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."

The Marksman #3: Kill Them All

The Marksman #3: Kill Them All, by Frank Scarpetta
No Month Stated, 1973 Belmont-Tower Books

Not only is this the first volume of the Marksman series to be published under the house name "Frank Scarpetta," it's also the smoking gun in the Marksman/Sharpshooter mystery. Other reviewers have noted how often Johnny "Sharpshooter" Rock is "mistakenly" referred to as "Magellan" in certain Sharpshooter novels -- ie, the writers screwing up and referring to the hero of the Marksman books. Kill Them All however proves that the writers were not at fault; those Sharpshooter novels were in fact written as volumes of the Marksman, only to later be changed by editors with poor copy-editing skills. And there would be no copyright issues involved, as Belmont-Tower and Leisure Books were one and the same.

To wit, Kill Them All is a sequel in all but name to Blood Bath -- aka the third volume of the Sharpshooter. The clue comes early on. Philip Magellan has traveled to the idyllic island of St. Thomas, the narrative informs us, to get away from the mob, the cops...as well as "Luci Sordi" and "his headquarters on Fish House Road." Luci Sordi is the name of the gorgeous mob wife who threw herself into the arms of Johnny Rock at the end of Blood Bath, and Fish House Road is the street in which "Rock" had his dank headquarters where he tortured captives with rats. The events of Blood Bath are referred to quite often in Kill Them All. Most importantly, the writing is identical -- this is the same divine madman who gave us Blood Bath, as well as Marksman #1: Vendetta (and possibly also Sharpshooter #2: Blood Oath, which I'm now certain was also originally a Marksman novel, but I'll get to that one in a future Marksman review).

It makes sense in a way. The "Rock" of Blood Bath and Blood Oath is not the same Johnny Rock of The Killing Machine or even The Worst Way To Die. The "Rock" of Blood Bath and Blood Oath drugs up mobsters, strips them down, ties them up, and then tortures them. After which he will murder them in some sadistic fashion, treating the entire sick proceedings in a cold, emotionless fashion. In short, the "Rock" of Blood Bath and Blood Oath is a sick son of a bitch, much more terrifying than the "true" Johnny Rock of The Killing Machine, The Worst Way To Die, and others -- ie, a sick bastard himself, but one more "human," at least comparatively speaking.

However, drugging up victims, stripping them, and torturing them are all part and parcel of Philip Magellan's modus operandi. As stated on the back cover of Kill Them All, "When the Mafia murdered Magellan's wife and son they drained him of all human emotion. Overnight he became a killing machine, geared to perform one function -- wipe the mafia from the face of the earth." Magellan truly is an emotionless killing machine, especially in the volumes written by this "gifted" author, whoever he is. (And I don't believe it was Peter McCurtin -- if it was, why would his name have been removed from the series with this volume?)

Anyway. I contend that Blood Bath should not only be considered part of the Marksman series, but also that it should be read before Kill Them All, for those who prefer their series fiction to be chronological. (As for why Blood Bath was changed to a Sharpshooter volume, I'm guessing it was an editorial decision, probably to fill up a publication gap between The Killing Machine and The Worst Way To Die.) I'm also happy to report that Kill Them All is just as wacked-out and sick as Blood Bath...sure, there are no rats this time, but the author more than makes up for it with his incredibly warped imagination and sense of dark, dark humor.

The author must've also recently visited St. Thomas, as the novel's filled with topical detail. Magellan's come here to kill the proverbial two birds: to get some sun and waste some scum. He sets his sights on a local mobster, in particular monitoring how the guy smuggles heroin onto the island via a gorgeous stewardess. Magellan discovers that the girl is also working with the Russians, delivering part of her shipment to a Soviet ship. Rather than investigating, Magellan blows away the Russians, takes the girl, and drugs her right up. This becomes a recurring joke in Kill Them All; Magellan spends a full third of the novel drugging the girl and stashing her away somewhere. She doesn't even become sentient until the final quarter of the book.

He looks like a psycho creep on the cover, but Magellan must be popular with the ladies, as once again he picks up a pretty hippie girl who eagerly takes part in his schemes. There isn't much of a plot here. Tetti, the mob boss of St. Thomas, tries to kill Magellan, who in turn murders an endless string of Tetti's goons. Tetti gets the drop on Magellan early on, though it's actually Magellan's fault; Tetti owns most of the island, including all of the legitimate businesses. Magellan walks into a travel agency and gives his real name; Tetti, overhearing, can't believe it, as the mob has been searching the world for Magellan, and here the guy is just a few feet away. This time Magellan is the one who gets drugged and tied up, but of course he's able to free himself.

After which Magellan becomes the sick bastard we know. Freeing himself and killing the two goons who were guarding him, Magellan chops the guards into tiny pieces, first carving out their hearts to take along with him. (Just as he sawed off that hippie's head in Vendetta and carried it around with him.) Magellan later kills another pair of goons and then loops the hearts around their necks, I guess as a sign to the world of his sickness. As with this writer's previous volumes, the focus here is on bizarre acts of violence and sadism.

More of a lurid aspect is introduced when the author reveals that Magellan's special drug also has an aphrodisiacal side effect. (This was also demonstrated in Sharpshooter #2: Blood Oath.) When Magellan finally allows the stewardess to regain consciousness, he sits by and watches as the girl "rapes" a pair of similarly-bound, drugged, and horny cops whom Magellan has also captured. After which the girl becomes a satiated comrade in Magellan's war, lying naked on his lap and purring like a cat! Weird scenes inside the goldmine.

As has become custom, the finale is rushed. Tetti calls in a group of Mafia hotshots as a special team to kill Magellan. Rather than a climatic battle scene, the author instead has Magellan rent a boat, take it out into the sea, and blast Tetti's fortress from afar with a grenade launcher. After which he says goodbye to his two female accomplices and decides to leave St. Thomas. And of course, Magellan doesn't just say "goodbye" to the girls, he also drugs them. But at least he leaves them some cash. That Magellan is very fond of his drugs.

The writing is just as skewed as the story. Some of the topical detail is picturesque, and the dialog is goofy and funny. Other scenes are rough and confused, with the awkward sentence structure familiar from Vendetta and Blood Bath; you have to read many of the sentences twice just to figure out what the hell they're saying. The closest style to this that I know of would be Dean W. Ballenger, of Gannon infamy. Both authors have the same bizarre approach to syntax and narrative, as well as a gloriously warped sense of dark humor. This author especially demonstrates his gift by following moments of sick violence with incidental detail, for example going on about how "carefully" Magellan drives...after we've just seen him chop up a few goons.

Finally, Belmont-Tower goofed in the publication order. Kill Them All is directly continued in HeadHunter, which was published fifth in the series. The fourth published volume, Mafia Wipe-Out, features Magellan back in the States, whereas Kill Them All ends with Magellan in St. Thomas and HeadHunter opens with Magellan in St. Thomas. So unless the guy discovered a teleporter on the island, it's safe to say that the volumes were published out of order.

I've written a long article that delves further into the Marksman/Sharpshooter connections which will appear in an upcoming issue of Justin Marriott's Paperback Fanatic. I'll post more information once Justin determines which issue it will appear in.

ADDENDUM: I wrote the above review a few weeks ago -- I usually write these reviews several weeks in advance and just set them to post at a future date -- and since writing it I've gotten in touch with Leonard Levinson, who of course wrote a handful of Sharpshooter novels. Levinson confirmed for me that Belmont-Tower and Leisure Books were indeed the same company; further, he told me that the same editor ran both lines -- Peter McCurtin! This only makes it all the more puzzling...it would mean, then, that McCurtin himself chose to take his name off of the Marksman series, using instead the "Frank Scarpetta" house name. Levinson isn't sure if McCurtin himself actually wrote any of the Sharpshooter or Marksman books, though.

3/9/12 UPDATE: After a lot of fruitless research, I've finally gotten confirmation (via a 1973 edition of the Catalog of Copyright Entries) that this novel was actually written by Russell Smith. It appears that Smith is the "gifted" author who gave us the more lurid volumes of the Marksman and the Sharpshooter, and I will update my previous reviews accordingly.

The Marksman #1: Vendetta

The Marksman #1: Vendetta, by Peter McCurtin
April, 1973 Belmont-Tower

I've slowly been collecting this 23-volume series* over the past year, and figured I should finally get around to reading it. As many have mentioned, this series is pretty much the same as The Sharpshooter -- so similar in fact that the occasional writer of The Sharpshooter has mistakenly referred to the protagonist as "Magellan" rather than "Johnny Rock."

Philip Magellan is the protagonist of The Marksman series, and he and Johnny Rock are both emotionless ciphers who blitz their way through the Mafia, so you can't really blame the authors for confusing them. Peter McCurtin wrote this initial volume, and word is he also wrote the first volume of The Sharpshooter, The Killing Machine. But as usual, this leaves me with questions. McCurtin's name graces the cover of Vendetta, but The Killing Machine was published under the house name "Bruno Rossi." What bothers me, and I'll get more into it later, is how different the styles are in the two novels: I have a hard time believing that the same author wrote both books.

Anyway, Vendetta. This first volume throws you straight into the violent world of Philip Magellan without a safety net. There's no backstory, no origin for our protagonist, no sort of character introspection. What's funny is that the back cover features a rundown of Magellan's past, how he grew up learning about guns and waged war on the mob when they killed his family, but the novel itself doesn't mention any of that. Instead, we pick up with Magellan after he's become a boogey man for the Mafia, so feared that mobsters sit around and worry about the guy. Not only that but the police are hunting him.

The main plot here -- the only plot, actually -- is Magellan cracking down on a San Francisco-based mafioso. Vendetta doesn't even seem like a novel. It's more like an outline for a novel, with barebones narrative and clunky dialog. Even the action scenes are rendered boring due to the clinical way McCurtin writes them. The only time the author comes to life is when he describes guns. Anytime Magellan looks over his weaponry, or the weapons of his opponents, McCurtin wakes up and writes. One gets all sorts of information on certain pistols and shotguns and what kind of ammo they use. In a way, it's sort of like those Gold Eagle books from the '80s, only a lot more rough. Just straight-up gun porn. There is a telling moment, late in the novel, where Magellan "fondles" his weapons as he prepares for the final raid.

Magellan proves himself just as twisted and merciless as Johnny Rock: in the opening pages, as he flies into San Francisco, he realizes one of his fellow passengers is a hitman. Magellan beats the guy senseless and takes him along in his rental car, using the guy to call up his boss. In exchange for cash Magellan promises not to kill the man, but does so anyway. There are many such scenes where Magellan will string up some sap and torture him, then kill him. He takes particular relish in killing the "hippies" who work for the mobsters. Actually McCurtin can't seem to make up his mind if they're hippies or Hell's Angels; likely they're the latter as the guys are a bit too violence-happy to be true hippies.

Another twisted bit is where, for absolutely no reason, Magellan goes to the trouble of sawing off the head of a "hippie" he's killed. Magellan later tosses the severed head into the indoor pool of the hotel he's staying in, a mob-run and hippie-frequented crumbling landmark. It's unexplained why exactly he does this, but at least it's memorable. There's more unintentional comedy in the luck Magellan has throughout: I lost track of the number of scenes where he would sneak into some restaurant or bar, wearing a "hippie disguise," and sit down beside some mobsters...who would, at that very moment, be discussing not only Magellan but their plans to off him.

All told, this was a rushed and muddled effort, not very promising for the series itself. Later volumes were published under the house name "Frank Scarpetta," and thumbing through some of them it appears the series improves (and gets more sleazy!). But again, I have many questions about this novel. I'm not saying The Killing Machine was great literature, but at least it had a good plot and character development, with good dialog and well-crafted action scenes. Vendetta has none of that. Hell, even the tone is completely different.

So is it confirmed that Peter McCurtin actually wrote The Killing Machine? If so, then he must've banged out Vendetta in a rush, or at least after knocking back several bolts of whiskey. Or maybe, as I theorized in my review, The Killing Machine was planned as a standalone novel, and so McCurtin gave it more care, whereas Vendetta was churned out to be exactly what it was: the trashy first volume of a trashy ongoing series. I have my doubts, though. I'm betting someone else wrote The Killing Machine.

*The publishing history of The Marskman is as twisted as its protagonist. The first two volumes were published under Peter McCurtin's name. Volumes #3 - 22 were published under the house name "Frank Scarpetta." The Torture Contract, Murder Machine, Bloody Sunday, and Times Square Connection are all un-numbered volumes, but would be numbered respectively #19, #20, #21, and #22. The 23rd and final volume, The Reckoning, was published under the name Aaron Fletcher, and does not feature a number on the cover nor even "The Marksman." It was also published by Leisure Books rather than Belmont-Tower. Aaron Fletcher was one of the writers who served as "Frank Scarpetta," so perhaps this last volume was his attempt at a closure for the series? The only problem is, The Reckoning is by far the most rare volume of the series; after a year of debate I finally dropped $20 for a copy. At the time of this writing only a handful of online sellers list the book, with prices ranging from $18 to a whopping $160. Give me a few years to work my way through the series and I'll let you know if this final volume is worth the price!

3/9/12 UPDATE: Finally, after a ton of research, I have the truth behind Vendetta. Despite being credited to Peter McCurtin, this novel was actually written by Russell Smith. I learned this via the July-December 1973 edition of the Catalog of Copyright Entries, which states that "Peter McCurtin" was merely the psuedonym used by Smith for this particular volume. (McCurtin was in fact a real person, and indeed was the editor of both the Marksman and the Sharpshooter.)

The Sharpshooter #3: Blood Bath

The Sharpshooter #3: Blood Bath, by Bruno Rossi
November, 1973 Leisure Books

Good lord! If I had known this volume of The Sharpshooter was so lurid, so exploitative, so friggin' twisted, I would've read it a whole lot sooner. The only men's adventure novel I can think of that comes close to this level of graphic sleaze would be Gannon #1, but I'd say Blood Bath is even more twisted; at least Gannon had some semblance of humanity about him, and he was fighting for a cause. Johnny "Sharpshooter" Rock however murders, tortures, and maims throughout Blood Bath, usually for no reason at all.

It's obvious from the start that this "Bruno Rossi" is different from the others who penned the previous two volumes. The prose is rough and run-on sentences prevail. The occasional sentence I had to re-read as it was such a confused mess. But on the positive side, this "Rossi" doesn't shrink from describing graphic brutality -- in fact, Blood Bath is more of a horror novel than action. There are only one or two shootouts, with the majority of the "action" given over to Rock murdering unarmed opponents or knocking them out with chloroform and taking them back to his hideout so he can torture them for info. And then murder them. Rock is once again more depraved, cruel, and "evil" than the mobsters he wars against.

The "horror" connection shows itself in the opening pages, when Jessie Armstrong, a black guy who works for the FBI but is secretly an informant for the mafia, hides in a mob "safe house" while on the run from Rock, who has discovered him. (I mention that Armstrong is black because Rossi reminds us about a zillion times, so it's now stuck in my brain.) In this dank, rotting house in the Jersey wildlands, Armstrong awakens in the dead of night, disturbed by a constant dripping sound. Turns out there's a mutilated corpse hanging in the basement, half-eaten by huge rats. Alley cats lap up the pools of blood while Armstrong watches in shock. Rossi delights in graphically describing the bloody mess, the feasting rats. Rats are all through Blood Bath; these particular rats in fact are basically co-stars in the lurid tale, so all those who have a rat-phobia should steer clear of this particular installment of the Sharpshooter series.

Rock, due to his omniscient powers, has of course tracked Armstrong here and so captures the guy and takes him to his own safe house, off the Jersey shoreline. Here Rock ties up Armstrong and his mistress, shackling them in a boathouse and placing a cage full of those rats right beside them. Eventually he spreads food through the area and then opens the cage so the rats can run loose. This is only the tip of Rock's psychological torture; later on, when he murders a few of his captives, he tosses bodyparts or entire bodies to the rats, so they can eat them right in front of the other captives.

Rock's mission this time out is to crush a Jersey mafia family. I had a hell of a time keeping track of the various members, but it seemed Rossi did, too. Also it didn't help that not once in Blood Bath do we see the "bad gus" do anything bad. Late in the game we learn that one of the bosses is known for a sadistic streak (he's got nothing on Rock, though), and also toward the very end the mobsters apparently kill a beloved cop so they can lay the blame on Rock and therefore set him up, but we never see them do it. Instead, the mobsters come off more like the innocent here, with Rock a murdering automaton who blitzes his way through their ranks.

Really, this is torture porn more than anything else. It has a definite dark humor, though. Armstrong strikes up a friendship of sorts with Rock -- while chained in the boat house, remember -- and often comments on Rock's sadism. In particular there's a laugh out loud scene where Rock, moments after capturing a high-ranking mafia lawyer, blows the guy's head off in front of everyone. "That does it for him, huh?" says Armstrong. More twisted and goofy fun is had with Luci Sordi, a mobster's wife whom Rock also captures; she goes out of her way to turn him on, trying to come on to him and sway his mind. But Rock is single-minded and ignores her, as human as an actual rock.

Once again Rock comes off as the perfect killing machine, his plans going off without a hitch, and never once coming into any danger. He blows up mobster-owned mansions and trucks, kills various stooges. Then he goes back to his boathouse with its growing collection of captives and tortures them for more information. Another incredible and insane sequence has Rock handcuff Luci to another mobster stooge and then orders them to walk across a fetid marsh. The two are panicking as they're sure Rock is about to shoot them in the back. Instead Rock takes an Uzi and blasts the guy's arm off and then stitches him up and down each side, blasting his body into shreds. Luci of course freaks out, covered in blood and with a severed arm hanging from her wrist no less.

It was at this point that I realized that, despite being the titular character and protagonist, Johnny Rock is not the hero of this series. I'd already noticed that "Rossi" spent more time getting into the heads of the "villains;" one of them, an elderly mobster named Da Vinci, is the most colorful character in the book, more alive than Rock is. However Rossi doesn't much get into Rock's head, instead describing his various murderous and torturous actions. I often wonder about novels like Blood Bath. The majority of its readers were probably blue-collar guys who despaired over how the US was going to hell and sought an outlet for their repressed rage; they certainly found it in The Sharpshooter. But I wonder how seriously the authors took their own work. My guess is that the majority of lurid stuff like Blood Bath is just the work of an author seeing how far he can go to please the twisted whims of his readers.

Anyway, that's my theory -- and it seems further justified in that there is no resolution to the main plot. I mean, what happens to Da Vinci? Throughout Blood Bath he sits on his expensive yacht and tries to figure out Rock's strategy. We never find out if Rock kills him during his final assault. Also, the entire bit with Luci Sordi is bizarre beyond belief; despite being psychologically tortured throughout Blood Bath, she still throws herself at Rock and is even there for him at the end. And then there's Jessie Armstrong...he just disappears at the end of the book, apparently saved by someone (Da Vinci?), but Rock never finds out who, or even where he went. So it's as if the whole "war against the Jersey mafia" is just a convenient frame upon which Rossi can hang various scenes of graphic torture and murder.

But I'm not complaining. Part of the fun of The Sharpshooter is just how damn mean and nasty it can be. I like to think it's a parody of Don Pendleton's Executioner series, but who knows. If you're looking for a twisted dose of mobster-killing fun (and you're not squeamish about rats), give Blood Bath a shot. It's also got probably the best cover I've ever seen on a men's adventure novel, courtesy Ken Barr -- unfortunately the scene depicted doesn't actually happen in the book.

3/1/12 UPDATE: As stated in my review of The Marksman #3: Kill Them All, I'm now certain that Blood Bath was written as a Marksman novel, only changed at the last moment to become an entry in the Sharpshooter series. As I detail in my review, Kill Them All is actually a sequel to Blood Bath, and definitely written by the same twisted author.

3/9/12 UPDATE: After a lot of research, I've determined that this novel was actually written by Russell Smith!

The Sharpshooter #2: Blood Oath

The Sharpshooter #2: Blood Oath, by Bruno Rossi

October, 1973 Leisure Books

Confirming the freeflowing nature of this series, The Sharpshooter #2 makes no mention of the events in Sharpshooter #1: The Killing Machine, and indeed appears to take place long after, with protagonist Johnny Rock now a veritable legend, a bogey man for mafia families far and wide. He's also a wanted man by the police and the Feds, and pulpy detective magazines constantly run features on him.

It's also very obvious that this volume was not written by Peter McCurtin, author of The Killing Machine. Blood Oath lacks most of the subtleties of that previous volume and further confirms the slapdash nature in which these lurid novels were churned out: several times the narrative mistakenly refers to Rock as "Magellan," ie the protagonist of the Marksman series. However Blood Oath is more lurid, violent, and exploitative than the entirety of The Killing Machine, and that's a good thing!

At 154 pages of big print, Blood Oath is more of a novella. Rock comes to the tiny New York hamlet of Xenia, where he hopes to rest for a few weeks before launching a campaign against the European mafia in France. But as these things go, Xenia isn't as relaxing as Rock had hoped, for a powerful mobster named Fanzoni just happens to live in a high-security fortress right across the way from the farmhouse Rock has rented. (It would've made more sense if Rock had known this and had come to Xenia for the express purpose of wasting Fanzoni, but no matter.)

Fanzoni runs a global emporium of goods; no matter what item a person might want, Fanzoni will have it in one of his many warehouses. These goods are all black market items, but it must be stressed that Fanzoni doesn't trade in heroin or prostitution or anything of the such. As far as mafia dons go, he's pretty harmless, and he sells his goods like a regular businessman. I only mention this so we can get a bit of perspective on the psychopathic mind of our hero, Johnny Rock. For once again Rock comes off as more twisted and cruel than the "villains" he has dedicated his life to fighting.

Rock becomes friends with kindly old Milly Bice, who runs Xenia's little country store. Bice's store is on the crossroad which leads into Fanzoni's gated estate; several times a day truck-driving mobsters will use Milly's phone to have some stooge open the gates so they can haul their loads onto Fanzoni's estate. Rock instantly suspects something's up with Fanzoni. So to investigate, Rock basically murders a few of the truckdrivers in cold blood, shooting them in the throats and heads. (Always in the heads; headshots appear to be Rock's calling card, though I wonder if this is a carryover from the Marksman series -- which I have many volumes of but haven't yet read.)

There are other wild goings-on; a local "gypsy" girl named Carla has the hots for Rock, throwing herself at him -- but it turns out Carla knows who Rock is, being as she is a dedicated reader of those aformentioned detective magazines. Carla's dropped a dime to the mag and now a male and female pair of reporters are staked out in the dense forest surrounding Rock's rented farm, ready to snap photos of him. And in addition to this there's Jane, a gorgeous gal who was Rock's friend in high school; a former hippie who has run back to her rich daddy, Jane repeatedly makes advances on Rock, but he gives her nothing but Jim "Slaughter" Brown-type dismissals (ie, "You'll get yours soon enough, baby.").

This is a simple-minded novel with limited scope and vision...but it's a hell of a lot of fun. The dialog is pretty good, with this version of Rossi deftly handling the homespun country chatter of Milly and other Xenia locals, and he nails the dimestore tough-guy patter of the goons in Fanzoni's employ. In fact, the tone of this novel (and the violent nihilism) reminds me very much of Gannon, so I wonder if Dean Ballenger served as "Bruno Rossi" this time out. Rock himself is the personification of the stoic tough-guy: in addition to the numerous mobsters he wastes, he also takes the time to soundly beat an innocent bartender who has the audacity to take umbrage at Rock's smart mouth. I mean, Rock pounds this guy into burger...for no reason.

But then, that's our hero. Rock is such a nutjob in Blood Oath that I laughed out loud many times while reading. He kills everyone, even the guys driving Fanzoni's trucks, most of whom when you think about it probably aren't even "real" mobsters. And he's not just a nutjob, he's a twisted nutjob. When Rock discovers Carla's betrayal and the presence of the detective mag photographers, first he calls Carla over, meets her nude on the porch, has her strip down (after which she "practically rapes" him), and then has an also-nude Jane come out on the porch to stir things up! All of this to "distract" the photographers and to trap Carla. It all ends with the two photographers and Carla chained to a bed up in the farmhouse attic, all three of them nude and zonked out on drugs. Rock then has Jane take several photos of the naked and chained trio, but sadly we never learn what his "plans" are for these photos, even though he states that he has something in mind for them.

Astride a horse Rock launches his campaign on Fanzoni's estate, galloping through the forest and blasting away goons with his Mossberg rifle and an Uzi. After this Jane is kidnapped by the surving mobsters; once Rock discovers this he kills a few more truckdrivers and then steals one of their rigs so he can infiltrate the estate. (Why he doesn't just gallop right back over there again is a mystery...and I should mention that throughout all of this those three people are still bound and naked up in the farmhouse attic, completely forgotten!)

Rossi saves the most lurid stuff for the final pages: Jane is gang-raped by twenty or so goons and Rock doesn't arrive until the final goon is taking his turn. But since Rock only has 9 bullets in his Beretta, he has to wait until most of the mobsters leave to "go have a few drinks"! After this the novel rushes headlong to its conclusion, relating most of the incidents in synopsis. Rock finally does free the chained trio from his attic, and he gives the raped and beaten Jane a few aspirin (!) for her suffering. Rock's just a caring guy after all. Blood Oath ends with Rock and Jane on their way to JFK airport, where we assume Rock's about to depart for his European campaign.

This is a fast-moving tale, mostly well-written despite the occasional "Rock/Magellan" gaffe. As always, Johnny Rock's psychosis is entertaining in itself; once again we read in disbelief as the people in his life suffer solely due to their friendship with him, while Rock himself emerges unscathed.

3/9/12 UPDATE: I've determined that this novel was actually written by Russell Smith, and was originally intended to be an installment of the Marksman series. In fact, Blood Oath appears to take place directly before Marksman #8: Stone Killer, in which Magellan travels to Paris to take on the European mob; note how "Rock" mentions throughout Blood Oath his intent to go to France for that very purpose, and indeed how the novel itself ends with our hero heading to JFK airport to catch the next flight to Paris!