Saladin's Spy

The Crusader #5

by Andrew J. Offutt, John Cleve (Pseudonym)

Thanks to Saladin's Spy, sadistic Turks cature a crucial castle, murdering every knight within its hilltop walls. A helpless prisoner there is the brutally captured young woman who came fro France to the Holy Land as nurse . but is destined to become the slave of her dusky captors. One man is the obvious choice to try to free her . Another rousing tale of exotic intrigue. Treachery, fierce battle and fiery passion to continue the saga of The Crusader!

Genres: Historical Fiction

231 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Andrew Jefferson Offutt was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He wrote as Andrew J. Offutt, A.J. Offutt, and Andy Offut. His normal byline, andrew j. offutt, had his name in all lower-case letters. His son is the author Chris Offutt.

Offutt began publishing in 1954 with the story And Gone Tomorrow in If. Despite this early sale, he didn't consider his professional life to have begun until he sold the story Blacksword to Galaxy in 1959. His first novel was Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards in 1970.

Offutt published numerous novels and short stories, including many in the Thieves World series edited by Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey, which featured his best known character, the thief Hanse, also known as Shadowspawn (and, later, Chance). His Iron Lords series likewise was popular. He also wrote two series of books based on characters by Robert E. Howard, one on Howard's best known character, Conan, and one on a lesser known character, Cormac mac Art.

As an editor Offutt produced a series of five anthologies entitled Swords Against Darkness, which included the first professional sale by Charles de Lint.

Offutt also wrote a large number of pornographic works under twelve different pseudonyms, not all of them identified. Those known include John Cleve, J.X. Williams, and Jeff Douglas. His main works in this area are the science fiction Spaceways series, most of whose volumes were written in collaboration, and the historical Crusader series.

Reviews

[Georgette Kaplan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ten years after the last installment, Offnut returns with a fifth book in the series. Naturally, a lot of this book is a Rocky-style recap of the last novel for those who lost their copy in the intervening decade. You'd think he'd also wrap up any lingering plot threads and call it a night on this particular franchise, but not so much.

The book largely concerns the Siege of Darum, which is depicted with passing imagination. But the whole thing is still, well, smut, necessitating that half the book be set-up for a cliffhanger ending, a sequel hook for a sequel that never happened (maybe the good people at Tocsin Press could attend to that, but this is probably too obscure even for them).

In one half of the book, Guy Kingsaver participates in the siege and eventual conquest of Darum. In the other, Saracens assisted by Lady Luisa surreptitiously overtake a monastery run by the Knights Hospitaller, turning it into a death-trap for Christians. Guy is obviously destined to end up there, but not in this volume--he never even meets 'Saladin's Spy'. And given how past books were written, you can only imagine that all this set-up is pointless, as all that information would be repeated in a sixth book, if it were to come out.

Both storylines are long on forced sex. A female assassin is captured by the Crusaders at Darum and gang-raped, with Guy unambiguously joining in, while a nun becomes a sex slave to the Saracens after her capture. It's not much fun.

Weirdly, one chapter involves a woman masquerading as a man to fight in the Crusade. Offnut claims (through a quotation) that this is historically accurate and it seems right up the story's alley, but her deception is only found out after she's killed and she's never even mentioned before her death, making the whole thing pointless except maybe as capitulation to this book needing to hit a bloated word count instead of something more svelte.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ten years after book 4 in the Crusader series came out, Andy Offutt (writing as John Cleve) returned to Guy Kingsaver for a book 5. He seemed not to have missed a beat. The voice and tone of the story seemed very similar, although there was actually more sex in this book than in the previous ones, which had not stinted on the sex themselves. Guy has to join Richard the Lionheart in an attack on a Muslim fortress but manages to find time to dally with several welcoming woman and at least one female assassin who was definitely not willing. Interwoven with Guy’s adventures are chapters focusing on the experiences of the Lady Luisa, a Christian woman who has joined the Muslim cause as a spy. She is quite the lusty character and has nearly as much sex as Guy. She had appeared in previous books in the series and had even bedded—and tricked—Guy, who has not forgiven her. The book ends on a cliffhanger, with guy traveling to what he thinks will be a safe haven. Only, Luisa has helped an enemy group take the site and Guy will be surprised and likely captured or killed. It seems clear the intent was to have a 6th book. It never appeared, although Offutt lived until 2013.

[Kelly McCune · Rating 1 out of 5]

How dare you?!?

Five novels in the series. The last one ends in a cliffhanger with the main character facing certain death or at least capture by his worst enemy. And the author never wrote another word.
If Andrew Offett aka John Cleve weren't already dead I'd go looking for him.

[Ascian · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Cleve's The Crusader series is one of my very favorite and much loved and treasured books of erotica. Brimming with hard-core sex scenes, very well written and explicit.

There's a really nasty scene in I think the middle. Just shows that Guy Kingsaver, while nice enough to his friends, is really brutal to his enemies.

Quite expensive to get normally, but I got the first four books cheaply through secondhand bookstores. I was super lucky that way.