Kamikaze Justice

Six-Gun Samurai #4: “Kamikaze Justice” by Patrick Lee (Mark Roberts). Thomas James Fletcher joined the Navy as a young boy, but while in Japan he is alone and struggling to survive when a powerful samurai takes him under his wing. For the next twenty years he is trained as a Samurai warrior. A letter from home tells him of the problems plaguing his family in Georgia, and he returns to seek vengeance upon Colonel Edward Hollister, the leader of a renegade commander and his troops, raiding and pillaging, killing and raping. As an American, raised in the land of the Shogun and trained as a warrior knight in Japan, he’s now known as Tanaka Tom Fletcher and bound by the Samurai code of the Bushido to a bloody vendetta against the Yankee marauders who slaughtered his family in Georgia. He must carry out his mission to its ultimate conclusion – the destruction of his enemies or himself. This is the basic premise of the backstory and series. As long as Colonel Hollister eludes him, the series will continue, I guess. But in each story he finds one of the ex-members of the 251^st Ohio Regiment, and must kill them to get closer to Hollister. In this current story, he has trailed ex-lieutenant Ashton to the valley of Yellow Creek, where Ashton has set up a religious cult, keeping everyone drugged while he takes their money and has his way with the young girls. He brings gunslingers in as Deacons to keep everyone in line. In the meantime two bounty hunters are following the Six-Gun Samurai from San Francisco, hoping to the get the reward money. So Tanaka Tom is caught between Ashton gunmen and the bounty hunters while trying to stop Ashton and protect the young girls. Well, this is men’s action adventure, so we don’t really need to expect much in way of plot. Just throw in enough action and sex, and the readers are satisfied. The author appeared to be an excellent writer and could be writing better material than this. As it is, I believe three different writers wrote the series, so there wasn’t any problem finding writers to churn out this stuff. Literature it isn’t, but that’s not what it intended, and it succeeded.

Gundown At Golden Gate

Six-Gun Samurai #3: “Gundown At Golden Gate” by Patrick Lee (William Fieldhouse). Thomas James Fletcher joined the Navy as a young boy, but while in Japan he is alone and struggling to survive when a powerful Samurai takes him under his wing. For the next twenty years he is trained as a Samurai. A letter from home tells him of the problems plaguing his family in Georgia, and he returns to seek vengeance upon Colonel Edward Hollister, the leader of a renegade commander and his troops, raiding and pillaging, killing and raping. As an American, raised in the land of the Shogun and trained as a warrior knight in Japan, he’s now known as Tanaka Tom Fletcher and bound by the Samurai code of the Bushido to a bloody vendetta against the Yankee marauders who slaughtered his family in Georgia. He must carry out his mission to its ultimate conclusion – the destruction of his enemies or himself. This is the basic premise of the backstory and series. In this current story Tanaka Tom Fletcher’s quest for vengeance has led him to San Francisco, where an agent of his archenemy, Colonel Hollister, is running for mayor of the great city. Tanaka Tom intends to terminate his campaign. However, there is a violent power struggle between the forces of the corrupt politicians and the ruthless blue dragon tong society, and Fletcher finds himself in the middle of two warring factions – and both sides want him dead. This is a silly plot for a western series, but good writing for the most part. Don’t expect much characterization, but there is plenty of action.

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 Disappearance of Flight 412

The Disappearance of Flight 412, featuring Glen Ford as Colonel Pete Moore and David Soul as Captain Roy Bishop. This is a 1974 TV Movie that I must have missed back in the day, and I wonder how widely it was distributed. At Whitney AFB, a Radar Test Group, their aircraft have been experiencing electrical problems lately, and a plane crew of four men, piloted by Captain Roy Bishop, are sent up to test their plane when three bogies appear on their radar scope, as well as ground radar. Marine jets are sent up to investigate and disappear, then Flight 412 is ordered by Digger Control, an SID team to an abandoned military base where they are held prisoners while being “debriefed”. Colonel Moore is upset that his men have been spirited away from him and follows the plane by radar, eventually discovering where they are being held and takes his aide to retrieve the men. They are met by Colonel Troutman, in charge of the SID Team, who claims National Security, and holds them until he’s satisfied the men will not reveal what they know about the UFO incident. This was an interesting story, actually filmed on a couple AF Bases that shows the cover up of UFO incidents by the military. I’m not sure how they got this filmed, as there were lots of incidents during this time period involving UFOs over restricted areas containing both missiles and aircraft loaded with nuclear weapons. Although part documentary, the UFOs are only seen on radar, and some black and white film from old reports are presented. This is basically a character study of the men involved in the incident, and Glen Ford and David Soul are excellent, as are the rest of the cast. This was a very enjoyable movie.

Death Is My Shadow

Death Is My Shadow by Edward S. Aarons:  Pete Byrum is home after being called up for Naval maneuvers for six months. His partner in The Pelican, a club and casino they own in Oswanda, Louisiana, has been arrested for murder, and the syndicate’s man, Alden Thayer, is now running the casino. Pete wants the club back, but the syndicate now controls the town, the sheriff, and his lawyer, and the deck is stacked against him. Pete Helps his partner escape jail when he discovers the man he’s suspected of murdering is really alive. Now Pete is wanted for the man’s murder, while his partner runs away with Thayer’s wife and the syndicate’s money. This was really a good story, and had all the backstory for what would eventually be Aarons’ later Assignment spy series, featuring Sam Durell.

The Skin Swindle

Ninja Master #7: “The Skin Swindle” by Wade Barker (Unknown). Brett Hartley reads a newspaper article about pornography in Los Angeles, and the mysterious Porn King that runs the network of smut films and kiddie porn, and decides he wants to put a stop to it. He brings his pal, Jeff Archer with him from San Francisco, and he sets up a meeting with the reporter, Samantha Loring to get inside information, pretending to be a reporter from Japan. The story is long and boring, the first 75 pages is nothing but the set up, describing child pornography, and is so badly written I wonder how it was ever considered for publication. 7 to 10-year-old kids talk like children one minute and adults the next. But, then, pornography does sale, and that’s basically all this was. We do see some martial arts later on, but it was laughable, and I’m still wondering why Jeff Archer was included. He never did anything right. Maybe he was just there to show how good Brett Hartley is? This isn’t worth reading, so save your money. It should have been titled The Book Swindle.