Crow 4: The Black Trail by James W. Marvin

Crow 4
The Black Trail
by James W. Marvin (Laurence James)

Crow becomes the guide and bodyguard of Zulu Prince Mavulamanzi, who is touring America with his entourage of slaves, which includes a White woman who Crow, of course, has sex with. They run afoul of the local Apaches, and the two make a move to rescue their captive servants.

A step down in the action and sleaze, replaced with casual racism. I didn't get the sense that Crow hates Black people any more than he hates everyone else, but that doesn't stop him from using slurs just to be a dick.

From Amazon

Crow 3: Tears of Blood by James W. Marvin

Crow 3
Tears of Blood
by James W. Marvin

Full blown psychopath Crow is looking to make some money and is town when a prominent citizen and his poorly reputed young wife are kidnapped. Crow agrees to a bounty to rescue them with a bonus for each kidnapper he kills. Crow tracks them down, killing a few folks along the way, is captured, sleaziness ensues, he escapes, then resolves in mass violence.

Continues the pattern of well staged tactics performed by a remorseless monster with no redeeming qualities, so of course the series is a favorite of mine.

There's a weird framing device of someone telling this story years later and a few references to the Apache series shoehorned in at the beginning, neither of which have anything to do with the story.

From Amazon

Crow 2: Worse than Death by James W. Marvin

Crow 2: Worse than Death
by James W. Marvin (Laurence James)
1979, Corgi

Crow stumbles upon a caravan who have been attacked by the Shoshone.  Most of the men have been killed, and help is days, if not weeks, away.  Crow uses his tactical expertise to hold off the attacks, while hunger and desperation lower the women to his level of depravity.

Short and nasty, though a little bit flat.  This time it felt like James was trying a little too hard.  Dead babies, cannibalism, oral emasculation, deflowering, rape, and eye socket bonfires.  That makes it sound more fun than it was.

Some references to Herne the Hunter, and every character had a name of another British author or pen name.  

Available on the cheap on Kindle from Amazon

Crow 1 - Red Hills by James Marvin

Red Hills
by James W. Marvin (James Laurence)
1979 Corgi

Just to let us know what we're dealing with, the book opens with our hero Crow slapping a girl and shooting a dog.  It just gets worse from there.

Crow is a lieutenant with the US Calvary, serving under a psychopathic, alcoholic, cuckolded Captain.  The bulk of the novel is Crow using his cool head and measured tactics to take on Sioux raids under less than ideal circumstances.

In contrast to his calm demeanor in combat in his personal life he's pretty much a sexual sadist.  While there are plenty of psychopaths and borderline personalities among the Piccadilly Cowboy heroes, Crow is a full blown child-murdering, revenge torturing serial killer.

So we'll be seeing more of Crow in the future.

Available in Kindle from Amazon.

Read a sample.