Showing posts with label The Bounty Hunter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Bounty Hunter. Show all posts

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Bounty Hunter 4: Blood Mountain by Tiny Boyles and Hank Nuwer

Bounty Hunter 4
Blood Mountain
by Tiny Boyles and Hank Nuwer 
1982 Playboy



Loveable dirtbags Tiny and company chase after a computer genius and his stolen bank money, running into an Italian cult/terrorist group for their troubles. They pick up a lady bounty hunter along the way, and there's more action this time, involving mowing down ultralights with a machine gun.

The series coasts on charm over plot or action, but there's plenty of charisma to keep it going.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

The Bounty Hunter 2 - A Killing Trade

The Bounty Hunter 2
A Killing Trade
by Tiny Boyles and Hank Nuwer
1981 Playboy Paperbacks




We open with Tiny and Hammer after a fugitive that killed his own daughter.  Tiny tries to rescue a teenager that's being forced into prostitution, like he didn't do in real life when he had the chance.  Meanwhile, Tiny's journalist buddy Foster Foster is dating Tiny's underage niece, who is kidnapped by a Jaguar owning pimp.  Jerry Jeffers joins up and the foursome track down Tiny's niece to a voodoo sex cult in New Orleans.

This is a nasty one, with several uncomfortable scenes of rape and humiliation mixed in with the good natured banter.  The action was an improvement from the last installment, but Nuwer's still rushing through it.

One interesting element - Tiny has a car phone in his mobile home, and at least in the story, the FCC monitors all mobile calls and an operator warns him about using foul language. 


Wednesday, May 7, 2014

The Bounty Hunter Series

The Bounty Hunter by Tiny Boyles and Hank Nuwer


The Bounty Hunter series grew out of a 1979 article in soft porn mag Oui magazine about Tiny Boyles, a fat, hairy, tough guy bounty hunter who evidently has a habit of embellishment.

Playboy Paperbacks got non-fiction writer and journalist Hank Nuwer to ride along with Tiny and write a series of action novels very, very loosely based on his exploits.

The hero of the series is Tiny Ryder, the fat hairy ex-biker bounty hunter.  He's assisted by the near mute Hammer and two of his friends from the orphanage: country western musician Jerry Jeffers and journalist Foster Foster.  Tiny works for Hollywood bondsman and Mormon Joey Hudson, although he spends little time actually tracking fugitives.

Most of the wordage is spent on banter and anecdotes amongst the gang, which is very well done, making me wish that Nuwer did more fiction - he specializes in non-fiction about sports and hazing.  There's a decent amount of action, but Nuwer tends to rush through it, ending action sequences within a page or two.  Also, lots of sex, probably at the demand of Playboy Paperbacks.

This is the most unsettling part, as it shift in tone from friendly good-ol'-boy rutting to brutal underage rape within a few pages, making this possibly the sleaziest Men's Adventure series.

1 The Deadliest Profession 1981
2 A Killing Trade 1981
3 Wild Ride 1982
4 Blood Mountain 1982

Here's Mr. Nuwer's recollections on his website.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

The Bounty Hunter and the Hillside Strangler(s)

Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono were the Hillside Strangler, serial killers who claimed the lives of at least ten young women.  Prior to their arrest, they reportedly had a prostitution and blackmail racket going on.  They would force teenage girls into prostitution, using psychological torture involving snakes and such, and then later blackmail the johns.

A Los Angeles attorney was such a blackmail victim, and reportedly was on the receiving end of harassment and death threats when he didn't cooperate.  Instead, he sent in our old friend and star of a series of Men's Adventure novels, the Bounty Hunter himself William "Tiny" Boyles, who used his own brand of persuasion to settle the matter.


The matter evidently came up when court psychiatrists were determining if Bianchi was faking multiple personalities, but Bianchi denied the incident took place.  Since I doubt the lawyer in question came forward, I'm guessing Boyles is the sole source of the incident.  I'm sure he did it out of civic duty, as he's not the type to insert himself into ridiculous scenarios.

Couldn't find much on the incident.  There's an article in the Eugene Register-Guard, and an interview from Frontline: The Mind of a Murderer Part 2 (I only had the transcript, so I don't have the full context here)

For example, there was a interaction between Angelo and Mr. Bianchi, which must have been truly memorable, with an individual that occurred several years before he was arrested.

That individual was Mr. Tiny Boyles, a 440-pound, 6-foot body guard.  Some years ago, Tiny had run across Mr. Bianchi and Angelo Buono.  His meeting was to become significant in Dr. Orne's investigation.

But Tiny had discovered that Mr. Bianchi was not quite the all-American boy he had first seen.

"But you do know that they were running a ring of prostitution and using young girls, exploiting them, mainly for --the best I could find out in my investigation, they were using them for blackmail."

Tiny had learnt that while Mr. Bianchi and Angelo Buono were running a ring of underage prostitutes, they have fallen out with one of their clients, a Los Angeles lawyer.  To bring him around to their point of view, they made death threats against him, and the lawyer responded by sending Tiny Boyles and four of his friends to reason with him.

"Buono was working on a car detailing it, and I kept talking to him, he kept ignoring me.  So I reached in the window and took him out through the window so fast, so hard, he left his shoes in there.  And while I had him up in the air, I asked him if he'd all
mind paying attention to me.  So while I was dangling him in the air, he paid full attention, so I lowered him back down on the ground.  And I give him one of the lawyer's cards, and I told him, I said don't be offering to kill him no more, because the last thing in the world you wantin' is the replay of me."

"So how did Buono react to that?"

"He told me there'd be no more troubles."

"And what about Bianchi?"

"Bianchi's a little sniveling poo-butt.  But he was what you call the doc, what we call the perverted doc.  His job was if girls were scared of snakes he put snakes on them.  He done that to make sure they brought the money home.  He worked on their morbid fears.  He run behind a security door, which he'd already knew who we were, what we were, and he's behind his door holding the security door sniveling, please, don't hurt me, please, don't hurt me.

Well, we knew they were into something heavy, but we don't know what.  But if I'd had known he was killing those little young girls-- one of those girls was what, 13, 14 years old?  If I'd had known it, I got four daughters of my own, I'd snapped their neck like a twig and not had no remorse for it."
I'm glad to see Boyles taking such a bold moral stand there.  As a parent of four daughters, he has no problem with forcing underage girls into prostitution, heck, he'll help you cover it up if you pay him.  But serial murder is just one step over the line, brother.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Bounty Hunter 1: The Deadliest Profession

The Bounty Hunter 1: The Deadliest Profession
by Tiny Boyles and Hank Nuwer
1981 Playboy Paperbacks


"He's part grizzly, part mountain lion - and all _mean_"

"He's like a bounty hunter from the old, wild west...
And he's hell on goddamn wheels.  He's 6'6", weighs 389 pounds and favors machine guns, magnums and big buck knives.  That 12 gauge looks kind of like a Tonka toy dangling in his huge hairy paw.  So if you want to jump bail, be our guest.  He'll cross seven state lines, then drag you back every inch of the way.  Then it's bail or jail and there's nothing you can do.  Only now he's met his match.  He's sworn to bring back Satan Himself: A mass-murdering sexual psychopath hiding down in Mexico with a fanatical band of killers and a bevy of beautiful but deadly women who will do anything for him.  If he asks them nicely, that is."

I was prepared to dislike the real Tiny Boyles for reasons I might go into later, but Nuwer starts him off as being a criminal sack of fertilizer from the get go, and makes him charming enough to get away with it.

Nominally based on a real bounty hunter, The Deadliest Profession has Tiny Boyles hired to wipe out a Mormon splinter cult.  He recruits several of his friends, arms up a Winnebago, and drives out into the desert.  Before you know it, they're mowing down fleeing women, shooting them in the backs with machine guns.

The book is kept aloft by the witty banter, which actually works, rather than the clumsy action sequences.