Bodyguard #2: The Blonde Target

Bodyguard #2: The Blonde Target, by Richard Reinsmith
No month stated, 1980  Tower Books

The Bodyguard series started off at lowly Tower Books for two volumes before moving over to sister imprint Leisure, and Richard Reinsmith, a real person and not a house name, handled the entire series. This second volume is the first one I’ve read and the writing is better than I expected it would be, but be aware there’s some lurid material that might not sit well with sensitive readers of today – or probably did with readers in 1980.

The titular Bodyguard is Ray Martin, who, other than his gray hair, isn’t much described. This is because Ray narrates the books. I’m really not into first-person narration in men’s adventure novels, I think it always comes off more like hardboiled detective fiction than action fiction, and such is the case with The Blonde Target. But this seems to be Reinsmith’s intent, as the novel is more influenced by Spillane than Pendleton.

A unique thing about Bodyguard is that, at least judging from this installment, the action comes to the hero. Usually it’s the other way around – the men’s adventure hero tracks down some quarry and eliminates him. But Ray Martin is a bodyguard, operating out of the Maryland area, and the quarry comes to him…it seems he just locks down his latest client in one of his two safehouses and waits for the bad guys to take a shot at them.

Another unique thing is that Ray Martin is constantly – practically incessantly – referring to past cases. A good quarter of the narrative is comprised of references or even straight-up flashbacks concerning previous bodyguard jobs. This does lead to humorous revelations, like that Ray doesn’t actually pay anyone. His assistant Pop is a retired private eye who does the work for fun, and Ray’s secretary (unseen this volume) performs her duties in exchange for living in one of the houses for free. We also learn of Ray’s other cost-cutting measures.

The “blonde target” of the title is April Harris, an up-and-coming Farrah Fawcett-type actress on the cusp of fame who has been targeted by some unknown killer. In bizarre backstory we learn that April made her break thanks to a photo of her signing a bum’s autograph in an airport. Now whenever she goes to an airport she’s surrounded by bums looking for autographs, all of it a strange PR gimmick thanks to her agent, Tony. But most recently the bum April was autographing a photo for got his head blown off by a sniper, and Tony has insisted she get a bodyguard.

This is how Ray has come onto the case, and when the novel opens April has just moved into his safehouse deep in the Maryland woods; probably around where I grew up, now that I think of it. Reinsmith takes care of the expected sex scene posthaste – the first-page preview even spotlights this scene – with the two trading some dialog after Ray wakes April up in bed to get more info on the stange case.

Here Reinsmith displays his talent with dialog and character, at least when compared to the genre norm; Ray won’t be bought by anyone, and ends up literally burning five hundred bucks of April’s money – she wants some orange juice, he tells her where to get it (he’s her bodyguard, not her assistant, he says), and when she gives him $100 to go get the juice, he puts the bill in an ashtray and burns it. They go through this four more times.

The cash-burning does get April nice and randy, though, leading to the aforementioned boink. It happens completely off-page; Reinsmith isn’t even one to exploit the ample virtues of his female characters (though he has no qualms with having them raped, as detailed later). He is though pretty good with the dialog, with humorous exchanges between April and Ray. Reinsmith isn’t as good with the lame “mystery” behind the plot, as it’s clear from the get-go who is trying to kill April, given that only one person knows where she is.

There are a lot of red herrings, like Ray making a few calls to have a lecherous old movie producer checked out, or even dumber Ray checking to see if the killed airport bum was the true target of the sniper hit and not April. This even after Ray himself is attacked at an airport; agent Tony is having a screenwriter flown in to hand over his script (as explained in ridiculous backstory), and while on an escalator April is attacked by a dude with a switchblade. Ray ends up pushing him off and the dude falls down and breaks his neck.

Ray’s arm is slashed up and he recuperates in a very hardboiled manner; mixing up endless pitchers of some vodka cocktail. Meanwhile April successfully sex-blackmails him (man I wish I could get blackmailed that way) into letting her friend Jackie come stay with her. Jackie turns out to be a cute brunette but again Reinsmith doesn’t do much in the way of describing her. She expectedly comes on strong to Ray when Pop and April leave for the other safehouse, Ray staying behind to see if any strangers come by to scope out this house, thinking everyone’s left.

Again it’s mostly done via dialog, with Ray and Jackie monitoring a strange car from the cramped, sweltering attic space, and the conversation somehow turns to blowjobs. Here Jackie reveals she’s “one of those girls” who just love oral stuff, and gets to work posthaste. Later they end up in bed for another off-page go around. But Ray isn’t too smart because he just casually leaves the house, and he and Jackie are instantly knocked out and taken away by the occupants of that strange car.

Here comes the stuff that will be off-putting for sensitive readers. Ray wakes up to find himself on a ship, bound to a chair, and across from him is a half-nude Jackie strapped to her own chair. She’s been raped repeatedly and while Ray lays there the four captors come in and have their way with her again and again. This is the only novel I know of where a female character keeps up a humorous running commentary while being raped; the “punchline” is that Jackie claims she has an orgasm with each rape. Later though she’ll reveal this was all an act for Ray’s part, so he’d think she was strong, and she suffers a sort of nervous breakdown, but still – the rape stuff goes on for a long time, with even Ray tossing in his own jokey dialog.

Here Ray realizes that the captors show absolutely no interest in where April Harris is; not once have they even asked him about her. Instead they just tell Ray they’re going to kill him, but claim they’ll let Jackie go, but this seems to be a clear lie. Their escape from this situation is hard to buy, but Jackie talks one of the rapists into untying her so they can use the bunk bed, and further asks for her purse so she can put on lipstick. Of course it turns out she has a little pistol hidden in there. Something neither Ray nor we readers were aware of.

Reinsmith isn’t one for exploitation of the violence, either. Jackie shoots two and Ray shoots two, but there’s no gore to speak of. The vibe is very much of a hardboiled tale from decades before, other than the sometimes-raunchy dialog and the rape stuff. Even the beatings Ray endures comes off like a hardboiled yarn; at one point he’s even run over by a car, but literally walks it off. Ray’s customary weaponry is a .38 and a Schmeisser submachine gun he carries around in a case. He doesn’t use the latter until the finale, which sees him taking out a group of would-be assassins in similarly-bloodless fashion.

Despite the title being The Blonde Target, Jackie is actually the lead female character of the book; April disappears for the majority of it, in the safe house with Pop. The biggest setpiece is actually Ray and Jackie’s imprisonment on the ship and Jackie’s rape. After freeing themselves Ray and Jackie get a motel room and here Reinsmith further brings the poor young girl to life, with her backstory, how she inadvertently became the owner of a charter boat, and etc, and all of this Ray’s gambit to keep her talking so she doesn’t have a complete breakdown, the reality of what happened to her finally coming home.

Also Jackie is adamant that April not find out she was raped, so Ray has to lie to April and Pop about their abduction. All that taken care of, he goes back to chasing a few red herrings, one of them an old boyfriend of April’s who turns up dead so clearly isn’t behind anything. At this point it should be more clear than ever who is behind the assassination attempts. And sure enough the finale features this character showing up to take April home, only for Ray to confront him on what’s really been happening. This leads to that assault on Ray’s house by a squad of armed men, but Ray takes them out in pretty quick fashion.

And that’s it for The Blonde Target. Overall what I liked was the snappy dialog, and I also liked Ray’s close knit group of recurring characters. But the mystery itself was subpar, as was the action. I’ve only got two more volumes, from later in the series, and I doubt I’ll hunt down any more.