Kill!

by Frank Scarpetta

WAR TO THE DEATH
If the big-shots who run the Mafia could lay their hands on the lower echelon goons who slaughtered the Marksman's wife and child, they would hang them on meat hooks and give them a slow death. But they can't do that because they are already dead-the first casualties in the bitter war between the Marksman and the Organization. Since then the Marksman has racked up a huge body count of Syndicate killers. And he'll go on killing as long as he lives.

165 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1974

About the author

Frank Scarpetta was a primary pseudonym used by American educator and author George Harmon Smith to write gritty, fast-paced pulp fiction during the late 20th century. While Smith authored wholesome Young Adult wilderness novels under his real name, he utilized the Scarpetta pen name to contribute to the men's action and adventure paperback markets. Most notably, he used this identity to pen raw, action-heavy installments for The Marksman crime series, including Savage Slaughter, The Marauders, and Icepick in the Spine.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wonderfully blunt title and cover art aside, I found this installment in the endless Marksman/Sharpshooter/Assassin saga to be something of a slog It starts off promisingly, if wacky--a professor of archaeology is being forced to use his position to smuggle in drugs and even weapons alongside his artifacts and he wants Magellan's help. Funnily enough, he's almost an exact double for Magellan, who naturally comes up with the idea of pretending to be him to screw with the Mafia.

What's more, the local Mob boss, Nick Corsico, is using crooked businessman Tommy Silvetti as a frontman. (deep breath) Tommy's wife is really a handler working at the behest of Corsico, and occasionally sleeping with him as well, while Silvetti is sleeping with Corsico's wife, until she's killed by Joey Girotti, who is another mobster going to war with Corsico and working with dirty cop George Boffin. HOWEVER, Corsico blames his wife's death on Magellan and hires hitman Alberto Petini to hunt down the Marksman. ALSO, Tommy's wife has been cheating on him with a bartender (and not just Corsico), AND the professor Magellan is imitating has a hot-to-trot daughter who, in an odd scene, sunbathes nude but is fine with Magellan walking in on her because she thinks he's her father.

This is all, obviously, a lot to keep track of for a 165 page novel and none of it really goes anywhere. It's like the writer just piles on plot point after plot point to fill up page space until he's hit his word count, then he draws everything to an anticlimactic close without any of this set-up really paying off. I couldn't tell you which of these guys Magellan manages to take out; I think a lot of them are just done in by other gangsters while Magellan wanders about.

And there are a lot of scenes where even the narrative has to admit it doesn't make much sense. Characters not sharing information "for some reason" or managing to escape from being imprisoned and popping up where convenient with no more explanation than "Magellan was never to know" how it happened. Like a lazy editor could see this thing was full of plot holes, but could only motivate the writer to go "somehow that was what happened" instead of fixing them. I realize men's adventure does always make sense, but it should be done with confidence, not a shrug.

A good pulp story should hit you like a punch to the jaw. This one is more like a feather duster to the face. It doesn't do anything and it confuses you to wonder what it was even supposed to do.

[Arjay Villarino]

Im looking for review for educatilnal purposes only please and thankyou