went too; I got a couple volumes in "blind bag" mystery piles of books when I was a teenager. I remember snickering at the obvious Mark Hardin-Penetrator-Joke. I still laugh a little. Nowadays they are a little scarcer and a bit pricier (which seems to be EVERY Men's Adventure book now) I got most of mine in a couple big lots off eBay, giving me a lot of cheap entertainment. Which is exactly what this series is. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Hardy #5: Reunion for Death by Martin Meyers

The Hardy series was one of my first brushes of the Men's Adventure field. Which is pretty funny if you've ever read a Hardy. I stumbled upon the book on the fabled Thrilling Detective website, probably after reading a few Shell Scotts and wanting something similar but different. I do recall that they were some of my first online book purchases from eBay all those years ago. I've only ever seen one Hardy in a bookstore in my travels, which I bought to complete my set. That was luck. They seem pretty scarce, but I don't know what the demand is for them either. 

Patrick Hardy stars in, uh, Hardy #5: Reunion for Death. He's a New York private eye with a business called Trouble Ltd. He loves the ladies, lives with his big dog and has a barber chair in his living room. He used to be a fat guy but after getting shot in the stomach he slimmed down, but his weight issues take up a lot of discussion throughout the series. After he slimmed down, he got drafted but he was a coward, so the Army sent him to get hypnotic training. So, when danger appears his body takes over and he's a master of the fighting arts, even though he's scared out of his mind the whole time. Happened to all of us at one time, right?

This is a real weird series. It has more in common with something like Ted Mark's The Man from ORGY than any sort of hardboiled detective or Men's Adventure fiction. Hardy spends most of the time trying/having sex with various women throughout the books. If he's not sexing he's watching old movies on TV or eating, going to the doctor or thinking about eating or reading TV Guide. Oh, and sometimes he lazily solves a mystery or has a very-brief fistfight. 

I have no idea why I like these so much (I seem to be in the minority on the internet in this regard), but these are fun hang-out novels. I like Hardy, we have similar interests. Are his tales as thrilling or action packed as the wonderful Walter Popp covers suggest? No. No, they are not. I'm sure the bait-and-switch element is working against Hardy here, but I don't care. I like the covers AND the stories. Here Hardy's old college friends pull him into a drug smuggling ring and murders ensue. Hardy hangs out until it's all solved.

Martin Meyers was an actor and one part of Maan Meyers with his wife under which they wrote historical mysteries. He's got a light, bright and funny style. Breezy is a good word for it. Some folks liked Hardy because he popped back up in the 90s in a fun short story in Private Eyes, an anthology edited by none-other-than Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. High Praise.

Here's a fun video from CBS mornings where they interview Martin and Annette for their collaborations. Hardy even gets a mention, as well as Martin's film work. 

If the Hardy books didn't have all the sex and the under-used "programed fighting" gimmick, settled down to be more engaging mysteries and were published in hardback I bet they would have been more successful. I'm glad they weren't. I like them just the way they are.

Your mileage may vary. 

QUICK SHOTS: The Sharpshooter #5: Night of the Assassins by Bruno (Len Levinson) Rossi

 Ah, the twisted world of Johnny Rock came calling. It'd been a minute since I cracked open a volume of The Sharpshooter, and that's a wicked shame. The saga of The Marksman/The Sharpshooter/The Assassin is one of my favorites of the 70s Men's adventure offerings. Because this is where things get weird.

The books are sloppier than Don Pendleton's work. They are hastily thrown together pulp cranked out by pure id and a few days of hazy typing. Most of them sorta work in some sort of dreamscape where things just happen. They seem like bar room tales told over an ever-increasing amount of beer, where parts of the tale don't quite add up and lucky coincidences run rampant. That all depends on who's writing them of course.  

This one's the work of Len Levinson, an all-around terrific storyteller who spins the most level of all of these paperbacks. Len gives Johnny Rock more personality than the other writers who worked on the series, who paint Rock as a raving psycho. I mean, he's a raving psycho here too, but he'll have a few human emotions too. Rock's got the usual vigilante trappings, the mafia killed his family, and he goes out kills the mafia. Don't mess with something that works. 

In Night of the Assassins, he finds himself in Miami and sets out killing various mob dudes. In-between his a-murderin' Rock gambles a little, plans his hits a lot and has some fun with various woman who seem very willing to bed down a half-crazed stranger. Along the way's there's scuba raids on casino boats, long-range sniping, machine-gunnin,' dumb cops, dead mobsters and some rough complications. All in all, it's a good time between the covers. Len makes Rock interesting and you don't mind just spending time with him as runs around Miami, that isn't to say that the action is fast and furious when it happens. This one's got some great set-pieces (one's on the cover) and quick action. 

Like I said, Len can write. You'll probably never be disappointed if he wrote it. This series and its sister series' can be a mixed bag and unfortunately their all getting pretty pricey these days. I used to buy 'em for a buck or two in used bookstores and I've even bought a couple at that truck stop. Now most of them will run $5-$10 and some of the choice ones, the ones written by Len or Russell Smith will go for crazy prices. That's what happens when you become a legend.

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Dead Man #5: Blood Mesa by James Reasoner

The other day I was rearranging bookshelves. Call it my form of mediation. It started out as a book hunt, a "do I have that book, or have I just been thinking about buying it?" Then I spotted some things that didn't belong in their respective spaces, and I decided to remedy that situation. This snowballed into a light rearranging that took a whole afternoon. I recently finally gave up my day-job for my side-work and make my own schedule now and spending an afternoon hip deep in the library organizing sure put my head on straight again. Ah, Zen. 

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. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Landshark #1 by Irwin Zacharia

One of my little paperback obsessions is books published by the fly-by-night publisher Carousel (a division of American Art Enterprises, the porn publisher) and the crown jewel of their output is the work by Irwin Zacharia. In my humble opinion anyway. I've covered his The Protector series about the sumo-wrestling private eye who fights supernatural menaces and one of his Vendetta books about Will Power, vigilante for hire. It took a long time, but I finally tracked down both books in his Landshark series about Salamander Shark. As you can see 'ol Irwin had a thing with goofy names. 

Irwin certainly had a thing for other names if the general consensus is correct that Irwin Zacharia is actually Paul Little who supposedly wrote something like 700 novels (whew) under a ton of names. Obviously, the supposedly mafia-adjacent Carousel Books records aren't around now, so we might never know who Irwin actually is. I do have some other novels that are known to be Little's work and I'll have to read them to compare the writing. I DO think that it was singular man writing as "Irwin Zacharia," the goofy names, some distinct odd turns of phrase and some preoccupations shine throughout all the books. 

So, this was after the SNL skit's where Chevy Chase played a landshark so I'm just going to assume that was the germ of the idea. But here the titular "landshark" is Salamander Shark, a man of Native and Asian descent who is part Tarzan, part Robin Hood, part Bruce Lee and all paperback hero. He lives in the desert with his family and steals to improve the lives of native Americans. He's also basically superhuman. He can move without sound, climb up anything, expel poison with thought and even CHOP MOTHER FUCKER'S HEADS OFF WITH HIS HANDS.

Yeah. He's a cool 70s macho dude. Here he robs a cabal of rich douchebags to build a hospital. This gets him tangled up in a government investigation of said douchebags. The G-Men are onto the bad guys, but they need a Superman to take them out and Shark is reluctantly drawn into a dastardly plot to overthrow a whole country with a drug-fueled army. Along the way there's plenty of night raids, sexual shenanigans, ass-kicking and chopping off of body parts with bare hands, vaginal contraceptive foam used as a weapon, scaling tall buildings in loincloths (yes, Virginia, the book's cover actually happens) and all-around Men's Adventure fun. 

The whole set-up is vaguely familiar to fans of Men's Adventure, owing a little to John Eagle, Expeditor and a whole lot to Tarzan and Doc Savage and the like. This is a slim book, and it was clearly written in a couple of sittings (maybe with some help from some uppers, smokes and a little whiskey to taste, but it was fun for what it is. It's pretty modern in some ways, the treatment of the Native American characters (though total stereotypes) is pretty favorable, and it's got a strong distrust of rich people (always appreciated) and a lot of the books at the time weren't even that progressive. 

These are the books I really enjoy. The weird outliers, the rush jobs. Stuff like Kirby Carr's Hitman or Norman Conway's Clown-covered Hunter or Andrew Sugar's Enforcer. The stuff that was really playing with the conventions of the genre and taking it to some odd places. I'm glad I have the awesomely named second book (and last) book in the series: Landshark #2: Piranha, Piranha to enjoy, I'll savor it as a treat. 

QUICK SHOTS: The Executioner #68: Prairie Fire by Don (Mike Newton) Pendleton

It had been a while since I dug into a Mack Bolan, and I figured as the year closed (I read this last week) I might as well ring it out with something I'd been meaning to read for a while. Prairie Fire has a good reputation within the series. Plus, it takes place in my home state of Kansas so, I've always been hankering to check it out. But I don't buy Executioner books online. They are plentiful around my book-buying parts and are often under a dollar, so I scrounge around and eventually come up with the ones I want. 

So, I've had this one on my TBR pile for six months after paying a quarter for it at my local's clearance rack with a stack of other Mack's. I usually just go to the copyright page and check out who actually wrote them and go by that. Picking up mostly the ones by Mike Newton, Stephen Mertz, Chet Cunningham and the like. I knew this one was my next Mack Bolan, but it was just a matter of time. 

I've dug Mike Newton's work in the field for a while, in both fiction and his awesome non-fiction book, How to Write Action Adventure Novels. I got into his stuff from his early work Terror at Boulder Dam from Carousel Books. Newton's a very solid writer of men's adventure and westerns; his stuff is meat and potatoes. Delicious tales that go down easy with some substance to them. This was the first Bolan I've read from him, and it won't be my last. 

Prairie Fire picks up in medias res with Bolan escaping the clutches of this book's evildoers. I haven't read #67 so I don't really know if it's a continuation of that book, but you don't really need to know. Bolan explains that he's on the run again, from the mob, the feds and anyone else evil. Here, the evil dick is The Cowboy, a mercenary who grew up watching westerns and decided to model is whole vibe off it. So, hat, mirrored shades, western clothes and a shiny Smith and Wesson M29 .44 Magnum. He's a worthy opponent to our buddy Mack and a real slimy bastard you want to see get his componence. 

Mack finds himself in an isolated farmhouse with a crotchety old WWII vet, his nice lady wife and their conveniently widowed (and hot) daughter-in-law. Gee, I wonder what happens with her and Mack. Besides some random henchmen that's our whole cast of characters, which is pretty refreshing since a lot of Men's Adventure can get bogged down in side characters and extra plots. This one's a straight-ahead siege tale, like Mack Bolan starring in Assault on Precinct 13. Mack doesn't have all his gear, making do with a pump-action .22 and some MacGyver'd grenades. It's a real quick tale that barrels to its finish with a little humor and a lot of action.

In a lot of ways this feels like a modern action tale with its stripped-down feeling, you could easily see this being a DTV action film starring Michael Jai White or Scott Adkins. It might have been a great place to start a film series for Bolan back in the 80s, certainly would have been cheap enough to film. I think I like these early Gold Eagle's before it became such a factory set up and the early authors like Newton and Mertz actually knew Pendleton and made some effort to mold his style into the house style. But they're a little looser too with great ideas like this one and Mertz's Return to Vietnam.  

I'm far from a Bolan expert, but I always enjoy dipping my toe into the waters occasionally. This might be my favorite Executioner novel I've read, even more so than some of Pendleton's own work. It's exactly what I want when I pick up this kind of novel. It moved, the characters were well-defined within the story, and action ruled. This copy had an ad to join and get the "Live Large" bumper sticker in it and if the offer was still valid, I'd send away for it for sure. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Ninja Master #2: Mountain of Fear by Wade (Ric Meyers) Barker

I'm fairly sure the 80s were just jam-packed with ninjas. It seems like they were everywhere, hiding the shadows with katanas and nun-chucks at the ready. I was a little kid then, and I was well versed in ninja, from Turtles to G.I. Joes, to little suction cup throwing stars and various B-movies on TBS or TNT. So, it makes sense that someone over at Warner Books would think that it'd be a good idea to make a ninja into a paperback hero.

Warner was always trying to have a big men's adventure titles of their own, but they seemingly always picked authors uninterested in writing men's adventure fiction. So, there line of "Men of Action" books suffered from a lack of, uh, action. Not to mention the gun-porn, the sleaze or the fun of their competitors. Ric Meyers was nearly their only writer to get it. Between his work here with Ninja Master (and later in the slightly more upscale version as The Year of the Ninja Master) and the Dirty Harry books, Meyers proved his pulp credentials.

I first encountered Meyers work in the Dirty Harry books. It was one of my first tastes of Men's Adventure paperbacks and some of the first stuff I read after moving past reading a bunch of various James Bond books. Luckily, this was back in the day when you could buy these kinds of books for a dollar at most and I ended up with a whole stack of more adventures of Harry Callahan. I took a few of them on a trip to my grandmother's house and read them quickly, mostly while my grandmother religiously watched The Lawrence Welk Show. *SHUDDDER* But even at the time I knew something was off. I didn't realize that Dane Hartman, wasn't a singular dude. One of the books would be awesome and then the next would be dull as hell. It was confusing. Tough lessons for a young reader.

Obviously, Ric Meyers wrote the good ones (the only ones you really need to read) but I figured that out later. I haven't bothered with #1 of the Ninja Master series since I heed the wisdom of those who tread the pulp-path before me, and it seems like it's a bit of a bore. I'm sticking to Meyers entries. He's a solid author who's written about everyone from The Incredible Hulk to Remo Williams to many non-fiction works on martial arts cinema. He was the right guy to call for a book about a ninja. 

Mountain of Fear is a helluva good time. Warner books were pretty slim, which is perfect for an action tale like this. The books starts out with a bang and keeps the things moving a fast clip. Brett Wallace, our titular Ninja Master is a stone cold killing machine, taking out the baddies with everything at his disposable. It's also got the classic "whole town is bad" story that works great for action stories. A Nazi-concentration camp doctor basically buys up a whole town, puts bad guys as cops and kidnaps women and children to do nasty Nazi-shit with them. There's a little too much sexual-type violence for my taste, but it was a norm then and what are Nazi's supposed to be likable? No. Fuck nazis. 

So, you get a ninja killing a bunch of Nazi assholes in gory detail. Meyers has a love of cinema, and it shows, he writes very movie-like books, everything is clear and the action moves fast but is still well-described. The book builds to a wonderful siege of the bad guy's compound that's just chock full of blood, ninjaing and guts. All that makes for a good time with a book in your hand.

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Coltray #2: Pay the Devil by David Alexander

I've been tackling a lot of David Alexanders work over at Fathom Press where I've been going through Alexander's Pheonix series, if you ever read or even just heard about that series, you know that it's a wild ride. It's really become a cornerstone of an era of Men's Adventure fiction, often whispered about and now commanding high prices on the secondary market. I've been enjoying the hell out of them. It's storytelling cranked to 11 and 100% pure pulp. 

So, I began to wonder about Alexander's other work. And being that vigilante fiction is one of my jams, his Coltray came calling. I've had the books for a while. Like always I seemed to have collected a large chunk of Alexander's work before I read a word of his. Lucky me, as like I said the prices are going up. The Coltray books are sorta lost in the shuffle of his series work on stuff like Z-Comm, Nomad or C.A.D.S. and probably seem a little pedestrian compared to his other sci-fi-tingled work. But they are just as wild as anything he ever typed out.

Stosh Coltray is the Lethalist. You can guess what he does. I guarantee The Lethalist was the original series title. He's a famous vigilante who has enough notoriety to appear on daytime talk shows. Seems like a nice gig. Anyway, he's on the TV show when he runs up against the evil Lavender who is a cult-leader with an "army of zombies" i.e. drugged up followers. Soon Lavender kidnaps a cult-deprogrammer named Dekker's daughter and Coltray and Dekker join forces to smash up some satanic cult worshipers who are protected by a deadly team of mercenary's led by The Coronel. To help they get the coolest character out of prison to help bust the cult up, a hulking man named Sister John who kicks just as much ass (maybe a little more) as Coltray, but does it with style. I'd have read a whole book about Sister John. 

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I have the first two volumes of Coltray and chose this one based on the cult angle: it's one of my favorite pulp plots. When properly used it gives you a touch of horror with your action and those two things are like peanut butter and chocolate to me. Alexander wastes no time with getting the plot in gear. Everything is popping quick and Coltray, Dekker and Sister John are busy shooting (in gory detail) wave after wave of the Colonel's men as they rush to save Dekker's daughter. There's a lot of gunplay and fighting, some evil women for Coltray to bang and some gnarly cult ceremonies chock full of human sacrifice and orgies. Alexander is a writer whose natural instinct is to push the envelope and deliver on the shock and action. And he does, the books hit some surprising marks, including one scene that made me say "holy shit" out loud and with enough force to scare the cat sleeping in my lap. 

This is the ultimate 80s action TV show episode in book form, like if HBO made a version of The Equalizer and put a lot of boobs and blood in it. It was formulaic as all get out, but I found comfort in that. Coming on the heels of reading Chet Cunningham's Avenger and Norman Winski's Hitman felt I was reading about a buddy of theirs. It's easy to see them all sitting down in a bar and sharing a beer, talking about guns and ammo all while eyeballing the rest of the crooks in the place and waiting for the fight to break out so they can get down to business. 

This is some great stuff. It's top-tier 80s Men's Adventure that harkens back to the grittier 70s style. Best of both worlds. Unfortunately, this is only a three-book series and #3: Vengeance seems to be pretty hard to track down. Which is even more of a shame since this one sorta ends on a little cliffhanger. I mean I figure Coltray makes it out alive to star in his next book but still. I probably should have read #1 first as Alexander really does dwell on who Coltray is or why he does what he does. But who cares? He's the guy on the paperback cover with the gun so he's the hero and he's out doing hero things. What more do you want?

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Hitman #1: Chicago Deathwinds by Norman Winski

I've sorta avoided Norman Winski's Hitman series. I think it's a subconscious thing, because I've gone on record with my love for Kirby (Kin Platt) Carr's Hitman series and could I have too Hitman book series in my life? Would I be cheating on one with another? Deep thoughts. Well, I've cheated now and I'm feelin' fine.

Norman Winski was like a lot of the writers I read here. He kicked around a bit, apparently wrote a book called The Sex Urge in 1965. Sounds relatable. Then wrote some for the movies, the awesomely named Six-Pack Annie and a pretty solid Wings Hauser (one of my favorite actors) actioner called Hostage which co-starred the editors of Solider of Fortune magazine. He did the novelization of the radical Sword and the Sorcerer. His other writing is, uh, bonkers. It's made up of pop-psychology and bios, stuff on Carl Jung AND Ray Charles. Past that the dude ghosted the internet. I'm pretty sure he died in 2002. 

But Winski got a three-book series out of Pinnacle so that's pretty good, he had worked in the Pinnacle mines before, writing Able Team #2: Hostage Island. And Pinnacle was always on the lookout for another Mack Bolan or another Remo Williams, maybe even, if they had too, another Richard Camellion. Here we have Dirk Spencer, which I'm just going to assume was named after The A-Team's Dirk Benedict and Robert B. Parkers Spenser. He's a 'Nam-vet/rich guy with Uzi's, a Lamborghini and a thirst of action and ass-kickery, also if you believe the photos on the covers, little berets that he wears too high on his head. 

Dirks got it all, ladies, cars, etc. etc. but he misses "the action." Luckily for him (unlucky for others) a family he's friends is killed and it's a shady deal. Dirk decides to become a good old-fashion vigilante. He buys a bunch of guns and rocket launchers and the like and starts blowing people away. Everything goes good with his initial taste of street vengeance, and he basically sets himself up as Batman and sets his sights on whoever does evil. 

And here's where it gets real good, the bad guys are Neo-Nazi's and there's plenty of Nazi-killing! They are all headed up by a politician, Murdoch (again, A-Team?) who's just going around spreading racism, hate and murdering innocents. And Dirk being a good-guy doesn't care for Murdoch's Nazi-bullshit and just starts wrecking Murdoch's shit. Nazis are my favorite villains; they are the perfect bad guys because fuck them, amiright? 

This is an OVER-THE-TOP book, it's wild. There's Uzi drive-bys with planes, Nazi She-Devils, some nice gore, nasty torture, spunky lady reporters, and action galore. Winski was having a good time with this one. It's funny because it is a sorta 80s update of the 70s Kin Platt Hitman. They both wear black suits and masks and take one wild and vile villains. Both series have a playful energy about them even in the sleazy filth that the peddle of writers having a good time pounding typewriter keys. These aren't quite as wild as say, the TNT books or David Alexander's Phoenix books, but this one was close.  

These are a little difficult to track down, I got lucky and found all three in one old bookstore in the clearance section back before everyone looked up every book are priced everything too high. I think I got all three for around a buck-fifty. That's some solid value to the dollar. On the internet they all look like they all go form between ten and twenty-ish dollars. That's a little steep, bit I've paid more for less entertaining books, so...  

QUICK SHOTS: Renegade Roe #2: The Emerald Chicks Caper by L.V. Roper

Recently I added a new bookshelf; it's just a little squatty cheap one found at Wal-Mart for extra cheap. It was an impulse buy, but bookshelf-space is always limited at my joint, so I buy 'em when I find 'em. So, I found a spot in the bedroom (thanks, to my awesome wife for indulging me) and decided to make it an exclusively horror shelf and get a few books out of my basement to help me with my other gig over at Fathom Press reviewing stuff. 

That's a long-winded wind-up to me finding a book called The Reunion by L.V. Roper. And that's not even the book I'm reviewing here. Maybe I should just get to the point, huh? So that got me thinking about L.V. Roper who was among other things a member of the Kansas House of Representatives and I live in Kansas so it's an interesting little tidbit for me...and probably me only. Anyway, back in the 70s he wrote a couple of handfuls of Men's Adventure/Mystery novels, a couple that bordered on horror and romance novels as Samantha Lester. I think generally his best-viewed novel is Death-As in Matador, a hitman tale with a faux Paul Newman on the cover. I haven't read that one yet, I'm saving it for a rainy day I suppose. 

He clearly had a thing for private eyes. My personal favorite of his works is Hookers Don't Go to Heaven, a Kansas City set mystery book that though written in the 70s it really feels like 50's Gold Medal-type private eye yarn. Then there's Renegade Roe which pretty much oozes 70s. This is the kind of book that it would fee wrong to read without an ad for Kent cigarettes in the middle. It might as well come with a patch of shag carpet to set it upon once you're done is what I'm saying. 

I have read this one before and I hadn't really planned on reading it again. Though I did remember it sort of fondly, I think I liked the style and the feeling of the book rather than the ACTUAL book. When I found Roper's Reunion it made me wonder where the Renegade Roe books were and I found them on a shelf of honor, a big monster where I keep a lot of my favorite stuff on and me made me wonder if I actually liked the book or lumped it by Martin Meyers Hardy series because the covers are similar. 

I couldn't help myself I cracked it open and thought I'd just flip around and see what the whole jam was about and two hours of couch laying and a beer or two and I had reread the thing. After that I looked up Renegade Roe on the Men's Adventure Papers of the 20th Century Facebook group and low and behold I had given it a mini review of the book back in 2019. Here it is: 

"This is the 2nd "Renegade" Roe book starring swinging Native American private eye Jerry Roe. It's an easy going read, a little light on the action but it makes up for it with sex, day drinking, and talk about headbands. Even though mystery is fairly lightweight and the characters a just a smidge above cardboard cutouts it all works for me and it's a lot of funky 70s fun. L.V. Roper only wrote a handful of books, and I seem to have magically picked most of the up without trying too hard, anybody know anything about him?"

I liked it more than that this time. In fact, I really had a great time. I enjoyed all the day-drinking and talk about headbands EVEN more. It's very much a product of its time and if you go in expecting an action-packed tale with jets, fisticuffs and gunfights, you'll be disappointed. It's more akin to a 70s TV detective show. Only with more saucy bits. Roe is a fun character who's a cliche in every way and it's a fairly racist character at that. He's a step-above Tonto because at least he kicks ass, solves the mystery and sexes all the sexy ladies. The Lone Ranger would blush. 

But all these books are sexist and racist, I like to warn people (I think the cover is warning enough on this on though) if your sensitive to this kind of thing, this isn't the book for you. Not everything is for everyone and that's okay. But these are almost too goofy in concept and execution to take seriously. Though Roper's does have an easy writing style, clean and simple and he tells a pretty coherent story with some flourish, that's pretty much all I need with a slim paperback.

So yeah, I accidently this book and I'm glad I did. I really don't reread very much (there's too many unread books in my house for that) but it can be nice to visit an old friend. Pittsburg State University in Kansas houses Roper's papers, comprising of the normal stuff, correspondence and such as well as his manuscripts. They don't seem to have all his manuscripts, but one is entitled Jade Jaguar which makes thinks it might be a third book in the Renegade Roe series. It's got the same title gimmick (color/animal), and I can't find any other book Roper wrote with that title. I can imagine he already had this one written before popular library pulled the plug. So, there may be more adventures of Renegade Roe out there, just sitting a special collection room. Maybe one day I'll take a road trip and put on my Sherlock Holmes hat to investigate.  

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

BLOODY, SPICY MOVIES: Bare Knuckles (1977)

     When I started this blog, I occasionally did some movie reviews and I'm going to try to add a new one every now and then to shake things up. Never fear, I'll figure out how to tie it all back to books. 

    Bare Knuckles is a L.A. shot 70s grindhouse/drive-in picture. So, a good kind of picture. Robert Viharo stars, he's probably best known for being in Valley of the Dolls. It co-stars former child-star Sherry Jackson, Gloria Hendry (from Live and Let Die) pops up too. Helping Viharo along the way is John (Black Shampoo) Daniels as, uh, a character named Black.  Even my man George "Buck" Flowers is in it, so you really know it was shot in L.A. It's got a pure-paperback-plot. Viharo is Kane, a bounty hunter on the trail of a kung-fu serial killer who's targeting women using his own martial arts skills. Yeah. Radical, right?

    Writer/director Don Edmond had a brief directorial career in the 70s, directing this, but most notably Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, its sequel and a handful of other movies. So, he's got some trash credentials. And he made a pretty fast-moving picture with all the things a drive-in audience would want in 1977. There's nudity, there's sexism, racism, a slight hint of giallo and plenty of sleaze. But most importantly there's plenty of action, both in the fist-fightin' and a you-know-this-was-too-dangerous car chase where Kane drives a bitchin' 1968 Plymouth Road Runner and hunts a guy on a motorcycle. This chase goes on forever and morphs into foot chase and then into the climatic brutal fight scene between Kane and the evil Kung-Fu Killer, who unfortunately for the movie, looks like a buffer Rick Moranis. 

    Low-budget 70s filmmaking hits different. They were shooting in dingy places, on the street without permits and the whole thing just has a dangerous vibe. Half the fun of these kinds of movies is checking out the surroundings, seeing long-lost artifacts on the street of a time long gone. There's a scene that takes place outside an old Pizza Hut and you can't buy that type of nostalgia. There are times where really feels like one-step above porn-level filmmaking, but that's charming to me at this point. Also, the picture looks pretty good which isn't surprising because this an early D.P. credit for Dean Cundey who shot Halloween (1978) and a lot of other John Carpenter films. Carpenter's early partner Debra Hill even served as script supervisor. It's funny how things like this happen. 

    But this is primarily a book blog, right? Yep. I'm getting there. First off Bare Knuckles is one of the closet films to really capture the seedy vibe of a 70s Leisure/Manor/Canyon paperback. It could have been a story from the pen of someone writing as Bruno Rossi, Len Levinson on vacation to Hollywood or a tale someone paid William Crawford to drunkenly write for the movies. And with Kane albeit brief partnership with, uh, Black there's minor shades of Ralph Dennis's Hardman books. I'm surprised there was never a really long going Men's Adventure series about a bounty hunter. It seems like a no-brainer. Tough crime stories, nasty villains on the loose, tough guy hero, seems simple. Alas it never was. But we have Bare Knuckles to show us what we missed. 

    But wait, wait there's more! Lead actor Robert Viharo is the father of private-eye writer Will Viharo who's first book, Love Stories Are Too Violent for Me is minor classic. Viharo's an interesting cat, living a Tiki-fused life with side gigs as a film programmer and hosting Thrillsville a burlesque/film show. He continues to write novels, but now openly experiments with the private eye novel form with added science fiction, horror and other gonzo touches. He's a great writer. Will talking about Bare Knuckles at some point got me to be on the look-out and eventually watch it.

    So, if any of that sounds good to you, check it out. It's free on Tubi, the best place to find every movie you forgot about and tons you've never heard about. 

QUICK SHOTS: Avenger #4: Manhattan Massacre by Chet Cunnigham

When I pick up certain books, I can feel smarter. A man, of taste. I'll go "ah, yes Moby Dick, what a fine piece of literature." Then there's a sliding scale the runs right down into the awesome muck that is Men's Adventure, Pulp, Trash lit, whatever you want to call it. I prefer being in the muck, as my tasters seemingly burnt out long ago.

80s Men's Adventure fiction has a different feel than the earlier stuff. Call it the Gold Eagle-fication of the genre. In the 70s sleaze was an important part of the equation, sex, depravity and nudity. The 80s still had some sex, but the emphasis was definitely shifted to pure action and copious details about various firearms. It didn't help that by this point a lot of the writers of the various series had in face written Mack Bolan for Gold Eagle by this time and if you're going to copy something, copy the most successful thing. 

Chet Cunningham had been knocking around for a while by the late 80s when he came up with The Avenger (no, not the pulp hero, though I wonder if he remembered the title from his youth) he had co-written The Penetrator books (they took turns, I like Chet's better) with Mark Roberts in the 70s, a fair amount of westerns, Scholastic young-adult fiction, and was in the first wave of new Mack Bolan writers. He also dipped his toe into the world of Carousel Books, the (supposedly) quasi-mob-owned publisher. Carousel was an off shoot of a "dirty book" publisher who was trying to go "mainstream," so they had Chet and people like Mike Newtown write them westerns, action yarns, horror stuff etc. etc. I covered Chet's "mystery-team" book Silent Murder a long time ago and had a good time with it. 

I like Chet's work; he's not a flashy author by any stretch, but he's always got his mind on the readers wants and needs. He keeps things moving, has enough flair to be a little memorable and has a good handle on writing action, mystery and suspense. He was an old-pro young and continued to put out work almost right up to his death in 2017. That's a long, good run. 

The Avenger started in the mid-80s. It has Jason Savas on the cover, who is basically the 80s Steve Holland, and has a fairly familiar set-up. Matthew Hawke, the titular avenger is a 'Nam vet and DEA agent who's too good and his wife gets killed by the baddies. He resigns and goes revengin' and that's the whole set-up. I knew this going in and since I didn't have the first book in the series, I just jumped headfirst into the fourth. The whole concept is reassuringly basic. It's nearly every direct-to-video action movie set-up and it clearly owes a fair amount to ol' Mack Bolan. Like Bolan, Mark Hardin and many more paperback heroes, Hawke goes town to town and fucks shit up for bad guys with guns, explosives and other tough guy antics. 

Chet wrote these books for Warner Books who was always trying to launch a lengthy Men's Adventure series it seems. They were probably most successful with their paperback Dirty Harry adventures, but their editorial staff never seemed to figure out the genre. They produced some fun series. Like the Ninja Master books, The Hook series, or S-Com but a lot of their titles didn't last more than four or five books. The Avenger is no different. 

#4 Manhattan Massacre finds Hawke in, uh, Manhattan and going after the deadly New Control, a fancy mob that has taken control of the drug trade. Hawke sorta just barges in, finds an old 'Nam buddy who's bored, buys some machine guns and tackles New Control. The rest plays out very much like you'd figure a book like this to play out. There's action and intrigue, some unfortunate racism of the time, firearm information, and Matt Hawke's sort of bland brand of psychotics. Hawke's not much of a character. I go back to the direct-to-video action movie vibe; he reads like a martial artist or model got a starring vehicle after the success of Segal or Van Damme but lacking in major personality. But as I have said Chet handles the action scenes well and they are frequent, the stuff in-between isn't too bad either. It's all just incredibly workman like. Which sounds like a dig, but I find that kind of writing comfortable.

The Warner Books must have had a shorter print run than the competitors because they're a little scarcer, not impossible to track down, but you'll pay a few books more for most of them if you're so inclined. I got lucky in a dusty old small-town bookstore a few years ago and got three of them off the 25-cent table, it was an easy mistake for a bookstore to make, they are nearly indistinguishable from the sea of Mack Bolan's. But I think they are worth a read or two if you need something the same-but-different-in-between an Able Team and a Pheonix Force.

And in my sleuthing and fact-checking for this review, I stumbled on a Barnes and Noble listing for Avenger #5: Radiation Wipeout, an eBook from 2012. The listing on Amazon for this is lost to time, but the B&N listing is still live and purchasable. I had to download the free Nook app and remember my ancient login-info for B&N to download a free sample (I'll probably buy it) to confirm, the first page says "Matt Hawke" and "AK-74," so it's truly an Avenger novel. My guess was that it was done before Warner's pulled the plug and Chet released it later as a "Chet Book" as it is called. From hanging out in various Facebook groups I know this is an isolated incident. James Reasoner released Diamondback, a first in a series that never saw the light of day, year later and it's a great Men's Adventure book. Lee Goldberg finished off the .357 Vigilante series later and so on. Makes you wonder what other hidden vintage works are lurking in writer's forgotten file cabinets. 

And again, my first book Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon now!

QUICK SHOTS: Crown Vic 2 by Lee Goldberg

I was eagerly awaiting a package from Amazon the other night, Jason Striker Martial Arts Series Volume 3: Amazon Slaughter and Curse of the Ninja by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes, if you must know. That's a real inside baseball book, because I bought it simply to read the extra materials, magazine articles that appeared in Marvel's The Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu magazine, short stories and other paperback pitches. That's the kind of book-geek I am. 

When it did arrive, there were two packages and inside one was a surprise copy of Lee Goldberg's latest book, Crown Vic 2. I didn't order it and I've done a little work for Lee, writing the afterward for Jon Messmann's A Bullet for the Bride (where apparently, I misspelled the hero's name several times, according to the Glorious Trash blog. I'm going to blame autocorrect. But I've never said I was good at this) and have occasionally received other surprise books to review. I say that to be transparent, I didn't buy this one, but I was going to.

Because Lee can write. I've long been a fan of his work, having stumbling onto The Man with the Iron-On Badge on a teenage trip to the library. When I started to get into Men's Adventure fiction, discovering Lee wrote the .357 Vigilante books made them an instant purchase. I also particularly fond of his Ian Ludlow series. Oh, and The Dead Man. Can you tell I'm a fan? I hadn't picked up the first Crown Vic but immediately ordered it after finishing the second. 

Besides there's another thing that makes me interested in the Ray Boyd books: I drive an old Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. I've driven a couple of them. My first was white with the side-light and push bar. My current is some sort of metallic dusty gray with roll-bar and the glass cage in the back. It gives my passengers the thrill of being a criminal without the consequences. They are the last true American sedan. Powerful, roomy and extra-large all around. Kinda like me. 

So, Ray was a man after my own heart. 

Crown Vic 2 is a quick tale that packs a lot of punch. Boyd is off to hunt down some diamonds stolen by an old man who he was in prison with. He does this at first with bagels and games of Battleship and then by harsher means. Then throw it some naughty mischief he gets himself into at his motel and Boyd's got his hands full. Boyd's a right bastard in the best way but still slyly humorous and, uh, sexually adventurous. Early on there's a nod to Jack Reacher, a character Boyd could easily be compared to (like all modern book-heroes, at least on their covers) but Boyd's grittier and frankly cooler. The tale moves along nice and easy, twists and turns and ends up a little bloody. What more could you want?

The only problem with this one is that it's simply too short. I wanted more Ray Boyd. It's a wonderful throwback tough guy Men's Adventure series but thoroughly modern at the same time. You can just imagine a slightly more PG-13 version of this tale being the headliner in an issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. I hope Lee keeps writing 'em cause I'll keep readin' 'em.

My book, GUNPOWDER BREATH is OUT and available on Amazon!
Check it out!

QUICK SHOTS: Predator by Dick (Steve Perry) Flint

Before the pulps, there were the Dime Novels, cheap disposable bawdy tales of western heroes, detective tales and more. They were basically ground zero for the fiction that I review here. Obviously, time passes and things change, interests move to radio, movies, TV and now the cesspool that is the internet. Reading changed, dime novels turned into pulps, pulps to paperback and paperback to eBook. Except...in 1990 when the Dime Novel came back. Sorta.

Randy Byrd was an entrepreneur and former pizza parlor owner. He had an idea to crack into the impulse-purchase market for reading materials. Watch out Archie. He created a new format for Dime Novels. They were small paperbacks, roughly the size of a cassette tape, which was the style at the time, and selling them cheap. He set out with a line-up of books, all marked with their genre, including westerns, mysteries, horror, science fiction, fantasy, adventure, thrillers and five types of romance: historical, sensual, glitz, suspense and sweet or traditional romance. It was a grand idea, that like a lot of grand ideas sorta fizzled out and was mostly forgotten. 

Theres a few titles in the Dime Novels range that appeal the bloody, spicy reader. High Hat and Dead Ringer by Greg Mandel, one a private eye tale with The Pope as the detective, the other with Elvis. One of the others is Predator (not the monster) by Dick Flint. Dick Flint is not really a cartoon character (see photo) but noted science-fiction author Steve Perry. Perry has written Star Wars novels, Indiana Jones novels, Aliens novels, Tom Clancy's NetForce, and his own Matador series. He's also written Predator (the monster) novels. And a lot of the cartoons I watched as a kid (and some as an adult) The Real Ghostbusters, Batman: The Animated Series, Godzilla: The Series and a Conan cartoon. He even wrote the novelization to the Jim Carrey movie, The Mask. That's a fine career. 

For Dime Novels, Perry also wrote the Fantasy entry, The Hero's Curse under his own name. But what about Predator? Well, imagine a Hard-R version of Pheonix Force or Able Team meets Knight Rider but on a boat. There's a tough team of commandos who work a shadowy organization with a big checkbook that has given them The Predator, which is the name of the boat. It's got big 'ol guns, top-of-the-line-90s-computers, and colorful crew members. There's an Australian, and a professor and the tough commander. Throw in a lovely female undercover agent who's topless a lot and then send them out to hunt down Viper who's dealing drugs or maybe something worse. 

Like Able Team, each team member has their quirks, one doesn't carry a gun only throwing knives, one's a nerd, one loves the boat engine, etc. etc. The female undercover agent is pretty competent, even though she used to be a stripper and also lead the story gratuitous nudity. The villain is right evil and has a back-story with the hero. Perry really crams a lot of stuff it in the tiny book. It's basically a short story and yet there's multiple gunfights and sneaky around and witty banter. It feels like a really good R-Rated episode of an 80s action TV show like the A-Team or the aforementioned Knight Rider. So, right up my alley.

I enjoyed it immensely. I really wish there was more short-Men's Adventure fiction. It's a nice palate cleanser between novels. I enjoyed Perry's writing style and will have to add him to the ever-growing list of authors to check out thoroughly. The Dime Novels experiment is really cool; it's a forefather to Kindle's Short Reads or Rapid Read novels or the various attempts to get people to read via low page count. I don't know how well it works either. Nowadays the various Dime Novel titles are sorta hard to track down, they must have had low-print runs. High Hat by Greg Mandell is available as a new paperback and eBook, but I don't think any of the rest are. Shame. 

And once again, my first novel Gunpowder Breath by Kilroy is available on Amazon as an eBook. The print version is coming soon. I'm low in the algorithm, but I've found typing "Gunpowder Breath kindle" makes it pop up every time. It's a 5-Star book at the moment (thanks, mom!) so be sure to check it out. Here's the awesome cover drawn by my incredible wife!