Claw 1: Day of Fury by Matthew Kirk

Claw 1 Day of Fury
by Matthew Kirk (Angus Wells)
1983, Granada

Blacksmith Tyler Wyatt agrees to watch some money in a safe, which makes him the target of bandits. To stop his father in law from being tortured, he brings in his wife, who is gang raped in front of him and later murdered. Wyatt himself has his left hand crushed with a hammer, which he replaces with a multi-claw prosthetic.

The origin story is the main tale, with some flash forwards of him starting his long trail of revenge. Pretty basic story-wise, but nasty and gory in parts. The origin stories are usually the weakest, looking forward to future installments.

From Amazon

Revenge Ride by Jury Grant

Revenge Ride
by Jury Grant
2017

Gunther "Gun" Battle's wife is killed, sending him on the titular revenge ride, mostly banging women. Sleazier update to classic Adult Westerns with a dash of Piccadilly Cowboy, down to the bad puns and other author names as characters.

No longer available. This and the other two installments are lost to time.

Crow 4: The Black Trail by James W. Marvin

Crow 4
The Black Trail
by James W. Marvin (Laurence James)

Crow becomes the guide and bodyguard of Zulu Prince Mavulamanzi, who is touring America with his entourage of slaves, which includes a White woman who Crow, of course, has sex with. They run afoul of the local Apaches, and the two make a move to rescue their captive servants.

A step down in the action and sleaze, replaced with casual racism. I didn't get the sense that Crow hates Black people any more than he hates everyone else, but that doesn't stop him from using slurs just to be a dick.

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Lassiter 6: High Lonesome by Jack Slade

Lassiter 6
High Lonesome
by Jack Slade (Peter McCurtin)
1969, Leisure Books

Lassiter comes in to a town to find his bounty already dead and the saloon full of hired guns. Two factions are in war over the town and Lassiter is recruited as Sheriff by one side. Lassiter sets up a meeting with the other side to get a Yojimbo thing going, but the book isn't long enough to support that so it gets cut short by all out war so Lassiter sneaks back into town to steal some money.

From Amazon

Crow 3: Tears of Blood by James W. Marvin

Crow 3
Tears of Blood
by James W. Marvin

Full blown psychopath Crow is looking to make some money and is town when a prominent citizen and his poorly reputed young wife are kidnapped. Crow agrees to a bounty to rescue them with a bonus for each kidnapper he kills. Crow tracks them down, killing a few folks along the way, is captured, sleaziness ensues, he escapes, then resolves in mass violence.

Continues the pattern of well staged tactics performed by a remorseless monster with no redeeming qualities, so of course the series is a favorite of mine.

There's a weird framing device of someone telling this story years later and a few references to the Apache series shoehorned in at the beginning, neither of which have anything to do with the story.

From Amazon

Bunco Brawl: Hand Four

 

Three new players ante up. Sociopathic Crow joins the buttstuff bandit Renegade and new-comer Lassiter.

WWX Tag Title: Spicy Western Stories v02n03

Spicy Western Stories v02n03
July, 1937

v02n03

Sheep Hater by Clint Morgan

Dirtbag cowboy is in love with a woman who won't marry him because she's ashamed of her father. He bangs her, bangs her sister, gets caught, and is forced into marrying sis, who turns out to be a shrew. He becomes a drunkard, is framed for murder, cleared, the marriage is invalidated, and his first love evidently didn't have other options.

Rodeo Rats by Rex Norman

Contemporary crime story. A rodeo star bangs the suspect in his boss' murder, a bubble dancer used by the New York syndicates as bait in a gambling scam.

Hell in Hidden Valley by King Saxon

A wandering cowpoke stumbles across a rancher under attack.

Available from archive.org

Bunco Brawl: Hand Three

 

All three authors fold, clearing the table for the next hand.

Slocum 1: Hanging Justice by Jake Logan

Slocum 1
Hanging Justice
by Jake Logan
1977, Playboy Press

Slocum is forced into jury duty for a trial of a notorious criminal gang. There's a subplot or maybe a flashback of Slocum being captured and turned in by a crooked bounty hunter. None of these really go anywhere, and the plot is confusing despite not much going on.

Slocum himself is hard on his luck schlub, which would have worked better with a less grim tone. I don't think there were any on-screen sex scenes, and there was little action. By the end it was just rambling.

Some literary flourishes in parts, but they just seemed to underline that the author would rather be writing a different book.

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Six-Gun in Cheek: An Affectionate Guide to the "Worst" in Western Fiction by Bill Pronzini

Six-Gun in Cheek: An Affectionate Guide to the "Worst" in Western Fiction
by Bill Pronzini
1997, Crossover Press

There's a serviceable history of popular western fiction in the framing, but I've been so broken by pulp fiction that all of this sounds normal to me. There's a little bit of silliness with overdone slang, but there was nothing here to snicker at or appreciate the audacity, it's just western fiction.

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Breed 2 The Silent Kill by James A. Muir

Breed 2
The Silent Kill
by James A. Muir (Angus Wells)
1977, Sphere

Breed continues his hunt for his family's killers. He comes across a wagon train stranded in the snow trying to cross the Sierras. He comes to the group five days away from Carson City, but instead of turning back they spend over a month facing the elements, and the bulk of the story is miserable winter survival.

A huge step down from the brutality of the first installment to standard western fare.

From Amazon

Bunco Brawl - First Hand Edge vs Blaze vs Bounty Hunter

Western authors ante up three books at time for the Bunco Brawl!

First Hand - Edge vs Blaze vs Bounty Hunter

Gatling 1: Zuni Gold by Jack Slade

Gatling 1
Zuni Gold
by Jack Slade (Peter McCurtin)
1989 Leisure

Gatling is hired to test advanced weaponry for Maxim, and uses the opportunity to protect a Zuni tribe from Aztecs hired by a mining consortium. The action scenes start with tactical set ups, but the actual shooting is brief and confusing. Gatling is suitably gritty, murdering more mining executives than the Molly McGuires. A personal gripe, it ends with two of my personal least favorite western elements - a trial, and the US Army agreeing to treat the native tribes fairly. It's not that I don't want to see them being treated fairly, but it's kind of a Pollyanna ending given history.

Available for kindle from Amazon

Renegade 4: Death Hunter by Ramsay Thorne

Renegade 4: Death Hunter
by Ramsay Thorne
1980 Warner

Captain Gringo and Gaston recruit mercenaries to hunt for a German submarine base in Costa Rica on behalf of British intelligence. A little low on the action, though it ends with a fun bit involving shooting a machine gun from a hot air balloon. The creepiest entry so far, opening with a rape played for laughs and a sex scene between Gringo and a thirteen-year-old.

Available from Amazon

Series Showdown: Six-Gun Samurai vs Renegade

Captain Gringo continues to bugger his way across Latin American while Six-Gun Samurai moves towards more conventional men's adventure. Captain Gringo empties a belt of his Maxim machinegun into Six-Gun Samurai, winning the Western division.

Captain Gringo/Renegade 3: The Fear Merchant by Ramsay Thorne/Lou Cameron

Captain Gringo aka Renegade 3
The Fear Merchant
by Ramsay Thorne (Lou Cameron)

Richard Walker and Gaston take the boat of arms they absconded with in the last installment to Nicaragua where they plan to sell them to Conservative rebels. Walker ends up commanding a troop of green revolutionaries, flushes out a traitor in their camp, flees for the coast, and frees a village from a bandit overlord. And still finds time to make time with five different ladies. We get a psychedelic sex scene, a nude shootout, a psychotic hermit, and a mission siege.

The plotting style of this series takes some getting used to. We don't have a three act structure of introducing and overcoming obstacles, more of running from one obstacle to another. It fits in with Walker's vagabond life, but the installments feel like parts of stories sewn together. Mainly I would have liked to see the siege of the bandit king sequence take up a whole book instead of an epilogue rushed out at the end and barely connected to the main story.

Kindle ebook from Amazon

Six-Gun Samurai 3: Gundown at Golden Gate by Patrick Lee

Six-Gun Samurai 3
Gundown at Golden Gate
by Patrick Lee (W.L. Fieldhouse)
1981 Pinnacle

Tom Tanaka goes to San Francisco where corrupt politicians are warring with Chinese organized crime. Tom gets captured and escapes like three times and ends the story raiding a cathouse to rescue a young woman.

So far each of the installments has had a different author, but this one had a greater departure in tone, almost a Joseph Rosenberger feel with every punch or kick given a Japanese name as he mows down his opponents.

There's a thread of Tom fighting against intolerance in the form of racist white politicians and him softening his negative Japanese attitude towards the Chinese, and then proceeds to spit on Koreans, so no real good guys in this one.

Felt more Men's Adventure than Western, and lost some of the chanbara feel of the first books.

Paperback from Amazon

Series Showdown: Spur vs Six-Gun Samurai

Neither plot really worked out, and Six-Gun Samurai was a step down from the first installment, but at least no children were molested on page. Spur begs for its life as Six-Gun Samurai denies it an honorable death.

Six-Gun Samurai 2: Bushido Vengeance by Patrick Lee

Six-Gun Samurai 2
Bushido Vengeance
by Patrick Lee (Patrick E. Andrews)
1981 Pinnacle

After finding one of the men who killed his family, Tanaka Tom Fletcher uncovers a plot to manipulate two Apache tribes into fighting each other so a phony reservation agent can steal the gold from their land. Tom unites the tribe to face off against the US Army before the plot screeches to a halt for a courtroom scene.

Not as sleazy as the first, but plenty of heads being lopped off and Apache torture. Lee has cultures, from Japanese to Apache to Mexican to American, take turns competing to see who treats women the worst, but for a Piccadilly Western they could have fared much worse. There's a theme of the Apaches and Japanese having a system of honor that places them above the Americans, but mostly it's about how much someone should be tortured before they die.

The plot was a bit unlikely as well, but that may be more a function of Tom being an idiot. He seems to have a plan to kill his enemy without raising the ire of the US Army, then depends on the Apaches getting a fair trial, then depends on the Americans chalking up a bunch of dead soldiers to a misunderstanding and leaving the tribes alone.

Paperback from Amazon

Spur 10: Nevada Hussy by Dirk Fletcher

Spur 10
Nevada Hussy
by Dirk Fletcher
1985 Leisure

"prostrate trigger"

Spur McCoy goes to a mining town to uncover a plot to steal $30 million in ore, but mainly sleeps with sex workers and a rich cougar. Light on action and heavy on depravity - half the sex workers are underage, some as young as 10, incest, rape murders, the works. There's at least some sense that these are things the bad guys do, but it's particularly insidious in the context of a sex novel, especially when there are ostensibly normal sex scenes that go south when someone asks "How old are you again?"