The Marksman #12: Mafia Massacre

The Marksman #12: Mafia Massacre, by Frank Scarpetta
June, 1974  Belmont Tower Books

Russell Smith turns in another wild installment of The Marksman, one that picks up from an earlier Smith volume, Muzzle Blast – which wasn’t even published as part of the Marksman series but was clumsily transformed by editor Peter McCurtin into an installment of The Sharpshooter! And speaking of McCurtin, I share Lynn Munroe’s sentiments in that McCurtin likely fixed up Smith’s manuscript for Mafia Massacre. For while psychotic hero Philip Magellan is still as nuts as ever, it would appear as if his rough edges have been somewhat softened.

When we meet him Magellan has just landed in fictional Opa-Locka airport in Miami, somewhere near Biscayne Bay, we’re told. The events of Muzzle Blast were just three days ago – and unsurprisingly we get no details on what exactly happened in the aftermath of that novel’s climax; as we’ll recall, Muzzle Blast featured one of the most arbitrary “endings” in published history – and Magellan has made the impromptu decision to come down to Florida. Why? Because he read in the paper about the massacre of the Tarburton family here in Miami and figured it for a mob hit.

Magellan, “thirty-nine, white and proud,” promptly left Provincetown after reading about the massacre, and now here in Miami he plans to find out what’s going on. So begins a Marksman plot that’s slightly more complex than the average installment. For we learn early on that crooked judge Vito La Malfa was behind the hit, his goal to move in on Tarburton’s vast interests. Tarburton was an island developer or somesuch, creating manmade islands in the Bay, Treasure Island being one of them. There the Tarburtons lived in a mansion, where all of them were hacked to death, save for one, who wasn’t there at the time – young Mary, a 23 year-old so mysterious and reclusive that it’s rumored she doesn’t even exist.

Smith as is his wont fills up lots of pages with bullshit backgrounds on his various Mafia characters, how they got started in the life and etc, and he’s also just as fond of wasting pages by having these characters engage in go-nowhere conversations. In many cases these dialog exchanges go over material we readers have already encountered, which only hammers home how egregious they are. In addition to Judge La Malfa and his various Mafia underlings there’s chief of detectives Captain Stagg, a dirty cop on Malfa’s payroll. Smith fills more pages with late revelations that Stagg gathers evidence on La Malfa in case he ever has to bust him to protect his career, which for once in this clumsy series is a subplot that actually goes somewhere.

As for Magellan himself, his sadistic impulses have been neutered for the most part. There’s none of Smith’s notorious stuff where Magellan will chop off heads or arrange mobster corpses in garrish displays. True, he does flat-out murder and massacre several of them, usually killing them in cold blood, but each time he does so we are reminded of Magellan’s rage and how he lost his hummanity after his wife and son were killed. In other words we are told, as well as shown, that Magellan has gone insane from grief and now lashes out in bloody vengeance. In previous Smith books it seems to me that there was much less telling and more showing, to the point that Magellan’s past was overlooked and it was more about him gorily torturing mobsters before killing them.

Otherwise Smith’s writing is the same as ever, with frenetic prose and exclamation points all over the place. We’re also barraged with the word “fuck,” especially in the first several pages. Here I must again agree with Lynn Munroe, who in the above-linked piece on McCurtin opines that many of Smith’s later Marksman manuscripts were polished either by McCurtin himself or by McCurtin’s go-to ghostwriter, George Harmon Smith (whom I once mistakenly believed to be the “real” Russell Smith; ie that “Russell” was just a pseudonym used by George H.) At any rate one can detect what appears to have been some editorial tinkering in Mafia Massacre, with some actual, genuine care placed on telling a believable story with believable characters.

Another change here – and which also calls back to the volumes actually written by Peter McCurtin – is that there’s more of a focus on action scenes. I mean genuine action scenes, with an outgunned Magellan ducking and dodging and returning fire. In most other Russell Smith volumes there isn’t any action per se; it’s just Magellan randomly and wantonly killing off usually-unarmed mobsters. Here though we have several sequences in which Magellan must actually fight. In one part he’s ambushed by a trio of gunmen with assault rifles, and in another sequence he gets in a machine gun battle with a boatful of Mafia soldiers.

Smith (or Harmon Smith, or McCurtin) also does a good job of keeping Mary Tarburton off the page for a long time, making the reader interested to find out if she’s real or not. Magellan shadows the young woman and black chaffeur (and boy are we reminded often and at length that this guy’s black) who supposedly work for Mary, which leads him into a few of those gunfights. Also when saving the chaffeur from some La Malfa thugs we get a brief return of the old Magellan, when our “hero” blows out one guy’s brains when he won’t answer a single question. Later Magellan handcuffs another thug to a speedboat and beats him into bloody hamburger. Oh, and Magellan also tortures a pair of cops for info at one point – however it happens off-page.

Mary, who turns out to be an oceanographer who lives on a swanky houseboat, is a tomboyish but beautiful blonde with “small, apple-sized breasts;” Magellan finds her after discovering a secret passageway which runs from Tarburton’s private cove on Treasure Island to his mansion. As usual with Smith this passageway is built up greatly in the narrative, with Magellan constantly marvelling over it, whereas the reader is more so “who cares?” The same goes for all of the nautical stuff in the book, which is a recurring theme in Smith’s installments, I’ve found; they all feature at least some action that takes place on wharves and harbors and sailing vessels.

For the most part the plot of Mafia Massacre trades off on Magellan trying to figure out who was behind the Tarburton massacre while, in their own subplots, La Malfa and his underlings discuss Magellan and how they can stop him. Smith also hopscotches in time, like he’s some low-rent Elmore Leonard, with most of the chapters featuring La Malfa and Captain Stagg taking place before the ones we just read with Magellan. It sort of drags on for the duration, until, per the norm, things ramp up for a clumsy finale.

La Malfa has called in a legion of soldiers, and Magellan perfunctorily and quickly massacres them all in Tarburton’s mansion, gunning them down with his favored Uzi. But Magellan does have his setbacks in Mafia Massacre; while he and Mary are on her boat for no reason at all, they are attacked by a boat filled with La Malfa’s men, and in the skirmish Magellan gets shot in the left thigh. Here the Marksman is actually injured, thus denting his otherwise superhuman armor for once. He even resorts to popping pain pills before gunning down those unarmed soldiers in the Tarburton mansion. 

But it all wraps up with Magellan and Mary capturing Stagg on Mary’s houseboat. Speaking of which, Smith builds up a rapport and respect between Magellan and Mary, not that it goes anywhere – as ever, the Marksman has the libido of a robot. Mary freaks out when it’s revealed, at long last, that La Malfa was in fact the man behind the death of her family – in another go-nowhere subplot, we learn that La Malfa has lusted after Mary since she was a kid. So Magellan pistol-whips Stagg…and then has him hop off the boat and swim back to Miami(!?).

So yeah, our boy Magellan has undergone some sort of personality overhaul; the old version of Smith’s character would’ve sawed off Stagg’s head. And meanwhile La Malfa, having learned of Stagg’s treachery, abandons ship and hops on his personal plane to the Bahamas or something…and Magellan swears vengeance.

Yeah, right! I’ll be surprised if La Malfa or the events here in Miami are even mentioned in another Marksman (or Sharpshooter) novel, let alone if the cliffhanger finale of Mafia Massacre continues in a later installment.

The Assassin #1: Manhattan Massacre

The Assassin #1: Manhattan Massacre, by Peter McCurtin
November, 1973  Dell Books

Here it is, the veritable ur-text of the Marksman series. Peter McCurtin wrote the three-volume Assassin series for Dell Books while he was writing (and editing) the Marksman series for Belmont Tower. The protagonists of these two series, despite their different names, were actually one and the same.

As I mentioned in my review of The Marksman #6, Marksman hero Philip Magellan is the same person as Assassin hero Robert Briganti. There are even installments of The Marksman that play out on elements introduced in this first volume of The Assassin, for example #7: Slaughterhouse, another McCurtin novel, which has Magellan working with the son of carnival owner Wild Bill Brady – a character mentioned in Manhattan Massacre as the man who taught young Briganti how to shoot.

But one thing missing in all those Marksman installments is Magellan’s origin story. That’s because it’s here, in the first volume of The Assassin. Interestingly, Manahattan Massacre was published after several of those Marksman novels, which would appear to confirm my theory that Belmont Tower got their product out a hell of a lot faster than the more “respectable” publishers. At any rate McCurtin pulled the same thing Nelson DeMille did with his Ryker series, where he changed his character’s name to Keller and moved over to Manor Books.  (The irony here being that DeMille likely did this because he got pissed at McCurtin, his editor, who used DeMille’s name for Ryker #3, which was really by Len Levinson.)

Anyway, Manhattan Massacre opens with the transcript of a senate committee hearing in which various government reps, including members of the FBI and CIA, discuss the recent events of September, 1972. Robert Briganti is the focus of their discussion; born in 1935, growing up in New Orleans, Briganti became a master sharpshooter in the Wild Bill Brady carnival, going on to become a salesman of military surplus, particularly in South America. In this capacity he did odd jobs for the CIA. Then ten years ago Briganti quit this life, moved to Connecticut, and opened a sporting goods store there.

Then one night Crazy Joe Coraldi, a good-looking and well-known Mafioso (who was jailed as a teen on “two convictions of sodomy,” by the way), showed up in Briganti’s store and demanded that Briganti get him some heavy-duty weaponry. Briganti told him to go to hell. Then when Briganti’s wife of ten years, Nancy, picked him up after work, their 9 year-old son Michael along for the ride, a car with New York tags sped by and opened fire on them. Nancy and Michael died on the scene. Briganti recuperated in the hospital and slipped out from under his police guard. Then he declared war on Coraldi.

I was under the incorrect assumption that The Assassin books were written in first-person. This is only true for the opening chapter, in which the senate committee plays one of the reel-to-reel tapes Briganti has sent them. In an interesting angle McCurtin didn’t keep when he changed Briganti to Magellan, Briganti records his thoughts onto audio tape and mails the tapes off to the FBI and to ABC. While this schtick didn’t make the transition to the Marksman books, it does at least explain why Magellan is so well-known to the general public, as Briganti’s tapes make for a media sensation.

McCurtin’s writing here is also different than in the Marksman books, and also another indication of the difference in quality between a Belmont Tower book and a Dell book. Honestly, some of McCurtin’s Marksman novels are awful, like Slaughterhouse. But he takes his time here, turning in a book as well-written as his first installment for the similar (and also McCurtin-created and edited) Sharpshooter series, The Killing Machine. Actually, McCurtin’s style here seems very influenced by the Parker books, with terse, no-fat description and dialog.

Another line of demarcation between Belmont Tower and Dell is page length. Manhattan Massacre is much too long for its own good, coming in at 192 pages of small print; much longer than McCurtin’s Marksman novels. This has the unfortunate effect that, while being better written, the Assassin novels come off as more slow moving than the Marksman books, with McCurtin quite clearly struggling to meet his unwieldy word count. This is mostly accomplished through Briganti’s cynical ruminations. 

Briganti is also like Parker in how he’s so cold and methodical. Rather than grieving and raging over the loss of his family, Briganti instead finds himself in this subzero sort of calm. He can’t even get worked up about it, and fakes wild anger only when trying to psych out various mobsters. But he’s more vicious than Parker ever would be, killing people even when he promises them he won’t. He figures he’ll even kill a cop if one gets in his way, and when he sneaks back into his old military surplus company to steal various weapons, he could give a shit that his actions will have dire repercussions for his old work buddies.

McCurtin as always delivers good action scenes. They aren’t very bloody – McCurtin doesn’t much play up the gore in any of his books I’ve read – but they’re very tense. Briganti’s first real score is Fallaci, Coraldi’s top guard who runs a porno theater in Brooklyn. Briganti ends up beating him nearly to death with his bare hands, the one and only time he lets his anger break his otherwise placid surface. He finishes the guy off with a few kicks to the temple, which is pretty brutal. Next he takes out the guys who made the hit on his family, Al and Rio, twin brothers who supposedly look like Frank “The Riddler” Gorshin!!

McCurtin delivers a bit of sex as well, with Briganti realizing he needs an outlet other than violence. The lucky lady turns out to be a bar whore, and Briganti goes back to her place for a little vaguely-described shenanigans. This leads to another action scene, where some hitmen try to get the drop on Briganti. But they’re just “punks,” hired goons who are no match for our merciless hero. And Brigani is smart, too; realizing that no matter how many fleabag hotels he hides in the cops or Mafia will eventually find him, he rents a furnished office in a ratty building on 907 Broadway. He knows no one would ever think to look for him in a business office.

Coraldi’s in hiding somewhere in New York, due to his war with rival mob boss Carlo Gambelli. Briganti gets in touch with the latter, who sends Briganti in the direction of a Harlem preacher named Joshua Moon, who now goes by the name Brother Mwalimu. Figuring to hell with coincidence, McCurtin has it that Briganti and Moon know each other, as Moon was also in the Wild Bill Brady carnival and indeed Briganti saved his ass from being lynched, back in 1948. But now Moon preaches to the Black Power movement, and McCurtin again page-fills with a looong sermon courtesy “Brother Mwalimu,” who tells us that Columbus was black, Abe Lincoln was a Jew who hated blacks, and John Wilkes Booth was not only a hero, but black, too!

Despite the coincedental nature of it all, the Briganti/Moon relationship is interesting and well handled, with Moon now a coke fiend who wonders why Briganti saved him all those years ago. Moon informs Briganti that Joe Coraldi is hiding in a closed police precinct in Harlem, but Briganti discovers later that it’s a trap – Carlo Gambelli’s plan is for Briganti to kill Coraldi, and then for Moon’s Black Power comrades to take out Briganti. Now, armed with a grenade launcher, a Stoner 63 machine gun, and an Uzi, Briganti ventures into Harlem to even the score.

The climactic firefight is very similar to what one would read in The Marksman, with Briganti dishing out most of the death via grenade and then mopping up what few survivors remain with his machine guns. Even Coraldi’s demise is perfunctory, but this goes well with Briganti’s now-robotic persona; he realizes he’s just going through the motions, and has now become a veritable human Terminator. Actually this also jibes well with the whole “Briganti = Magellan” deal, as Briganti thinks to himself a few times that “Robert Briganti” died with his family.

McCurtin only wrote two more Assassin novels, though obviously the Marksman books went on for much longer. I’m curious what caused the move over to Belmont Tower. Either Dell took too long to publish McCurtin’s manuscripts or maybe he just got a better deal at BT, though I doubt it; they were apparently notorious for never paying their authors. Or maybe Dell just gave McCurtin his walking papers, as that publisher really didn’t get too involved with the men’s adventure genre, and indeed The Assassin is the only men’s adventure series from Dell that I can think of at the moment. 

Anyway, I really enjoyed Manhattan Massacre, even though it was a bit too sluggish at times. But McCurtin’s polished-but-pulpish prose was almost masterful in how it captured the right vibe, and like I said the book came off as more entertaining and memorable than any the McCurtin Marksman novels I’ve read yet.

The Marksman #11: Counterattack

The Marksman #11: Counterattack, by Frank Scarpetta
April, 1974  Belmont Tower Books

The Marksman series presents us with more mystery and confusion, as this Russell Smith volume clearly takes place after his last installment, #9: Body Count, yet we appear to have missed something in the interim. And as usual, the questions behind the book are more interesting than its actual contents.

Body Count ended with Philip Magellan on the French Riviera, where he’d collared a heroin dealer named Dante Monza. The tenth volume was by co-writer Peter McCurtin and had nothing to do with the France adventures. Now in this volume, which is clearly by Smith himself, Magellan’s in New Orleans, and it appears he’s just returned to the States from Monaco. But none of the stuff from the previous Smith volumes, like Monza or the Paris-based mobsters Magellan had been fighting since #8: Stone Killer, are mentioned.

In other words, it seems like we’re missing a Smith installment. I’m wondering if McCurtin’s novel was accidentally published as the tenth volume, when it should’ve been Smith’s. Or maybe Smith missed his deadline and never turned in his manuscript? Perhaps it’s one that will turn up later in the series, churned out by a publisher who couldn’t give a damn about series continuity. One thing I won’t guess is that Smith’s manuscript might’ve been too rough to see print; Belmont Tower obviously had no qualms with publishing anything, regardless of quality. This particular novel is just yet more proof of that.

Russell Smith had to have been approaching burnout state by this point, having turned in so many manuscripts in such a short time. His haphazard “plotting” and hamfisted storytelling are especially rough this time, with even less attempt than usual at telling a coherent tale. These books in their own way are almost as bad as the later Tracker series – not that bad, and true they have a bizarre charm about them, but that they are so obviously cranked out without any authorial care is apparent, which thus serves to incur the reader’s anger.

Even basic things one would want from this genre are missing. There are hardly any action scenes, and not even any sex. There is no suspense or mystery, no buildup and playing out of tension. There are no moments of character introspection or depth. There isn’t even the barest attempt at characterization, in fact, with an assortment of figures shuffled across the page in a desperate attempt at reaching a word count.

Anyway, what’s the book about? Well, Magellan’s in New Orleans. Apparently back in Monaco he met some nameless guy at a yachting club(??) and the two struck up a friendship, and this dude apparently kept telling Magellan about the Mafia in New Orleans and how the dude himself was a double agent, working for both Interpol and the Mafia. Smith frequently cuts back to this stuff in Monaco, so it would appear this character, whom we eventually learn is named Robert Choisi, is not a returning character from an unpublished Smith manuscript.

But Magellan’s apparently followed this dude’s advice and come to New Orleans because a big shipment of heroin’s on the way. Magellan ends up acquiring it -- $650 million worth, a number we’re constantly reminded of in the text – and thus sets off a sort of inter-family war among Don Benito Borghese and his Interpol/New Orleans police chief associate, Inspector JM Baffrey, who despite being British is apparently the top cop in New Orleans. Also we get lots of stuff about how the heroin was “stolen,” and the cops set up this fake marijuana bust to appease the public, but then Magellan figures out the heroin was in fact handed over to Borghese…but Magellan ends up getting it, anyway.

There isn’t even any of the wild and wacky stuff with Magellan capturing people and drugging them, though he does often dress in the “hippie” disguise he’s been using since Smith’s first installment, #1: Vendetta. Magellan himself goes without an accomplice this time – during a brief meeting with Baffrey he states “I’m always alone” – but later in the novel he meets up with Choisi and the two reconnect, finally learning each other’s names. One thing I want to make clear is that this is all so rushed and so half-assedly described that as I’m writing this review I’m trying to make sense of the novel I just read.

Smith fills more pages with Borghese dealing with what he assumes are traitors. As usual, no one realizes that the Marksman is in town and is the cause of everyone’s misfortune. Smith also introduces elements that he doesn’t bother following up on, like how Borghese is secretly a heroin addict but only one other person knows about it. There are also some misses, like Borghese’s top capo, who is greatly built up, only to be unceremoniously dropped from the narrative.

The weirdness of previous Smith installments returns when Magellan escapes a trap and steals at random a VW Bus. Inside he finds the bound and unconscious form of a half-naked young woman. He does the expected thing – takes her back to his cabin in the woods, fully strips her, checks her out, then puts her clothes back on! At great length we learn this is Chantal Choisi, daughter of Robert, who had been kidnapped by Borghese’s men, as now the don and JM Baffrey are trying to track down Robert Choisi and the missing heroin.

Per usual Magellan doesn’t put any moves on the girl – the guy’s as sexless as a Terminator – even though she seems to eagerly expect she’s about to get raped when she comes out of her drugged slumber. Instead, Magellan reunites her with her dad, who meanwhile is trying to evade the Mafia and the cops. Smith introduces another lazy, unexplained plot with Chantal switching places with her sister, so as to fool Magellan, but why? What was the point? It’s not explained, but Magellan does hit both father and daughter and then runs away.

Magellan then collects the heroin and ships it “air freight” to New York. That taken care of, he overhears the two Choisi sisters talking, and learns that they’re also apparently cops or something, or at least were trying to help their dad, who himself is really on Magellan’s side, so Magellan lets them live. Then we get the typical rushed Smith finale where Magellan arms himself with some “Japanese grenades” and lobs them into a room where Borghese and Baffrey are meeting. The end!

Honesty, Counterattack was a hot mess, cranked out by an obviously-exhausted author who was likely hopped up on goofballs. It wasn’t an enjoyable read at all, and it’ll take me a while to recover enough from it that I can move on to another volume of this grubby series.

Oh yeah, this novel did prove out another of my stupid theories – namely, that the heroin “Johnny Rock” got “from the score in New Orleans” is not only indication that The Sharpshooter #6: Muzzle Blast was also another Smith manuscript that got turned into a Sharpshooter novel, but also that it takes place sometime after Counterattack.  Curiously, it was published the same month and year as Counterattack -- more indication that Smith was a human typewriter, just cranking out the books.

The Marksman #10: Open Contract

The Marksman #10: Open Contract, by Frank Scarpetta
March, 1974  Belmont Tower Books

The previous volume of The Marksman ended with Philip Magellan on the French Riviera, where he was planning to continue waging his war against the Mafia in France. So then it only makes sense that this volume opens with Magellan in Houston, Texas, with absolutely no mention of the events of the preceding two volumes!

Obviously, continuity was never a concern with the publishers and editor of The Marksman; something especially apparent when you consider that this volume was actually written by the editor, Peter McCurtin. As in #7: Slaughterhouse, Open Contract starts cold with Magellan on a new job in a new city, with no references to anything that came before, other than a cursory mention of his slain family, years ago.

McCurtin’s Magellan, who I guess you could argue is the “true” Magellan given that McCurtin created the guy, is nowhere as sadistic or psychopathic as co-writer Russell Smith's. He doesn’t drug people, he doesn’t torture people, and in fact he lets several Mafioso live this time around, even offering safety for a few of them! While this serves for a more-heroic protagonist, personally I prefer the wacked-out version of the character delivered by Smith.

But anyway, Magellan’s in Houston, and anyone hoping for any local color will be disappointed. I’ve never even been to Houston, but I think I could bring the city more to life than McCurtin, who does nothing to even make it appear that Magellan’s in Texas; it’s just some random city populated by Mafioso, and it has a harbor area. I mean, I’ve lived in Dallas since 1996, and I think I’ve only seen four or five Italians here in that entire time, but whatever, Houston circa 1975 was crawling with mobsters who’d just arrived from Sicily.

Believe it or not, the plot of Open Contract is incredibly simple. Magellan in his typical omniscience knows that Don Tomasso DiGrasso runs the Houston Mafia, and Magellan’s plan is to sow dissent in the ranks. To accomplish this he first easily blows away a pair of hoods in a restaurant owned by one of DiGrasso’s top men, Duke Pavione. Now, Pavione spots Magellan in the opening pages, calling the don, who calls in the hoods, but later the don states that no one knows what Magellan looks like. So how then did Duke spot him??

McCurtin of course doesn’t care about such details. And also, despite the hyperbolic back cover copy that Magellan is “armed with the most sophisticated weapons in the world,” McCurtin’s take of the character actually uses less-“sophisticated” weapons than Smith’s version, in particular a .38 pistol for his left hand and a .44 Magnum for his right. He also occasionally breaks out a Luger, which McCurtin has as being this incredible “machine pistol” capable of mowing down armies of men.

Magellan (and I just realized “Philip Magellan” sounds very similar to “Peter McCurtin,” doesn’t it?) takes captive Duke and his restaurant waiter, Rocco, and forces them to show him where the don’s latest shipment of heroin is located. This leads to another brief skirmish on the docks of Houston, and while Duke and Rocco sit handcuffed in the trunk of his car (for which Magellan apologizes!!), Magellan blows away a few goons and then burns all of the heroin.

These opening fights are sort of bareboned, so far as the violence goes, and it’s interesting that as the novel proceeds it gets more gory, with McCurtin eventually describing the impact of each of Magellan’s bullets. But anyway, through some “crafty” maneuvers Magellan plants seeds that Duke has joined up with him, telling Magellan where the heroin was located, and we get many long scenes in which Don DiGrasso sits around in his “fortress-mansion” and ponders over his traitorous ranks.

Strangely, for the guy who created and edited the series, McCurtin turns in the worst (or perhaps the least memorable) volumes of The Marksman. This one is no different, with a sluggish yet still harried feel to the whole thing, with no spark to any of it. There aren’t even any of the bizarre, non sequitur touches like you’d get in one of Russell Smith’s installments. Magellan’s basically a cipher, an omniscient and omnipotent “crimefighter” whose only concern is quashing the Houston Mafia.

And unfortunately, the few interesting touches are quickly dropped. For example there’s a Godfather bit where Don Digrasso calls in his “executioner,” Luca Boito, who you’d no doubt guess is clearly “inspired” by Luca Brasi. The don orders Boito to take out first Duke Pavione and then Magellan. A sadist who enjoys his work, Boito offers a lot of promise, but he’s quickly dispensed of, and not even by Magellan, as McCurtin instead works in more of a betrayal plot with the don’s bodyguard, Salvatore Belguardo, deciding to help Duke.

Meanwhile Magellan sits around in his hotel and cleans his guns, even employing an unwilling Duke on an assault on the don’s heroin manufacturing plant, which is located in some nondescript rural area outside of Houston. Here Magellan restages World War II, breaking out a mortar and blowing away the goons from afar. Also Ken Barr’s typically-great cover comes into play, sort of, with Magellan hoisting a submachine gun and hopping through shattered walls to blow away survivors.

All of the plotting/betrayal stuff is also quickly dispensed of, with McCurtin anticlimactically killing off various characters in the final pages,during Magellan and Duke’s assault on the don’s mansion. This sequence continues with the increasing gore factor, with copious detail of heads exploding and whatnot. One thing missing, you’ll notice, is the sex quotient; there isn’t a single female character in Open Contract.

There’s also no lead-in to the next volume, as all-mighty Magellan easily dispenses of the Houston Mafia. After the novel’s endless climax of him and the don going mano a mano with revolvers, Magellan shoots Digrasso, then uses his “carnival” training to leap several feet to the ground beneath the don’s bedroom window. Magellan then blithely strolls for his rental car, his mission here complete. The end!

The Sharpshooter #11: Triggerman

The Sharpshooter #11: Triggerman, by Bruno Rossi
January, 1975  Leisure Books

Russell Smith returns to the Sharpshooter series in what appears to be yet another of Smith’s Marksman manuscripts that was turned into a Sharpshooter novel. At first it’s hard to tell, as for once the editors managed to change most instances of “Magellan” into “Rock,” but as the novel progresses you can clearly tell this is indeed a Philip “Marksman” Magellan novel – especially when, about 90 pages in, the “Magellan” goofs start to pepper the text.

Anyway, Triggerman opens with no pickup from any previous volume, with Don Ricardo “Rick” Tattilo getting out of some mystery prison in New York (“A –”) where he’s spent the past two years. We get lots of background detail on Tattilo, an obvious page-filling gambit on Smith’s part. We also learn that the only reason “the Rock” hasn’t come after him yet is because Tattilo’s been in the joint since Rock started his campaign against the Mafia. Now that he’s out, Rock is coming for him.

At first I thought this novel was a straight-up Johnny Rock story, as early on Smith has Rock reflecting back on the murder of his mom and dad and etc, all of them murdered due to the family business, which the mob wanted a piece of. As die hards know, this was the origin story of Johnny Rock, as told in #1: The Killing Machine. However, on the very same page, Smith also has Rock reflecting back on his mob-murdered wife and son, and as die hards also know, this is not Johnny Rock’s backstory – it’s Philip Magellan’s.

But no, this is really a Marksman novel, with “Rock” displaying the expected Magellan characteristics, from obsessing over his “Valpak and artillery case” to even wearing “nylon cords” around his waist (to bind whatever thug he happens to beat senseless). There’s also Magellan’s fondness for stripping and tying up captives, keeping collections of them stored away for future torturing. He also enjoys donning disguises, another Magellan penchant, and Smith mentions that one such disguise is one “Rock” hasn’t worn “since Puerto Rico.” This is likely a reference to The Marksman #5: Headhunter. 

Now, how about the actual novel itself? Triggerman really isn’t that bad, and is on par with pretty much everything else churned out by the human typewriter that was Russell Smith. As usual you can tell the dude was winging it as he went along, with tons of incidental detail dropped early on but hardly any of it amounting to anything in the actual text. Things just sort of happen with little rhyme or reason. Magellan/Rock murders with impunity, walking around in a “hippie disguise” and blowing away mobsters with his silenced Beretta.

Triggerman also operates on Smith’s usual fondness for lazy coincidence. For one, after getting intel from an old black guy named Mickey the Fish (who apparently was saved by Magellan/Rock a year before), our “hero” checks into a hotel in Manhattan, where he later discovers, nestled in a courtyard behind it, an old “Quaker meeting hall” from which both heroin is distributed and a sort of kinky sex parlor does business. There’s also an old treehouse back there, which “Rock” soon uses to hide the gory mobster corpses he creates.

Meanwhile Tattilo holes up in the Manhattan apartment of Eleanora Constantini, the gorgeous 35 year-old madam who runs his lucrative whoring business. Smith for once delivers several sex scenes, all of them featuring Tattilo, particularly when later he stays in the Hotel Irwin and bangs Marge, neglected wife of the drunk mobster who runs the place. These scenes in particular are pretty sleazy, with Smith busting out all sorts of exploitative detail, to the point where Triggerman is the most sex-filled installment of the series yet.

Smith’s customary coincidental plotting again rears its head when Tattilo, fearing Magellan/Rock is going to find him, leaves Eleanor’s apartment and heads to the Hotel Irwin (which Smith sometimes mistakenly refers to as “Hotel Irving”). Guess where Magellan/Rock’s staying? That’s right, in the very same hotel. Not that “Rock” instantly discovers this; he’s too busy sneaking around in that courtyard around the hidden Quaker hall, murdering mobsters with his silenced Beretta and hiding their corpses in the treehouse.

Smith also as usual adds in goofy humor, with Tattilo one morning looking out over nearby Gramercy Park and seeing the Quaker hall beneath his window, scoping his binoculars over it…and seeing all those gory corpses. Yet he tells no one, because he’s certain people will think he’s nuts(?). When he calls over fellow don John Tedesco to check them out, guess what, “Rock’s” just rented a panel truck and lugged each corpse onto it, so that they’re all gone when the two mobsters take another look down there with binoculars.

“Action” is relegated to the usual Smith sadism, with an early scene featuring Magellan/Rock shooting up several mobsters in the lobby of Eleanora’s apartment building (this being the incident that really sends Tattilo into paranoia, eventually causing him to move to the Hotel Irwin). This scene too is goofy, because “Rock” wants to get upstairs to kill Tattilo without anyone seeing him, yet just a few sentences later he’s shooting one Tattilo guard after another, to the point where there’s a crowd of onlookers and the cops are rushing to the scene.

Magellan also has a penchant for picking up cleaning ladies (seriously), and not only does Triggerman open with “Rock” already being friends of sorts with a maid named Clara Green (which makes me wonder if this character will appear in another Smith Marksman/Sharpshooter installment), but towards the end he rescues from sexual servitude another maid, Maria. In another of the novel’s sex scenes, we see how Eleanora Constantini “forces” Maria to sleep with her, and the girl is super-happy to escape with “Rock” at the novel’s end, with the clear implication that she’s going to stay with him for a while.

The finale is pretty weird. Magellan/Rock stages a raid on Eleanora’s lush suite, blowing away scads of mobsters and then “literally slapping the shit” out of Eleanora herself! After the already-mentioned rescue of Maria (who throws herself all over “Rock”), our boy heads back to the Hotel Irwin…where all of the villains have conveniently congregated in one of the apartments. Magellan/Rock loads up his Uzi, kicks open the door, and blows everyone away! To add an even stranger tenor to it, “Rock” then goes over to the corpses and steals the cash out of their wallets!

Maybe it’s a weird Marksman/Sharpshooter hybrid who stars in Triggerman; on pages 132 and 142, he’s referred to as “Philip Rock!” It should say something that I found more interest in rooting out the editorial maniuplations, but all told Triggerman isn’t really that bad. It has a sleaze quotient missing from other Smith contributions, and for once the plot is tied up in a single novel – messily tied up, but at least it comes to a conclusion.

And Ken Barr’s cover, as usual, is great.

The Marksman #9: Body Count

The Marksman #9: Body Count, by Frank Scarpetta

February, 1974  Belmont Tower Books

Picking up immediately after the previous volume, Body Count is yet another installment in the continuous Marksman storyline author Russell Smith developed, with sicko hero Philip Magellan blitzing into the French Riveria and killing mobsters. It’s also a lot more cohesive and enjoyable than that previous volume.

It’s strange, because Body Count was published a mere month after Stone Killer. But for the most part the rough and hurried feel of the preceding volume is gone, this time out, with Smith taking a little more care with his story. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still messy as hell, with Smith’s typical disdain for grammatical and storytelling rules, but at least it isn’t as messy as Stone Killer.

However, anyone expecting a direct pick-up from that previous installment will be in for a bummer. Terri White, Magellan’s one-time sidekick, is so gone for good that she isn’t even mentioned. And Hilda Rau, the sexy German dominatrix who Magellan sort of lusted after in Stone Killer (that is, while he was abducting her and “sadistically torturing” her), is apparently dead. (This point in particular is indication of Smith’s lazy writing – early Magellan regrets that he left Hilda tied up, but still alive, in her room, but later in the novel it’s clearly stated by Dante Monza that she’s dead, having been “blown up.” Of course, this could just be a misconception of Monza’s, but at any rate Smith doesn’t bother letting us know what the actual truth is.) 

Even Magellan’s burning drive to kill Dante Monza is sort of lost; Magellan arrives in Beausoleil, by the Riviera, driving back and forth to nearby Nice, and scopes out the circuses that have been set up in the two towns. Monza owns the bigger one, and here we learn that it’s a traveling disguise for his mobile heroin lab, or something. As usual Smith shoehorns in lots of expository information about the mob’s operational methods, and here we learn how much money they make from refining and selling heroin.

And also per Smith’s customary coincidental plotting, Magellan just happens to discover that the two guys staying above his room in the hotel in Beausoleil are Interpol agents. There’s also Anna Nessi, this volume’s version of Hilda Rau, a brunette mistress of Dante Monza’s who is determined to make Monza fall in love with her. For reasons Smith doesn’t make clear, she flies to Paris to check out the destruction Magellan wrought in the previous volume, then flies back to Nice and books the room beside Magellan’s, without telling Monza what she’s doing.

Then the girl strips for Magellan and offers herself to him, to which Magellan responds by slapping her and telling her to get dressed! Apparently the girl’s plan is to seduce Magellan and then entrap him, so that she can serve him up for Dante Monza…or something. Smith doesn’t bother informing us, and he further disappoints with this storyline by straight-out killing off Anna Nessi with no warning or even forethought! Magellan comes back to his hotel room to find the girl nude and slashed to death; we learn that it was Monza himself who killed her, driven to a fury when the girl told him she’d tried to sleep with Magellan, or something.

Magellan captures Monza, drugging and stripping him per his normal style, though Magellan isn’t sure it’s Monza...even though we readers know it is?! Sometimes I like to imagine Russell Smith banging out his manuscripts while chain-smoking joints, and parts of Body Count only serve to give credence to that theory. But anyway, Monza gets free, because, uh, Magellan just left him naked and chained in his hotel room, and Magellan comes back to find the man gone…not that much really comes of this, because Magellan eventually just captures him again!

Oh, and meanwhile Magellan has picked up some fancy “karate” tricks between volumes. I’m going to wager that Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon had recently come out when Smith was writing this installment, or at the very least the early ‘70s kung-fu craze was in full gear. Because in a goofy action scene midway through, where Magellan takes on some toughs in a circus food tent, our hero is “somersaulting” around his opponents and launching devastating punches and kicks. This scene also further serves to display how Smith’s installments of The Marksman are intentional camp, as, after killing everyone, Magellan leaves payment for his meal on the table and walks out.

Speaking of time between volumes, we’re also here informed that The Sharpshooter #3: Blood Bath was “months before.” Time is sort of eclipsed, anyway, as Magellan was shot in the thigh by Hilda Rau in the final pages of Stone Killer, but he has apparently walked it off. He gets shot again in Body Count, taking one in the shoulder, and reflects that he’s getting hurt more here in Europe than he ever did in America! But instead of heading back home, Magellan instead hooks up with a new female sidekick, a British gal named Sarah Wilson who is 23 and works as a cleaning lady in Magellan’s hotel.

Sarah’s just as fucked up as Magellan, for, in between calling him “sir” all of the time, she invites Magellan back to her home (where Magellan again turns down a woman’s offer of sex, which Sarah takes in stride) and is only momentarily shocked to discover a bound and beaten Dante Monza in the trunk of Magellan’s car. But then, when she learns who the guy is, Sarah goes all batshit, saying how her girlfriend got hooked on heroin from Monza’s circus, and before you know it she strips down, breaks out a whip, and starts lashing the shit out of the guy!

In fact Monza’s a bloody pulp by novel’s end, though still alive, and apparently gives Magellan enough info to topple the European mob. This makes the second installment in a row in which Magellan has whipped a captive until he or she has spilled the beans. But major mob figures introduced in the previous volume, like Luigi Perrone, are still alive, and it would appear Smith intends to play this out in yet another volume that will see Magellan waging his weird war in Europe.

I guess we’ll just have to find out!

The Marksman #8: Stone Killer

The Marksman #8: Stone Killer, by Frank Scarpetta
January, 1974  Belmont Tower Books

Russell Smith returns for another crazy and sick volume of The Marksman, one which again is part of the continuity Smith developed for his installments but which was broken up by editor Peter McCurtin. Stone Killer proves out a theory I had a while back that The Sharpshooter #2: Blood Oath was in fact another “lost” Marksman novel – and in fact that it took place right before Stone Killer.

As we’ll recall, that Sharpshooter novel featured “Johnny Rock” in the hamlet of Xenia, New York, sadistically murdering various mobsters before hurrying to JFK airport to catch a flight to Paris. Not only does Stone Killer open with “hero” Philip Magellan on a flight to Paris, but later in the book he actually reflects back on “his adventures in Xenia, New York” (not to mention also reflecting on his weird war in New Jersey, in the almighty Sharpshooter #3: Blood Bath).

So then one can see, like a regular Q source, the hidden, continuous storyline Russell Smith carefully worked out in his Marksman novels, all of which was lost when either McCurtin or the publisher haphazardly changed his manuscripts into installments of The Sharpshooter. It appears to me that the correct reading order for Smith’s storyline would actually be: Marksman #1: Vendetta, Sharpshooter #3: Blood Bath, Marksman #3: Kill Them All, Marksman #5: Headhunter, Sharpshooter #2: Blood Oath, and Marksman #8: Stone Killer.  Doutbless Sharpshooter #6: Muzzle Blast will eventually be uncovered as another part of the continuous storyline.

In the first few pages Magellan is even talking about Terri White, ie the hippie girl who practically served as a co-star in Kill Them All and Headhunter, before being carelessly removed from the narrative in the McCurtin-penned Marksman #6: Death To The Mafia, who opened his book with the mention that Terri was staying with some “friends” of Magellan. Despite which, Terri once again returns to the narrative here, and you kind of feel bad for author Smith, whose storyline was obliterated by careless management that was more interested in getting product out quickly.

Smith opens the novel on a scene of horror, as Magellan’s flight encounters horrific weather conditions during the arrival into Paris. It’s a flight from hell, and Smith keeps writing about it over and over, even after Magellan has walked inside the terminal. Smith also amps up the gross-out material, with copious description of the vomit-laden airliner cabin. But anyhoo, Magellan happened to be on a flight filled with nuns, on their way from New York to Paris and thence Rome for some nun thing, and one of them, unbeknownst to Magellan, is in fact an undercover mobster.

Any fears of Magellan being ambushed and killed are quickly evaporated; due to the stupidty of the mob, another mainstay in Smith’s installments, Magellan without even meaning to discovers that he’s being tailed. In fact, he even sees them checking into his very hotel on the outskirts of Paris. Here the Terri White mentions begin, as we are informed that she loved this hotel, which is more known for the hookers that frequent it. The concierge even helpfully informs Magellan of the back entrance, which runs through a courtyard, and the “stone tool house” there. If you know Russell Smith’s Magellan, you know what that tool house will soon be used for.

Getting the scoop on the local mob from an American expatriate (who makes his living as a children’s book writer) named Tim Talus, Magellan instantly sets his sights on Hilda Raus, an attractive blonde dominatrix-type from Germany who serves as a facilitator for the Parisian mob. People come to her when they have certain sadomasochistic needs, and Hilda hooks them up with the proper dominatrix or what-have-you. Magellan, who of course notes the woman’s beauty, merely goes over to her and tells her to come with him immediately or he’ll kill her!

And sure enough, before she knows it Hilda is stripped (she thinks she’s going to be raped by Magellan, the thought of which isn’t very unappealing to her!) and tossed in that stone tool house. Using Hilda’s little black book, Magellan begins his usual war of sadism upon the Parisian Mafia. His first victim he kills with a pistol butt to the head, and then per the usual Smith insanity, saws the bastard’s head off…and puts the “skull” in the tool house with Hilda, complete with a candle atop it! Yes, it’s all just like the ghastly stuff from Blood Bath, only with more of a macabre touch.

Telling Hilda she “needs company,” Magellan then goes back to his hotel and, again per Smith’s usual motif, drugs and strips the pretty young girl who also tailed him secretly from New York. She too is tossed inside the tool house, Magellan as usual building up a collection of nude captives. For once though the captives get free, though Smith does nothing with this…Magellan just comes back one day to find them gone, including the severed head (which is constantly referred to as a “skull”), and he’s like, “huh, how about that.” He suspects the hotel’s concierge is behind it, but the novel is so clearly banged out by an author hurrying to reach his deadline that it’s not really explained.

In fact, Stone Killer exhibits even less of a hold on reality than others in the Russell Smith canon. Despite knowing Magellan is here and killing their comrades, the Parisian mobsters still drag their heels and discuss “capturing” him, or “waiting” to kill him, and they go about it in the most laughably-avoidable ways possible. And Hilda Rau, despite escaping Magellan, just waltzes right back into a bar she knows he frequents, and gets captured again!

Smith develops a very unsettling dynamic between these two. Magellan constantly obsesses over Hilda’s boyfriend, circus owner/mob chieftan Dante Monza, who runs a circus out of Monaco. Hilda was a lion tamer with the circus, and Magellan in Monza’s Paris apartment finds framed photos of a nude Hilda holding a whip, and later he finds photos of Hilda and Monza nude together, with Smith even going to the lenght of mentioning how Monza is “more than adequately equipped.” Not that it’s outright stated, but there’s this weird vibe that Magellan wants Hilda but is stymied by the fact that she has a boyfriend.(?!)

Muddying up things is the return of Terri White, who by the way was also in Blood Oath, but her name was changed, likely by McCurtin, to “Jane.” As we’ll recall, “Jane” was raped by like ten guys in the denoument of that “Sharpshooter” novel (with the comical outcome of “Johnny Rock” giving her a few aspirin for her troubles), not that it’s mentioned here. She just arrives in the narrative with little setup or explanation, and though she and Magellan make frequent references to their “adventures” in the past, Smith obviously is getting sick of Terri, because she and Magellan are at constant odds this time out.

Hilda is the (half-assed) cause of this; Magellan, for reasons I didn’t catch, decides to stage a big battle at an old stone farmhouse called Four Winds outside of Paris. As is his customary approach, he sadistically murders the stooges who are there waiting to ambush him, then arranges their corpses in garish displays. Despite being in a handful of novels already, Terri only now gets disgusted by this, particularly how Magellan seats two of the corpses inside a large stone hearth, complete with bottles of wine, so that it looks like they’re having dinner.

But Hilda’s there, stripped and bound of course, and starts sowing a wedge between the two. She asks Terri how far she will allow Magellan to push her, and also if Magellan’s yet asked Terri to kill anyone. Apparently this gets the cogs in Terri’s head to start moving, for when Magellan does later ask her to take a gun, she tells him to go to hell. (Magellan’s gentlemanly response is “Get fucked.”) In the climactic gunfight, which for once isn’t hastily rendered, Terri scampers for cover and screams that she wants out of this, once and for all.

Smith in fact puts more focus on this than the actual plot; the Parisian mobsters are perfunctorily disposed of, and more light is shed on Terri and Magellan’s breakup. He gives her some money, jokingly tells her “See you in St. Thomas, mon,” and then waits until she has driven off…and then he “sadistically tortures” Hilda Rau into telling him everything she knows about Dante Monza. Hilda is still alive at novel’s end, which sees an eager Magellan rushing off for Monaco, where he’s quite excited to take on Monza.

The novel is written in the usual Russell Smith style, with abrupt scene-changes, rampant POV-hopping (ie character perspectives changing between paragraphs), and little regard for grammatical or storytelling rules. Shit just happens, with no rhyme or reason, and Magellan is in a more sadistic mood than normal. Given how many volumes this author had churned out in such little time, one can be a little forgiving for this, but still. Here’s hoping the next Smith installment not only picks up from here, but is a little more cohesive.

The Marksman #7: Slaughterhouse

The Marksman #7: Slaughterhouse, by Frank Scarpetta
December, 1973  Belmont-Tower Books

Peter McCurtin returns as “Frank Scarpetta” for another entry in the Marksman series, another one that’s super-heavy on action but barebones on plot and character. Unusually enough this one actually has a bit of background for Philip Magellan – another indicator that editor McCurtin was behind the tale. Overall though Slaughterhouse wears you down with endless action sequences.

As revealed in the previous volume (also courtesy McCurtin), Magellan has his roots in a carnival, where he was a trickshot artist. This volume opens with Magellan in St. Louis (again there is absolutely no pickup from previous books or any sense of continuity), where on the first page he bumps into young Tommy Brady, the son of Wild Bill Brady, aka the man who taught Magellan how to shoot all those years ago.

Wild Bill’s been laid up in the hospital due to a stroke for the past few years, but Tommy and his mom now run a carnival in nearby Florissant, Missouri. And wouldn’t you know it, the friggin’ mafia has been giving them trouble! Out of a sense of obligation to the old man, Magellan tells Tommy he’ll help him out. It should be mentioned that throughout the tale Tommy Brady has no idea who Magellan is these days, and indeed appears to have never even heard of the Marksman.

The carnage begins posthaste as Magellan and Tommy come across a pair of goons as they’re trying to cut the lines that hold up the main tent of the carnival. Needless to say, Magellan blows them both away, McCurtin really going to town on the gun-porn. There’s lots and lots of firearm and ammunition detail strewn throughout Slaughterhouse, and the gore factor is there as well, with plentiful descriptions of how bullets impact bodies.

The goons work for the infamous Morelli brothers (Giorgio and Lupi), who along with their underlings Vito Guardi and Tony Mambo run St. Louis. Vito Guardi appears to have had a run-in with Magellan in the past; at least this is inferred in the narrative, but it’s done so clunkily that I couldn’t tell if McCurtin meant it happened in an earlier volume or if Guardi is speaking of something that happened earlier in this volume. Anyway Guardi’s name seems familiar, but honestly these mobster names run together after a while, so I don’t know.

Given the tie-in with Magellan’s history, I figured Slaughterhouse might have a little more character or backstory, but gradually I realized the stuff with Tommy Brady and the carnival was just a convenient framework around which McCurtin could weave a plethora of endless action scenes. There isn’t even a reunion with Wild Bill Brady, and Tommy’s mom buys it in a scene where the mob comes back to the carnival when Magellan and Tommy are gone.

Instead the novel is all about action, to the point where it gets tiresome. The plot is basically this: Magellan runs into Tommy. Magellan tells Tommy he will kill the mobsters who are troubling him. Magellan proceeds to do so. That’s pretty much it. There are several elaborate action scenes, with Magellan unfazed throughout, but after a big confrontation with Giorgio Morelli (in which the mobster gets wasted) Tommy is captured.

Rather than play out the suspense angle, McCurtin instead has Magellan instantly figure out where Tommy is being held captive, climb into a building across from where the thugs have conveniently placed him in front of a window, and then blow away the guards. After which Magellan ropes over into the building and he and Tommy proceed to blow away all of the mobsters within!

McCurtin also fills a lot of pages with meaningless dialog sequences, like one interminable chapter that’s made up of banal conversation among the Morelli brothers and their underlings. Curiously enough there’s no sleaze in Slaughterhouse, and Tommy’s mother is the sole female character. The book is almost like an ‘80s version of the men’s adventure genre, in that it’s all about gun-porn and gore.

Anyway it all resolves exactly as you’d expect, with Magellan ruthlessly blowing away the surviving Morelli brother with his .44 Magnum, and then telling Tommy “see ya” before hitting the road. Like the other installments McCurtin has written, Slaughterhouse isn’t burdened by continuity – or much of anything, other than endless gun fights. However the Ken Barr cover is awesome!!

The Marksman #6: Death To The Mafia

The Marksman #6: Death To The Mafia, by Frank Scarpetta
November, 1973  Belmont-Tower Books

This volume of The Marksman was clearly written by series creator and editor Peter McCurtin, and amid all the sleaze and violence we have, believe it or not, some actual characterization for “hero” Philip Magellan, complete with background information, something we’ve never rececived in any preceding Marksman novel. Unfortunately, the background information is for an entirely different character! But more on that later…

First we get a one-page “prologue” that informs us that Terri White, of the previous volume, is now hiding out in Florida, Magellan having gotten rid of her because she was becoming a nuissance due to her “loving him and all that.” Terri White was of course a creation of series co-writer Russell Smith, and McCurtin has no intention of making the Marksman into a continuity-heavy series. His intent is to provide one thrill after another as Magellan “kills in cold hate.”

In fact McCurtin isn’t even concerned with continuity in his own tale; Death To The Mafia opens with Magellan driving away from Dallas, where he apparently killed a few mobsters but was then ratted out by a girl he picked up in a nightclub. Now in the desert Magellan is ambushed by an army of mafia “soldiers,” tipped off by the mobsters back in Dallas. Little concern, though, as Magellan hastily dispatches them with his handy grenade launcher – though McCurtin provides plenty of battles in this novel, none of them have much spark because Magellan’s so superhuman.

Even though he’s in the middle of the desert, in a shootout no less, Magellan still meets a pretty girl – a redhead who has just left her husband. She happens to drive by during the shootout, and after her car is destroyed Magellan feels obligated to carry her along to her destination of Lubbock. But the mobsters are chasing them, and McCurtin delivers a nice scene where Magellan and the girl go into Carlsbad Caverns and Magellan takes the thugs out in the pitch-black caves, using his night vision goggles. (Magellan also causes the death of several tourists when he shoots out the lights in the caves, and people get trampled in the mass panic, but McCurtin just brushes this off!)

The novel proceeds in episodic fashion. Honestly, I had a hard time retaining half of what I read, as this book was the very definition of disposable literature. After dropping off the redhead Magellan heads for LA, where he discovers that Anselmo, the brother of the man who ordered Magellan’s family killed, is now residing. Another quick and unsatisfactory battle ensues (though one packed with gore), after which Magellan blithely continues on his way into Los Angeles, where for reasons apparently important (to him alone) he simply must create a cover story for himself as a black man!

Yes, in a move reminiscent of Mark Hardin, Magellan sprays his skin black. And we’re reminded that, having grown up in New Orleans, Magellan knows how to “talk black.” This entire sequence has no bearing on anything, but then McCurtin fills pages throughout. For example, several times in the narrative Magellan will flip through his mental notebook of the mobsters he’s currently after, and we’ll get several pages of inconsequential background data on each; how they got into crime, how they made their fortunes, etc.

McCurtin also doles out plentiful amounts of sleaze. I figured he would be more restrained than Russell Smith, but he’s about on the same level! Like for example a very long but of course unnecessary scene where Magellan scopes out his first LA target, Anselmo, at a dive where women put on erotic shows for the delight of the crowd, after which they are bid on for a night’s service. McCurtin packs on some sleazy stuff here, breaking out words and phrases I’ve never once encountered in thirty-plus years of reading, like “V-tuft” to describe the women’s pubic hair, and, brace yourself, “cuntal juices.” Good grief! (It would make for a great band name, though -- V-Tuft & the CJs!)

But our series editor is about the same as Smith when it comes to action scenes, all of which lack any tension despite being generous on the graphic violence. Even the Anselmo hit is par for the course, despite the dude being related to the man who had Magellan’s family killed. Magellan will just mow thugs down with his guns in gory splendor, or he’ll blow them up, and there’s little retaliation on the part of the goons. After dealing with Anselmo the novel hurtles on, abruptly changing plots: Now Magellan is after “The Bump,” an elderly mafioso who lives in Howard Hughes-style seclusion. Magellan sets himself up as a visiting mob torpedo, and somehow manages to pick up another girl, one named Mignon.

Throughout McCurtin will drop occasional flashbacks to Magellan’s previous life. This is a rarity in the series. We learn that Magellan has basically done everything ever known to man. From demolition stunt driving to climbing sheer walls with nothing but his hands and feet, Magellan has mastered it. This stuff is so egregious and shoehorned into the narrative to accommodate the plot that it becomes comical after a while. More importantly McCurtin writes a lot of material about Magellan’s family, how they were killed when Magellan refused to sell guns to a powerful mobster, and how Magellan “got revenge” on them in New Orleans.

The only problem is, this New Orleans vengeance tale has never been told in the Marksman. Nor have we ever heard the story behind the deaths of Magellan’s family. You see, all of the stuff McCurtin writes here is actually background material for another McCurtin series and creation: The Assassin, a three-volume Dell series from 1973 relating the first-person adventures of a New Orleans native named Robert Briganti whose family was murdered when he refused to supply a mobster with guns.

Len Levinson once told me that The Sharpshooter was “based on the Marksman series, which was based on the Assassin series.” So I guess The Assassin is the ur-text so far as the Marksman and Sharpshooter series go. Either McCurtin just confused his own characters or figured to hell with it, and guessed no one would notice. Or maybe there’s another reason…

Maybe McCurtin was just a postmodern genius, and had grander intentions. Maybe these three characters are all the same character, one who suffers from multiple personalities…let’s say when Robert Briganti goes to sleep he becomes Philip Magellan, and when Magellan goes to sleep he becomes Johnny Rock…and when Rock goes to sleep he becomes Robert Briganti, and thus the cycle continues. Hey, it works for me!

The Marksman #4: Mafia Wipe-Out

The Marksman #4: Mafia Wipe-Out, by Frank Scarpetta
August, 1973 Belmont-Tower Books

Without a doubt this is the strangest volume of the Marksman yet. Coming off like a Marx Brothers movie with gore, Mafia Wipe-Out combines the mob-wasting nihilism of previous books with a lowbrow sense of humor, one that bounds right over the limits of reality and into full-on fantasy. Only problem is, it’s not very funny. And it’s not very good.

As mentioned in my review of #3: Kill Them All, this volume falls outside of the mini-storyline that started in the third volume and continued in #5: Headhunter. But then, Mafia Wipe-Out doesn’t have much to do with any Marksman novel. “Hero” Philip Magellan in this one is a superhero, famed for his Mafia vanquishing, unable to be harmed or killed. Not only that, but he’s developed a penchant for (really bad) one-liners, ones that would even make James Bond shake his head.

There isn’t much of a plot here, just a series of madcap confrontations between Magellan and a revolving door of bizarro mobsters, a new villain each chapter, each chapter ending on a lame cliffhanger. Well, there’s sort of a plot – Magellan discovers that the Mafia plans a council meeting in Elgin, Ohio, and there they will have two points of discussion: the death of Philip “Marksman” Magellan and the installation of a Mafia puppet into the White House.

Magellan, who is spurred by the memories of his slain family in this novel more than any other I’ve yet read, burns with a desire to kill all of the mobsters in Elgin and prevent their “Mafia President” idea from happening. But the Elgin summit meeting doesn’t occur until toward the very end; instead, Mafia Wipe-Out concerns itself with playing up to its own title, with Magellan wiping out mobster after mobster.

One thing I can say is that the book goes by like a rocket. In fact it moves so quickly that little sticks with you; it’s just an endless series of Magellan coming upon the latest mobster, killing him, offering a lame one-liner, and then running into the next mobster. True to the series, Magellan is so superheroic that his victory is never in doubt, even in the few instances when the mobsters get the advantage on him. There are laughably-stupid scenes where Magellan is able to muscle his way out of his bonds or even recover from significant damage and just brush it all off – that is, after he’s killed the mobster who got the jump on him.

Let me give you an idea of how goofy and stupid this novel is by examing one particular sequence. Okay, Magellan has killed a bunch of mobsters unrelated to anything in New York, and then he comes upon the info about the Elgin meeting. After a quick gunfight in a funhouse and park, he’s briefly kidnapped by a Mafia don who takes Magellan away in his car. Magellan of course manages to not only kill the guy but his henchmen as well, in a big firefight along a turnpike. As the cops swarm in, Magellan tries to figure out how to get away from them and prevent the Mafia takeover of the White House.

Then a sportscar driven by a gorgeous blonde pulls up, and the girl, whom Magellan has never seen before, says she’s here to pick him up. All of this a show for the cops…who just let Magellan hop in the car and leave the crime scene. (This is just a taste of the lack of reality in the novel.) Magellan assumes the girl, who calls herself Tina, has picked him up due to his good looks – Magellan reminsces over all the women who have flocked to him over the years, so this isn’t all that new to him!

But no, Tina reveals that she knows who Magellan is, and in fact she needs his help. At that moment some heavy trucks bear in on them, blasting away. “I wish we had some grenades or something,” says Magellan. Then he looks in the glove compartment – only to find some grenades in there. Again, it’s all like a lame Duck Soup riff or something. After Magellan kills the pursuers, Tina reveals that they were actually Feds, and further Tina is the daughter of a Mafia don – in fact, the don Magellan just killed on the turnpike, though she doesn’t know Magellan has killed her dad.

Next Tina imprisons Magellan in metal straps that come out of the carseats, and tells him that not only is she into s&m, she also wants to screw Magellan before taking him to Elgin, where the Mafia has plans for him. Magellan goes on about how disgusted he would be to even touch a member of the Mafia, and there ensues an unsettling scene where Tina tries to rape Magellan, and he bites a huge gaping hole in her mouth (!). Finally he gets the upper hand, and then debases Tina in such a way that the reader is truly unsettled…making her crawl around like a dog and say how she’s no-good slime and etc.

But wait, it gets worse. Magellan doesn’t want to kill a woman (despite the fact that earlier in the book he had no qualms with killing a 300-lbs hitwoman or the fact that he just bit off a portion of Tina’s face), and tells Tina he’ll let her go, but she manages to grab his gun and blast at him as she runs into the woods. Magellan throws one of those grenades at her and in yet another unsettling moment blown-off pieces of Tina fly out of the woods and overtop Magellan: Tina’s arms, Tina’s head. Magellan says “Bye-bye” to the pieces, but as he turns Tina’s flying severed leg hits him in the ass, and Magellan mutters that it’s just like a woman to get in the last word.

Now, I’ve had my problems with women (who hasn’t?), but blowing them up with grenades just seems a little too much, especially when it’s all played for laughs. But that’s the other thing. As you’ve no doubt registered from my little rundown, this novel just ain’t funny. It’s just stupid, mean-spirited, and scatterbrained.

Unbelievably, it only proceeds to get more inane, as when Magellan arrives in Elgin he just sort of walks around the mansion where the meeting will take place, and takes on the occasional mobster who happens to walk by, all of whom know who Magellan is and who try to dispense with him quickly, to no avail.

Then there’s another character, a rogue scientist who creates chemical warfare, and there follows a long protracted sequence where Magellan is sprayed by an experimental gas which he just happens to have read about, so he knows how to overcome its effects, only to turn it around and use it on a bunch of other mobsters. (This isn’t even mentioning the other gas, one which gives people superhuman power.)

The “climax” in the Elgin mansion is also seriously stupid, with Magellan just walking in and making all of the mobsters lay down on the floor! There’s absolutely no tension or drama or anything, just superhero Magellan doling out glib and unfunny lines as he blows away various mobsters. And more unsettling stuff besides, as you actually start to feel bad for the mobsters, in particular one who wears a leather suit and comes at Magellan with a whip: Magellan figures the guy must be a “sado-masee” gay and calls him all sorts of names as a result, toying with him before killing him.

I was under the impression that this one had been written by series editor Peter McCurtin. But reading the book made it clear that someone else was behind it. After a little research I discovered here that Mafia Wipe-Out was in fact written by someone named Michael Harris. I have no idea who he is/was, or if he wrote more volumes of the Marksman. We can only hope he did not.

Despite the irreverent spirit and Keystone Cops mindset, Mafia Wipe-Out just comes off as being a stupid waste of time, churned out by an author not taking the story, series, or character at all seriously. And if the author doesn’t care, why should you?

The Marksman #5: Headhunter

The Marksman #5: Headhunter, by Frank Scarpetta
October, 1973 Belmont-Tower Books

As mentioned in my review, Headhunter picks up immediately after the events in The Marksman #3: Kill Them All, which was also written by demented genius Russell Smith. (The fourth volume, Mafia Wipe-Out, meanwhile features Magellan back in the States, even though Kill Them All closes with him in St. Thomas...and Headhunter opens with him leaving St. Thomas.)

And by the way, you have to read Kill Them All for Headhunter to make any kind of sense; Smith refers back to that novel throughout the book, never once bothering to explain any of his references. It might be frustrating for someone who has never read that previous volume, but if you have read it, then it makes for probably the best example of continuity I've yet encountered in a men's adventure series.

After killing a ton of Mafia in idyllic St. Thomas, Magellan charters a private plane to fly him to Puerto Rico. Here we have an awesome instance of the pre-PC mindset when Magellan is thunderstruck to discover that the co-pilot of the plane is...a woman!! He's brought along his ever-present "artillery case" complete with drugs, disguises, and whatnot, as well as the heroin he's been lugging around for the past few volumes. Magellan arrives in Puerto Rico with a gameplan in mind: he's going to of course crack down on the local Mafia chieftan, Jacopo Morandi.

Things derail posthaste; hailing a cab, Magellan is attacked by the driver and his comrades, but of course manages to waste a few of them with his ever-ready Beretta. And again Magellan manages to take someone prisoner, in this case a kid whom Magellan drugs up, later tying the kid to a bed in his hotel room. Pretty strange stuff for sure.

But the plot changes again when Magellan discovers that he has become a wanted man, the story of his assault on the mob in St. Thomas breaking out in the local media. Sure enough the cops have figured out that Magellan is now in Puerto Rico, and not only are they most likely on their way to find him, but Magellan also discovers that the cops are busy cracking down on anyone Magellan reportedly dealt with in St. Thomas.

Magellan instantly realizes then that Terri White, his cute hippie-chick accomplice in Kill Them All, will now be in harm's way. But no worry, as she happens to already be on her own chartered flight to Puerto Rico, hoping to hide out with a fellow hippie who gives music lessons there. Magellan and Terri soon meet up again, and in a strange way it actually develops into a sweet little bond between the two (at least, as "sweet" as a blood-soaked Marksman novel can be), with Terri obviously falling in love with Magellan, and Magellan realizing that he too is developing feelings for the girl. In fact there are some very funny moments between the two, with Terri going along with Magellan's bloody plans, but constantly asking him to rethink, or at least to go somewhere else -- "Maybe some tropical island somewhere. I'm sure you can find some Mafia to kill there, too!"

From here it comes off almost like a retread of the previous book, with Magellan using Terri as bait, renting out a lavish villa and posing as a wealthy and single socialite, so as to attract the attentions of Morandi, a notorious skirt-chaser. In the meantime Magellan goes about wasting mobsters and/or taking them captive, drugging them and shackling them up in the wine cellar beneath the villa. Of course per tradition he manges to ensnare a few cops as well. This engenders bizarre but played-for-laughs scenes where Terri has to cook meals for the growing assortment of prisoners in the cellar, and Magellan taking them all out every once in a while for "latrine visits."

All sorts of lurid stuff ensues, as expected from this "gifted" author. Early in the tale, after moving into the villa and before he has started growing his collection of captives, Magellan leaves Terri with the still-captive kid, who manages to break free, rape Terri, and comes back with his fellow gangsters. By this time Magellan has arrived, and here of course is where he starts up his collection of drugged and shackled prisoners. Terri's rape though is brushed off, and the implication is that the kid didn't even know what he was doing -- Smith plays it vague on the kid's actual age, which makes it all the more strange when Magellan discovers later that the other prisoners, all of them adult mobster guys, are using the kid as jailbait in the wine cellar. At least Magellan has the dignity to take the kid away from them.

Anyway, there's all sorts of crazy and rough shenanigans throughout, but what more can you expect from the man who gave us Blood Bath? (Which by the way would actually serve as the first volume of this "trilogy," each of the volumes referring to one another.) The "action scenes" are again given over to Magellan blowing away various mobsters, though he does take a little damage here and there, moreso than in any other volume yet. Also, believe it or not, Smith works in some actual character development here, with Magellan several times questioning his motive, his choice to continue seeking his bloody fate, especially once he realizes he has developed feelings for Terri.

It's funny, because Magellan plans throughout to get rid of the girl, but she keeps sticking to him like glue. And even at the end Terri rushes off with him, the two planning to escape from Puerto Rico to Miami (once again Smith ends the tale with a rushed climax in which Magellan just casually blitzes the main villains)...and yet, it doesn't appear that Terri appears in another Marksman novel. I've only just flipped through a few future volumes, I haven't read them yet, but it doesn't appear that she shows up again. Time will tell. She makes for a fun character, though, adding a much-needed spirit to the books.

Finally, here's a scene I just had to quote, to give an idea of the twisted genius that is Russell Smith. Read on in slackjawed amazement as Magellan wastes a mobster who's visiting the restroom:

Magellan saw him walking toward him. He hugged the closet wall. He fingered the silencer on the Beretta and released the safety. Just as Micheli dropped his pants and reached for a comic book on the floor in front of the toilet, Magellan aimed and fired at his left temple.

Blood, brains and flesh splattered against the shower curtain as the body raised up and the sound of the man's noisy bowels evacuating drowned out the pressurized "whoosh" of the gun.

As the body of Micheli seemed to be trying to balance itself in death, wobbling to and fro ever so gently on the toilet seat, Magellan flushed the toilet at the same time he gripped the arm and holding it, allowed the heavy body to sink sideways onto the tiled floor now puddling with dark red blood.

Carlo Micheli's last shit was a ghastly sight!

I mean, that about says it all, doesn't it?

The Sharpshooter #6: Muzzle Blast

The Sharpshooter #6: Muzzle Blast, by Bruno Rossi
April, 1974 Leisure Books

This is by far the clunkiest and roughest installment of the Sharpshooter yet, and I don't mean in a good way. Also it is quite obviously another novel that was written by Russell Smith as a volume of the Marksman series, but changed for whatever reason by editor Peter McCurtin into a Sharpshooter novel. Only, as usual, McCurtin (or one of his junior editors) did a poor job of copyediting, with hero Johnny Rock occasionally referred to as "Magellan" throughout the narrative.

There are other giveaways. For one, the "Rock" presented here is a grim figure with a penchant for taking people captive and drugging them, eventually murdering them in some sadistic fashion. He also travels around with his trusty "artillery case" which contains his firearms, syringes, and makeup kit. In short, this is once again Philip Magellan, the Marksman, not Johnny Rock. Also Smith again works in references to other Marksman novels he has written; early in the narrative "Rock" uses some heroin as bait, heroin which he got from "the score in New Orleans." This is a direct reference to the Smith-penned Marksman #11: Counterattack.

There isn't much of a plot here, which makes me suspect that Smith banged out his manuscript in no time. Maybe that's why he turned in so many volumes of both series, he was just a fast writer who could meet his deadlines. Fast doesn't always equal good, though. And Muzzle Blast is pretty bad. It's not only the shortest novel yet in the series, but it's also jammed with a lot of characters and a bizarre plot that never makes any sense. Characters just do shit with no rhyme or reason, and Smith never bothers resolving anything.

Rock is in Boston's Chinatown looking into the local heroin trade. Here we get the tidbit that a stuffed orange cat in a Chinese antique store is an indicator that the place sells heroin. The things you learn from these novels. Rock buys the cat from the store proprietor Po Yi-Po and his sexy associate Mai-Lin, but the cat has no heroin in it. Rock then stuffs the cat with his own appropriated heroin from the New Orleans caper and takes it back to the store. The essence here, apparently, is that Rock is trying to set himself up as a Mafia bigwig looking to move into the territory, but the subplot is lost.

Instead, Mai-Lin comes on strong to Rock and insists on taking off with him. They head up into Provincetown, Maine -- Smith apparently was from the area, as many of his novels take place in New England, for example the legendary Blood Bath -- where Rock now begins scoping out the local mobsters. Meanwhile Po Yi-Po is back in Boston, somehow oblivious to the fact that Mai-Lin, who he loves, has run off with another guy.

Before that though we have another instance of Rock's sadism, by which I mean Magellan's sadism. Much as in the aforementioned Blood Bath, Russell Smith is unconcerned with "action scenes" per se, and instead doles out sequences in which Rock just murders his enemies in cold blood. In another baffling and unexplained plot development, Po Yi-Po is being blackmailed by some dirty cops. Rock jumps them and takes one prisoner. Of course he drugs the guy and, later, decides he'll have to kill him. In a loving tribute to the scene in Blood Bath, Rock makes the handcuffed bastard walk away, his back to Rock, as Rock takes out his UZI and "surgically" blasts off the man's limbs and head.

There's also another WTF? subplot about some punk who keeps trying to break into Rock's Mercedes, and Rock beats the shit out of the guy, but strangely allows him to live. Anyway, the plot moves on. Now Rock is in Provincetown with Mai-Lin; here they meet up with a friend of Rock's, a local artist named Mike. From what I could make out, a meeting of Mafia hotshots is soon to take place here, in the mansion of local Mafioso. Rock and his two friends basically sit around in a local mob-run bar and bide their time.

I really get the feeling that Smith just knocked this one out in record time, probably under the influence of cheap booze. Stuff just happens with little setup or resolution. For example, while "hiding" in the P'town bar (despite the fact that somehow everyone knows her), Mai-Lin is picked up by one of the mobsters, who takes her captive -- the word is out that she's been seen with this "handsome" stranger whom everyone now suspects is Rock.

The dude tortures Mai-Lin with a lighter, playing the flames over her stomach and such, but then he leaves to take a phone call (?), and Mai-Lin, who through sheer deus ex machina happened to steal a pair of keys on her way into the bar, is able to free herself. When she later meets up with Rock, she never mentions being captured or tortured, and indeed acts like nothing even happened. And this isn't just because she's tough, it's because Smith obviously forgot all about it!

As in the other Smith novels I've reviewed here, the finale is rushed, but in a bigger way than normal. Once again Rock launches a one-man raid on the mobster meeting, blowing up the mansion. Smith doesn't even bother showing Rock setting up the dynamite; instead he just blows up some shit, shoots a few guys (in another bizarre moment, Rock allows one of them to live!?), then hops in Mike's dune buggy and roars off.

Meanwhile Po Yi-Po, who in his own subplot has finally discovered Mai-Lin's treachery, heads to Provincetown. His lust for the girl is such that he knows he will one day kill her due to his jealousy, and Smith implies that this is Po Yi-Po's exact intention. But in the strangest cop-out I've ever encountered in a novel, Smith brushes it all over. Rock, after his assault on the mobsters -- and en route to another assault on them -- stops off at Mike's beachside shack. There he finds the corpse of Po Yi-Po, which hangs outside the shack; inside, there is a note from Mike, stating that Po tried to poison Mai-Lin and him, and so the two of them have left for the hospital.

And believe it or not, here Muzzle Blast ends. I mean, it just ends! Did Mike or Mai-Lin die? What about Rock's assault on the second Mafia hideout? None of these questions are answered. And there are so many other questions. Was Smith's manuscript accidentally published with some pages missing? Or was Leisure in such a hurry to publish another installment that they could care less that the book had so many problems? What's strange is that the last several pages of the book are given over to ads for other Leisure books, more ads than normal, which indicates that Leisure knew it had to fill up extra pages.

I guess we'll never know. Anyway, Muzzle Blast sucks for the most part. However we do get a great line, courtesy Mai-Lin. While at the bar, a drunk saunters up to her and hits on her with the cliched line: "Is it true what they say about Chinese girls?" Mai Lin's answer: "It depends on how you look at it."