The Breton Butcher (Churchill's Vixens #1)

The Breton Butcher (Churchill's Vixens #1)
Leslie McManus
1976

Well, here's another elusive series that caught my eye sometime last year and I instantly became obsessed with tracking down. Four books in total, only printed in the UK, which means a real pain in the ass for me to acquire as there's no ebook and probably won't be.

Since Vixen is plural, I instantly assumed this was a men-on-a-mission type of thing--but with vixens! Coupled with the gorgeous cover art in WWII, it's the sort of stuff that gets me super pumped. But yeah, the aforementioned continental divide made this tough to find, and after a handful of months and two auction losses I got a hold of the first two, along with another McManus book, Operation Backlash, courtesy of paying out the ass in shipping from Australia.

And, as fate would have it, curiosity got the best of me, at least with this first volume.

As I soon discovered, it appears that each volume of Churchill's Vixens is a self-contained ordeal, with each book focusing on a particular 'vixen'. This cuts right to the chase, and within the first couple of pages we know our French heroine's husband is collaborating with the Nazis. This makes her sick to her stomach, so she finds the first bloated, middle-aged fisherman on the dock and promises she'll sleep with him if he brings her to the UK. His "enormous erection" steals her virginity and then she's in Britain, instantly joining up with the new Churchill's Vixens program.

There's no real explanation how she gets picked, but alas, she's on the team. There's maybe a paragraph worth of information on what she did there and the training she undertook, but I guess she's ready to go. And back to France she goes, this time undercover.

She's teamed up with this just awful American guy that's supposed to be French. They pose as a married coupled and stay in some village. He constantly sexually harasses the heroine, but now that she's no longer a virgin she's starting to like it or something absurd. They play all serious that they've got an important mission to accomplish, but the thin veneer of professionalism and duty is quickly eradicated and they start to frequently have sex.

There's only a few mentions of people they meet up with. They sabotage a train in like a page, then travel around a bit and have some more sex. At one point there's a huge resistance group that I would assume is going to storm this compound, but somehow they sneak in with German uniforms (this isn't explained) and take it with ease. Some tanks show up and they all run for the hills. That's about how the action goes.

Then it's back to frolicking in barns. Just endless, boring sex. Even if you're a simpleton like myself the reader is just given nothing to work with here. There's hips and contours and everyone has amazing, big breasts (a man after my own heart) and then just 'love-making'; simple and sweet, then it's over and onto the next rural location or village hideout to have more bland, vanilla sex.

And that's basically The Breton Butcher, unfortunately. There's a few dim lights that shine, like our heroine summarily executing a traitor in front of a crowd in a bar, but even the conclusion is dull and quick. McManus' writing has no real flow; you're always left just wandering about, unsure of the continuity or the importance of anything, and when things happen they're so poorly executed it's hard to even enjoy.

I'll obviously be reading my other two McManus books to get my moneys worth, but after this I can't say I'm all that eager to do so. 

Big Orvie

Big Orvie
Din Andrew
1965

If I had to summarize Big Orvie, I'd say it's a bit like Of Mice and Men, just way sleazier and without the mouse petting.  Big Orvie snags you with the sleaze hook from the get-go, as the town floozy is hanging around a gas station, rubbing all over one of the (married) attendants. She moves over to Orvie, who is described as slow and essentially retarded, and sticks her hands down his pants to discover that while he's lacking in the brains department, he certainly isn't in another.

And so begins this odd soap opera in this podunk town. Everyone sleeps around and is generally scum in their own way. The main setting, the gas station, is co-operated by Rad and his partner Flotsky, while Orvie helps out as he can with supervision from Rad, who has watched over him through their entire life from childhood to present.

Unlike Steinbeck's Lennie, Orvie doesn't mean well. He steals from the cash register, manipulates Rad, and even tries to kill Flotsky; yet, somehow Orvie is considered the slow one here. Wife Jo isn't getting any from Flotsky since he's already getting his elsewhere, so she remembers Orvie's massive package and invites him over. They screw for hours, Orvie's endurance seemingly endless. Flotsky comes home to witness this and attacks Orvie, beating him into a corner. Then he goes for his wife, still stuck in sexual nirvana, and beats her with his belt. She's so sexed-up that she gets off on this and they rekindle their relationship. Briefly. Orvie gets fired and heads out to his zealot mother's house, while Flotsky skips town with the aforementioned floozy, leaving his perpetually horney wife and two children at home without any money or food and Rad to man the station -- and eventually his wife.

But Rad has a girlfriend. She's a great gal, a nurse and all, but she just won't put out for Rad, despite his frequent advances. She also quashes his dreams of grandeur of running a chicken farm with Orvie, and instead implores him to become a TV repairman. She promises to remain prude until marriage, and only a TV repairman will do! One night this is too much, so remembering the advances of Jo, he drives over to her house in the middle of the night, thus beginning their sex-fueled fling.

In the meantime, in one of the only genuinely disturbing scenes of the book, Orvie molests an eleven year-old neighbor and is subsequently arrested. Rad bails him out of jail and sends him out of town to start working on the chicken farm. Rad's girlfriend finds out about his affair and they eventually rekindle the relationship, leaving Jo utterly alone without anyone to quench her sexual desires.

So, with no options, it's back to Orvie she goes. She somehow knows where this old farm is and arrives to find Orvie living in squalor, the kitchen covered in trash and dirty dishes full of half-eaten food. Orvie's onto her games and knows what she wants, and Jo is practically begging him to take her to bed. Sensing the desperation, Orvie forces her to drink a murky bowel of leftover food, which is an odd mix of cereal and milk and ketchup and something else. She gags on the filth but keeps it down, winning Orvie over. Again they screw all night, her desires finally fulfilled. But Orvie knows that now that she's satiated she won't return. But he remembers how desperate she was and how he commanded her to drink the bowl of garbage in the kitchen, and soon he realizes what power he has over her and has other ideas, leading to the scene on the cover...

Despite the generally nasty premise, Big Orvie never gets overly graphic. It's all pretty tame compared to what you'd read in an action book from the 70s or 80s, but boooooy is it sleazy. I love these sort of backwoods sexcapades and small-town tomfoolery, so this was naturally a hit with me. Poor Orvie just didn't know any better!

Ambush at Derati Wells (Soldier of Fortune #6)

Ambush At Derati Wells (Soldier of Fortune #6)
Peter McCurtin (Ralph Hayes)
1977

I got a few of the Soldier of Fortune novels for cheap recently, and while I prefer to start with the first, I went ahead and started Ambush at Derati Wells, the sixth in the series, as it sounded the most interesting at the time. I'm glad I did, because I wound up loving it; and, thankfully, they all seem to be self-contained adventures, so I didn't miss out any continuing arc or continuity. Narrated by mercenary Jim Rainey, and that's all I needed to know.

Thanks to Paperback Warrior for the author correction (actually Ralph Hayes and not McCurtin, as on my cover) and excellent review. Ambush is fast and lean, just like I like it. Seems like there was actually some decent research into some of the resident tribes and verbiage of the land Rainey is currently stationed at, which adds nicely to the setting instead of the typical 'mystical' Africa.

Essentially a treasure hunt in the drylands of Africa, with competing hunters and natives along the way. Rainey teams up with a local African lawyer, a big game hunter guide and two of his customers, and a small group of guides and inventory schleppers, a far cry from the group of M-16 totting red-beret soldiers on the cover.

One thing I really appreciated with the narrative is how matter-of-fact it is. While obviously not a realistic novel, it pulls no punches with the mercenary experience. Main characters are dispatched without batting an eye, Rainey aware of what they signed up for, without excessive ruminating on their passing. It's all part of who they are, and it's hardly described as glamorous. You've got the odd, almost forced into the novel sex scene in the middle of the African desert, yeah, but that only leads to an excuse for more savagery and revenge down the road, so I'll take it. Good stuff.

Recent Stuff

Some mini blurbs from things I've enjoyed recently; or, rather simply procrastination from finishing the other, more in-depth reviews for a handful of books I start writing and don't finish for weeks. Certainly someone on the internet needs to review Big Orvie!

Swan Song
Robert McCammon
1987

This monstrous tome always intrigued me due to my infatuation with post-nuke stories. Primarily you'll read others categorizing this as a horror novel since McCammon's name is usually tied to the genre, but it hardly is. It's more Dark Fantasy/Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi if anything, with a slight touch of the demonic at times. I'll rarely touch something this large because it seems unnecessarily so -- and it is -- so I went the audiobook route through Amazon for my relatively short commute, and a form of influence for my gaining midsection to listen while at the gym.

While infinitely long, it moves at a steady pace, never boring and introducing only a handful of characters. It's a pulp epic and I can't see it trying to be anything else, which is a relief, so you don't have that Stephen King level of bloat that permeates his lengthy tomes.

In short, it's about a handful of people surviving after Russian and the U.S. simultaneously bomb each other through Mutually Assured Destruction. The sense of dread and hopeless is palpable, which is where McCammon really succeeds here. When he keeps it grounded into a simple survival story it's great; people struggle for food, fight diseases, and scour the remnants of a dead America. The groups of survivors are strictly categorized into two groups, which is essentially the personification of Good and Evil. Here's where McCammon really loses it for me. It's just too damned silly and black and white for my tastes, almost like a morality tale. Within the first few chapters the conclusion is already apparent and there's no surprises along the way, which really questions the validity of its length.

Still, the good outweighs the bad. Swan Song is pretty nasty and bleak at times, and that's when it prevails, through describing cultish encampments and the war between them, or a supermarket ran by the escaped denizens of an insane asylum. The fantasy, goodie nature of the protagonist though really grates, and McCammon isn't too skilled at dodging the clichés, which reaches an almost unbearable degree near the end. Almost impossible to recommend to read based on its length, but as an audiobook it made a largely entertaining affair that I could get lost in.

Biotherapy
Akihiro Kashima
1986

I really enjoy this great time in the 80s and early 90s in Japan where a string of great, SFX heavy DTV films -- usually at a runtime no longer than an hour -- were coming out on tape. Out of the ones I've seen, they're almost always a great display for quick, pulpy fun, usually showcasing the creative abilities of those involved with monsters, robots, gore, and everything in between.

Biotherapy is especially short, at only 36 minutes. A group of scientists are creating a formula that could potentially wipe out all plankton and completely screw up the world, but they're all getting wiped out in horrible ways by a trenchcoated being that glows blue, via eye-stabbing, stomach-gouging, and even ripping out the intestines.

It's short and sweet, but the narrative at times feels pretty stiff despite such a short runtime, so it almost feels a bit longer than it is, but only by a bit. Another worthy addition to this great period to sit alongside things like Gakidama and Cyber Ninja to name a few.

Original Release Cover

Hostesses in Hell
Russell Gray (Bruno Fischer)
1939

I usually get pretty bummed when there's a "rational" explanation to any sort of pulp stuff, like in Doc Savage or the few Weird Menace stories I've read. If there's a monster or something supernatural, I want it to be a monster or something supernatural, dammit! Needless to say, I was quite pleased when I purchased this wonderful collection from Dancing Tuatara Press through Ramble House, that during the introduction they talk about how those "rational" climaxes were growing stale, and a few writers started amping up the supernatural and violence without logical explanations.

Hostesses in Hell, the first novelette from the collection, is a lot like The Island of Dr. Moreau, except full of naked women, and the beasts that inhabit the island weren't created there. I won't spoil much, but it's basically one guy and his gal and all her babe relatives get on a boat and get lost at sea, then end up on this island. There's a fancy old estate there that's like an insane asylum, except these are all humanoid creatures (that look like slugs, crabs, and snakes) that were kin to rich relatives that paid to put them on this island to be taken care of. This gorgeous woman/creature, whom is basically just a voluptuous beauty with fangs -- and no soul. She's lets all the monsters out and seduces our hero, causing chaos amongst the island, as the monsters run amok, tearing apart naked women. This sort of no-nonsense storytelling is what I live for. Eagerly looking forward to the later stories (and volumes) from Mr. Gray!

Black Samurai #1

Black Samurai  (Black Samurai #1
Marc Olden
1974

I've always been familiar with the Jim Kelly film, Black Samurai, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a book series by the revered Marc Olden, which at this point I still hadn't read anything of. Maybe not a good deal to most for ratty paperbacks, and since these are now available on Amazon in digital editions, but earlier this year I scored all of these in a lot off the 'bay. Price came out to about the price of the digital editions, but I felt it was worth it for my obsessive tangible desires. And the covers are absolutely glorious.

I've just read the first book so far. Didn't blow me away, but it's a solid setup for things to come. Our introduction to the Black Samurai is in Vietnam, where GI Robert Sand sees a group of white GIs bullying a frail Asian man. He intervenes and is shot in the process, seeing the elderly man clean up the scum with inhuman moves. Sand awakens in a different place, his wounds dressed. His savior is naturally a Samurai master, so no surprises what happens from this point on.

The story kicks into gear when a nasty group of terrorists with some world-cleansing ideals raid the dojo, machine-gunning, grenading, and attack-dogging all those inside. Sand and his fellow samurai manage to take a few terrorists with them, but they're ultimately all wiped out, with Sand the only survivor.

The revenge onward is decent, but only a few notable scenes. A lot of sleuthing about and finding the bad dudes, but one particular scene where he invades an outpost at night is pretty good, going as far as decapitating a lookout guy then throwing the head in, convincing the remaining guys inside to just straight up leave in fear!

It's been a couple months since I read this earlier this year, and already my memory of it has sorta diminished, hence the ass review. It was enjoyable and moved fast, but nothing that memorable--sans that glorious decapitation! With the intro exposition out of the way I'm definitely looking forward to the next volume that'll hopefully have a bit more to remember it by, especially the sixth volume with its delightful, cultish cover with whip-wielding midgets.

Zulu Blood (Soldier for Hire #1)

Zulu Blood (Soldier for Hire #1)
Robert Skimin
1981

At a cover glance, Zulu Blood looks like it has it all: a discontent hardass protagonist with the silver likeness of Lee Marvin; people getting shot on the cover; implications of mercenaries; and of course, all taking place presumably in Heart of Darkness Africa, with some sort of pulp Zulu influence. These things are indeed all present, but it was a read that quickly showed its true colors of being quite a slog. I've been coming quite acquainted with Zebra's paperbacks lately; or, more so the size of them. Most of what I own is all horror, and despite somewhat large-ish print, they're still quite the tome. No exception here for their action line, and it certainly reads that way.

Zulu Blood starts off strong with the entertainment, but maybe not in the intentional way. Our hero, JC Stonewall, instantly starts going off on insane page-length rants about America's involvement in the Vietnam War--and not in the generally universal "we shouldn't have been there" view, but more so how we fucked up and didn't do it right. Liberals and commies instantly become interchangeable to hilarious extents. He know his flaws and how his dad was a no good drunk, but goddammit, he was a good American. This sort of comical jingoism permeates the entire novel like classic WWII propaganda posters, which, while funny at first, can start to fluff out the text.

The story stars with JC taking on a job from a white plantation owner in Africa. Her daughter and zany father are missing and, naturally, she's a MILF, which JC takes full advantage of after his brash introduction charms her into submission. Dad and daughter left to join up with a crazy warlord, as they feel like his leadership is good for the area or something, leading JC to bring a few of the Milf's workers with him to infiltrate the camp undercover as a reporter.

The biggest problem with Zulu Blood is that there's not a whole lot of action in between the exposition and sex. When it does happen it's pretty violent, like when JC mows people in half with his Uzi, then unloads the clip into the corpse while screaming a rebel yell. I'd take that stuff all day, but it's fairly sparse. A large portion of the book is spent arguing politics, like complaining about women's liberation and 'Red' China. JC's old buddy, a black fellow, appears partway through the book, which JC jokingly calls racial epithets at every chance he can get -- since they're such good buds and all. It's all pretty absurd, and while I do love this sort of insane writing it really grates through, simply because there's just so goddamn much of it, at times reading like actual propaganda. And yeah, I could obviously bat an eye at this and chuckle, but there's simply not enough action to balance it out. There's sponge-baths and blowjobs and some ritual torture, but even the finale lacks a good action resolution at the end of this padded monster.

I won't throw in the towel just yet on Stonewall. Some of these other volumes by other writers sound a bit better, but I probably won't be going out of my way to find any anytime soon. The recent library sale held one volume of the series, but sadly it was just Zulu Blood again. We'll see what the future holds for Solder for Hire.

Gannon 1: Blood for Breakfast

Blood for Breakfast (Gannon #1)
Dean Ballenger
1973

Ohhhhh man, this was good. I've been on a chase for this for a good while now, first seeing it on the amazing Glorious Trash, then shortly after seeing writer/director Craig S. Zahler review it on Goodreads. I haven't read any of his books yet, but so far I've been enjoying his film output, especially Brawl in Cell Block 99. Naturally, like all things I read about and want, it's terribly rare and expensive. Patience eventually paid off (I wasn't patient; I looked it up almost daily) and eventually a copy surfaced from some random little shop in a different state. Then I said fuck it and dropped way too much money on the other two, but I've convinced myself that it was worth it.

Blood for Breakfast is a real anomaly. It's hardboiled crime set in the 70s, but it retains all the wacky character names and slang dialogue from something like Dick Tracy, but with that 70s sleaze and violence you know and love. Some shithead affluent teens rape a young girl, and despite people seeing it, everyone remains quiet like someone behind the scenes is paying some hush money or issuing out threats. Brother Gannon, a real hardass and ex-soldier hears about this from his Dad and gets furious and decides to leave. He tells his boss he'll be back and he's got some stuff to settle, so the boss gives him a pair of spiked knuckles to get some answers.

Gannon comes to town and starts throwing down some hard cash in some seedy places to get some answers, and when people give him shit he starts throwing those spiked knuckles around, tearing flesh off of faces and even ears. Everyone that comes across Gannon talks to him like a prohibition era cartoon thug, but they all concede because he's a fuckin' tiger, which is frequently repeated. In between searches he gets really horny and finds women to have sex with to calm him down, a bad trait he admits to that eventually causes him some trouble. But he can't help himself, like in one scene: "He grabbed a couple handful of boobs, nice firm absolutely no-sag boobs" before leaving her apartment to go hunt down more thugs. A man after my own heart.

This just never lets up; I haven't read anything like it. When I read something like Mike Hammer I'm always sad the sex is off page and the violence is so tame, but in this it gets downright nasty. Which is perfect. Mike Hammer would strongarm people and talk trash, but Gannon busts into an office and calls a lady, which is frequently narrated as a 'lesbian', to "Shut up, you officious bitch or I'll tear off your tits and slap your face with them!"

I won't go too crazy into the plot, but I read almost the entire thing one sitting and didn't want it to end. Hopefully someday these will at least get a digital collection. I'm not counting on it, but maybe Zahler can make it happen if he keeps it up.

The Touch of Hell

Original British cover that's fairly accurate.

The Touch of Hell          
Michael R. Linaker
1981

I really love chaos in fiction. Things exploding, people running around in a daze, everyone just trying to survive from this sudden disaster or whatever incident. I like the little scenes and descriptions that compliment the chaos, like this random dude in in Richard Laymon's One Rainy Night that runs out in the street and shoots an arrow at the protagonist's car, then disappears; or how when Anthony Edward's character in Miracle Mile returns back to the diner where it all started and it's in ruin, the people gone now and a coyote by the bar. Irwin Allen's big productions, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno really excelled at this too, especially with how it dispatches its big name cast without warning. And nothing really compares to those two in film. There's obvious budget constraints to all these practical things falling apart and exploding (just look at the horrible elevator effect in Earthquake), but modern disaster films skip the random group of people. It's usually a family or a small group, and from the get-go you know who's going to survive, so there's no impact or emotion when someone bites it.

So yeah, novels are where it's at in that regard for the most part, and I've been fancying a lot of British stuff lately where chaos runs amok, like Nick Sharman's kids on the rampage novel, Childmare, and the heart of this review/rant, Michael R. Linaker's The Touch of Hell, where people do indeed bite it.

The Touch of Hell takes place entirely in a small English village, so it's more low-scale disaster I suppose, but the small village/small town trope is always an arrow to my heart. You get your introductions to this guy and that girl and their little going-ons for a few brief chapters, then disaster strikes. A monstrous American cargo plane suffers some sort of malfunction and crashes straight through the village during a traffic jam. Cars and semis are flung every which way, houses topple and crumble, and a giant jet fuel conflagration breaks out in the city, instantly immolating almost all in its path. The scene is terrible: bodies blackened and fused to their melted cars, buildings completely destroyed or in flames, and families and sexed-up affairs separated through the confusion.

Really bizarre cover, and the version I have. Makes it look like this dude  caused the entire catastrophe.

Before long the military is called in, but it's not just for cleanup efforts. Something was in that American plane, and its gotta be contained before it spreads to the neighboring villages and London. Well, someone gets ahold of whatever it is, and pretty soon it starts to slowly spread. Think Emil from Robocop, all boiled up and mutated and falling apart, shambling around the street, and that's a pretty good description of what happens to a select few that come in contact with the stuff.

And that's where it unfortunately drops off a bit. The disaster doesn't reach full-scale dreamworld chaos that I desired, where bubonic mutant folk descend onto London. It's more of a countdown to containing this so it all doesn't go to hell, with most of the madness ending after the initial explosion/conflagration.

But not to be too harsh, because it's a quick read, and for the most part it delivers the goods, with descriptions of lovers being smashed under concrete and hardass military men having to gun down their best buds after they contract the bad stuff. I guess I always want things to go south and never come up for air.