Top Ten Stand-Alone Men Adventure Novels

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

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

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

1. Shark Fighter by Nicolas (Len Levinson) Brady

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

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

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

3. Death of the Fuhrer by Roland Puccetti

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. Dachau Treasure by Anthony DeStefano

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

8. The Sundance Murders by Peter McCurtin 

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

9. Diamondback by James Reasoner 

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

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

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

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.

The Camp by Jonathan Trask but Actually Peter McCurtin and Len Levinson

One of my first reviews on here was "The Sundance Murders" by stalwart writer of ass-kickers Peter McCurtin. The book introduced Berger a hard-boiled reporter like they don't make anymore. A drunken cut-down Walther P-38 muckraker who travels to the desert and kicks up shit and ass. It was a novel after my own heart. I noted that it very much seemed like a first in a series or an installment in a series but sadly Peter McCurtin was a busy writer and editor at the time churning out his own work, ghost-written work, and editing great series like John (Ben Haas) Benteen's Fargo and everything in-between. So, I guess poor Berger got lost in the shuffle.

Jonathan Trask was Peter McCurtin, but he was mostly Len Levinson for this book. Len Levinson is a fantastic author with paperback-cred longer then your arm, working on series like "The Sharpshooter," "Ryker," "Joe Blaze" and creating  super-spy "Butler" and kick-ass W.W.II tales of "The Sargent" and "The Rat Bastards." Not to mention westerns and stand-alones of all genres. He like McCurtin is an author you can trust to give you a good time. They both seem to understand what their audience wants, their books are lean and fit with no filler and colorful characters. They do have completely different styles and voice, its fairly easy to point out either of their work even if their name isn't on the cover.

So, here's the rub. I think "The Camp" started out as a Berger novel. McCurtin wrote the first chapter, it's really clear that it's his work, it's got a lot of his ticks, old movies on TV, being more morose, heavy drinking etc. etc. The hero is now named Phil Gordon but it it starts roughly the same way with out narrator talking to us about himself. Gordon/Berger explains that he's a roving reporter who packs a Walther and ain't afraid to use it, that they work for a tabloid paper etc. etc. It's nearly word-for-word for a paragraph. I got totally deja-vu. Was this my long lost 2nd Berger novel? Well, yeah I sorta of think it is. It's a Frankenstein book with the two authors narrative styles being quickly bolted together, because after the McCurtin chapter Levinson's behind the wheel and it's his free-wheeling action/adventure with wiseacre humor peppered in. Gordon stops being McCurtin's character and becomes the slightly unhinged, slightly necrotic Levinson character. He's a happening guy with a sweet Porsche, he's good at his job, ex-army and always on the look out for trouble and women. The kind of guy you want to read about.

The Camp's long lost brother?

The plot is real nice I can see why it was saved from either being unfinished or forgotten by McCurtin and handed to Levinson who was producing some of the best work in the Belmont-Tower line. Basically Gordon goes to hang out with his old Native-American buddy in the Maine woods and finds out that there's a mysterious army installation who may or may not be responsible for the disappearance of his nephews. They look into and find the remains of tortured hippies in the camp and then nearly get killed. Gordon's now all in, he goes back home, makes some friends in high places and boinks with a attractive women within a few hours of meeting her and sets up his mission to get the story and hopefully find his friends nephews. It's got some heavy 70's political thriller vibes in the middle, a little "Parallax View," and "All The President's Men" mixed with man-on-a-mission pulp. Gordon gets help from a friendly general and sneaks into the ultra-right-wing-death-to-all-that-disagrees-with-us-murder-camp and gets a guided tour by a randomly gay army officer. Here's the only minor problem I had with the book: Gordon's in the camp for a day, sees what he's going to see  (torture chambers, murdering hippies for sport, etc. etc.) and then raises hell with grenades, rifles and the prisoners of the camp and gets the hell out. Some more time inside the camp with some build up might have been nice but then the result is the same. The ending is total awesome 70's (probably still now) paranoia with a real nice button on the end.

All in all its a fine little paperback thriller, full-tilt and lean with enough character and surprises to spend a pleasant few hours with. McCurtin and Levinson are some top-shelf guys at writing this stuff, buy anything with their names or pseudonyms on it.  There's a lot of hack-work in this genre/type of book (mostly on the best-seller list) and I long for the days of sub-200 page roller-coaster rides. Looking around after reading the book I was mildly surprised to see the price on the second hand market. It must have had a short-print run and Belemont books always seem to be pricey anyway. I got mine in a lot of books on ebay chock full of expensive McCurtin creations. It was a good chunk of change until you worked out how much the books cost individually. I guess the moral of the story is to buy books like things at Costco: IN BULK.

Mercs Vs. Mafia Three Gritty Reviews

I've been laid up after having had surgery on my ankle. So, I've read a lot of a books, basically one a day and they've all blended into a cocktail of mafia hardmen vs. mercenary tough guys or mercenary hardmen vs. mafia tough guys. Maybe it's the pain meds. Meh. So with all these knifing's, gun shots, parachutes, explosions, kidnap victims, codes of honor and political unrest swirling around in my addled brain I figured I'd just write a smorgasbord of a review of some of these thrilling tales of blood and thunder.

It all started with a few gunshots for Briganti aka The Assassin in "Boston Bust-Out." His wife and child were taken from him freeing him up for three books with of death, destruction and being an tough asshole. His adventures continued under a different name as Philip Magellan a.k.a The Marksman by Frank Scarpetta then kinda sorta as Johnny Rock a.k.a. The Sharpshooter by Bruno Rossi and a legion of ghostwriters. That's a whole twisty tale of 70's publishing cash-grabs and politics. But it adds to the mystic of Briganti and his quest of vengeance as he would have to use numerous alias within the book to stay one step ahead of the mafia-scum hunting him why wouldn't the misdirection bleed out on to the copy-write page and a cover. Or maybe that's the pain killers in me talking.

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.

The Sundance Murders by Peter McCurtin

Peter McCurtin is one of the select few that get to be a real person and a house name author all in one, plus hiding behind other pseudonyms like Bruno Rossi, Frank Scarpetta, and Gene Curry among others. He wrote crime stories, tough guy vigilante books, mysteries, westerns by the bucketful, stories of hard-bitten mercenaries and they all had his clean-cut sometimes witty stamp on them. Unless of course it was someone else writing as Peter McCurtin. Then it was a crap-shoot. The fly-by-night nature of 70's publishing is part of the fun of theses books for me.Some wild shenanigans are well documented at wonderful sites like Glorious Trash and Paperback Warrior. Both fantastic excursions into the world of Paperbackdom. McCurtin himself is tied to many examples of  Men's Adventure, names like The Marksman, the Assassin, The Sharpshooter, and Solider of Fortune.

The Sundance Murders is a fun ride. Berger, a low-rent tabloid reporter who packs a snub-nose Walther P-38 goes to Arizona to find out if Native Americans are starting a revolution against the government, dressed like Ghost Dance Raiders and armed with machine guns. Along the way Berger gets in shoot-outs with Tommy Guns, drinks a lot, beds the only two women in the book and annoys all the local bigwigs. Its obviously got a lot of negative racial stuff that goes along with the story and time period, but it wasn't overly distracting to me. The racial accept of these books is a major turn-off for some people. I understand. The plot probably wouldn't fly today, but the Native American characters are all treated fairly well with the racial slurs kept to a minimum. When I read a racial or sexist line in a book like this I usually think, "Oh shit, that's just terrible," and move on, shaking my head at the attitude of the books. Casual racism and sexism pepper the books, if you can't get past it, I totally understand but I'm sorry cause your missing out on the rest which can be a lot of fun. The problem lies in that the general mainstream version of these types of books today are benign. They lack the pulpiness I crave like I crave Doritos. I want fast moving yarns filled with PULPY GOODNESS. So, I can look past the objectionable bits a little easier then most.

Berger is a fun character who's got enough sarcasm and humor to really make you root for him. I have a fondness for mysteries and action adventure books set in rural areas. The landscape pays a big part of the novel and lends itself to some fine action scenes. McCurtin wrote a lot of western books, including a great series about a badass named Carmody. This is a Western in modern dress for sure, what with the Ghost Dance Raiders and Berger the pistol-packin' stranger rolling into poke the bear. It also rest comfortably in a all but lost sub-genre of mystery fiction: the Hard-Boiled Reporter story. They read a lot like a classic private eye novel but with a touch of the tough cop novel because they usually have a boss breathing down there neck, so you get the best of both worlds. Actual Pulp examples of this are Daffy Dill by Richard Sale, Kennedy by Frederick Nebel and Flashgun Casey by George Harmon Cox. Berger would have sat right next to these characters at the bar, had a drink and spun tales. 

All in all it was a swift moving story with enough twists and gore to satisfy me. I'm nearly positive Berger was supposed to be another series character for McCurtin, he knew his market and that's what it called for but its a shame that no other Berger books appeared (that I know of) cause I'd devour it. Get it? Berger? Devour?