The Year of The Tiger

Kung Fu Mace #1: The Year of The Tiger by Lee Chang (Joseph Rosenberger). Mace is in California, visiting his from Hong Kong. His uncle, Ho Wing owns a fishing boat, and the California Mafia has been threatening him. If he doesn’t use his boat to meet the Hercules at sea, and bring a shipment of heroin to shore, they will hurt his family. Mace, a kung fu master is forced to deal with the Mafia. If I hadn’t already known the author of this series was Rosenberger, he leaves a clue with the name of one of the button men, Rosenbacker. Rosenberger is also the author of THE DEATH MERCHANT, who kills hundreds of people per story, and Kung Fu Mace is no different, except that instead of using guns and explosives to kill people, he uses his deadly hands. The body count is the same, however. I would swear Rosenbacker died at least two times in the story, but so many bodies were piling up, it’s hard to say for sure. In truth, the writing was terrible. The plot was weak. The fight scenes silly. What else can I say about it?

The Death Merchant

The Death Merchant #1: “The Death Merchant” by Joseph Rosenberger. Richard Camellion, known as The Death Merchant, works for the Chicago mob boss, Capo Big Tony.  When the FBI arrests James “Fats” Regolanto, Big Tony is afraid he will talk to save his own skin. It’s time for his hit man, The Death Merchant to find where the Feds are keeping Fats, and kill him. But there’s a leak in Big Tony’s family, and the Feds are out to get Camellion at all costs. I’ve read a few later issues in this series, and was expecting this to be much more violent than it was. In the future stories, The Death Merchant is killing from page number one, but in this story we’re almost to page 50 before he starts killing. Yes, after he starts, the killing is very violent. In this one, too, we see Camellion’s thoughts about the inequality among races, and how much racial prejudice there is. But I believe he becomes more a racist in the later stories, though I may be wrong. Still, this is probably the tamer book of the series. Since I collect the first issue in every series, this book was necessary for my collection, and the only issue I will keep. I will also be using this Blog to post small reviews of Aggressor novels as I read them, so if you like the men's action books join the Blog for future reads.