Book Review: Blood Vengeance by Stuart Jason
Today, we’re looking at another entry in the Seventies men’s adventure paperback series category, #13 (of 35) in “The Butcher” series. Bucher (who only has one name due to the orphanage administrator being drunk at the time) was a foundling who ran away from the orphanage, but was taken in by kindly mobsters who taught him their ways. He became the Syndicate’s top hitman, and then head of operations for the East Coast. But one day he woke up and realized his lifestyle was not sparking joy and quit the Syndicate.
Except that no one quits the Syndicate, so they put a quarter-million bounty on his head. This has resulted in a lot of dead hitmen, which brought Bucher (nicknamed “the Butcher”) to the attention of White Hat, a secretive government agency that handles situations too tricky for the FBI or CIA. In exchange for their material support, Bucher now battles the enemies of America (which usually includes Syndicate members.)
At the beginning of this installment, Bucher is in Miami Beach to get his next assignment from White Hat, but first he must dispose of the latest hitman team sent to assassinate him, Warts and Mole. After killing Warts and temporarily scaring off Mole, Bucher assists the police by being able to speak Amharic and explain that a suspect they have in custody is a member of the Ethiopian embassy staff who was just following his culture’s tradition in killing his unfaithful wife and her lover.
This turns out to be more relevant to Bucher’s next job than it would normally be. It seems that Ethiopia is sending a new ambassador to the United States. The ambassador himself seems to be okay for a professional politician, but one of his staff members is Egor Ginir, who’d previously been kicked out of the United States for involvement in the narcotics trade. White Hat has learned that he has ties to the Syndicate as well as a terrorist organization, and is planning multiple kidnappings. But new oil reserves have been found in Ethiopia, so the ambassador must not be embarrassed by the U.S. Bucher must find a way to stop Ginir without causing an international incident, if possible.
So it’s off to Addis Ababa, where Bucher teams up with French-Riff agent Barbe, who he’s worked with before, and rookie Ethiopian agent Eden. Bucher gets distracted by more hitmen showing up. In what I think it a first for me, the protagonist of one of these books makes a Bond villain mistake. He agrees to have his enemies castrated and sold into slavery, a fate worse than death, and just assumes there’s no possible way they could escape and leaves.
The hitmen escape and Bucher discovers that Ginir has already headed for the States. So it’s back to Washington D.C. After some shenanigans to try to lure Ginir out into the open, Bucher and Barbe finally hook up. Barbe is in the next chapter raped and murdered for the purpose of enraging Bucher. It works. He abandons his assignment to seek revenge, catching up with the perpetrator near Minneapolis. After getting his horrific revenge, Bucher then goes to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories to deal with the perpetrator’s boss.
This also happens to bring Bucher back into the main plotline, as this Syndicate boss has been working directly with Ginir and the madman’s secret base is somewhere in the territory as he prepares his ultimate plan!
Well. That was certainly a book I have read now.
The tone is inconsistent. The introduction and first chapter are aiming for dark humor, Barbe’s subplot is meant to evoke pathos, some parts glory in all the violence while Bucher is supposed to be sickened by killing and world-weary. It doesn’t hang together well.
Egor Ginir is a villain who’s trying to juggle too many evil plans at one time. Mass kidnapping for ransom, heroin smuggling, “white slavery”, leading a cult of drug-crazed death-worshiping assassins, setting off pocket nukes in American cities, raping children and also convincing the Ethiopian ambassador’s wife to be unfaithful with him. It’s no surprise when his scheme collapses under its own weight (with some help from Bucher.)
Bucher himself is an unpleasant fellow who may be confining himself to only killing people who are trying to kill him these days, but has no compunctions about arranging for his enemies to be enslaved, castrated or raped. A running theme is for enemy hitmen to think that “the Butcher” is overrated, and the several dozen heavily armed mobsters he’s already killed were some kind of fluke. Naturally, women find Bucher irresistible. Oh, and the United States government is keeping him from ever being held for his crimes.
Content note: Rape, and plenty of it, both male and female. Castration. Sexual abuse of children. Gory violence and torture. Arabs being depicted as slavers as just part of their culture.
Overall: You’re going to need a strong stomach, but the sheer over the top nature of the plot has its charms. Mildly recommended to fans of sleazy men’s adventure paperbacks.
