Dirty Harry #03 - The Long Death

I had failed to find any enjoyment with the first two Dirty Harry installments, Duel for Cannons and Death on the Docks. However, I read the fourth and fifth installments, The Mexico Kill and Family Skeletons, and found the series had started to come into its own, a separate entity from the film franchise that inspired it. I had missed The Long Death, the third entry, in my early reading, but was happy when I located a copy. Was it the novel that converted this series from mediocre to great? 

The Long Death, authored by Ric Meyers (Ninja Master) as Dane Hartman, is a fun novel that soaks in all of the action-film formulas that were thriving at the box office at the time of publication. In fact, Meyers even delves into one of the other hot commodities of 1980s Hollywood, the beloved slasher genre. Meyers references films like Halloween and Mother's Day, as well as the Italian Giallo scene led by the likes of Dario Argento. In the book's first chapter, the author zeroes in on some really disturbing shock tactics to setup Dirty Harry's opponent, a child sex-trafficking ring.

A film student named Barbara is captured by a couple of masked men and taken to a secluded shed. Here she is tied with hundreds of restraints (seriously) and drugged. Somehow, she ends up escaping but is later recaptured and dragged to a macabre sex show where she is brutally raped to death. Some of these scenes made me very uncomfortable. At the same time, I was begging – pleading – for Dirty Harry to blow these monsters to smithereens. It was one of the most effective first chapters of recent memory.

Meyers uses low-hanging fruit for this novel, a crazy “race war” plot device that has been used by so many of these paperback action titles like The Enforcer and Narc. In this one, the traffickers are setting up a local black militant group as the mastermind behind their operation. The militants, fearing the feds will prosecute them for crimes they didn't commit, immediately go into defense mode, a sequence that lights up the city with violence and police action. None of it really matters that much. We all bought the book to read about Harry putting bullets in brains. By the book's end, the body count is a bloody tower.

The book is highlighted by Harry fighting an active shooter on a college campus. Another long scene has him shooting it out with criminals in an aquarium. As an enjoyable bonus, one of the baddies gets eaten by a shark. The book's finale has Harry in a gunfight with the traffickers in a film studio before the action transitions to an island fortress. I found this final fight interesting, as Meyers will do the same thing again in the next book, The Mexico Kill, as Harry penetrates an island fortress. Weird. 

Some cool references are made to the Dirty Harry film The Enforcer, and the character's famous quote of “do you feel lucky” from the original. Also, Meyers mentions “Any Which Way but Loose” when describing one character, an obvious reference to the 1978 Clint Eastwood film. Also, the author has some book fun by throwing in a character's name as Roy Henkel, probably homage to the great Roy Krenkel, an American illustrator who painted several paperback covers. He also includes a doctor named Steve Rogers (Captain America).  

The Long Death is absolutely ridiculous, but effective. This is cartoon Dirty Harry performing somersaults and leaps through the air, firing on the run and rarely missing. It's pointless and trashy, but damn, it is just so enjoyable. I want to read every Dirty Harry book now. Sign me up for more senseless fun!

Get The Long Death HERE.

Dirty Harry #04 - The Mexico Kill

I've had mixed reactions thus far of Warner Books' 12-book paperback series Dirty Harry. These books, published between 1981 and 1983, were authored by Leslie Alan Horvitz and Ric Meyers using the pseudonym of Dane Hartman. The series is based on the film character Harry Callahan, a fictional San Francisco detective portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, and The Enforcer. 

In the opening pages of The Mexico Kill, the title's fourth installment, a five-man crew of a fishing trawler called the Hyacinth spot a distressed boat in the Pacific. As they approach the disabled ship they are told that something is wrong with the fuel line and the boat's passengers are needing a lift back to port. Once the passengers are moved aboard the Hyacinth they all pull out guns and overtake the small fishing crew. The whole thing was a violent ruse to steal a boat. 

The Hyacinth is owned by one of Callahan's old friends, a guy named Harold. Harold goes to Harry and explains that his fishing trawler went missing and has now been spotted in a local dock sporting a new name and a paint job. In a previous chapter, Harry gets into a gunfight and is suspended by the department while an investigation concludes. So, with nothing left to do Harry takes the case to investigate his friend's snafu with the boat job. 

The Mexico Kill is a rare look for a Dirty Harry book – nautical adventure. It came as a surprise to find Harry aboard a fishing trawler headed into Mexico to bait a group of smugglers preying on fishermen. There's a backstory with Harry's connection to Harold's wife and their upcoming divorce that eventually connects smoothly to the initial investigation that has Harry suspended. But, readers are here for action and this one delivers sinking ships, drug runners, a fortified Kingpin mansion, and enough targets for Harry to point his big 'ole .44 at. 

Admittedly, Dirty Harry got off to a real bad beginning with the first two installments. But, the fifth book, Family Skeletons, I found entertaining and now it is more of the same value and quality here with The Mexico Kill. Maybe this whole “make my day” thing is working out quite nicely. Recommended!

Get the book HERE.

Dirty Harry #05 - Family Skeletons

Warner Books released the 12 episodes of the action-adventure series for men Dirty Harry between 1981 and 1983. These novels can be read in any sequence and are based on the character of the three movies Dirty Harry, Magnum Force and The Enforcer. The works are written under the house name of Dane Hartman by the authors Leslie Alan Horvitz and Ric Meyers. Mostly the series is panned by readers, but I still feel compelled to read an installment every few years. Maybe I'm attracted by the artwork. 

In Family Skeletons, the fifth novel in the Dirty Harry series, San Francisco detective Harry Callahan decides to take a holiday in Boston. While this trip allows Harry to escape the fight against the West Coast villains, it will not come without an aura of mystery. Linda, Harry's cousin, asked him to travel to Boston to investigate a religious cult called The Unitarian Church. This cult recruited Linda's daughter, Shanna.   

Through the book's violent narrative, a Boston serial killer plagues the college campus of the church, eventually killing a number of students that have ties to Shanna and other Unitarian members. Harry befriends a Boston homicide detective assigned to the case and they work together to find the killer. As Harry's suspect list narrows, he finds quarrels with the Callahan family – Linda's husband disagrees with Harry's involvement and wants him out of the city. Is he the killer or just a violent stumbling block? 

There is actually a lot to like about family skeletons in comparison to previous installments that left me feeling dissatisfied. Whether this is Horvitz or Meyers, the writing is an upgrade from the standard drivel associated with the series. There is an abundance of action and violence while Harry fights a number of villains through the most violent areas of Boston. Before the twisted ending of the book, there is a shootout and a chase that puts Harry's. 44 against a few shotguns in a grocery store. Suspending unbelief, I soaked everything up and had a great time.   

Family Skeletons isn't a literary masterpiece. It's not even as good as a low-shelf, later Mack Bolan installment. But it is entertaining and jammed with action and mystery. I was surprised by the quality and gained a new respect for this series. I'm destined to read more. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

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Dirty Harry #02 - Death on the Docks

After the third Dirty Harry film, The Enforcer, star actor Clint Eastwood announced he would no longer contribute to the film franchise. The studio, Warner Brothers, decided that fans of these flicks would still be willing to shell out cash for more of the character's adventures. Under their publishing brand of Men of Action (S-Com, C.A.T.S.), the studio licensed 12 paperbacks starring Dirty Harry himself, Lieutenant Harry Callahan. The house name was Dane Hartman, but in reality the books were authored by Richard S. Meyers (1953- ) and Leslie Alan Horvitz (1948- ). Strategic marketing created striking, illustrated book covers to lure men's action-adventure readers like myself. I happened upon the series second installment, Death on the Docks, published in 1981.

A San Francisco labor union called Local 242 of the Brotherhood of Longshoremen has found itself in a political upheaval. The union is led by a vile criminal named Braxton. A candidate to the union's presidency, Tuber, hopes to wrest control from Braxton, but those attempts are quickly flushed in the novel's opening pages. In a violent crescendo, Braxton has hitmen kill Tuber and his family. Problem solved...until Callahan is called in to lead the murder investigation.

In what becomes a familiar pattern, Callahan is handed various clues in haphazard fashion from shallow characters that have a one or two chapter lifespan. The author doesn't attempt to create a mystery or develop a story in which Callahan, and readers, slowly solve the crime. Instead, the chapters just feature Callahan being directed to various locales – bar, dock, store, house - and shooting a criminal. When the action is exported to a small Caribbean island, where Braxton has fled, the climax comes in baby steps that fail to deliver an explosive, plausible or satisfying conclusion.

In short, Death on the Docks is like one of those dives located south of the Mason-Dixon Line that swears they have real New York pizza. After a few bites you realize it's just a soggy, messy imitation. No validity. It's just not authentic. On sample size, these novels aren't of the same quality as the film franchise. They won't "make your day"...only ruin it.

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Dirty Harry #01 - Duel for Cannons

I’d put off reading this for nearly a year because I had a premonition that it wouldn’t be very good. I was right.

A vacationing Texas lawman gets gunned down in California, and “Dirty Harry” Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department thinks it was an assassination. It was indeed, and as Harry investigates further, a big conspiracy emerges involving an evil Texas businessman who’s got the whole San Antonio police department on his payroll, including its crooked chief. Those who don’t go along get killed by the businessman’s favorite assassin. Harry goes after them all, and you can guess how things end up.

The story has potential, and Dirty Harry is a terrific character, but somehow this book never got in gear for me. I didn’t care for the style of author Ric Meyers (using the name Dane Hartman), who writes as if he’s reading a screenplay and adapting it shot-by-shot into a novel. The result is that action sequences go on way too long, with lengthy descriptions of the physical landscape and details of each participant’s every motion. It’s always way more information than you need. For example, the book opens with the assassin killing that vacationing lawman. That simple sequence takes fourteen pages to describe.

Most of the story takes place in San Antonio, where Harry tries to rescue its last remaining honest lawman, who’s been kidnapped by the villains. This leads to a series of drawn-out gun battles in which nothing gets resolved. It also leads to Harry sleeping with the lawman’s worried wife (huh?), which I guess gives him something to do between gunfights. 

Weirdly, Harry then teams up with the assassin to invade the businessman’s mansion and kill him. After that battle, there’s a brief layover until the book’s final shoot-out, in which Harry and the assassin try to kill each other. This occurs at the Alamo, apparently after the tourists have gone home but before anyone locks up for the night, as Harry walks right through the front door for his gunfight appointment.

What follows is a lot of shooting until the ammo runs low, and then we come to the one scene in the book that I loved. It’s a reversal of the famous scene in the original movie, in which Harry levels his Magnum at a cringing low-life and gives that little speech ending with “You have to ask yourself a question: do I feel lucky?” This time it’s Harry who’s looking up at that lethal barrel, and it’s a terrific scene. Unfortunately we have to slog through 98.5% of an uninspired book to get there, but at least there’s that.