Soldier of Fortune #11: Yellow Rain by Peter McCurtin

-

Soldier of Fortune #11: Yellow Rain (1984) by Peter McCurtin

After a several years hiatus Peter McCurtin resurrected the Soldier of Fortune title with #10, Yellow Rain, in 1984. A few authors are known to have taken on the McCurtin mantle to write this series, among them men’s adventure stalwart Ralph Hayes. Yellow Rain however is fully attributed to McCurtin personally, so I was excited to dive in, especially since I had never read a Soldier of Fortune book. 

Please forgive me for wading into this slim book with the expectation of wall-to-wall action with little character development or depth of political shading or geographic and cultural detail. Instead I discovered a slow burn of a rescue operation with more of an espionage vibe than a military firepower one. In fact, I was reminded of the master himself, Ian Fleming, in the way McCurtin takes the time to make the various political and social cultures of Russian-occupied Afghanistan in the early 80s a character every bit as developed as our narrator-hero, Jim Rainey. 

Our story opens with Rainey as he’s hired by a news magazine publisher to rescue Charles Goldman, a liberal journalist who is being held prisoner by rebels in the conflicted Middle Eastern country. Apparently, the journo is being left to suffer overseas by a CIA that dislikes his left-leaning stories vilifying them. Rainey agrees to the mission for a cool $100K and sets off immediately to the war-torn city of Kabul. 

The book flies by and yet I was starting to question its pedigree given that the very first action scene doesn’t occur until 136 pages into a volume that only runs 224 large print pages in total. However, from that point forward, this thing is in a constant escalation of violence and danger as Rainey and his drug-addled reluctant prize work their way through rebel forces, mountain tribesmen, the harsh Afghan environment, and Russian helicopters armed with nerve gas (the Yellow Rain of the title). This last third is a legitimately exhausting nail-biter of suspense and best of all, I didn’t know how any of it would turn out. 

This book surprised me and I will now actively look to acquire more of this series.

Review by Steve Carroll  

Here is the full list of titles and who wrote them, courtesy of Tom Simon from Paperback Warrior.

Most of the series was written by Peter McCurtin unless otherwise noted:

01. Massacre At Umtali (1976) - Rhodesia
02. The Deadliest Game (1976) - Argentina
03. Spoils Of War (1977) - Lebanon
04. The Guns Of Palembang (1977) - Indonesia (by Ralph Hayes)
05. First Blood (1977) - Panama (by Ralph Hayes)
06. Ambush At Derati Wells (1977) - Kenya (by Ralph Hayes)
07. Operation Hong Kong (1977) - Hong Kong (by Ralph Hayes)
08. Body Count (1977) - New Guinea (by Ralph Hayes)
09. Battle Pay (1978) - Caribbean (by Ralph Hayes)
10. Golden Triangle (1984) - Vietnam
11. Yellow Rain (1984) - Afghanistan
12. Green Hell (1984) - Ireland
13. Moro (1984) - Phillipines
14. Kalahari (1984) - South Africa
15. Death Squad (1985) - Nicaragua
16. Somali Smashout (1985) - Somalia (by Paul Hofrichter)
17. Bloodbath (1985) - Hawaii
18. Blood Island (1985) - Western Samoa (by Ralph Hayes)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Atomic Werewolves and Man-Eating Plants (2023) Edited by Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle

-
Image
Through the tireless efforts of pulp-renaissance men Robert Deis   and Wyatt Doyle, the world is once again a brighter place for those with a predilection   toward the Men’s Adventure Magazines   (MAMs) of a bygone era. The duo’s ability   to mine the depths of the MAM archives to pull together these themed editions   is unparalleled and the riches of their efforts is a gift to those like myself,   who generally missed out on these magazines in their original incarnation. The hook this time around is an entire edition built around   stories that are much more clearly fictional with supernatural overtones. This   makes it similar in some respects to the authors’ earlier   Cryptozoology Anthology . Whereas much of the popular MAM stories at   least dipped a toe into the real world, albeit it in greatly exaggerated tales   of manly men and their adventures, often while at   war, this collection revels   in tales of sci-fi and horror featuring (as announced loudly in a list on the front  
Read more

Men’s Adventure Quarterly Vol. 1 No. 2 (2021): ALL ESPIONAGE

-
Image
If you’ve followed this blog for any real length of time, then you know by now   that I am an espionage junkie. And nothing gets me going more than the   espionage books, movies and television shows of the Golden Age of spies, the   Cold War 50s, 60s, and 70s. Of course, this explosion in popularity at   that   time was tied directly into the superstardom of a single source—James Bond, Ian   Fleming’s indomitable British spy for Her Majesty, and his exploits   in novels   and the wildly successful film series that started in 1962 (and remains a   cash-cow today). Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham created  Men’s   Adventure Quarterly  (MAQ) as a way to preserve and celebrate the Men’s   Adventure Magazines   (MAM) of a bygone era. That MAM era was a post-war phenomenon   that ran from the late 40s through the early 70s. In their earlier heyday, there   was a   huge emphasis on so-called “true stories” of manly men at war (or   post-war), rescuing buxom ladies while crippling the Nazi war
Read more

The Paperback Kung Fu Phenomenon: Part 2 (Standalone Titles, TV, & the 80s)

-
Image
The following column was originally printed in Justin Marriott's Paperback Fanatic 47, which was published in July of 2023. You can buy a copy of it  here. As   I explained in this column last edition, I spent my teen years in the 1970s absolutely obsessed with all things martial arts. I collected magazines, comics, movies, and attempted to acquire every single paperback book or series that focused on this very specific genre. I was less interested in non- fiction books   about the martial arts or individual styles; I was really only interested in   the violent pulp fiction that was anchored in manly men (or sexy   women) fighting   other manly men (or sexy women) in stylized conflict. And thankfully there was   no shortage of it for a decade plus. This time around I want to focus on some additional two-fisted series from that   era, including a TV tie-in, a couple of titles that failed to spawn their own   series, and some that were birthed in the 80s. Kwai Chang   Caine, Master o
Read more