Without Mercy

by Leonard Jordon

PULP HEAVEN is proud to present THE COLLECTED PULP FICTION OF LEN LEVINSON, beginning with a taut, no-holds-barred hunt for a vicious serial killer originally published in 1981:

WITHOUT MERCY

Cynthia Doyle worked in the flesh trade in New York’s Times Square, the sex capital of the world. Bodies were her business, massages were her medium … and death was her destiny.
Cynthia met all types in her trade. There were married men, dying for the novelty of another woman’s body. Lonely men, dying for a woman’s company. And there were just a few weirdoes dying to get their hands around a woman’s throat.
Usually Cynthia could weed out the weirdoes from her serious customers. But one night when she left the Crown Club, she didn’t realize she had made one deadly mistake, one that left her in a dead end alley, without defense, facing a dangerous man … without mercy.

THE AUTHOR

Hailed as a ‘trash genius’, Len Levinson was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, served on active duty in the U.S. Army from 1954-1957, and graduated from Michigan State University with a BA in Social Science. He relocated to NYC that year and worked as an advertising copywriter and public relations executive before becoming a full-time novelist. Len created and wrote a number of series, including The Apache Wars Saga, The Pecos Kid and The Rat Bastards. He has had over eighty titles published, and PP is delighted to have the opportunity to issue his exceptional WWII series, The Sergeant in digital form. After many years in NYC, Len moved to a small town (pop. 3100) in rural Illinois, where he is now surrounded by corn and soybean fields ... a peaceful, ideal location for a writer.

Genres: Horror

312 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1981

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a reissue of a 1981 novel by Len Levinson, who by his own admission wrote 86 books under 22 pen names. As detailed in his bonus material, none of his books were best sellers, but he followed his dream and wrote lots of books.
This is a police procedural. Cynthia Doyle was beaten and stabbed to death in an alley between 9th and 10th near 45th. She was blonde and she was dead. Eyewitnesses saw a man run away. Detective Danny Rackman investigates and, because Cynthia's place of employment had been massage parlor, that means checking out every single peep
show, pimp, junkie, and filthy bar in 1970s Times Square. Rackman has been through two marriages and two divorces and has a
teenage daughter from the first marriage he hardly sees. She lives in Forest Hills. The ex wife is still a nagging bitch.

This is a good old fashioned detective story and Levinson is a pretty good writer. Why he has been forgotten and virtually unread is unknown to me. This is a book that's hard to put down. Not much
effort is wasted on fancy descriptions. It's all meat here. He gives you the detective's perspective and the depraved killer's perspective. Good stuff. Nuff said.

[Mikepottz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beaten heavily and stabbed in the throat, the women discarded like garbage in a dark small alley. People were fascinated by the filth, sleaze, peep shows, porno theaters, the booths with dancing girls shaking arse, the smell of dried cum. Times Square was a place you could do anything and nobody cared, with the walking girls, drug crazed junkies, a place like another world. A fat ugly guy, small eyes, hates girls, hates how they sell theirs bodies, hates how they reject him and is going to make them all pay in blood and terror. They humiliated him and he wants them DEAD. As the body count increases he is coined the Slasher which he loves. He walks the streets, enters the massage parlors, sharp switchblade in his pocket. This captures the sleaze of NY through the pages.

[Holden · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Kipp Poe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another found treasure on Kindle, I have been collecting Pulp books for a few years now and now I have found another author to add to my list as a must read.

I have been reading a lot of the police procedural from the like of Ed Mcbain and such but this book here took it to a whole new level. It really captured the grit and the perversity of NY and it didn't hold much back.

I really liked the different sections of the book giving the different view points of the cop side and the slasher.

Well worth the read and yes I must read more from Len