The Blood of Strangers

Dirty Harry #10

by Dane Hartman

DIRTY HARRY—BREAKING THE RULES AND MAKING HIS OWN!

Terrorists! Airports and public places are their stage. Civilians are their targets. The spread of chaos is their game. Now Dirty Harry wants to play—for keeps. On battlefields from Frisco to Beirut to El Salvador, in the company of a beautiful T.V. newswoman, he leaves a trail of hot blood and bullets as he searches beyond the Libyan connection for the source of this savagery. Dirty Harry—breaking every law to get the criminals, making his law to fit the crime.

208 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1982

About the author

Following the release of the third Dirty Harry movie, The Enforcer, in 1976, Clint Eastwood made it clear that he did not intend to make any more Dirty Harry movies. In 1981, Warner Books (the publishing arm of Warner Bros., which made the films) began publishing a number of men's adventure series under its now-defunct "Men of Action" line. One such series features the further adventures of Inspector Harry Callahan. The books, written primarily by Ric Meyers and Leslie Alan Horvitz, appeared under the house name Dane Hartman. The series was brought to an end when Eastwood decided to direct, produce, and star in a fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact, which was released in December 1983.

Reviews

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bomb left at an airport. Body parts flying in different terminals. It was hard to determine the death toll. Some body parts pulverized to nothing. The smell of blood and cooked flesh was high. Dirty Harry has a news crew following him around sanctioned by his bosses. He is pissed. Harry arrives at a robbery/hostage scene and takes the shot. Hostage lucky to be alive and three dead criminals dead by his trusty smith & weston. Harry doesn't miss. Now the ridiculous shit happens. Harry is undercover as a civilian body guard of a Libyan minister in USA. He pushes him out of the range of an assassin's bullet. Harry is a hero and now continues to bloody Beirut during the war. I thought he was a SFP detective. I know its towards the end of this series but come on. Harry flies first class shots a person in transit at a international airport. Shoots at Syrian army, blows up a weapon cache, and kills an ex CIA agent now international arms dealer. I prefer him just being a normal detective solving crimes, pissing off his chain of command and pumping bullets in deadbeats.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more like a 3.5 rounded up. It's not bad, just really odd, and makes little sense. It reads more like a Nick Carter Killmaster book than one about a San Francisco homicide detective. Harry is asked to go undercover to get close to a Libyan official who is thought to be involved in recent terrorism including the bombing of a San Francisco airport terminal. He ends up going to Lebanon and El Salvador to get ahold of info to get to the terrorists which is again quite odd for a city homicide detective. There is also a crazy news reporter who follows him around trying to get the story.

Recommended overall since it's definitely not boring, just don't think about it too much. The writing isn't bad and moves along at a pretty quick pace.

[Garrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book so far. Gratuitous violence, DH racks up the body count, but the sexual violence found in almost all of the others is gone. Everything is here to include one liners, international travel, terrorists, CIA operatives, and DH at his best. This is my number 1 so far out of the ten.

[Beauregard Shagnasty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a pretty wild entry to the series that sees Harry become almost a James Bond figure with his globe-trotting adventures, chasing down terrorist, working with the CIA (!) dispensing justice (read: killing people) all over the world. In this one he sure piles up the bodies and that's what these books are all about, I guess. This particular story has a bad rap on other Dirty Harry websites but I found it to be an acceptable time killer. This is not high art, but pulp fiction.On that level, it works.It is not one of my favorites but I found it to be no worse than some of the other, weaker entries.

[G.R. Williamsom · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a fan of the Dirty Harry movies, I thought it might be interesting to read one the books that brought the character into being.

Boy, what a disappointment.

Apparently, it was the team of screenwriters that developed the iconic master of mehaym, Dirty Harry.

Sorry, it's a no read.

[Tom Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dirty Harry #10: “The Blood of Strangers” by Dane Hartman (Unknown). The Libyan minister, Gamal Abd’el Keyyim, is visiting L.A., where he plans to donate money to the university. Harry is sent from San Francisco to help guard him, and actually saves his life when a man in the audience tried to kill the minister. Now Keyyim wants Harry to accompany him to Beirut as an extra guard. In the meantime, KCVO news anchor, Ellie Winston, is following Harry to get a scoop for the news. Behind it all is a group of terrorists. In Beirut things go bad, and they are caught between crossfire at a warehouse where the minister is buying weapons from an international dealer, who may be a CIA agent. I think this was one of the worst plots in the Dirty Harry series. And the action was just as goofy.