Peter McCurtin - Soldier of Fortune

[wildgoose]

There are eighteen books in this series. The stories are written in the first person as narrated by Jim Rainey an American mercenary and arms dealer.

Some titles were published in numerous editions, featuring a variety of different covers. Those released in the Seventies tend to have artwork and those published in the Eighties photo-covers. And to my mind those are quite frankly horrible, featuring a guy who looks like he should have been in the Village People!

NEL released six volumes initially with covers by Tony Masero, then reissued with David McAllister artwork. Some of the cover art can be misleading. For instance judging by McAllister’s covers for Operation Hong Kong and The Guns of Palembang you’d expect military units in full-on combat, but in those Rainey is involved in operations more akin to a secret agent on a counter-terrorism mission rather than out and out warfare.

I'm not entirely sure of the correct chronology, but as far as I can make out these are the (main) settings for each title.

Massacre At Umtali (1976) - Rhodesia
The Deadliest Game (1976) - Argentina
Spoils Of War (1977) - Lebanon
The Guns Of Palembang (1977) - Indonesia)
First Blood (1977) - Panama
Ambush At Derati Wells (1977) - Kenya
Operation Hong Kong (1977) - HK
Body Count (1977) - New Guinea
Battle Pay (1978) - Caribbean
Golden Triangle (1984) - Vietnam
Kalahari (1984) - South Africa
Moro (1984) - Phillipines
Yellow Rain (1984) - Afghanistan
Green Hell (1984) - N.Ireland
Somali Smashout (1985) - Somali
Blood Island (1985) - Western Samoa
Death Squad (1985) - Nicaragua
Bloodbath (1985) - Hawaii

More can be found about McCurtin here.

[justin]

As ever I'm prepared to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure there were no more than 9 SoF novels. They were reprinted under different titles in the 80s which has caused some confusion and why people think there are 18.....

[wildgoose]

Well, I haven't got any of the ones from the 80s. I think I might even be too embarrassed to buy one if I saw one, but unless they were rewritten to change the countries they are set in, it seems unlikely that was the case.

[ripper]

I have 3 of these, all from the 1970s group. I thought that the 1980s books were just a continuation of the earlier group, though I have no idea why there is such a considerable gap between the 1970s and 1980s groups. There was another completely unrelated series also entitled Soldier of Fortune published by 22 Books in the mid 1990s and featuring British mercs (different one or team per book I believe), rather than the same American merc featured in the McCurtin books.

[pulphack]

Justin has featured a lot about this in PF and Men Of Action, with some excellent research from an American who has FAR too much time on his hands, and thank heavens for that!

The 22 series links to what we've been talking about elsewhere, as it was run by the other George Mann - the old bloke who was Bill Baker's right-hand man at Press Editorial! Had some interesting writers on board, too, as both Peter Cave and Mark Timlin turned their hands to the series.

[ripper]

Thanks for the info on 22 Books, Pulphack. I meant to collect all of their SOF series when they came out, but only managed the first four, along with various Soldier SAS and Marine SBS titles. I enjoyed all the 22 Books titles I read, though imho the Shaun Clarke ones were the most impressive, but I don't think he contributed to the SOF series.

There are so many of these types of book. I've recently come across the Soldier for Hire series, written by Robert Skimin in the early 1980s and I have a couple on order from the USA.

[andydecker]

Do you know the series Soldiers of Barrabas written under the house name Jack Hild?

This was published by canadian/american Gold Eagle, the guys who are still doing the Executioner novels, in the mid-eighties.

At least the first novels were not bad. They were done before the formula of the action novel became a corsett which strangled everything. Lots of continuity.

The first 20 or so novels were done by Robin Hardy (which must be Robin Moore, the guy who wrote The Green Berets) and Alan Philipson. The rest was pretty forgettable. Covers are terrible, though.

[ripper]

I have heard of the Soldiers of Barrabas series, Andy, but have not read any of the books. I see from mackbolan.com that there are 10 team members, which sounds quite a few. Are all of the members featured in each book or just a few rotating between each adventure?

[andydecker]

As far as I remember - I have half of series, read maybe a third of it - there was a core team of a handful guys, the rest were either red-shirts or just on a need-to-be basis. At least the name of the hero was rather inspired - Nile Barrabas, the last man out of Saigon, had a nice ring - and the title was very tongue-in-cheek. SOBs.

I also seem to remember the writing was not half as wooden as Jerry Ahern's They call me The Mercenary. Written under Axel Kilgore. Ahern and also Rosenberger did a few of these series, but the earlier series seems to be better realised, not in these supercommando mold the latter stuff was written.

I guess the blueprints like Wild Geese or Forsyth´s thrillers captured more the imagination then Stallone´s Rambo, which became the (boring) role-model.

[ripper]

I went through a phase about ten years ago of getting one or two copies of each of the mercenary/war series I came across, with a view to collecting those I liked best, but didn't get too far in actually collecting too many. I did get one of the They call me the Mercenary series, but it didn't really inspire me to buy any more. The Soldiers of Barrabas series sounds interesting and I will try one out. Just as an aside, wasn't Jim Braddock (Chuck Norris) also supposed to be the last man onto the helicopter on the embassy roof at the beginning of Missing in Action 3?

Other series I have sampled with a view to collecting include:

Executioner by Don Pendleton (I prefer the earlier books when Bolan was fighting the mafia and the war against terrorism).
Black Berets by Mike McCray
Mercenaries by Jon Hart (Written by John Harvey I think and I have 4 of the 5 published).
MIA Hunter by Jack Buchanan (I think these may be by Stephen Mertz as new Kindle versions are credited to him).
Israeli Commandos by Andrew Sugar (Unusual but not really too good I thought).
Gunships by Jack Hamilton Teed (I have all 4 in the series).
Black Eagles by John Lansing
Strike Force Falklands by Adam Hardy
Chopper 1 by Jack Hawkins
Hatchet by Gordon Knox
Vietnam Groumd Zero by Eric Helm (I quite like this series and have about 10 or so).

Chris Dempster wrote a trio of mercenary novels (Hit, Havoc and Contract) in the early 1980s. Dempster is an interesting author as he was a mercenary in Angola in the mid 1970s and wrote a book about that conflict called Fire Power (co-authored with Dave Tomkins).

Soldier for Hire 8: Jakata Coup arrived through my letterbox today and it looks promising :-D.

[andydecker]

The MIA Hunter series was/is being reviewed by Kenny over at glorioustrash.blogspot.de/. Mertz was but one of the writers, Joe Landsdale did one or two.

Normally I am not big on war novels, but I also got Vietnam Ground Zero back then. It was part of the Gold Eagle subscription package. Have to say that I read quite a few of them and they were very well done.

[ripper]

Thanks for the info on the MIA series, Andy. I only have the first book in the series. I thought it was okay as these merc books go, but as it had for its premise that the hero was going to rescue MIAs in each entry in the series, I thought it might become a bit too "samey" for me, so I didn't seek out any more of them.

I suppose that a merc series has a big advantage over a war series in that there is the scope for much more variety in settings and plots. A soldier of fortune book can be set literally anywhere in the world, whereas a war series faces much greater constraints, and I am thinking particularly of series set in a modern conflict such as Vietnam. Having said that, of all the Vietnam series I have tried, the Vietnam Ground Zero books were the most fun imo. Jack Hamilton Teed's Gunships series were okay, but it only lasted for 4 titles.

[ripper]

Piccadilly Publishing is issuing the Soldier of Fortune series by Peter McCurtin as ebooks. So far, the first 4 have been published. I note that the first three are as Wildgoose listed them in his post, however, no. 4 is Yellow Rain, though the original publishing date by Leisure Books is given as 1984, which agrees with Wildgoose's list.

[andydecker]

Dec 2, 2022 15:05:42 GMT ripper said:

Piccadilly Publishing is issuing the Soldier of Fortune series by Peter McCurtin as ebooks. So far, the first 4 have been published. I note that the first three are as Wildgoose listed them in his post, however, no. 4 is Yellow Rain, though the original publishing date by Leisure Books is given as 1984, which agrees with Wildgoose's list.

This is the latest list of Piccadilly Publishing, up to March 2024.

1: MASSACRE AT UMTALI
2: THE DEADLIEST GAME
3: SPOILS OF WAR
4: YELLOW RAIN
5: GREEN HELL
6: MORO
7: KALAHARI
8: GOLDEN TRIANGLE
9: DEATH SQUAD
10: BLOODBATH

According to Lynn Munroe, after the first three by McCurtin, the next six were all by Ralph Hayes. The 80s books were written by McCurtin, Hayes and Paul Hofrichter.

The novels written according to Munroe:

Massacre At Umtali (1976) – Rhodesia (McCurtin)
The Deadliest Game (1976) – Argentina (McCurtin)
Spoils Of War (1977) – Lebanon (McCurtin)
The Guns Of Palembang (1977) - Indonesia) (Hayes)
First Blood (1977) – Panama (Hayes)
Ambush At Derati Wells (1977) – Kenya (Hayes)
Operation Hong Kong (1977) – HK (Hayes)
Body Count (1977) - New Guinea (Hayes)
Battle Pay (1978) – Caribbean (Hayes)
Golden Triangle (1984) – Vietnam (McCurtin)
Kalahari (1984) - South Africa (McCurtin)
Moro (1984) – Phillipines (McCurtin)
Yellow Rain (1984) – Afghanistan (McCurtin)
Green Hell (1984) - N.Ireland (McCurtin)
Somali Smashout (1985) – Somali (Paul Hofrichter)
Blood Island (1985) - Western Samoa (Hayes)
Death Squad (1985) – Nicaragua (McCurtin)
Bloodbath (1985) – Hawaii (McCurtin)

Here is one of two I have. Never read them, but maybe I will do a comparison between Hayes and McCurtin.

I remember distinctly some of Hayes' Nick Carter. Back then I thought them rather mediocre.

[ripper]

Thanks for the information, Andy. I bought 3 paperbacks over a decade ago, but as they are getting more difficult to obtain/pricier, these cheap ebooks are welcome. Hope PP publish all of the series.