A Savage World Without Mercy

BLOOD OATH is the second of Leisure Books' surprisingly long-running series of men's adventure novels about Mafia-killing madman Johnny Rock aka the Sharpshooter. Published in October 1973, it's also one of the sloppiest, and that's saying a helluva lot for one of literature's all-time sloppiest series.

Peter McCurtin wrote the initial book, THE KILLING MACHINE, under Leisure's "Bruno Rossi" house name. When Russell Smith came in to pen the sequel, he jettisoned all the established facts and open storylines McCurtin had created. John Rocetti is now named John Roccoletti (subsequent books would go back to Rocetti), and Iris Toscano is gone and replaced by a new character named Jane (more on her in a moment).

As with other books in the Sharpshooter series, BLOOD OATH is plagued with editorial mistakes due to having been intended as an entry in Belmont Tower's Marksman series. Rock is occasionally called "Magellan" (the name of the Marksman), and Jane is introduced twice as Terri White, the Marksman's romantic interest. Honestly, these characters exist only to be abused and raped, which happens to Jane near the end of BLOOD OATH and to Terri in HEADHUNTER.

It's pretty clear that Smith was just making shit up as he goes along. He has Rock kidnap a policeman and two journalists, strip them, photograph them, and bound in an attic, which is where they still are at the end of BLOOD OATH with no indication of what Rock plans to do with the photos. Smith builds up to a big violent climax, which takes place mainly off-page with the nastiest villain being dispatched in a throwaway sentence on the last of 156 pages.

Plot finds the Sharpshooter renting a country home near the small town of Xenia, New York, where he discovers Mafioso Attilio Fanzago has set up an estate. As mobsters go, Fanzago ain't bad. He deals only in merchandise like electric typewriters and eschews dope and prostitution. Still, he's Mobbed up, so Rock hates him and has to destroy him. Which he does in the most hamfisted and juvenile prose possible.

Did I enjoy BLOOD OATH? Well, yeah.

The Sharpshooter: The Killing Machine by Bruno Rossi

THE KILLING MACHINE is the first of sixteen explosive novels about the violent exploits of the Sharpshooter. Before he was the Sharpshooter, Johnny Rock was Johnny Rocetti, who ran a clothing-design firm with his family. In this 1973 Leisure Books story, we learn Rock's origin: how his family was killed by the Mafia when they refused to throw in with the Mob. Bad enough Rock's father and mother were bombed to death, but when his brother, nephew, and sister are shot down by gangsters while leaving their parents' funeral, that's when Johnny snaps.

Forgoing his former life as Rocetti, Rock now lives only to kill. He meets Iris Toscano, who would return in a later book. A Mafia widow, she also despises the Syndicate and volunteers to spy for Johnny, learning from other Mob wives the whens and wheres of illegal transactions, information she passes along to the Sharpshooter so he can be there to kill.

The author is Peter McCurtin, who wrote tons of trashy novels under several different names and even worked as an editor for Belmont Towers for awhile. Several men penned Sharpshooter novels using the Bruno Rossi name, but McCurtin could be considered the creator of the series. Rock is actually called the Enforcer a few times in this book, so perhaps that was to be the character's original nickname?

THE KILLING MACHINE is not as crazy as some Sharpshooters to come. In future installments, Rock would become downright psychotic, living only to kill mobsters. Later novels also boasted amazingly lurid titles, like HEAD CRUSHER, MUZZLE BLAST, and SAVAGE SLAUGHTER, and juicy cover art to match. THE KILLING MACHINE is worth reading, if only to see how it all began for the Sharpshooter, but it isn't among the series' best.

Torch Of Vengeance

Johnny Rock returns in STILETTO, Leisure's ninth Sharpshooter novel, and he has a supporting cast this time. Iris Toscano, Rock's lady friend from the first Sharpshooter book, is back to assist Johnny on his mission to murder as many mobsters as he can. Also, his uncle Vito joins the crusade after Vito's wife is killed in a barrage of bullets meant for her nephew.

The plot, which may have been written by Peter McCurtin, who introduced both Johnny and Iris in the first book, KILLING MACHINE, meanders for 215 pages, but still manages to be less sloppy than most previous entries. I wouldn't be surprised if STILETTO was intended to be two separate adventures, but Leisure and/or McCurtin decided to push them together. The fact that I don't think any actual stilettos appear in the book leave me wondering too.

Rock (formerly John Rocetti, who hunts the Mafia as revenge for the murders of his family) starts out by planning the destruction of one million gallons of stolen gasoline the Mob has stashed away in the woods of New Jersey. After several pretty cool chases and shootouts, some of which are quite graphic and approach Death Merchant levels, Rock and Vito end up pursing a Mafia gunrunning operation.

It's too long and feels padded in spots--particularly a few pages in which Rock and Vito talk about their shotgun shells and where they shot them--but STILETTO is one of the better Sharpshooter entries I've encountered so far. I recently managed to land the entire Sharpshooter series in one lot for a mere $1.00, so I'm looking forward to catching up with them.

Scent Of Blood

The Sharpshooter returns in MUZZLE BLAST (Leisure, 1974), #6 of the series and one of the sloppiest novels I've ever read. If author "Bruno Rossi" (who may have been Russell Smith in this case) spent more than a couple of days on this, I'd be surprised. It runs only 147 pages…and just fucking…stops. The plot isn't resolved, the hero's friends are missing…the book just ends in the middle of an action scene. It's like Rossi was given a 48-hour deadline, and this is as far as he got. It's bad enough that the writing is clumsy and the editing horrid (seriously, the name "Magellan" appears in place of "Rock," the Sharpshooter's name, close to a dozen times), but to leave the reader so unfulfilled at the end is unforgivable.

MUZZLE BLAST is not even as violent or sexy as its predecessors. The basic plot, which doesn't make much sense, finds Johnny Rock in Boston, where he convinces a Chinese antique dealer who traffics in drugs, Po Yi-po, that he has a shipment of heroin to sell. This story point doesn't go anywhere. Po Yi-po is being shaken down by some Boston cops who are in league with the Italian mob. This doesn't go anyplace either. Rock ends up in Provincetown with Po Yi-po's nympho business partner, Mai-Lin, and Mike Welsch, a sensitive Irish painter and old friend. Rock uses an Uzi on a crooked cop that separates his limbs and head from his body, which is the most violent thing that happens.

Really, this book is a mess, and I can't recommend it. The next book, HEADCRUSHER, is quite badass, though, so perhaps Leisure called on a different author. If nothing else, the Sharpshooter books have great titles.

King Of The Mafia

Bruno Rossi returns with another adventure of the bloodthirsty Sharpshooter in book #5 of Leisure's long-running series (at least fifteen of them). NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINS is Johnny Rock at his most unhinged. As I wrote in an earlier post, the Sharpshooter is the only men's adventure hero I've yet stumbled across who is absolutely psychotic, and NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINS is a great example of that. Rossi (reputedly Leonard Levinson) barely invents a plot for this novel, and is content to describe Rock roaming around Miami Beach blasting the shit out of mobsters. Sometimes he goes to elaborate lengths to plan a job, as when he obtains scuba equipment and swims out to a Mafia casino ship that he robs and then explodes. But sometimes he'll just be walking down a hotel corridor and shoot the first two guys who come along.

Rock, who became an Executioner wannabe after his family was murdered by the Mafia, isn't afraid of big fish, setting his sights on Vincent Pancaldo, the godfather of Miami and the last of several dozen corpses the Sharpshooter leaves in Florida. Blunt and lean with no filling, NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINS is as straightforward as the genre gets, leaving little room for arty flourishes or flowery exposition. Another thing I like about the Lancer Sharpshooter books is the covers, which are unfortunately unsigned, but definitely succeed in catching the reader's eye.

Oozing Corpse

One thing I've noticed about the "hero" of Bruno Rossi's Sharpshooter novels. Although many of these men's adventure protagonists seem singleminded in their pursuit of violent justice, the Sharpshooter is downright psychotic. Johnny Rocetti aka Johnny Rock lives only to kill Mafioso. He eats, he sleeps, he sexes up women, but only out of basic animal needs. The only thing in the world Rock gives a shit about is killing mobsters. I mean, that's it. He's practically the most bloodthirsty hero I've read, and that tone is definitely carried out on Leisure Books' covers. Blood drenches nearly every corner of these scummy paperbacks, and "Rossi's" blunt force trauma of a writing style matches.

Several different authors are suspected of being Rossi at various times, but THE WORST WAY TO DIE is reportedly the work of Leonard Levinson, about whom I know nothing (but would like to). Published by Leisure in 1974, it finds Rock storming through Little Italy, where he's ambushed by a mobster he calls Snake Eyes, who roughs him up and sends him off to die. Only Rock escapes, and makes it to the home of an old family friend, a physician, who patches him up. The doctor's daughter, during Rock's recuperation, teaches him the art of makeup, which he uses to disguise himself as a homeless man (they were called bums back then), so he can sack out on the street and case the hangouts of his next targets.

Lots of violence, some blunt and unerotic sex, and plenty of gore mark this Sharpshooter adventure, which ends rather abruptly, as though Levinson/Rossi reached his deadline or his page count earlier than he expected.

A Sea Of Blood

The Sharpshooter returns in BLOOD BATH, which is a book so badass that it needed an incredibly badass cover to hold it together. Seriously, will you look at that cover? That fact that it never happens in the book is no reason to not love it.

#3 in Leisure's Sharpshooter series is even better than HEAD CRUSHER, which is #7, but I read it first (it was the only Sharpshooter I had at the time). Even stretched out to 200 pages, BLOOD BATH is relentless in its violence and sleaze. The Sharpshooter is Johnny Rock, who was John Rocetti in HEAD CRUSHER, but is strangely John Roccoletti here. Former Green Beret in Vietnam, Rock swore to destroy the Mafia when he returned home to discover his family had been murdered by them. Johnny Rock doesn't give a shit about anything in the world, except killing Mafia bastards. And he does it a lot.

In BLOOD BATH, he strikes fear into New Jersey mobsters by systematically kidnapping people peripherally involved with them and then torturing or frightening information out of them. One of his victims is an innocent lover of a low-level mobster, a woman with no direct connection to the Mob, but Rock still snatches her, strips her, ties her up, feeds her, and periodically tosses a severed arm or leg from one of his murder victims into a nearby rat cage to gain a psychological edge.

Another kidnap victim is the hot wife of a particularly sadistic hitman, Alfredo Sordi. Rock demands that Sordi turn himself into the FBI, or his wife is dead, leading to a creepy scene where Rock handcuffs her to another mobster and then cuts him apart with an Uzi until she's lying there with the dude's bloody arm hanging from her wrist.

The Sharpshooter books were written, reportedly, by several different authors under the guise of "Bruno Rossi." Paul Hofrichter may have penned this one. Whoever it was must have also been writing Belmont Tower's Marksman books, because the name "Magellan" occasionally appears in lieu of "Rock". Way to go, editors.

Vengeance!

On some level, you have to admire a book titled HEADCRUSHER. There is certainly little doubt as to what kind of reading you'll be getting. And HEADCRUSHER, published by Leisure in 1974, lives up to its name, even though there's no head-crushing in it. Head-shooting, oh yes, but no heads are crushed.

The Sharpshooter is John Rocetti, whose father and mother were gunned down by mobsters when Mr. Rocetti refused to allow the Mafia to use his small family business as a front. At the Rocettis' funeral, the mob struck again, killing John's brother and sister and sending him to the hospital. During his lengthy healing process, John swore to avenge his family by killing as many Mafia bastards as he could before they eventually got to him.

Now known as Johnny Rock, the Sharpshooter is drinking in a Manhattan bar when he overhears a couple of mooks talking about how they were involved in the Rocetti killing years ago. I know, lucky, right? Rock blows them away, but not before learning the number-one guy in the hit was Mackie Malanga, owner of a massage parlor and porno theater on Times Square. Rock ends up undercover as Mackie's main henchman during a massive gang war, in which the Sharpshooter manages to kill dozens of "Mafia bastards" (as he puts it) while learning which don put out the contract on the Rocettis.

Tightly written and grimy as hell, HEADCRUSHER hits the spot if you're looking for violent urban thrills with an anti-hero that isn't difficult to root for, even though he's not always careful about keeping civilians out of harm's way. If an innocent bystander is killed while Rock is mowing down a bunch of mobsters, so be it.

Apparently, several staff writers were "Bruno Rossi", including Peter McCurtin, Russell Smith, Leonard Levinson, John Stevenson and Paul Hofrichter. I don't know if any of them wrote HEADCRUSHER, but I was impressed by the author's lean pulp style.