Showing posts with label Hard Corps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hard Corps. Show all posts

Monday, March 28, 2022

The Hard Corps #8: Devil’s Plunder


The Hard Corps #8: Devil’s Plunder, by Chuck Bainbridge
July, 1989  Jove Books

The final volume of The Hard Corps is courtesy Chris Lowder, who previously wrote the sixth volume. He no doubt wrote the seventh volume as well, given how often its events are referred to, but I don’t have that one. Lowder was clearly British, as the Hard Corps quartet, Americans all, often sound like Brits during the course of Devil’s Plunder. This is especially humorous in the case of wiry Joe Fanelli, who happens to be from Jersey. But then maybe “arguing the fucking toss” is a Jersey-ism and not a British-ism. 

Speaking of which, this must be the most crudely-toned series in all men’s adventuredom. “Fucking” is used as an adjective repeatedly in the narrative; it’s all “fucking this” and “fucking that,” with the occasional “shit” or some other curse word thrown in. I mean it gives the impression that “Chuck Bainbridge” is just the most burned-out, grizzled, and uh, hardcore son of a bitch in history, spewing out his inner venom via the narrative. I was going to excerpt an example of this but soon realized I could almost just exerpt the entire novel; I mean this book’s like a David Mamet script. Only with more gunfights…and, spoiler alert, one of the most depraved and insane sex scenes I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. Now that I’m gonna excerpt in full, later in the review. 

We meet the Hard Corps already on the job: O’Neal the boss, Wentworth the sword-loving “gentleman merc,” Fanelli the loudmouth demolitions guy, and Caine the bearded blade freak. They’re all sort of the same as they were in the first few volumes by William Fieldhouse, only a bit diluted; Caine in particular lacks the weirdo spark he had in the Fieldhouse books, coming off just like the other three. Meanwhile McShayne, the gunnery guy or whatever he is, stays off-page for the majority, back home doing computer stuff. We learn via incidental dialog that the Hard Corps had a “disastrous” mission in the previous volume, to the extent that they have taken this current job, which sees them providing protection for a Papa Doc-style dictator in the Caribbean, in exchange for a hefty payment. 

I had the belated realization that “Devil’s Plunder” was actually a pun; the dictator is named Deville, and he has accumulated his share of plunder over the years. (Those Brits and their fancy word games!) This is on the “tiny Caribbean island of Esmeralda,” which is near Cuba and is ruled by “Big Daddy” Deville, corpulent sadist who is infamous for frequent massacres of his own people, torturing them for pleasure. Whereas Deville is the type of guy the Hard Corps would normally take out, this time they’re here to safely escort him off the island. They’ve taken the job because it’s paying a cool million, and we’re informed they swallowed their pride because they needed the money; once again they’ve gotten the assignment courtesy their CIA contact Saintly. 

Whereas An American Nightmare was relatively tame in the action department, Devil’s Plunder is reminiscent of the Fieldhouse installments with its occasional action overkill. The opening is our first indication of this, as the Hard Corps, newly arrived on Esmeralda and posing as hapless tourists as they eat in a restaurant, are attacked by gun-toting Cubans. They’ve come without weapons, and also argue whether they should even try to fight back, given that they’re just “tourists.” Of course it quickly escalates into a gun-blazing melee, with Wentworth indulging in the usual series schtick of picking up some stray object (in this case an old man’s cane) and using it as an impromptu martial arts weapon. 

Here our heroes learn that the situation is a bit complex. The CIA wants Deville safely off Esmeralda because he has gathered incriminating evidence against a host of American VIPs; later in the novel we’ll learn Deville’s got photos of famous senators in bed with underaged children and whatnot. But Deville’s people are revolting against him, and the FFE domestic terrorists (Freedom For Esmeralda) are stirring up a lot of trouble. There are also the Cubans, who are looking to take advantage of the increasing turmoil on the “tiny island” and take the place over. The Hard Corps find themselves being shuffled around these various contigents, trying to remain professional and do the job they’re here for, but increasingly seeing how monstrous Deville really is. 

Lowder peppers the novel with a few female characters: first there’s Marie-Claude Colbert (no relation to Claudette, I assume), leader of the FFE. She’s a feisty hostuff babe whose father was set up by the CIA to take over Esmeralda, but was asssassinated. Now she’s here leading the terrorists against Deville. There’s also mention that she was once a lawyer in New York(?). At any rate she wants Deville dead, and occasionally her forces run into the Hard Corps, accusing them of being CIA plants. A recurring gag is that everyone knows who the Hard Corps really is from the moment they arrive on Esmeralda. It’s also through Marie-Claude that we learn of the horrors Deville has perpetrated on his subjects over the years; later the team will see photographic evidence of the torture sessions. “Snuff film stuff,” as Fanelli puts it. 

And indeed the novel really picks up when Big Daddy Deville and his depraved entourage show up. “The Supreme Chief and Savior of the Esmeraldan People” is morbidly obese and calls to mind the similar island dictator in Agent 3S3: Massacre In The Sun, only a lot more evil. He’s also got a cache of stolen artwork, which he’s willing to shower on the Hard Corps as additional payment; Wentworth chooses the antique samurai sword instead, of course. But the novel really kicks in gear when Deville’s latest wife, the “beautiful wanton” Simone, shows up. This light-skinned “mulatto” is notorious for personally overseeing the torture sessions, with the clear intimation that she gets off on them. She’s also known for taking any man – or woman – she desires to bed, “Big Daddy” no longer able to please her. Simone sets her sights on Joe Fanelli, drawn to his wiry build. This leads to one of the most bonkers sex scenes I’ve ever read: 





I mean ten points for “rich reek” alone. Actually there are a ton of memorable descriptions in that sleazy sequence, to the point that you figure Lowder was cacking madly as he tried to outdo himself. To say a sequence this explicit was rare in ‘80s men’s adventure would be an understatement; the majority of men’s adventure protagonists were celibate that decade, content to clean their guns while hanging out with other guys. That this sequence comes so out of the blue in Devil’s Plunder makes me regret that this was the final volume of the series. If Lowder could write wonderfully depraved stuff like this, who knows where he could’ve taken The Hard Corps

But this was to be the final volume; after the fatal bout with Simone, the climax (the book’s climax, that is) comes off as underwhelming. It’s the usual action onslaught, with the Hard Corps blasting away in full-bore automatic hellfire. This excerpt should suffice – actually it encapulates the entire novel, with the curse-filled narrative, parenthetical gun-porn, and bloody gore: 


The finale inadvertently points toward the end of men’s adventure novels in general, seeing as it does a focus on “computer stuff.” A subplot has it that Deville’s son is a computer geek and has built a data warehouse of that incriminating evidence, and McShayne has been working to hack it or something. So in a way Devil’s Plunder is not only a capoff for The Hard Corps itself but for the genre as well – one last volume of high testosterone, hellfire blasting, rich-reeking men’s adventure action before the “techno-thrillers” of the ‘90s. It was also easily my favorite volume of the series, if only for the sequence with Simone Deville, though I did enjoy Fieldhouse’s take on the characters more.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

The Hard Corps #6: An American Nightmare


The Hard Corps #6: An American Nightmare, by Chuck Bainbridge
May, 1988  Jove Books

The sixth Hard Corps is certainly not the work of William Fieldhouse, so judging from Brad Mengel’s research in Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction it must be by British writer Chris Lowder, who is credited as the other author on this 9-volume series. It’s clear Fieldhouse is not behind the wheel for this one, as An American Nightmare is clearly by an author “taking the piss” out of the genre, whereas Fieldhouse’s installments are relatively straight (despite the onslaught of gunfights, sword-choppings, and karate battles).

But first, let’s take a moment to appreciate the cover. Those are our heroes, folks. Those insane-looking guys in grungy fatigues who in their zest to kill are almost hitting each other with their full-auto blasts. Just take a moment to appreciate the looks on their faces. I mean, would you hire these guys?

I’d say the artist isn’t taking the series concept seriously, but then neither is Lowder; this is evident from the get-go, in which the Republican caucus is bombed, immediately after which we meet our heroes, back on their expansive home base, arguing over whether 9mm is superior to .45 caliber. And mind you these are hard-bitten veteran soldiers who have lived and breathed guns and ammo since ‘Nam; I mean you’d think they’d already have thought about this topic, but here they are arguing about it in full-blown exposition.

More evidence of the sort of goofy tone is the villain of the piece: Ennio Coscia, aka Nero, an infamous left-wing terrorist trained by the KGB and the like, but now stark raving mad. Nero plans to wipe out the US political system, and his soldiers in the battle are SDS and Weather Underground and other ‘60s radical terrorist groups. So while Lowder never outright states it, it appears that the majority of Nero’s soldiers must be over-the-hill hippies, given that they started fighting for their various causes in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. But at any rate in this volume you have many scenes of the Hard Corps blowing away male and female hippie terrorists; unfortunately Lowder doesn’t go all the way with it and have them screaming stuff like “Power to the people!” while blasting full auto hellfire.

After blowing up the Republican caucus, Nero next takes out hundreds of voters at a Democrat primary. In this manner he hopes to throw chaos and disorder into the American political apparatus. Enter “Saintly,” the Corps’s CIA contact, who choppers onto HC HQ and offers them the job, trying to appeal to their patriotic sense. Lowder has the Hard Corps more distrustful of Saintly and the government, with Corps honcho O’Neal trading acidic banter with the Fed throughout. Speaking of banter, sword-wielding Wentworth and wise-cracking Fanelli go back and forth throughout the novel, exchanging barbs.

Yet the goofier stuff goes unexplored, like the errant mention that Wentworth likes to look presentable when going into battle. This odd quirk is not fully exploited. There is however some subtle humor at play, like how the Hard Corps ride around in a “Volkswagen minibus” when they’re out on this particular mission – more fitting transportation for a group of hippies than a pack of mercenaries. But there’s a definite goofy tone to the finale, which sees the Hard Corps “undercover” at a national convention; they each wear goofy disguises, sort of like the Beastie Boys in the “Sabotage” video: O’Neal sporting a fake moustache and pastic-lensed glasses, Fanelli in a “checkered-cloth cap” with a bunch of political party pins on it.

There’s definitely less of an action onslaught than you’d get in a Fieldhouse story. In fact it takes a while for our boys to see any fighting; after taking the job from Saintly, who hires them for dubious reasons (something about using their underworld contacts to see if any left-wing terrorists are trying to buy bombs or something), they head for Buffalo, New York, where they look into a coke-sniffing arms dealer who might’ve had contact with Nero. Lowder seems to have seen Scarface recently, as the guns dealer comes off like a Tony Montana ripoff, his cocaine-fuled paranoia building and building until the scene escalates into violence.

Even here Wentworth manages to find a sword – another recurring joke, in that the others make fun at his knack for always picking one up somehow – and slice and dice. So this is reminiscent from the Fieldhouse installments and likely was a publisher requirement; no surprise, then, that later in the novel Nero picks up an accomplice, a Japanese commie terrorist, who wouldn’t ya know it likes to carry around a pair of sais. Lowder might as well flash a sign that indicates a sword battle is soon approaching.

The outrageous gore of the Fieldhouse novels is missing, though. Lowder is slightly more reserved in that department (and true to ‘80s men’s adventure, there’s zero in the way of sex, with the few female characters reduced to background left-wing terrorists). The Hard Corps take out a ton of left-wing scum, but there’s not much spark to it – no exploding geysers of cerebro-spinal fluid or whatnot. That being said, he seems to be fond of overdetailing the death throes of his victims, with frequent descriptions of an already-killed terrorist falling or dropping or being riddled with even more bullets. But again this lends the novel a darkly comic tone, which I’m betting is intentional; as mentioned, one gets the definite feeling that Lowder’s tongue is in his cheek.

In this regard the Nero stuff is prime because he’s batshit crazy. He calls himself “Nero” because he had a vision that he would become a ruler of the world or something, and now instead of any political causes he’s wreaking havoc so as to fulfill his delusional purpose. He’s also the kind of psycho no one would ever work for – when late in the novel he orchestrates a helicopter attack on a Democrat primary, Nero we learn has the ‘copter and its crew blown up after the mission. Like the Zodiac Killer, Nero believes that he owns the souls of all his victims, and they will serve him in the afterlife. Fittingly, his Japanese accomplice shares this belief, which is the only reason the two never try to kill each other(!).

The action mostly revolves around three set pieces: the arms dealer scene, a raid on a theater in which some of Nero’s crew is hiding, and the final battle at the national convention (for which political party Lowder doesn’t inform us). In each it’s clear the Hard Corps vastly outskills their opponents; many parts are basically variations of shooting fish in a barrel. More interesting is the impromptu weaponry of Steve Caine, the bearded night fighter who, we are reminded quite often, lived with the Montagnards after ‘Nam and picked up their guerrilla warfare skills. In the climactic battle he fashions his own “knife on a pole” thing which he uses like a spear.

Overall An American Nightmare is entertaining for what it is – just another generic ‘80s action paperback. There’s nothing particularly memorable about it, other than Nero’s megalomania, and while Lowder is certainly trying to have a little fun with it, the novel still comes off as a little restrained. Oh, and there’s no action scene by the Lincoln Memorial – misleading cover art! Perhaps it’s intended to be metaphorical...

Finally, I think I’m going to take a break next week, so just one post – it’ll be up on Wednesdsay. Merry Christmas!

Monday, September 26, 2016

The Hard Corps #4: Slave Trade


The Hard Corps #4: Slave Trade, by Chuck Bainbridge
October, 1987  Jove Books

The Hard Corps returns in another action onslaught courtesy William Fieldhouse, who appears to have been like Joseph Rosenberger in that he figured out his own personal formula for writing an action novel, and by god, that was the formula he was going to stick to. As such, Slave Trade follows the same format as the previous three books, its barebones plot centered around a handful of massive action sequences.

Rather than the usual template of the Corps being hired for its latest assignment, this one opens with the team already on the case – and slaughtering with impugnity. As we meet them the Hard Corps has followed a group of bad-ass bikers to a club in a desolate patch of California. Team leader William O’Neal and second-in-command James Wentworth go in to interrogate the bikers, Joe Fanelli and Steve Caine providing unseen backup. As soon as Fieldhouse mentions that Wentworth is wielding his customary samurai sword, you know where the scene is going.

Sure enough, pretty soon the bullets are flying, the samurai sword is dicing, and the blood is spouting. While his action books mostly follow the same format, one can’t claim Fieldhouse shirks on the gore, with copious detail of limbs being hacked, intestines exploding out, and heads blasting off. The question only remains why our heroes are slaughtering these bikers. It’s because they are the enforcers of a new cult called The Fellowship of Ultimate Living which is based in Australia but has recently opened a branch here to the US. Led by a (supposedly) charismatic guru named Harold Glover, the cult has been accused of brainwashing its young members and even selling some of its prettier followers on the slave market.

But Fieldhouse, like many other pulp authors who have taken stabs at cult-villain tales, fails to convey to the reader why anyone would even want to join the Fellowship of Ultimate Living. Glover, the few times we see him, is a conman with a taste for sadism who doesn’t display any “guru-like” qualities at all, leaving the reader to wonder why so many young people have flocked to him. Rather, he mostly sits around with his muscle-bound henchman Thor and talks about selling guns, drugs, and women.

For that is the problem, really, with Slave Trade; it’s just a lot of talk, so far as the plot and threat go. We’re given to understand that Glover has his hand in the slave trade, drugging the good-looking women in his cult and selling them to the highest bidder, but none of it is presented to us. Rather, the entire novel is basically a few dialog-exchange sequences which link together massive, pages-filling action sequences. But Fieldhouse is one of the men’s adventure authors of the day who really delivered on the gore quotient – he’s almost up there with David Alexander – so one can’t complain when practically every action scene has heads getting chopped off and brains “pouring out.”

At length we learn that O’Neal and team has been hired by a group of parents whose teen children were caught up in the Fellowship of Ultimate Living movement and then subsequently disappeared. One of the parents is an attractive lady around O’Neal’s age named Carol, a widower whose daughter was apparently killed by the Fellowship – all that’s known is that, after she disappeared with the cult, the girl kept writing her mother for more and more money, until one day when Carol got a call that the police in Phoenix had found the girl’s dead body.

However, this doesn’t stop the sparks from flying between O’Neal and Carol – the Hard Corps team leader finds himself really liking to “behold” Carol’s mature-but-lovely form, which leads Slave Trade in a direction completely unexpected for a William Fieldhouse novel. Believe it or not, friends, this installment actually has a bona fide sex scene, as O’Neal scores:

Soon her head was buried in his crotch, her wide, soft lips licking greedily at the head of his cock. Carol took him in her mouth slowly, an inch at a time until her lips touched his taut balls. Carol held him in her mouth as she sucked eagerly at the length of his quivering prick. 

Before O’Neal could reach the brink, Carol straddled him and guided his throbbing hard-on between her thighs. O’Neal sighed with pleasure as he sank slowly into her chamber of love. The woman rocked gently, gradually drawing him deeper inside her. O’Neal braced himself on one hand and sat up to kiss Carol’s breasts. His tongue and teeth teased her rigid nipples as he drew on her breasts with his lips. 

Their lovemaking slowly reached a peak. Carol, no longer in control, began bouncing and bucking against O’Neal’s crotch. He arched his back to thrust himself along with the rhythm of the woman’s motion. Carol moaned loudly with excited pleasure as she climaxed. O’Neal held back until Carol reached a second orgasm before allowing himself to come.

Boy, they don’t call ‘em “the Hard Corps” for nothing! 

Otherwise the Fieldhouse template remains. Early on Fanelli and Caine pay a visit to new character Benny the Wizard, a forger based out of Seattle. As soon as Fieldhouse mentioned that Benny was nervous, I knew exactly where the scene was headed. And sure enough, a group of thugs storm into Benny’s place, demanding payment in blood for a bad set of forgeries Benny sold them. As ever, this leads our heroes to pull out their own weapons and slaughter the thugs, saving Benny’s life – and apparently assuming he won’t pull the same scam on them.

The novel’s next big action sequence has the Hard Corps staging an assault on a theater in which Glover is holding a massive rally. Given that in the beginning of the novel they massacred the entire biker gang which was serving as the Fellowship’s enforcement arm, this time our heroes are up against two-bit thugs, ones easily outmatched by our battle-hardened heroes. But as usual the gimmick with the Hard Corps is less about any tension or suspense in the action and more so about the unique and gory ways the protagonists kill their enemies.

The second half of the novel has the team going over to Australia, Glover having absconded there after this lastest massacre of his people in California. Once again though it must be mentioned that throughout this we never actually see the commune or get a glimpse of any of the people who so blindly follow Glover; rather, it’s just the Hard Corps killing one hired goon after another, with the occasional dialog exchange reminding us how evil Glover is, what with all his drug-dealing, gun-running, and slave-trading. To me this is the biggest failing of the novel, as Glover and his cult could've been greatly expanded on.

Instead, we learn here that Glover is planning a big meeting with a bunch of Japanese mafia bigwigs, hoping to sell them a large stash of guns or somesuch. In reality I realized immediately why these yakuza chumps were introduced – so Wentworth would have someone to swordfight with. And yes, that’s exactly what happens! Glover’s headquarters for the Fellowship is “hidden” in the sprawling expanse of the Outback, and our heroes eventually locate it after circling about the area on chartered planes.

In fact, a C-130 transporter plane factors into their assault on the headquarters, and given how arbitrarily it’s introduced I have to assume the element was foisted upon Fieldhouse by a Jove editor so as to cater to the already-commissioned cover painting. At any rate the Hard Corps fly right up to the veritable doorstep of the commune nd launch into another gory, pages-filling battle, this one featuring not only lots of shooting and knife-slicing but also an elaborate samurai swordfight between Wentworth and one of the yakuza. We also get a brutal brawl between O’Neal and Thor, and while Glover’s send-off is appropriately apocalyptic, it would’ve been more satisfying if we’d seen more of his sadism in action.

Slave Trade is filled with such endless action that it just ends right here, Fieldhouse apparently having hit his word count and thus not worrying about tying up any loose ends. Like what happens to all the cult members; it’s implied that they will be set free, and early we saw our heroes getting disgusted at how the imprisoned Fellowship brainwashees were treated, but it’s all very cursorily dealt with. The subplot with O’Neal’s romance with Carol is also dropped. But Fieldhouse can’t be faulted for realizing that he was writing, first and foremost, an action novel. And in that regard he suceeds greatly, as Slave Trade is filled with splashing blood and blasting brains and more inventive deaths than we’ve seen since the first volume.

And yet despite all that there is something listless about the novel, something sort of missing, and ultimately I didn’t find it as fun as the previous three books. Here’s hoping then that the next installment features at least a little more in the plot department.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

The Hard Corps #3: White Heat


The Hard Corps #3: White Heat, by Chuck Bainbridge
July, 1987  Jove Books

The Indian’s body convulsed wildly as high-velocity slugs crushed into his torso.

With an opening sentence like that, you know William Fieldhouse is back in the writing saddle. The Hard Corps return in an adventure set a month or so after their previous mission. We learn that the team has finally rebuilt its secret base in the state of Washington, which was destroyed in the first volume; now it’s time for some well-deserved rest and relaxation.

Then their CIA contact Saintly choppers in and bullies them into another mission: to go down to Bolivia and blow away a few cocaine-manufacturing plants that belong to El Dorado, which is the top cartel in South America. But Fieldhouse delivers more than just another “drug war” scenario, with the revelation that a faction of El Dorado is actually run by Weisal, an old Nazi, one who fled down here after the war with the hopes of raising a neo-Nazi army. Now too old and feeble, the old man has turned the rule over to his sadistic son, Erik, who while still being a Nazi is more concerned with creating a cocaine empire than any sort of new Reich.

Unfortunately, despite this novel premise the entire Nazi angle is abruptly lost, with only cursory mentions of swastikas flying over Weisal’s various encampments in Bolivia. In fact, Erik Weisal himself disappears for the majority of the narrative, Fieldhouse keeping his four heroes in center frame throughout. They’re the usual motley bunch, with Joe Fanelli all fired up for a bit of cheap sex with any woman he can find, morose Steve Caine content to just wander around the woods and perfect his silent stalking methods, James Wentworth just wanting to practice his samurai sword technique and do some reading, and team leader William O’Neal as stoic and bland as ever.

Reluctantly canceling their r’n’r, the Hard Corps head on down to South America, where they’re put in touch with their helper for this installment, a burly DEA agent named Garcia. We’ve already seen a few DEA agents get wasted by El Dorado goons, so Garcia is understandably driven to wipe them out. He puts the Hard Corps in touch with a locally-based gunrunner named Paddy Murphy, a walking cliché who escaped to Bolivia after getting in hot water in his native Ireland for selling arms to both the Irish army and the NRA. Paddy is greasy and fat and more interested in drinking whiskey.

But we know by now the rule in practically every Fieldhouse novel – when characters enter a bar, a brawl will soon break out. And right on cue one does, with some of Paddy’s upset customers coming to collect a refund in his blood. In steps O’Neal and his “mercs” (as Fieldhouse often refers to his heroes), who, despite not even liking Paddy, get in an extended fight with the goons, a fight that just keeps going on and on. Meanwhile Paddy doesn’t have much to offer the guys in the way of firepower, but it’s enough for the Corps to pull off the ambush they’ve been hired for.

The novel’s first big action sequence has the Hard Corps taking out one of El Dorado’s factions in this vicinity. The CIA order is just to make a messy hit, and this is accomplished with much gunfire and explosions and gory exit wounds. Fieldhouse as ever doesn’t cheat his readers on the blood and violence demanded of the men’s adventure genre, but this being the ‘80s, the once-mandatory sex element is of course nonexistent. Hell, there isn’t even a single female character in the entire novel. In that regard the Hard Corps series is very similar to something from Gold Eagle Books.

With their task done, the team figures they can go collect payment, but in the aftermath they discover that one of their victims not only was a high-ranking member of El Dorado, but also happened to be the son of a powerful man in Bolivia’s government. Realizing they won’t be able to escape – the government will obviously be on the lookout for military-looking Americans – they instead split up and fade into the woodwork of desolate areas of Bolivia. Fanelli and Paddy Murphy pair off, which is such a total setup on Fieldhouse’s part, given that we were informed earlier that Fanelli was a drunk and has been sober for ten years.

And guess what? Paddy insists they go to a bar. “One drink won’t hurt you,” he keeps pressuring, and next thing Fanelli’s drunk as a skunk and, you won’t be surprised, another bar brawl breaks out. This one lands Fanelli in jail, so we’re treated to an arbitrary but page-filling bit where the other members of the team pull a heist to break him out. During this O’Neal and the others have been approached by Raul, a young Bolivian Indian who begs for their help to take on a gang that’s been tormenting and pillaging his village.

O’Neal tells the kid to go to hell, but persistent Raul tracks the Corps down to their hotel next morning and informs them that their comrade Fanelli has been imprisoned. Raul offers to help free him in exchange for the Corps helping his village. This serves to take us into the homestretch, as the Corps ventures deep in-country, where they find a primitive village of old men and youth who have no weapons whatsoever. But Steve Caine, with his much-vaunted “Kantu tribe” training (per his time in the ‘Nam), teaches them how to make weapons with spears and whatnot. Fanelli, the demolitions expert, even figures out how to make explosives with bat shit.

More weapons are discovered buried near the village, put there decades ago by followers of Che Guevara and stored in gun oil against the elements. Again per the Fieldhouse method, as soon as the Hard Corps gets these guns, an El Dorado strike force happens to show up and a massive firefight ensues. Heads explode and guts splash to the ground. These guys work for Weisal, which finally brings the sort-of neo-Nazi back into the picture. When O’Neal discovers from Raul that this faction of El Dorado is run by a neo-Nazi, he decides to just wipe them all out – he’s always wanted to kill a Nazi.

The climactic battle features an ambush on Weisal’s forward base in the jungle, where Steve Caine again comes off as the most skilled of the team, hacking and slashing guards silently. True to the spirit of a lot of these ‘80s men’s adventure books, though, it all just keeps going and going, complete with O’Neal and team, out of bullets, even engaging various of Weisal’s thugs in protracted fistfights. And it keeps going, with Weisal blasting at the Corps with a hidden machine gun, and then coming at them again later with some sort of “armored wall” protecting him.

By this point you’d love like a three-paragraph description of Erik Weisal’s head exploding, but for some reason Fieldhouse denies us this and just ends the chapter with O’Neal about to kill him. And that’s that; the Hard Corps has suffered some losses (none of them have suffered personally, of course), but the job’s done so now it’s just to return to the States and collect payment.

So overall, White Heat does the job of providing ‘80s action and gore, with nothing like deep characterization or heavy plotting to get in the way. But Fieldhouse is a skilled action writer and keeps it all moving, even managing at times to give his characters some individual spark. And yet there’s nothing really novel about the series; it’s just another ‘80s men’s adventure-type deal, with none of the goofy charm of the first volume. So in other words, not bad but not great.

Monday, December 29, 2014

The Hard Corps #2: Beirut Contract


The Hard Corps #2: Beirut Contract, by Chuck Bainbridge
March, 1987  Jove Books

In this second adventure of The Hard Corps, our four mercenaries are hired to rescue a group of peacekeepers who have been abducted by Palestinian terrorists in Beirut. And you know what that means, my friends – a whole bunch of terrorists are going to die!

William Fieldhouse returns under the awesome pseudonym “Chuck Bainbridge,” in an installment that is wisely much shorter than the first. But unfortunately Beirut Contract isn’t as fun as that first volume, and comes off for the most part like an average slice of gung-ho ‘80s men’s adventure, typical of the sort of thing Gold Eagle would’ve published. While it’s all capably done, it just lacks the goofy spark of the first book.

This one stays pretty serious throughout, other than the banter between the members of the Hard Corps, which comes off as very Able Team-esque. They are hired by famous business tycoon Malcolm Banks to rescue his daughter, Georgette, and the peace-keeping group of college kids who were abducted with her in Beirut. This abduction takes up the opening pages, with Georgette first almost getting killed by masked gunmen who attack her and her security guard on the streets of Beirut.

Georgette is saved by a handsome Arab named Abdul, who leads her off to safety. Soon though we learn that Abul is actually the leader of the terrorists who just tried to abduct her; he has spirited Georgette away so as to win her graces and get an even bigger coup: all the members of Georgette’s peacekeeping group. Another bloody setpiece follows, as Abdul and his terrorists attack the bus the peacekeepers ride to a rally in Beirut.

These terrorists, while loathsome and cruel, are nowhwere as sadistic as the real-life terrorists of the modern day; Abdul and his group are overly concerned with how they will look in the eyes of the world, and constantly try to gain favor with the “liberal media” of the west. However the female member of the group, Fatimah, is chomping at the bit to kill all of them, and even goes before the news cameras without a mask to announce that they have abducted the kids. Their demands are a few million dollars and the release of various prisoners. Oh, and they also want a nuclear bomb. It never hurts to ask, I guess.

When he’s stymied by political red tape, Malcolm Banks hires the Hard Corps. We learn that they’re still rebuilding their compound in the woods, which was almost destroyed in the first volume. Also, Fieldhouse introduces his “heroes” in a pretty unsettling way: having Steve “Rambo” Caine murder a pair of redneck poachers who have wandered onto their land. These bumbling drunks, while despicable, really are not deserving of the violent deaths they’re given, but then, the Hard Corps are a bit sadistic this time out.

For example, Banks should know he’s in for trouble when, during his first meeting with the Corps at a bar, Joe Fannelli instigates a fight with someone, just because the dude complains when Fannelli turns the TV channel. This develops into a brawl in which the Hard Corps make mincemeat of hapless barroom drunks. What’s comical is that it all happens right after team leader William O’Neal specifies that they’ll need to be “subtle” on this Beirut job.

Once they get to Lebanon the Hard Corps are met by the leader of the security force that was hired by Banks. Our heroes continue to be contrary, basically blaming this dude for the abduction of the peace rally kids and the deaths of his own men. Then they start demanding a bunch of weapons. We’re also informed via egregious gun-porn dialog of why 9mm pistols aren’t as good as .45s or etc, and how exactly various guns can be modified.

Meanwhile Fieldhouse cuts over to the terrorists, who turn out to be a fractious bunch who may have traitors within their ranks. For example Abdul is certain one of them is working for the KGB. There’s also Fatimah, who comes off as a wildcat ready to bust caps in the hostages at a moment’s notice. Given her own self-outing on TV, the Hard Carps – thanks to their CIA contact Saintly – are able to track down Fatimah’s sister, Amalah, who lives outside of Beirut.

This leads to the novel’s first big action scene, as the Hard Corps first attempt to pass themselves off as locals, thanks to their old ‘Nam pal who has tagged along on this mission, Frank Haperstein. An American expat who may work for Mossad, Haperstein is able to pass himself off as a Palestinian, but the terrorists who surround Amalah’s home become suspicious. Sure enough, a massive-scale gunfight ensues. Fieldhouse does not shy on the details, with brains erupting and blood geysering.

All this is sort of rendered moot, because Amalah has no idea where her terrorist sibling Fatimah might be…and meanwhile, the friggin’ terrorists themselves end up killing off Fatimah! Once again a pulpy female villain is shuffled out of the narrative much too quickly; Abdul shoots Fatimah point-blank in the head when she threatens to make real on her promises to kill off the hostages. In a sad “how the times have changed” angle, the terrorists you see are determined to treat their captives well, so that the terrorists and their cause will look good in the eyes of “the liberal media.”

Some pulp writers deliver anticlimactic finales, but Fieldhouse isn’t one of them. Beirut Contract, as you’d expects, ends with a huge battle, in which the Hard Corps stage an assault on the remote location in wich the terrorists are keeping the hostages. Steve Caine once again comes off like a one-man army, sneaking past guards and slitting throats with his survival knife, and then hopping down into the house through a hole in the roof and blowing away the men surrounding the hostages.

Fieldhouse in all the action scenes hops from character to character, so you can see how Joe Fanelli kills people and how James Wentworth kills people. Brains erupt and blood geysers. The gore level is through the roof! And speaking of Wentworth, the samurai fiend manages to pick up a blade, appropriating some dude’s scimitar so he can hack and slash. In fact there is a preponderence of handfighting this time out; it seems like someone’s always getting the gun knocked out of their hand and thus must resort to their fists or feet.

Anyway, it all wraps up with no surprises – the Hard Corps kill everyone and rescue the hostages. Plus, they are happy that they’ll now have a few million bucks with which to repair their home base. Fieldhouse ends the novel with the contract fulfilled and the Corps heading for the airport, and while it is at times entertaining, Beirut Contract ultimately comes off as forgettable.

Monday, January 13, 2014

The Hard Corps #1


The Hard Corps #1, by Chuck Bainbridge
December, 1986  Jove Books

I was only marginally aware of the 8-volume Hard Corps series; I knew it was your typical team-oriented ‘80s men’s adventure series about a group of former ‘Nam soldiers who moved on into mercenary work. But then I read Zwolf’s great review of this first volume on The Mighty Blowhole (where he also kindly provided a scan of the unintentionally-funny inner cover) and knew I’d have to track the books down.

And just like Zwolf, I couldn’t believe how much I actually enjoyed The Hard Corps #1. Also like him I had zero expectations for the book, figuring it was going to be a Gold Eagle-styled troll of gun-porn and endless action scenes with cardboard characters. And while that’s somewhat true at times, the overall impact is pretty great – I mean, the book is pulpier and just plain more fun than those dour damn Gold Eagle novels. Also, it’s cartoonishly violent, with the gore level of say David Alexander or GH Frost, and that’s always a good thing!

As Zwolf noted, the series is pretty much identical to Phoenix Force; we’ve got five hardened warriors with various specialities and enough quirkiness to make them slightly more than cardboard cutouts. I’m guessing Jove Books must’ve seen how well Gold Eagle was doing with Phoenix Force and figured they should jump on the bandwagon. And if that’s true, they made a very wise decision by hiring William Fieldhouse to serve as their author, ie Gar Wilson himself.

“Chuck Bainbridge” was the house name for The Hard Corps, but it looks like Fieldhouse wrote the majority of the novels, with a British author named Chris Lowder coming in for the final few installments. This concerns me, as according to Justin Marriott Chris Lowder was the “Jack Adrian” who wrote the first half of Deathlands #1 before Laurence James came onboard as “James Axler” to finish it (and continue on with the series), and Deathlands #1 was so bad that I never even bothered writing a review of it. (But then, I think the Deathlands series in general sucks, each volume coming off like a lame ripoff of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger with an added layer of Gold Eagle-mandated gun-porn.)

Anyway, the Hard Corps is made up of five dudes who are basically psychotics; I mean, we’re informed that they loved warfare so much that after ‘Nam they basically suffered withdrawal symptoms and thus decided to go it as mercenaries. Now, several years after officially forming in 1975, they charge one million dollars per job and live on a sprawling complex deep in the forests of Washington state, where they are both self-sustaining and also have a massive arsenal with a few helicopters.

The Hard Corps is comprised of:

William O’Neal – Leader of the group, a Green Beret captain who climbed the ladder in ‘Nam due to battlefield commissions until he was in charge of the special forces unit called “the Hard Corps.” He joined the army despite the left-leaning beliefs of his parents and never looked back.

Joe Fanelli – A demolitions whiz from Chicago who constantly bucks against authority. Thrown in the brig and kicked out of the army multiple times, he eventually found his way into O’Neal’s outfit and proved himself as a courageous warrior.

James Wentworth – The second in command, a balding scion of several generations of military bigshots. Wentworth has Fieldhouse’s stamp all over him, as he’s enamored of Japanese culture and enjoys going into combat armed with a samurai sword.

Steve Caine – Basically, the Rambo of the group; that is, David Morrell’s original interpretation of the character, as seen in First Blood. Caine even has the “unkempt beard” Morrell’s Rambo sported in First Blood, and like Rambo he sort of “went over” during ‘Nam and lived with the Katu montagnard tribe, learning their jungle warfare tactics and how to kill silently and etc. In short, Caine is the most interesting character of the group, basically a ninja type who moves like a shadow and prefers bladed weaponry, despite being the best marksman on the team. Like Rambo he goes for a wicked survival knife, which he uses to cut up people real good. He gets the best scenes in the novel, in particular a bit where he sets up a plethora of fatal traps.

John McShayne – In his 50s and thus a few decades older than the rest of the team, McShayne is a veteran of Korea and serves as “mother hen” for the Corps, taking care of the base, munitions, supplies, and etc while the team is off on missions. A funny recurring joke has it that McShayne keeps all of the storage sheds locked due to his fear of bears getting into them.

This first volume basically plays out like Invasion U.S.A. meets your average ‘80s ‘Nam movie. Reversing the customary story of American soldiers in Vietnam, Fieldhouse turns it around and has Vietnamese soldiers invading the US! They’ve snuck over the US/Mexico border to kill Trang Nih, a well-known Vietnamese refugee who goes about the free world as a crusader against Communism. In charge of this Vietnamese strike force is the KGB-trained Captain Vinh, an infamous assassin known for his warfare skills.  Trang Nih has come to the Hard Corps for help, and just as he arrives in their secluded forest compound Vinh’s men attack.

The Hard Corps #1 is basically comprised of the ensuing battle between Vinh’s endless supply of Vietnamese soldiers and the members of the Hard Corps. Yet the book, the reader will notice, is 325 fat pages – of very small print! No doubt due to the editor or publisher’s request, the novel is rendered as an epic, when it would be much better served at under 200 pages. Instead Fieldhouse delivers long backstories for each member of the Hard Corps…even for Vinh and some of his underlings! It’s this stuff in particular that comes off like Vietnam fiction, given that so much of it is set during the war. And speaking of which, the ‘Nam sections with the Corps almost comes off like an installment of the Black Eagles – another Fieldhouse series, by the way.

But other than these elaborate (and usually arbitrary) flashbacks the novel sticks to its only plot: the Hard Corps versus Captain Vinh. The unit comes off like Phoenix Force meets Able Team, with the multi-skills of the former and the goofy chatter of the latter. One difference though is a lingering military protocol, with the lesser-ranked members of the Corps referring to O’Neal and Wentworth as “sir.” But at no point does the novel come off like military fiction, even though characters not once but twice poke fun at Rambo and the fantasy aspect of action cinema. Yet for all that the novel’s about as “realistic” as a Cannon film of the ‘80s…I mean, it’s all about an army of Vietnamese commandos launching an assault on a compound deep in the Washington forests!

And the gore level is through the roof – every time someone’s shot we read about their “steaming organs” blowing out or their brains wetly slapping against the nearest wall. Guys are blown up, gutted, decapitated, chopped apart, strangled, sliced and diced, impaled, and just plain shot, and each and every death is rendered in super-gory detail. In other words, it’s awesome! Almost as exploitative is the gun-porn, with reams of egregious detail doled out anytime someone whips out a gun, even if it’s some nameless gunman who just showed up long enough to get blown away.

As mentioned, the book runs 325 pages, and roughly 90% of it is comprised of various battles, with members of the Hard Corps taking out Vinh’s soldiers on their own or together. Somehow Fieldhouse manages to drop some comedy (mostly via banter) and even suspense into the tale, but for the most part it’s just an endless aciton fest. Stephen Mertz mentioned once that Fieldhouse was part of a “Rosenberger Circle” of writers, and that’s very apparent here – while the writing style is vastly superior to Rosenberger’s own, the action scenes do tend to go on and on, with a special focus on hand-to-hand combat.

But again, given the almost cartoonish level of gore, one can hardly complain…the book was almost like a writing exercise on how many ways a writer could describe a character getting killed. I’ve picked up most of the rest of the series, and happily it looks like future volumes are much shorter – meaning they can focus more on the carnage and less on the arbitrary and needless backstories.