Super Cop Joe Blaze: The Thrill Killers by Robert Novak

THE THRILL KILLERS plays more like an hour-long TV episode than a novel. Its thin plot pits macho lone-wolf detective Joe Blaze against a pair of rich, spoiled young medical interns who get their kicks raping and murdering pretty nurses. The level of violence and graphic sleaze is far above what you'd see on television, even now, but otherwise, there isn't much in this 1974 Belmont Tower novel to surprise you. Par for the course during this era of men's adventure novels, the criminals are captured but allowed to walk away clean in the improbably liberal courts demanded by the expectations of the literature, leaving it to Blaze to track down the rapists and kill them in cold blood. Spoiler?

Credited to one Robert Novak, THE THRILL KILLERS was written by Leonard Levinson (see the comments below), though some of the Joe Blaze novels may have actually been written by bestselling author Nelson DeMille, who doesn't admit to any of them on his website, not even the equally trashy Keller and Ryker cop novels credited to him. It is known that some of the Ryker books accidentally feature the name "Blaze" in their prose instead of "Ryker," meaning that they probably began as Super Cop Joe Blaze stories that were quickly rewritten to accomodate the new hero.

THE THRILL KILLERS is junky and trashy, but a good, quick read if you're in the mood for violent urban thrills.

Shoot To Kill

The first two Ryker novels I read were penned by current big-shot author Nelson DeMille, who reportedly wrote them under a pen name, though my original paperbacks bear his name. The Super Cop Joe Blaze paperback I read was probably written by DeMille as "Robert Novak." What I know for sure is that the Rykers started out as Blaze books, since the proofreaders missed a few "Blaze" references in them. Ryker #5, THE CHILD KILLER, released by Leisure in 1975, is credited to Edson T. Hamill, which almost has to be a pseudonym. Whether Hamill is DeMille or not, I'm not sure. THE CHILD KILLER has the same blunt, simplistic writing style as the other Ryker books. Its fervently conservative attitude and graphic sadism has me wondering if it was too much even for the white blue-collar males it was aimed at. Hamill's detailed description of the villain's rape and murder of a young boy pushed my limits, for sure.

Yep, "a sex pervert was killing children," and "Ryker's job was to get him any way he could." The entire plot is on the cover. There's very little mystery, as the reader discovers the killer's identity very early, and Ryker learns it not long after that. Not only is tough cop Ryker so right-wing that he makes Dirty Harry look like a Berkeley professor, but he's also quite stupid. After he arrests the murderer just over halfway through the book, he doesn't read him his rights and he beats the crap out of him in full view of witnesses. When his imbecilic actions get the killer set free, Ryker has the nerve to be outraged by a system that allegedly coddles criminals and spits on the victims.

Much of the book is two long chase sequences, which aren't particularly novel or exciting. Hamill punched this book out in a few days, for sure. Like the other Ryker books, it's lacking plot, nuance, characterization and action. THE CHILD KILLER's zealous hatred for homosexuals is shocking, even for 1975, making it a real curio.

THE CHILD KILLER is my last Ryker novel, and I don't plan on tracking any more down (though I do have another Super Cop Joe Blaze around here).

Killer's Justice

Detective Joe Ryker is still an asshole in THE TERRORISTS, #3 in Leisure Books' series by Nelson DeMille, though I presume paperback readers wouldn't have him any other way. Partnerless this time, Ryker is assigned to a major case: terrorists calling themselves the American Freedom Army are kidnapping wealthy people, blowing up buildings and machine-gunning hundreds of disco dancers as their way of sticking it to The Man. DeMille, who appears to despise anyone under thirty, doesn't even let the cops ultimately take care of business, as Ryker drops a dime on the AFA to the Mafia, who clean up the garbage in gut-busting splendor. Once again, Leisure's proofreaders miss references to "Blaze," rather than "Ryker," making it a certainty that DeMille's Ryker novels were originally intended for the Super Cop Joe Blaze series. I'm not a big fan of Ryker, though the violence and sleaze are plentiful. I realize most of these men's adventure paperbacks were written quickly, but I wouldn't be surprised if DeMille cranked this one out in a couple of days, and he way overdoes the use of capital letters to denote shouting or radio conversations.

Two Tough Cops

A double dose of head-crackin', six-shootin' action today. First off is DEATH ON THE DOCKS, #2 in Warner Books' Dirty Harry series, which, obviously, was based on the character played by Clint Eastwood in DIRTY HARRY, MAGNUM FORCE and THE ENFORCER (SUDDEN IMPACT was released in 1983, two years after DEATH ON THE DOCKS was published). Twelve original Dirty Harry novels were written, six of those by Ric Meyers.

Meyers did not, however, pen DEATH ON THE DOCKS, and who knows who did (all the paperbacks were credited to "Dane Hartman"). It's an okay but not great book with too many annoying out-of-character situations. For instance, Harry fancies himself a master of disguise and dons a wig, mustache and loud clothes to track a suspect in a bar. That is just something Dirty Harry would not do, and if you've seen the execrable PINK CADILLAC, you know Clint Eastwood shouldn't do it either.

DEATH never lives up to its brutal opening, as two professional hitmen invade the home of a prospective union leader the night before the election and murders his entire family, including two small children, in graphic detail. Inspector Harry Callahan gets the case, and even though he knows the killers must have been employed by the victim's opponent, Bull Ryan, or--more than likely--Ryan's string-puller, the former union boss, Matt Braxton, how can Harry prove it?

He does it by making a pain in the ass of himself, following Braxton around and earning the wrath of his superiors in the department, who may be on the crime boss' payroll. After a few shootouts, Callahan manages to arrest Braxton, but the villain jumps bail and heads to the Caribbean, where Harry follows after taking a vacation from work and gathering his disguise.

I think I may have solved a mystery of sorts through reading 1974's THE SNIPER, the first of Leisure Books' series of Ryker procedurals about a tough New York City cop named Sergeant Joe Ryker. Before I get to that, the Ryker books are notable for their author: Nelson DeMille. Before DeMille was a best-selling author of thrillers like THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER and GOLD COAST, he was churning out these paperback quickies under the name Jack Cannon. I've seen covers using the Cannon pseudonym, though my paperback appears to be an original, judging from the copyright info, so I'm confused as to when and why the Cannon name was used.

What's really interesting is that, at least twice, I noticed proofreading slipups in which the name "Blaze" was substituted for "Ryker." Is it possible that DeMille was actually "Robert Novak," and that THE SNIPER was supposed to be part of the Super Cop Joe Blaze series? Both are tough, corrupt NYPD sergeants named Joe. THE SNIPER, while not great, mainly due to its cynicism and misogyny (which continue to haunt DeMille's writing to this day), is much better written than the hacked-out THE BIG PAYOFF, though the coincidence is too close to dismiss. Maybe when I read additional Blaze and Ryker books, I'll be able to make a definitive decision.

Ryker and his partner Arthur Hayes are on the trail of a Tennessee-born sniper named Homer Cyrus, who learned to shoot in Vietnam and is now targeting young blond women from the rooftops of New York. The mystery isn't much, as it doesn't take Ryker long to learn the killer's identity. Obviously influenced by THE FRENCH CONNECTION (as I think the Super Cop Joe Blaze books are), THE SNIPER presents a "hero" who sleeps with hookers, treats everyone around him rudely, and even beats the shit out of an innocent civilian on the theory it may lure Cyrus out of hiding. Not a pleasant guy to spend time with, if he were real, though not between paperback pages either.

The Best And Worst Cop In New York

Perhaps, but definitely one of the shittiest books in or out of New York. Belmont Tower Books published at least three Joe Blaze novels--maybe at the same time, because I can't believe 1974's THE BIG PAYOFF, the first of the series, sold many copies. The plot is extremely simple and thin, the characters despicable, and the action routine. If some television writer turned this in to KOJAK, he'd be kicked out on the street. Hell, this wouldn't even make it into the BERT D'ANGELO/SUPERSTAR offices.

So, what I'm trying to say is that Super Cop Joe Blaze really sucks. Obviously, he's a pissed-off lone-wolf type of homicide detective. Whether he's also a drunk and a burnout, who knows, because author Robert Novak doesn't provide enough characterization for us to find out anything about anyone. There isn't even a "big" payoff in the book; merely a small one that leads to an inconsequential subplot that exists only to pad the word count and get this paperback up to 173 dumb pages.

Blaze is called in to investigate a "sex killer" after a prostitute is found raped and stabbed in her apartment. The mystery angle is barely there, as Blaze and his partner Ed Nuthall fairly quickly discover the murderer's identity by following some simple clues. Nearly thirty pages are left when he's apprehended, so, of course, the "bleeding heart" judge lets out a guy indicted on nine murder charges on $1000 bail (suurrrrrre, he does), just so Novak can have the dude attack another woman. One shootout, a car chase and two massive fistfights fill the action quotient, but none of it is suspenseful or imaginative.

The question remains as to whether or not the author is also the prominent Washington pundit. The book is certainly right-wing and simpleminded enough to be him.