The Assassin #3: Boston Bust-Out

The Assassin #3: Boston Bust-Out, by Peter McCurtin
December, 1973  Dell Books

The Assassin comes to a close with a final chapter penned by Peter McCurtin himself. At this point there doesn’t seem to be any effort to make this a “class” crime novel a la the first volume was; Boston Bust-Out is just as rough and wild as the books McCurtin, Russell Smith, and others churned out for The Marksman and The Sharpshooter.                             

Even the schtick of Robert “The Assassin” Briganti making tape recordings and sending them to the FBI has been dropped. Briganti at this point really is Magellan; the climax of the novel even has him working out marksman trajectories, so “Marksman” was certainly a better handle for the character than “The Assassin.” But as I mentioned before, several volumes of The Marksman had already been published before this original series even hit the shelves; it seems clear that Belmont-Tower and Leisure got their product out more quickly than Dell Books (as evidenced by the plentiful typos and grammatical errors in those B-T and Leisure publications!).

I’ll tell you one thing McCurtin whittled down when he took Briganti over to Belmont Tower and changed his name to Magellan: the references to Briganti’s “dead son.” While The Marksman never had an origin story (because it was contained in the first Assassin volume), the authors who worked on the series would occasionally remind us that Magellan’s family had been killed by the Mafia. It seems to me, looking back on the blur of the volumes I’ve read, that most often it was Magellan’s wife they referred to, with his young son only seldom mentioned. I would imagine this is because a murdered child is a helluva lot more impacting than a murdered wife, comparatively speaking, and in a way adds too much “emotional content” to what is intended to be just a cheap revenge thriller series.

At least that’s my interpretation. And McCurtin would seem to agree, as in this final volume Briganti often thinks of his murdered son and these parts have more emotional resonance than anything else in the Assassin/Marksman/Sharpshooter mythos. But also Briganti reflects that he’s been able to get a handle on his wife’s murder, given that she was in her early 30s when she was killed and had been married, “borne a son,” etc. An abruptly-ended life to be sure, but at least a mostly full life. The same could not be said for Brigainti’s son. And for this reason, we learn, Briganti is often so “tortured” by memories of his son that he has to drink himself to slumber.

This is heavy stuff, and wisely was cut from the series when Briganti became Magellan (and occasionally “Johnny Rock”). In those grungier Belmont and Leisure books Magellan/Rock was more of a human killing machine, impersonal as a robot – something else McCurtin dwells on here, seemingly paving the way for the work of Russell Smith, who delivered a completely psychotic Magellan. Boston Bust-Out occasionally dwells on Briganti’s lack of emotions, how in the past year since his family was murdered he himself has killed so many mobsters he no longer keeps count, how he can so easily go into a killing frenzy with no emotional fallout afterward. He even bluntly – and truthfully – tells a beautiful young “Mafia whore” that he’ll kill her in cold blood and sleep soundly that night.

Another reason these morbid musings were likely cut was because Dell required a bigger word count, or so I’m suspecting; as with the previous two volumes, Boston Bust-Out comes in at an unwieldy 192 pages, compared to the shorter BT and Leisure publications (which had bigger print as well). But despite the extra emotional baggage, this final installment really does come off more like one of those Marksman books, as there’s no concern with realism and Briganti is occasionally so unhinged in his quest to quash “Mafia pigs” that he might as well just be referred to as “Magellan” in the text. He even takes the opportunity to tie up and drug that “Mafia whore,” just like Magellan does in so many of the Russell Smith Marksman novels.

Okay, time to rein in the review a little. We meet Briganti with no pickup from the previous volume; he’s just barrelling through Boston when some state cops come after him. Briganti reflects that he’s yet to kill a cop but likely will if he’s pushed to it. Regardless he avoids them, ditches his car (and his arsenal), and catches a bus to Maine. He spends a few months on the farm of old Lem Perkins as a hired hand. Lem’s an even better shot than Briganti and shows him a thing or two. Then one day while shooting at squirrels Lem himself is blown away – by a pair of Mafia snipers who have somehow trailed Briganti up here. Our hero dispatches them quickly, then vows to return to Boston to wipe out the only person who could’ve sent the killers: Don Franco Toriello. 

So begins Briganti’s war of attrition. One thing I found interesting is this time Briganti has to rebuild his arsenal, which comes pretty easily – he just kills a few mobsters and picks up their dropped guns. His main weapons this time are a pair of Magnum revolvers, a .44 and a .357. He also gets a machine pistol of German manufacture (don’t believe the model is specified). McCurtin is more liberal with the gore than I recall previous volumes being; we get copious detail of bullet-riddled bodies leaking blood, guts, and brains. And Briganti’s pure hardcore this time around; he hates “Mafia pigs” with such vehemence that he’s almost granted superpowers; during a hit on a Toriello whorehouse Briganti gets so pissed when two torpedos blow away an innocent girl that Briganti steps out of cover and calmly walks forward, guns raised – and neither mobster is able to hit him, their aim apparently thrown off by his heavy vibes.

Briganti’s here at the whorehouse thanks to a tip from lovely “Mafia whore” Louisa Fioretti, a redheaded beauty who is Toriello’s kept woman. She comes into the text via an assault Briganti stages on an apartment complex in a running battle that’s very well done, complete with Briganti swinging Tarzan style between buildings on a television antenna cord. Louisa is perhaps the most memorable character here, a cool beauty who trades banter with Briganti despite the corpses strewn about the place. But I’d advise against getting a copy of this book for your feminist pals, because Louisa is raked over the coals, and in a major way.

First Briganti casually tells her he’ll kill her without a second thought, all while calling her a whore and whatnot. Then he ends up giving in to her wiles, screwing her in somewhat-explicit fashion. After this he drugs her to sleep, ties her up, and later squeezes her and hits her when she won’t give him the info he wants. He even threatens to throw scalding coffee in her face, which he says will permanently disfigure her beauty. Then he lets her escape, intending to use her to set up some in-fighting in Toriello’s camp. When she reunites with Toriello things get even more extreme. The mob boss is certain she “fucked Briganti,” that she wasn’t even raped by him but wanted it. Toriello strips her and starts slapping her around in front of his underlings, all while she keeps pleading that she loves him. Then Toriello blows her away with a .38 before revealing to a stooge that he too loved her!

This and the material about Briganti’s murdered family is really the only stuff that sets Boston Bust-Out apart from the average Marksman installment, in that this material has an extra dimension of depth. In particular when Briganti, hiding out, goes to a John Wayne movie and reflects how his son was such a fan of John Wayne. McCurtin drops some unexpected emotion into this scene and it’s very refreshing after the various brutalisms Briganti has perpetrated in the previous pages, like his merciless setup of Louisa. Here we are reminded that the people he’s up against actually murder children and thus do not deserve any mercy, even the “otherwise innocent” women who sleep with the murderous scumbags.

And as mentioned the finale is fitting because it points the way to the ensuing Marksman novels, if for no other reason than, for one, the term “marksman” is actually employed, but also more importantly because Briganti goes to elaborate lengths to plot out sniper trajectories. Even down to doing math equations in the mud with his finger; he lures Toriello and a few others into the mountains of Maine, painstakingly ensuring he’ll be able to shoot accurately with his rifle. This part though goes on a little too long, with Briganti climbing the mountain, the others struggling to follow, and Briganti picking them off one by one.

And that’s it for The Assassin, so far as the original series goes, but as mentioned (way too many times now) this volume, with its focus on violence, sadism, and cold-blooded brutality, already has more in common with Briganti’s further adventures over at Belmont-Tower.

Mafia: Operation Loan Shark

Mafia: Operation Loan Shark, by Don Romano
November, 1974  Pyramid Books

This was the last published volume of Mafia: Operation, and the second one to be written by Paul Eiden. His first was Operation: Hijack, published before Operation: Hit Man, but I haven’t read it yet. That’s no big deal, as there’s no continuity or recurring characters in this “series.” What’s important is that Eiden here delivers the sleazy crime novel we expect of him, featuring one of the most unlikable prick protagonists ever.

I really wasn’t looking forward to this volume. Loan sharking just didn’t sound like a compelling enough topic to dwell on for 190 pages of smallish print. Luckily Eiden isn’t as much interested in the mechanics of loan sharkery as he is in the sleazy vileness of his protagonist, a hulking mountain of muscle named Mickey Di Angelo. In many ways Operation: Loan Shark harkens back to the BCI Crime Paperback Eiden wrote for producer Lyle Kenyon Engel the year before, Crooked Cop (still one of my favorite novels I’ve ever reviewed on the blog). Just like the “hero” of that earlier novel, Mickey Di Angelo is a sadistic bastard who has gotten wealthy from crime and will do anything possible to get himself a bigger piece of the pie. To do so he’ll trample anyone in his path, even going as far as setting up elaborate murder triangles. Plus he enjoys forcing the occasional innocent young woman into prostitution.

The back cover has it that the plot concerns Mickey trying to wrest full control of his loan shark operations from his boss, Dominic Zinna, and in this effort Mickey retains a willing young woman to cater to Zinna’s depraved interests. Well, that’s sort of what happens…towards the very end of the novel. For the most part, Operation: Loan Shark is a slice-of-sleazy-life yarn more concerned with Mickey’s lurid daily activities, without the hassle of a plot getting in the way. In fact Zinna barely figures into anything; Mickey’s the true star of the show, and as mentioned he’s a major bastard. 

Mickey’s more focused on his long-vanished father, a drunk who knocked up Mickey’s mom thirty-one years ago and only came around long enough to beat little Mickey around. In fact the bridge of Mickey’s nose lacks any cartilege because Mickey’s dad, in a drunken rage, smashed Mickey in the face with a broomstick. This happened when Mickey was ten years old. He mentions this often in the text and Eiden works in a nicely-done undercurrent of Daddy Issues which isn’t nearly as overdone and melodramatic as it would be in today’s cliche-ridden entertainment, while at the same time being a lot more over the top.

However Mickey disdains any sympathy and despises any sign of weakness in others. Very much like the protagonist of Crooked Cop he is the personification of the Nietzschean superman, unburdened by morals or emotions. His prime motivator is the accrual of power and wealth. He doesn’t even care about sex (a big difference from the Crooked Cop character), despite which he keeps no less than three women around Manhattan. The dude seems busy as hell in this regard, constantly shuttling around in his El Dorado to hook up with one or another of his mistresses: from Louise, the busty barmaid at one of Mickey’s legitimate establishments, to Joanne, a haughty doctorate student who gives Mickey a bit more lip than the others. Finally there’s Rosa, an Hispanic mother of three girls who serves more as Mickey’s accountant.

The female character who takes up the most of the text is Gerry St. John, a blonde actress who starts trailing Mickey around in the opening quarter of the novel, which introduces us to Mickey as he rushes around Manhattan on various business interests. One of Mickey’s concerns is a punk who owes money but can’t or won’t pay back, so Mickey’s already had one of his stooges, a muscular Sicilian named Grieco, break both his legs. Turns out Gerry is the punk’s brother and, after following Mickey around all night, hopes she can offer her body in exchange for her brother’s debt.

Mickey of course gets a good laugh out of this – he even laughs when Gerry reminds him that he had her brother’s legs broken – not that this stops him from screwing her. There are a few sex scenes throughout but nothing overly raunchy. But what’s crazier is that Mickey decides that Gerry can earn the money for her brother – by becoming a hooker! He drops her ass off at the whorehouse of a madame he knows and tells Gerry she can pay off the debt in no time on her back. Surprisingly Gerry’s game for it, realzing that if she can have sex with Mickey she can have sex with anyone. 

There isn’t much in the way of gun-blazing action, though. Later in the novel Mickey’s almost gunned down by two would-be assassins, obvious heroin-addicts in grungy army fatigues, but he just ducks and covers and spends a few pages wondering who sent them before forgetting about the situation. He passes it off as one of the dangers of his profession. He also rubs out a “client” who has been unable to pay back his hefty loan. Mickey talks the guy, Corkell, into driving Mickey and another stooge into Central Park on some b.s. assignment, and Corkell agrees because he’s eager to do anything to get back in Mickey’s good graces. Mickey, in the backseat and casually giving driving directions, puts a gun to the back of Corkell’s head and blows him away. I found this scene reminiscent of the finale of The Friends Of Eddie Coyle.

Eiden saves most of the action for the super-sick climax. Zinna we’re told is a thorn in Mickey’s side, despite being the guy who set Mickey up as one of the prime loaners and collectors in Manhattan. The way the pyramid works is that a Mafia don retains Zinna, who himself retains a few loan sharks, one of them being Mickey. So while Mickey does all the work, Zinna gets ten percent of his profits, all while doing nothing but sitting around. This is what really grinds Mickey’s gears; that, and fifty year-old Zinna’ growing interests in very young girls. Early in the book Mickey encounters a husband-and-wife acrobat team, Carlos and Carmen, and Mickey comes up with the idea of using nubile Carmen in his plot against Zinna. She’s got the build of a young girl, and quickly proves to Mickey that she’ll do anything he asks if he pays her.

This plays out over the last quarter of the novel, with Eiden never informing us of Mickey’s plans. He hires Carmen as a secretary in the office of another of his legit firms and Carlos as a gofer, constantly sending him off on assignments. Mickey plays on Carmen’s obvious interest in him – she’ll do anything for the money and lifestyle Carlos can’t provide for her – and even rents an apartment in the city “just for them.” But Mickey always passes off on her offer of sex. Then he starts whoring her out to random guys, with Zinna being the top job. Mickey’s twisted plot is revealed in the final pages, and any hopes that he will find come kind of salvation or redemption are quickly dashed. This is one of the most shocking climaxes I’ve read in a while, with Mickey setting up an elaborate murder scene.

From the first page it’s evident what kind of ending Mickey himself is headed for; it’s almost a prefigure of Training Day, with Mickey becoming increasingly deranged and unhinged as the narrative proceeds. Longtime friends even start to turn on him, much to Mickey’s confusion; he can only learn things the hard way, and the only comeuppance he could ever receive would have to be fatal. The conclusion of the book’s almost as shocking as Mickey’s plot against Zinna, if for no other reason than how abruptly it happens – it seems clear Eiden was up on his word count.

Overall I enjoyed Operation: Loan Shark a lot more than I thought I would. Like the other three books in the series I’ve read it was a great example of sleazy ‘70s pulp crime. Maybe not as good as those other three volumes, but good enough. Eiden really keeps the narrative moving, with the first half almost coming off like a breathless rush, occuring over just a few days in Mickey’s harried life. I also appreciate how he delivers such a zero-morals bastard of a protagonist with little of the niceties or maudlin cliches of today. Eiden even finds the time to render chilling fates for minor characters.

As mentioned this was the last volume of Mafia: Operation, and I can only assume it was low sales that killed the series, as there was plenty of opportunity for more novels. I for one would’ve enjoyed reading something like Operation: Hooker. At any rate I’ve still got the third-published volume, Eiden’s Operation: Hijack, to look forward to. Here’s hoping it’s as entertaining as the others.

Dakota #2: Red Revenge

Dakota #2: Red Revenge, by Gilbert Ralston
March, 1974  Pinnacle Books

I dreaded returning to the Dakota series; the first volume really disappointed me so I just bided my time until I moved on to this second installment. Actually I was going to read it the other year, but ended up reading Ralston’s The Deadly, Deadly Art instead…which was enough of a reminder why I really don’t dig this guy’s work. I mean he’s a good author and all, especially when it comes to character and dialog, but so far as being an action writer…I’ve still gotta agree with Marty McKee, who deemed the series “dull.”

I mention Marty in my Dakota reviews because he hooked me up with the series years ago; this one and tons of other series books, for which I’ll always be grateful to the guy. (That sounds sarcastic but I really mean it!) However Marty didn’t have this volume (hence no review of it on his blog), so I sought out a copy, hoping it would be an improvement over #1: Warpath. And luckily it is, though once again Ralston makes some very “interesting” authorial decisions.

Another thing Marty mentions in his reviews is the large cast of supporting characters in the Dakota series, much more than the genre average. I mean Red Revenge opens with Dakota riding his horse Bunky around his place in New Mexico and Ralston introduces all these characters sitting around and waving at him or being introduced in various ways, usually not even reminding us who they are. As if this were the Spoon River Anthology of men’s adventure or something.

It’s not that long after the first volume, as Dakota’s father is still on his deathbed and Dakota’s still mourning the people he lost in that introductory installment. One thing I’m happy to report is that Ralston whittles down on the musings and ponderings I seem to recall Warpath being saddled with. Dakota’s taken a course in bad-assery between volumes, doling out glib retorts and kicking ass when needed. In fact a quarter of the way through I started to think I was actually enjoying Red Revenge, given the increased pace and better focus on action, and halfway through the book I was flat-out loving it, which really threw me for a loop. Then I got to the last quarter…but more on that anon.

Par for the men’s adventure course some random babe throws herself at Dakota within the first few pages; her name’s Alicia and she’s in town on vacation. She bluntly announces herself as single and has “model” looks, though as ever Gilbert Ralston is not one to exploit the ample charms of his female characters. Dakota spends the majority of the text sending Alicia off or having her stay with random people to help them out. Setting up this recurring joke posthaste, Alicia immediately tells Dakota that one of the innumerable supporting characters has a message for him.

Turns out Dakota’s secretary has just been contacted by Martha Peavey, whose husband is a wealthy executive, and Martha wants Dakota over at her Lake Tahoe place quick. She’s waiting there with other wealthy women whose husbands are execs at the same company; in some arbitrary backstory we learn that Dakota had an affair with one of these women, pretty and younger than the rest, years before. Anyway all of the executive husbands were off on a fishing trip but they’ve been kidnapped; Martha doesn’t want the cops to find out about it, due to the demands of the kidnappers, so she’s hiring Dakota, and grudgingly he takes the case.

Already we have more tension and suspense than anything in the previous book. And speaking of which Dakota’s young Indian sidekick Louis Threetrees returns from the previous volume, driving the now-purple “sedan” Dakota gave him. (For some maddening reason Ralston refuses to tell us what make and model the car is…I assume we were told this in the first book and he figures we remember, or hell maybe he himself forgot.) Together Dakota and Louis drive around looking for clues, and again we get more action than previously when Dakota kicks some hapless guard’s ass at the harbor, tracking down the boat the men were kidnapped on.

When Dakota’s pal, a sheriff named Bennedetti, is gunned down (off page), Dakota realizes something serious is going on. Bennedeti lives, by the way, though he’s alternately paralyzed and in a coma during the narrative, before recovering in the final pages; Dakota is unusual among men’s adventure protagonists in that he’s always checking up on injured friends, visiting their wives, and also of course going to visit his mother and father frequently. The more I think of it, Ralston really is trying to do this sort of soap operatic men’s adventure private eye thing, and I can’t think of anything else like it in the genre.

And when it’s good, it’s good – Dakota and Louis find themselves tailed by a car around town, and we readers know the driver is a hotstuff babe named Margo. Ralston as ever POV-hops like crazy in the narrative, writing in a pseudo-omniscient style; we’ll be reading about Dakota and Louis and then next paragraph we’re being told something like, “Unkown to them, Margo was behind the wheel of the other car,” and such. This sort of thing is annoying because there are too many characters in the novel, and the abrupt POV-switching gets to be confusing and egregious. Damn egregious!

The absoulte highlight of the novel – and possibly the entire series, I suspect – occurs a little past the halfway point. Dakota’s already gotten in some action, from a few fights to shooting at that car that’s been tailing him – and only later does he learn he’s killed a woman – but here he has a very cool Rambo-esque moment. He’s deduced that the captured executives (who have their own running subplots, again giving the novel the unwieldy vibe of an epic) are being held in a remote valley. So he calls up some “blood brothers” from ‘Nam, baby!

This is Joe Redbear and Johnny Pius, two guys Dakota commanded back in the war; they were part of an “all-Indian group, trained for close combat.” Dakota figures the kidnappers are going to kill the hostages when they get their three million ransom, so he works against time to free them before the cops can move in and blow everything. He’s already scouted out the site and here the narrative has the rugged nature survival vibe of similar sequences in Soldato #1. Dakota and his blood brothers get some knives, some revolvers, and a bow and arrow, and work their way onto the site in the darkness.

This is a great sequence and at this point I was fully caught up in the novel. Finally Dakota was what I’d been waiting for it to be. Ralston’s not much for violence but the action is still fairly bloody, with subgun-toting guards getting impaled by arrows and their throats slit by knives. The cover illustration comes into play when Dakota uses a flare gun, taking out one guy with the flare and crunching another’s skull like an eggshell when he hurls the empty gun at him. Oh yeah and one of the guards is named Binky, not to be confused with Dakota’s horse Bunky. I was certain that had to be an in-joke.

And here’s where all those bad memories of Warpath came back to me in full sensurround. The novel pretty much ends here, on page 152: Dakota has killed the bad guys and freed the hostages. But Ralston keeps the narrative going for another 32 pages. We get belabored stuff like Dakota’s father dying and pages and pages devoted to his funeral, complete with long quotes from prayer books, complete with asterisked footnotes telling us where the quotes are taken from! And Dakota visiting his now-widowed mom, and checking in on old friends, and getting a new car…I mean it’s the sort of stuff that happens after the credits roll, not before.

Oh, and Dakota gets laid (by Alicia), but it’s not just off-page, it’s actually off-book; Alicia offers herself to Dakota at the bottom of the page, and at the top of the next page it’s an abrupt cut to the next morning. She’s now become his “sits-beside-him woman,” or some other such “Indian” thing, but regardless she takes off at the end of the book, going back to her lingerie store in San Francicso. Marty implies that she returns.

It just keeps going and going…and what’s most hilarious is that, on the last friggin’ page, Dakota gets in a quick fight with the person he’s suddenly realized was the true mastermind behind the kidnapping. I mean you’d think this is the sort of thing that could’ve been elaborated over those 32 pages, but whatever, Ralston has his own way of handling the men’s adventure genre, and he’s stubbornly determined to see it through. Hell, maybe he was going for a Spoon River Anthology thing.

But still, I enjoyed the majority of Red Revenge (certainly the title would be frowned upon today, at the very least). I’m looking forward to the next volume, mostly because it features a villain who worships the Ancient Egyptian feline deity Bastet, same as in The Deadly, Deadly Art.

Real Endings

Real Endings, by Gene Duris
No month stated, 1978  Manor Books

It’s summertime, which means I’m in the mood for sleazy ‘70s crime novels…and this obscure Manor paperback original somewhat fits the bill. But while its plot of an “artsy” porn film turned snuff flick is certainly sleazy, author Gene Duris writes the book like he’s shooting for the literary market.

No idea who Duris was, but the book’s copyright Manor and I can find no other info about the author, even in the Catalog of Copyright Entries. In cases like this I just assume the book was written by J.D. Salinger. Overall Real Endings is pretty entertaining, and sometimes as sleazy as I wanted it to be, but the problem is the front and back cover copy completely ruin the suspense Duris builds for 255 big-print pages.

And that spoiler is that we know, before even opening the book, that protagonist Kim Scott is going to be killed in a snuff flick. And yet that doesn’t happen until the final quarter of the novel. Most of the text concerns Kim deciding to become an actress, being cast in a new film which promises to push the envelope, and then gradually suspecting she’s gotten into a horrific situation. The last pages concern her friend and her uncle trying to figure out what happened to her.

Kim proves to be a likable if generic character. In particular Duris makes us feel sorry for her in the opening chapters. She’s 22, smart, pretty and built, but a bit of a wallflower – not that this stops her from letting her boss at the ad agency have sex with her. Kim’s very concerned about her job because the company’s been cutting back, as has most every business in Manhattan. This will prove to be the only sex scene in the novel, and it’s done more for comedic value, with the boss – old, heavyset, and sopping drunk – fumbling all over her and unable to even get it up when the time comes, so Kim has to go the extra mile and give him some oral inspiration.

But the sex turns out to be lousy and Kim’s fired after all. She struggles to find a job but there’s nothing out there. Duris sort of brings Manhattan to life in these pages, but not as much as other New York-set novels I’ve read from this era. Kim goes to a couple bars with her galpal Sara, gradually beginning to wonder if she should take the job Sara told her about months ago – the lead role in a hardcore movie, one with “artistic” aspirations. Sara works in a PR agency and swears that it won’t be one of those grungy movies they show over on 42nd Street, but something for mainstream theaters.

Kim still has the clipping Sara gave her, taken from an underground paper – the producers are looking for a good lookin’ young gal with a nice bod, and Kim feels she has the goods. Duris exploits Kim’s body good and proper during an arbitrary shower sequence, but curiously I don’t believe he ever tells us what color her hair is. She decides she has nothing to lose – other than her apartment due to the outstanding rent – and calls the number. A sort of pushy sounding older women tells Kim to be at a certain downtown address at eight in the evening.

Duris handles this meeting very well, ramping up the suspense. It’s a grungy factory building in a quiet, off-the-map area of Manhattan, and Kim feels all alone in this strange place. The address itself turns out to be a vast room on the top floor, basically empty save for background matte paintings and overhead lights. And the only person who claims to be here is Jason Elliott, the director of the film, who projects a big, “artist” personality but wears elevator shoes to compensate for his shortness. His main concern is whether Kim has any family or friends; Kim lies that she doesn’t have either, suspecting that’s what Jason wants to hear.

Jason comes off as a combo artistic genius mixed and pure psycho creep. He almost manages to get Kim nude in front of cameras, but she’s certain she hears another person lurking in the vast, dark space – possibly the mean-sounding woman from the phone. So she begs to leave, and Jason gives her a ride home, basically telling her the job is hers. He even offers her an advance on the three thousand bucks she’ll get for being in the film. Here the novel proves it’s too long for its own good with an arbitrary trip back home to Kingston where Kim tries to figure out if she should be in the movie. This part also serves to introduce her beloved Uncle Jim, who much to Kim’s dismay is about to marry some bitchy woman.

Duris broadens the narrative with cutaways to the other characters: we get a long sequence from Jason’s point of view, where we see how sick he really is. His previous movie scored big on the film circuit because it appeared to have real sex in it, and also concluded on sick violence with the male protagonist strangling the female lead to death. We’re told people line up around the block to see this movie; Kim’s never heard of it, but when she reveals to Sara that Jason Elliott is the director of this new “artsy adult movie,” Sara drags Kim to a showing of Jason’s earlier film. She proclaims Jason a genius and tells Kim she’d be a fool not to take the part.

As it is, the film described sounds horrible. Kim watches in fascination as the lead actor – a handsome but evil looking guy with black hair – has his way with the lead female, and the sex doesn’t seem to be faked at all. Even crazier is the finale, which has the guy strangling the girl. Kim swears she just saw a murder onscreen but Sara says it’s all camera trickery, given the genius of Jason Elliott. All this has the ring of dark humor because later we learn that, of course, the girl really was strangled to death, an “accident” given the general insanity of the leading actor, Coolege, who got worked up during the scene and really killed the girl. This secret is only known to Coolege, Jason, and Stacey, the older woman Kim talked to on the phone, who is described as looking like Katherine Hepburn; she’s a wealthy widow and funds Jason’s films, in exhchange for a little rough sex.

Duris cuts back and forth across these characters. Jason has an insane mother in an asylum, and a bizarre backstory has it that he wanted to be a pro basketball player but was too short(!). Coolege was a former soldier turned mercenary who met Jason in Africa (where Jason was making a movie apparently) and the two hit it off with their sick interests, Coolege’s dark movie star looks the perfect compliment to Jason’s artsy aspirations. And finally Stacey is a widow with vast wealth at her disposal, and enjoys being bossed around by Jason, but through her we learn that the first film’s murder was an accident and Stacey’s afraid the truth will be uncovered and they’ll all go to prison. 

Jason’s latest film sounds awful, like New Hollywood at its worst awful. (Speaking of which I wonder if this novel was written a few years earlier, as there are no late ‘70s topical details, but platform shoes and adult actress Marilyn Chambers get mentioned.) There’s no script, and only two actors: Coolege as a farmer and Kim as some waif he comes across and falls in love with. Plus it’s a period piece. It will be shot at Stacey’s remote mansion in the Hamptons, ensuring privacy, same as Jason’s previous movie. Thankfully Duris doesn’t much bother us with details about the actual film, usually relaying bits of info via Stacey’s diary, rendered in ugly italics.

The climactic sex scene is heavily built up; Kim’s taken the job knowing she’ll have onscreen sex with Coolege, whom she finds attractive but threatening. Jason plays up on this, first acting as a taskmaster so that the two bond in hatred of him, then later using Kim’s growing fear to make her afraid for the scene – which by the way will be a rape scene. Bizarrely enough, when the sex scene finally happens Duris leaves it off page, then later has Jason secretly reading Kim’s diary to get her impressions of what it was like. To put it bluntly, she didn’t like it at all – and Duris again makes us feel bad for our leading lady with Kim’s admission that she hasn’t had sex in a long time, thus Coolege’s massive wang didn’t feel very pleasant.

Stacey tries to warn Kim what’s about to happen to her, but Jason manages to drug the older woman so she’s out of action when he and Coolege film the climax. I expected something outrageous, but it’s still dark enough; Coolege strangles Kim in the basement with a baffled Kim slowly realizing that this is for real – and then she sees Jason leaning in with the camera to get a closeup of her face as she dies! After this the novel focuses on Uncle Jim and Sara, who unite in their search of Kim, several weeks later – the novel has a nicely-unsettling finale in which what happened to Kim will always be a mystery to those who knew her.

Overall not a bad novel, certainly fast-moving, but not as crazy as that nice cover illustration promises. As a pulp crime novel about snuff flicks, it’s got nothing on Cut, that’s for sure. Or even The Big Enchilada. But I’d like to know who Gene Duris was, as the writing is pretty good, particularly when it comes to capturing the thoughts and impressions of the characters.

Moscow At High Noon Is The Target (Hot Line #3)

Moscow At High Noon Is The Target, by Paul Richards
No month stated, 1973  Award Books

Curiously the final volume of Hot Line isn’t copyright Lyle Kenyon Engel, like the first two were, which makes me suspect this short-lived series suffered the same fate as the Engel-produced Nick Carter: Killmaster: total control eventually went over to Award Books. But anyway Hot Line never really got off the ground, only managing three volumes.

Thanks to Spy Guys And Gals we know this one was a collaboration between Chet Cunningham and Dan Streib. Streib co-wrote the previous volume, and his stamp is frequently evident here, particularly when protagonist Grant Fowler whines about how tough his life is and desperately wishes to quit and get married. Streib’s action protagonists usually lack any balls, as most notably demonstrated in the Engel-produced Chopper Cop series. Like “tough cop” Terry Bunker, Streib’s Grant Fowler is a worry wart who is determined to quit the spy game asap and find some woman to marry. This is a far cry from the grizzled asshole who starred in the first volume.

There’s no pickup from either earlier volume, though we are informed Fowler has only been the President’s man for a few “months.” Fowler when we meet him is in Copenhagen, still successfully perpetrating his wealthy gadabout cover. Now he’s hawking a new business venture called Antique Aircraft Inc, which specializes in rebuilding exact replicas of WWI airplanes and staging mock aerial combat around the globe. There’s a lot of flying material in this one, about as much as you’d encounter in the average William Crawford novel, and it gets to be boring after a while.

This is too bad because the opening of the novel’s pretty cool, promising more thrills than what is ultimately delivered: a group of commandos, possibly American, stage daring, bloody heists behind the Iron Curtain. They’ll hit armored trucks, banks, whatever, taking out guards and innocent bystanders with subguns and explosives. The commie powers at be are convinced America is behind these attacks, and tensions have escalated to the point of WWIII. The President of course decides to call in his sole Hot Line man, Grant Fowler.

It seems to me that Cunningham handled the brunt of the writing duties; the book reads very similarly to his work. But it might be Streib who writes the occasional cutovers to the President and his secretary, who deal with their own somewhat-boring subplots in DC while Fowler handles the action overseas. I say this because these scenes are page-fillers with fretting, worried protagonists wondering what might happen next; there’s a lot of stalling and repetition. Personally I think some of the opening heists could’ve been more fleshed out.

More info on the heisters would’ve been wise, too; as it is, we only get to read about “The Commander,” who leads these American servicemen turned criminals. They operate out of Berlin and use surplus military gear in their raids. It’s dangled as a mystery who the Commander is, but gradually the puzzle pieces together until we realize it’s one of two characters, both of whom happen to work with Fowler on the assignment. This group calls itself The Brigadiers, and their next heist will be particularly audacious: the theft of Lenin’s embalmed corpse, on display in Moscow.

Fowler only knows that something’s going to be stolen in Moscow, so must get over there without blowing his cover. Luckily Antique Aircraft is scheduled to take part in a mock WWI battle in that very commie city, so Fowler’s able to get himself in the show due to the fact that he’s a pilot and he’s the owner of the company. He heads over to Frankfort, Germany (and yes, it’s spelled “Frankfort” throughout) to take over the preparation for the mock combat, and finds time for some shenanigans with Elaine Katz, the hot brunette pilot who runs the European branch of Antique Aircraft – and I can’t believe I forgot to mention that Fowler’s already had some off-page shenanigans with a blonde babe in Copenhagen.

Here in “Frankfort” Fowler meets two men who will add the mystery to the narrative, as one of them is the Commander of the Brigadiers: first there’s Okie Bob Arnold, a CIA man with “mod clothing” and a flashy moustache who has been sent to help Fowler on his assignment, and next there’s General Sloane, an older retired military man who is flying one of the planes in the mock combat. Cunningham kills the mystery posthaste, as one of these men makes a phone call and next chapter Fowler finds out Elaine’s been killed in an airport “accident,” chopped up by prop blades. Cunningham tells us which of the two men made the call, totally blowing any chance at mystery. I couldn’t believe he was so brazen about it. Particularly given that the rest of the narrative tries to play the reader along over which of the two men is really Fowler’s enemy.

Fowler’s bummed over Elaine’s death – which occurs like an hour after they sleep together – but soon enough he’s checking out bikini-clad Maria at the General’s place. She’s been sent along from Moscow as a sort of state rep to ensure everything goes well. There’s also some flatfooted suspense about whether Fowler can trust her or not, and honestly all this stuff comes off like the work of Streib, with a suddenly-wimpy Fowler moaning how hard it is for him to open his heart to a woman, due to how she could be an enemy just waiting to stab his back.

There isn’t much action. In Moscow Fowler and Okie Bob go to a bar frequented by circus freaks, a surreal setting that’s handled in Cunningham’s trademark meat and potatoes narrative style. Fowler’s deduced that the Brigadiers are using an old tunnel beneath the bar to sneak in and out of Moscow, paying the midget bar owner a fee for the benefit. Fowler slaps around the midget and then goes down the tunnel, promptly getting in a shootout with some unseen Brigadiers. He kills one with his .357.

He’s also found the time to get busy with Maria, and again I have to point the finger at Streib because here Fowler becomes a lovey-dovey sap. This is going to be his last job, no matter what, he’s done with the spy game and all the death and all that, and what’s more he’s going to bring Maria back to America and marry her and start a family. The authors basically telegraph what’s going to happen to Maria and don’t even try to be subtle about it. But then this was the last volume of the series, so hell, they could’ve just had the two go off for a happily ever after.

The Lenin corpse heist isn’t even the climax of the novel; the title comes into play because it’s learned that the Brigadiers will steal the body at noon, and Fowler manages to get in the viewing line at the right moment. He causes a scene and Moscow police intervene, stopping the ambush that would’ve caught them unawares had it not been for Fowler. After this we have the belabored mock aerial combat, with planes again factoring into the actual finale: Fowler versus the Commander, who plans to steal the Russian royal jewels or somesuch and fly away with them. His true identity is officially revealed in the final pages.

Overall Moscow At High Noon Is The Target was pretty lackluster. Grant Fowler never did manage to make himself memorable to the reader, with even his occasional gadgets coming off as lame, like the “deadline clock” wristwatch he wears which ticks away a time set by the President. I was more interested to find out if Engel just dumped the series on Award, disinterested in Hot Line himself. Readers certainly weren’t interested, and this was it for the series.

Cocaine

Cocaine, by Marc Olden
July, 1975  Signet Books

This is basically the primer for Marc Olden’s Narc series, sort of the “nonfiction” version of it. I put that in quotes because for the most part Cocaine reads like fiction…many, many stories of drug dealers and the narcs who pursue them, with even the oddball “fact” coming off like fiction (like “the famous rock group” that was busted for coke possession and wrote a number one song about it, even sending the narc who busted them a thank-you note).

Like Narc, Cocaine started life at Lancer Books before moving over to Signet; this edition is “revised and updated” from the Lancer edition, which was published in 1973. But of course Narc was published under the pseudonym “Robert Hawkes” (even though each book was copyright Olden), so Signet lost a good co-sell opportunity. At least Olden’s Black Samurai series, also from Signet, gets a shout-out, though Narc would’ve made a lot more sense.

In fact, Olden’s main informant throughout Cocaine is “Jerry,” identified as an undercover narcotics agent for the DEA. Man how I wish Olden had gone all the way with it and named him “Jon,” ie Jon Bolt of fictional drugs enforcement agency D-3 in Narc. But I’m betting Jerry served as inspiration for Bolt; Olden thanks several people at the end of the book for their help in the research, with “Jerry” one of them, so I’m assuming he was a real person and that he factored into the creation of Jon Bolt.

Otherwise the contents of this book are identical to those in Narc, even with the same sort of arbitrary subplot-hopping. I’ve complained in more than a few Narc reviews how the narrative will abruptly jump into the almost stream-of-conscious thoughts of such and such a character. Well, that happens for the entirety of Cocaine. It’s basically one short-short story after another. And also Olden’s repetition is firmly in place – he’ll tell you the same thing at least three times.

But that’s cool, because this is one of the most “1970s” books I’ve ever read. I mean it could almost come with a pair of platform shoes. It’s all about hip black and Cuban coke dealers in all the fly fashions of the day, sticking it to the Man. And that’s another difference from earlier drug books, like Smokestack El Ropo’s Bedside Reader. Whereas that one was more of a countercultural book, looking at the pleasures of marijuana and hash, Cocaine is more about the crime and the violence. There’s very little here that would tell you why people were going so crazy over coke, nor much about the effects they feel when under the influence. And for that matter it’s not even so much about the dangers of coke, other than a few mentions of ODs and such. It’s really more about the crime-ridden underworld that has sprung up around the cocaine industry.

Olden does tell us a little about the drug users in the opening chapters – basically all the hip people of the day, from artists to rock musicians to swingers. Pretty much everyone, when it gets right down to it. But the high rollers are the biggest users, because coke isn’t cheap; Olden tell us that it’s $25 to $75 per spoon, and that’s for heavily cut coke. More pure samples are not only pricier but harder to find.

One thing I can say I learned from this book is how cocaine is harvested and manufactured. Previously it was kind of a mystery to me. Basically it’s taken from South America and enters the US via New York or Miami, cut up and processed in various mills. The Mafia doesn’t have much control of it given the South American source, thus has focused its interests on oldschool crime like gambling and hookers. But really Cocaine offers a look at the environment which would create the crack epidemic of the ‘80s; increasingly violent black gangs and Cuban gangs vying for dominance of the coke industry. Olden says there’s no question the Cubans are more violent, and I wonder if this book factored into Oliver Stone’s script for Scarface.

The book follows the same format for each chapter. Olden will introduce some aspect of the coke industry, ie Dealing or Ripoffs or whatever, then will illustrate each aspect with pseudo-fictional short stories. I was most interested in the section on the mills, which are generally in bad areas of town and overseen by women, who monitor a small group of people cutting up the coke, all of them in masks. The ripoffs material was also interesting, and very heavy in that ‘70s crime vibe – “ripoffs” being the term for coke dealers ripping each other off. And as previously mentioned the Cubans are much more vicious in their ripoffs, or when they track down a ripoff artist; blacks are more content to frame the ripoff artist so that he’s arrested.

Things occasionally get sleazy, like a random chapter on pimps, hookers, and coke (and Olden’s description of the outrageous pimp wardrobes just has more of that super ‘70s vibe). There’s the occasional tale of a drug dealer’s superhuman sexual powers, thanks to all the pure-grade coke he’s snorting. Here we learn of the mysterious “Tortilla” practiced by Cuban dealers behind closed doors; a “lesbian orgy” in which women are piled atop one another, occasionally the wives of the dealers even taking part. There’s also “My Hero,” as Jerry refers to him, a Cuban dealer with such machismo that even a mousy and prudish DEA typist gets turned on as she’s transcribing one of his tapped dirty phone conversations.

There’s also a lot on mules, who bring drugs into the country via various novel means, and informants, generally dealers who’ve been caught and decide to work for the Man for a lesser sentence. Olden published a novel titled The Informant in 1978, also a Signet paperback original (and incredibly overpriced, but luckily now available as an eBook), so I’d wager this section factored greatly into that later novel. It already reads like a thriller here, with Olden stressing how dangerous the life of an informant is; once outed by their drug world comrades they are shown no mercy.

There isn’t as much about the narcs themselves; the DEA was fairly new when the book was written, or so Olden informs us, and we even learn that the drug cops had just started carrying weapons. But obviously the men’s adventure vibe of Narc isn’t present here, these stories being true (or at least presented as true) and thus more realistic in the brief snatches of violent action; there is though a nicely-done shootout late in the book which unfortunately sees a young DEA agent killed in action. Otherwise the lot of the narcs is presented as a thankless one; they aren’t out to bust hippies or the occasional drug user, just the big fish, and to do so they have to sit around for long stretches of time before putting their lives on the line. There are also some interesting stories about undercover jobs. 

Overall I enjoyed Cocaine more than I thought I would. It definitely has that ‘70s crime vibe I’ve always enjoyed, and the pseudo-fictional approach makes it a lot more entertaining than a typical study on cocaine would’ve been. It’s even the same length as one of Olden’s Narc or Black Samurai novels, coming in at 172 fast-moving pages of fairly small print.

Razoni & Jackson #5: Lynch Town

Razoni & Jackson #5: Lynch Town, by W.B. Murphy
December, 1974  Pinnacle Books

The final volume of Razoni & Jackson has “the tough black and white duo” spending the entirety of the narrative in Alabama, a comically overdone Alabama filled with racist rednecks who are eager to don their KKK robes at the drop of a hat. And this includes the town Sheriff. Otherwise Lynch Mob was my favorite volume yet in the series, even though our heroes are outside their normal stomping grounds of Manhattan and, as ever, there’s not much in the way of action or sex.

It’s certainly fast-moving, though. Warren Murphy’s skill is in the dialog, and he’s in top form this time, with fiery banter throughout. This is proven posthaste as we meet our heroes after they’ve been on the road together for several hours, Jackson driving and Razoni sleeping. They’re headed to New Orleans for a detective’s convention (the back cover incorrectly states Miami), and their respective women – Jackson’s wife Sara and Razoni’s girlfriend Pat – have flown ahead. Our cheapskate heroes gave the women their plane tickets, then “borrowed” a ’71 Chevy from the precinct for the drive south, even though the car’s not supposed to leave Manhattan.

The narrative picks up as the two decide to finally pull over for some food. The arguing here over Jackson’s driving, and his unwillingness to pull over for food or bathroom breaks, calls to mind the similar bantering of Philip Rock’s Hickey & Boggs, which I still say served as a huge inspiration for this series. Unfortunately Razoni picks little Pinkney, Alabama as the place to find a restaurant. From the get-go they are assailed by redneck yokels in the small town, but things really come to a head when the fat slob owner of a dive refuses Jackson service because Jackson is black.

Word to modern sensitive types – there’s a lot of racist invective throughout Lynch Town, which is humorous given that Murphy clearly wants us to understand the racist locals are the bad guys. But the dreaded n-word is tossed around a lot…and when Murphy does show black characters, even in a sensitive light, he has them shrieking stuff like “Hallelujah!” while having house parties. But clearly this sort of stuff isn’t intended to be taken seriously, and I imagine anyone actually seeking out this book (which is as scarce and overpriced as the others – and I still haven’t gotten the first volume due to that fact) will already know what they’re in for.

Razoni and Jackson don’t know what they’re in for, though; in a wildly over-the-top subplot, young Pinkney resident Flasher Potter is planning to knock over the town bank while wearing a rubber “Negro” mask with a wild afro. We’ve already learned that Flasher occasionally rapes women while in this disguise, secure in the fact that none of the victims will go to the cops due to being ashamed. All this sort of reminded me of the obscure low-budget 1974 crime film The Zebra Killer, aka The Get-Man and a bunch of other titles. It too featured a sadistic redneck villain who disguised himself as black.

One of Flasher’s victims was the wonderfully-named Tulsa Cuff, the pretty-in-a-tarnished-way young waitresses at Buford’s restaurant. And by the way, Buford is Flasher’s father; a recurring joke is that a large portion of Pinkney is made up of the Potter family. This bodes ill for Razoni, given that he smashes two raw eggs in Buford’s face for being a racist prick, then later slams his head into a car. Buford’s brother is the town Sheriff, thus Razoni is hassled good and proper for the remainder of the text.

The action highlight occurs early on. Flasher robs the bank just as Razoni and Jackson are leaving Bufford’s diner; Murphy by the way pulls a few Elmore Leonard-type tricks with time, showing events happening concurently. The bank hit is pretty bloody, Flasher in his mask and “fright wig” showing no mercy to the old bank guard and the president – even though he’s friends with them, given that he works there! He’s chased down the street by cops and carjacks the first vehicle he comes to, which of course happens to be Razoni and Jackson’s Chevy. And Jackson happens to be behind the wheel at the time.

Razoni isn’t worried about Jackson – he’s worried about the car. In fact Jackson is guilt-tripped that he even let the armed punk carjack him! Jackson immediately knows that this is a white man in a rubber mask. He also notices the penny loafers Flasher is wearing; as ever, it’s deductive logic which cracks the cases in this series, not gun-blazing action. And for that matter, both Razoni and Jackson have locked their guns in the trunk of the Chevy and never even get their hands on them in the course of the novel. Flasher’s the only one who does any shooting; after Jackson crashes the car into a lake, the masked punk gets up on the sinking car and takes a few shots at Jackson as he swims away.

From there it’s more of a slow-burn “racist town” caper. Sheriff Potter (Bufford’s brother and Flasher’s uncle) rounds up a young black local with radical politics named George Washington Clinton and pins the bank heist on him. Jackson’s statements that the “black man” who carjacked him was really white of course fall on deaf ears…save for state cop Lt. McCabe, the only local policeman in the novel with any intelligence.

While Jackson meets with the Clinton family to confirm their son’s innocence, Razoni seeks out waitress Tulsa Cuff for more info on the Buffords. He ends up having some off-page lovin’ with her, even checking into a hotel with her, and while there’s zero sleazy detail Tulsa is well-handled and comes to life more than the average men’s adventure babe. There’s also a somewhat-touching backstory about her mother dying, hence her return to Pinkney from “the big city, and how she’s now abused by her alcoholic father. Tulsa also factors into the finale in pure pulp style: tied bare naked to a tree by a bunch the KKK, to be killed for having sex with Razoni!

This is what makes for the climax, but even here Murphy goes for more of a comedic vibe. The Potters whip their KKK brothers into a frenzy and they all don their white robes to go round up Razoni and Jackson. Jackson is still at the house party in the black area of town and the residents successfully fight off the KKK, though the action is bloodless – everyone’s a terrible shot and the KKK runs away. The other faction of KKK fares better, charging in on Razoni and Tulsa in their hotel room and pulling them away, Razoni punching and fighting all the way.

The finale is a retread of #3: One Night Stand, with an enraged Jackson coming to Razoni’s rescue. Leading the group of black locals, they tear into the woods behind the hotel and find Razoni and Tulsa tied to trees, Razoni in the process of being whipped by a cat o’ nine tales. Jackson goes ballistic, throwing KKK scumbags around and bashing them up. The heroic act is of course undercut by Jackson’s shout that only he can whip his partner. Razoni spends the entire action scene out cold.

It makes for a fitting conclusion to the series, even though the series ad at the back of the book promises “And more to come…”; that same hyperbolic line Pinnacle used for all its series advertisements. But Lynch Town was the last volume, ending with our heroes finally headed for New Orleans, bickering away. However Razoni and Jackson returned twelve years later, as supporting characters in the sixth volume of Murphy’s Trace series, Too Old A Cat. I’ll be checking that one out next.