WWX Young Guns Title: Calder vs Sonnet

 

Frenzi retains the Young Guns title.

Frenzi 2: Florida Guns by R.J. Calder

Frenzi 2
Florida Guns
by R.J. Calder
2022, Point of Impact Publishing

Former mob hitman John Frenzi lays in low in Miami, but he can't stay out of trouble for long. He runs into mafia assassins, crooked union thugs, and is approached by Cuban exiles to assassinate Castro. Frenzi tries to stay out of the game, but is spurred to action to protect a dame. The action was smaller scale than the first one, but still action packed.

Available from Amazon

Carnage on 84th Street: Splatter Crimes by Judith Sonnet

Carnage on 84th Street: Splatter Crimes
by Judith Sonnet
2023

One of a series mixing splatterpunk and 70s crime cinema. I'm not up on modern extreme horror, but this reminded me of the little of Edward Lee I've read, in that it's a pile of gross out with a razor thin plot to justify it. The story here has a woman kidnapped to be tortured and raped by a gang boss while a hitman decimates his crew. For my tastes I prefer violence to come out of the action, rather than just stacked up for it's own sake, but you certainly get what's on the tin here.

From Amazon

WWX Young Guns Title: Calder vs Sonnet

 

Our new champion RJ Calder faces his first defense against the Siren of Splatterpunk Judith Sonnet.

Squirm by Richard Curtis

Squirm
by Richard Curtis
1976 Ace

The novelization of the film, which I'm mostly familiar through MST3K. A downed electrical line causes worms to attack humans. Eventually. Mostly it's a city nerd trying to hook up with a country gal and them finding and losing skeletons.

I'm guessing this was based on the earlier script, though very close to the movie. A flashback to how Roger lost his thumb is the only full new scene. All the characters are described as amazingly attractive, skinny Mick is described as 175 pounds, and the Sheriff is a smooth talking ladies man.

Gorier and with more ambitious effects than the film - Roger's final form is as an ambulatory pile of worms. Biggest loss was that the best line - "You gonna be the worm face" is written as "Now we’ll see what you look like after the worms get you!"

From Amazon https://amzn.to/4ebP9x8

Along Came a Swapper

Along Came a Swapper
by Richard B. Long
1970, Adult Books

Two couples swap partners, eventually leading to a swingers party. I guess Long thought a subplot was needed - one of the husbands talks to his boss every few dozen pages about how it would suck to be industrial espionaged. After the swingers party turns out the entire set up was to blackmail him in an industrial espionage scheme. The wife worries about her reputation so she divorces him and moves in with the blackmailers, while the husband tells his boss, who doesn't care.

Available from AmazonAvailable from Amazon

Crime Does Not Pay, April 1970

Crime Does Not Pay
Vol 3 No 1, April, 1970

They Hanged Charlie Birger

Gang warfare in prohibition era rural Illinois. His war against the KKK was not mentioned.

London's Vampire

Blood obsessed acid-bath serial killer.

Gus Greenbaum

The life and death of mobbed up casino owner.

King of the Dope Traffickers Elias Eliopoulous

Broad overview of heroin trafficking.

Capone's Iron Fist

Edward O'Hare secured the patent for the robot rabbit that dog's chase at the track and went into business with Capone. He was assassinated after hiring the accountant that testified against Capone. O'Hare airport is named after his son. The author was evidently unware that O'Hare was cooperating with the IRS, including fingering the bookkeeper, helping to break the book's code, and tipping the court off to the bought jury.

Sex, Syndicate Style

Confession style story of a woman who slips deeper into mob controlled sex work, including crooked cops and a lecherous prison nurse. Her story is somehow related in detail to the narrator and certainly not made up whole cloth.

Pool Hustler

General overview of the scam.

They Called it Hell's Alley

Characters of Gallatin Street, New Orleans, including firebrand Bricktop Jackson. They misattribute the "Nemesis of Neglect", which referred to Whitechapel.

Rig Warrior 4: Knockdown by J.A. Johnstone

Rig Warrior 4
Knockdown
by J.A. Johnstone
Pinnacle Books, 2020

William W. Johnstone has been dead for a quarter century, but his byline shows up on hundreds of titles, mostly westerns. They haven't revived his horror or post-apocalyptic titles, but some of his few thriller series are still going. The plot synopses read like a madlibs of Newsmax chyrons: After a Black president bans guns, Muslim Mexican cartels invade and force gay healthcare on everyone; stuff like that.

Johnstone published three installments of the one truck driver army Rig Warrior, and decades later we have a new installment. I think it may be tied in to another series, Dog Team or something. The one Rig Warrior I read was mostly just yelling at a journalist for being liberal, and J.A. really captures that original spirit.

Knockdown starts off with some light racism, then offers some information that makes the intro slightly less racist - checkmate, lib! We get constant exchanges like:

"Say, that's not politically correct."
"No, but let me explain in depth why that's OK".

Only took 40 minutes into a 10+ hour audiobook for one of Johnstone's patented "journalist as liberal strawman" scenes which leads into a discussion about how there are only a handful of white supremacists in America and liberals are too mean online.

J.A. was kind enough to frontload a couple of weak action sequences as samples so we can know we're not missing anything, unless you just like having your prior beliefs validated by fictional characters. Even if you're the fan of old fashioned pulp adventure that "you're not allowed to do any more" (ed note: you're totally allowed to do it), there are plenty of alternatives.

Nobody's stopping anybody from using Mexican cartels or Islamic terrorists as the baddies in their book. J.A. could have just done that, but they get so mealy mouthed and weaselly about it they vacillate between apologizing or being defiant that they're not apologizing, rather than showing some stones and just doing it, like they're more worried about what some Tumblr lefty will think about it than trying to be entertaining.

As always, I am available to ghost write a revival of the "Satan inspired" series.

From AmazonFrom Amazon

Revenger 2: Arms for Oblivion by Joseph Hedges

Revenger 2
Arms for Oblivion
by Joseph Hedges (Terry Harknett)
1973, Sphere

Stark hooks up with a mob connected rich party girl and continues his attack on The Company in France. I like the Revenger series more than most, mainly for the grim and sleazy atmosphere. It suffers from padding and under-plotting in places, but when it gets going it goes hard. The darkest element was the sex club the Company used to dump bothersome women, where they all feared a session with the mysterious Jacques.

Ebook from Amazon https://amzn.to/3V81V75

WWX TV Title - Dark Sun vs Scimidar

 

Neither book pulled ahead of the other, leading to a time limit draw. Dungeons & Dragons retains the Television Title!

Scimidar by R. A. Jones

Scimidar
by R. A. Jones
2017, Airship 27

Set in a late 80s style post-apocalyptic world where the only difference is slightly more crime. Scimidar has the powers of empathy, and can feel others emotions when she loves or kills. This also gives her the ability to absorb skills, like Taskmaster. Her metabolism processes drugs and alcohol quicker, and she has an implant that acts as birth control and a cure to all STDs, about the only scifi element in the piece.

Scimidar is a mercenary or something and the plot involves her chasing down a terrorist bomber. Plenty of fight and sex scenes, but mostly exposition. The comic was mature, but this was pornier than I was expecting.

Available from Amazon https://amzn.to/3MNQCP6

Dark Sun: City Under the Sand by Jeff Mariotte

Dark Sun
City Under the Sand
by Jeff Mariotte

Stepping away from Forgotten Realms to another Dungeons & Dragons setting, Dark Sun. Dark Sun is a set on a dying planet, ravaged by magic gone wrong, where metal and water are scarce but psionics are common. Darker than other settings, with some twists - elves are a despised underclass and halflings are feral savages. 

Half-elf Aric, a blacksmith with the ability to communicate with metal, is recruited by the Shadow King to join an expedition to retrieve metal from a long-buried city uncovered in a sandstorm. The activity unleashes an ancient evil and Aric must rush back to warn the city.

Most of the story concerns the fights and struggles to get across the desert, while the main plot, and subplot of a serial killer attacking elfin women, felt a bit rushed. These books often assume a working knowledge of the source material, and I had to look up a few monsters to know what they were supposed to look like.

Available from Amazon

WWX TV Title - Dark Sun vs Scimidar

 

Tie-in Titan Dungeons and Dragons faces Scimidar to defend the TV title