The Godfather Killer

The Godfather Killer, by Dan Brennan
November, 1973  Belmont Tower Books

This grubby paperback is courtesy veteran pulp writer Dan Brennan, who here turns in what appears to be the first volume of a series that never was. This is for the good, as the “hero” of the piece is a modern-day cowboy type who really doesn’t do much of anything except kill unarmed women. I’m betting editor Peter McCurtin did some behind-the-scenes tinkering, as the back cover copy definitely seems to be his work, and I also suspect McCurtin re-titled Brennan’s manuscript. There isn’t any godfather-killing in the entire damn book…despite what the back cover hypes, the novel is ultimately concerned with a KGB plot(!).

Taking place in South Dakota, The Godfather Killer concerns Jack South, one of the least-described protagonists I’ve ever encountered. We get hardly any info about this guy other than that he’s “the meanest sumbitch in Oriente, South Dakota,” and has come here to Chippewa City, SD to get revenge for the murder of his dad. He’s over six feet tall and wears denim and cowboy boots, but otherwise we get no info on how he became such a primo shitkicker, save for a vague mention of being in a “war.” But as stated despite talking tough, Jack’s main m.o. is gunning down defenseless women in cold blood.

Brennan’s in no hurry to give us the setup and throws us right into the tale; South (or “Jack South” as Brennan constantly refers to him in the narrative, which ultimately takes on a hypnotic effect for the reader) has just arrived in Chippewa City and looks to make a name for himself as a guy here to bust some heads. Thus he beats up a cabbie who works for the crooks who run the town; gradually we’ll learn South suspects the criminal kingpins of Chippewa set up his father and ultimately caused him to commit suicide. South’s dad was mayor of Oriente or somesuch and was wealthy from graft and corruption and all that jazz, and someone outed him to the government. Mayor South went to jail for a spell and then killed himself in shame.

Now South’s here to track down Janet Hall, his dad’s former secretary-mistress and the woman South thinks set his dad up. It’s all sort of Parker-esque with South’s relentless pursuit of the woman, only this is a Parker no reader could root for. I’d like to think Brennan intended for South to be an anti-hero, but there’s no indication of this. And as mentioned the novel ends with the possibility of a series or at least a sequel, with South being hired by the government to root out Commie spies. It’s not as if an unlikable protagonist would’ve prevented Belmont Tower from launching a series, so either Brennan wasn’t interested or sales sucked. (Actually that never stopped BT either.) 

Brennan’s writing has that usual pulp vibe, just giving us what few details needed to keep the story moving, but sometimes his reluctance to explain South’s mindset results in confusion, or even unintentional laughter. Like when early in the book South is jumped by some dude, knocked out, wakes up and vomits…and then arbitrarily runs into a group of locals and spends the night hanging out with them. Even stranger for the reader is when South takes a woman back to his hotel room, and she gets nude…and South tells her to get dressed and leave.

Actually South doesn’t seem to be too bright; he sort of waltzes around Chippewa City without much of a plan. He has a private eye working for him – Brennan doesn’t properly introduce the character nor explain when South hired him – who helps him track down Janet. South blows into her house and grills her for a bit, and two “swarthy” men come after him, resulting in South’s first kills in the book. Brennan isn’t exploitative in the least, for either the violence or the sex. He also doesn’t really capitalize on the potential with Janet, a slightly over-the-hill beauty who was apparently forced into setting up South’s dad; she meets her fate off-page, thus ruining whatever chance there was for any sort of potential to build up her plot.

We do however get a lot of stuff about a guy named Stutz Gandler, who turns out to be the local Mafia bigwig in Chippewa. Through Stutz we learn that the mob actually had nothing to do with the setup and death of Mayor South. Nope, folks – it was the Russians! (You can blame them for practically anything. Try it sometime!) In particular it’s Leon Bolkov, who operates out of Chippewa and has insinuated himself into Dakotan business and politics over the past several years, posing as a Greek. This of course explains all the various “swarthy” guys South keeps seeing around…guys he’s sure (somehow) aren’t Arabic or Italian or whatever. They’re friggin’ KGB agents! 

South definitely has a mean streak about him. While having a confrontation with Stutz, South gets the drop on a bigtime KGB assassin who moves in too early for the kill – an assassin whose schtick is just plain shooting people, so I didn’t understand what was so topnotch about him. In a bit that would appear again in the following decade’s Justin Perry #2, South ties the poor bastard to a roped tree and lets it loose, cutting the bastard in half. Stutz and his personal whore, Mona, both witness the event and either pass our or puke.

Speaking of Mona, South uses her as bait for yet another KGB killer. This one, again posing as a businessman, phones her up for an appointment; his mission is to kill South and Stutz, and figures the girl’s the best way to get either of them. But South is already there (we learn through belabored backstory) and gets the drop on yet another much-ballyhooed KGB assassin. And here’s where we get our first indication (well, second, if you count the tree-tying bit) that our hero’s a nutjob. With zero setup or explanation courtesy Brenann, South pulls out a gun, shoots the assassin, and then shoots Mona. You know, the unarmed hooker who has been helping him. Brennan doesn’t explain away this act or follow up on it.

But our hero’s just getting started so far as the woman-killing goes. Next up he confronts Leon Bolkhov in his Chippewa office, and when the KGB boss won’t talk South starts beating up his secretary. But it’s okay because South has been assured she’s part of the KGB plot, too. In another Parker moment, South gets Bolkhov to call his superior in order to get more money – but instead South blows Bolkhov’s brains out once he’s seen the number dialed. He then proceeds to murder the (unarmed) secretary as well. The Godfather Killer!!

Following the tangled KGB web, South is put on the trail of a lovely New York-based ballet teacher named Syssis; the Russians insist that she was behind the plot against Mayor South. Surprisingly, South doesn’t kill her outright; he suspects the Russians are lying, and of course they are. A hardbitten spy with years of undercover service, Syssis reveals that the KGB wants to get rid of her, so they have set her up as a patsy. Together she and South take out the various KGB assassins who are lurking around, leading up to the novel’s sole action scene – complete with a car chase and Syssis throwing grenades (in Manhattan!).

This also leads to the novel’s sole sex scene, as South and Syssis get jiggy with it, as the kids say (or said). Brennan gives a little detail, but nothing explicit. I kept waiting for South to just plain shoot her – murdering unsuspecting, unarmed women with little narratorial setup being the guy’s specialty – but instead it develops into more of a relationship. But Syssis takes off, leaving South to dole out his final revenge on the Russians…sort of.

In one of the more inexplicaby anticlimactic finales, South tracks down the main money man for the Russians in South Dakota, and takes care of him (and his secretary, of course!!) almost perfunctorily. I mean, was this the guy who set up Mayor South? I don’t think we even find out. I mean it’s the moment the entire novel has led to but it’s delivered almost as an afterthought. Very puzzling. Even more puzzling is the finale, in which a ranking Mafia boss admits to the FBI that the KGB has infiltrated the mob around the country – and Jack South’s services are needed to stop them!

On this goofy note The Godfather Killer shambles to a close, neither Brennan nor Belmont Tower following up on the idea of a government-empowered Jack South taking on KGB spies. But this is nothing to get hung up about, as the book kinda sucked. And no idea what the hell the cover’s about (I’m pretty sure it’s lifted from a movie poster), as nothing like it occurs in the novel.