Raker by Don Scott

Raker
by Don Scott (Lee Hays)
1982 Pinnacle

Between the slogan and the fact that the cover is designed like a Nazi propaganda poster, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a satire, or that the Aryan superman is the villain and the fox in a natural is our hero. Unfortunately, it's just bigoted.

Not just bigoted as a side product the way Rosenberger or Johnstone can be, it goes out of it's way to be bigoted, whether it be Black, Jewish, Asian, or gay. This is also a particular brand of cowardly, chickenpoop racism. He's got a Black buddy to show he isn't racist - not one of those street people, mind you, one who sounds educated.  I'm assuming since the narrator didn't describe Raker as sounding educated he was a kindergarten drop out.

It was done so deliberately to establish the character it felt either the author wanted you to know up front what a piece of work he was, or he figured this Men's Adventure genre is read by a bunch of Archie Bunker types so he better write to market.

It's hard to fairly judge the quality of the writing or story distinct from any moral considerations so I don't want to say for certain that this is the worst Men's Adventure story, but it's in the running.   

Raker is a generic freelance operative who works for a generic shadowy government agency. His mission - stop the Black Liberation Army's plot to murder White police officers.  Both the plot and the means of solving it are needlessly complicated, and these unnecessary complications compose the bulk of the wordage.

The BLA and their Jewish civil rights attorney partner use various social engineering and computer hacking techniques to get the duty rosters of various police agencies to determine which cops are White and what their beats are.  They call in a fake domestic violence call then ambush the cops in a shotgun attack.  When they could have just made the fake call and call of the ambush if both the cops weren't White.

Raker uses similar convoluted means to catch the assassins.  He guesses what city might be next, uses surreptitious methods to look at the duty rosters, listens in to the police band hoping to catch the fake call, and tries to rush out to to the scene before the police. He doesn't seek cooperation with the police because he figures they're busy.

Clumsy prose, bad story, not much action, though the descriptions of shotgun wounds are suitably lurid.

Paperback Warrior identifies the author as Lee Hays, who wrote novelizations including Columbo, Harry O, and Black Christmas.