Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction: An Encyclopedia from Able Team to Z-Comm

by Brad Mengel

Rough justice has often been served in the pages of serial novels, notably beginning with Don Pendleton's The Executioner in 1969. This is the first overview of the serial vigilante genre, which featured such hard-boiled protagonists as Nick Carter, Mark Stone, Jake Brand and Able Team among the 130 series that followed Pendleton's novel. Serial vigilantes repeatedly take the law into their own hands, establishing and imposing their own moral standards, usually by force. The book examines the connections between the serial vigilante and the pulp hero that preceded him and how the serial vigilante has influenced a variety of tough guys, private eyes, spies and cops in different media. A complete bibliography for each series is featured.

Genres: Reference

233 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Lee Goldberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for unusual reference works about the media, whether its books, movies or TV shows (and you gotta love McFarland for publishing so many of them). This one was aimed right at my sweet spot. I've always loved pulp novels like "The Executioner," "The Penetrator," "The Death Merchant," and "The Destroyer." In fact, I did a scholarly, unpublished examination of the vigilante genre myself many years ago...and as research for writing my first novel, .357 Vigilante, under the pseudonym "Ian Ludlow" (yes, it's covered in this book, and accurately, too). For me, the best part of Mengel's book is discovering who actually wrote the novels written under "house" names...and learning the inside story on the development of so many obscure pulp series. This book is clearly a labor of love, but it leans more towards scholarly analysis than fannish drool. It's a great book for fans of pulps, rich with details and background information, and offers a historical overview of a genre, and a class of mass market paperbacks, that are all but dead today (except for Gold Eagle's "Executioner" books). Many of these books, and their authors, would have been forgotten if not for this one-of-a-kind reference work, which also offers a glimpse at the influence and workings of book packages/"creators" in the 60s,70s & 80s. The only drawback of this book is the steep cover price. To save a few bucks, I bought the Kindle edition, which was also inexcusably pricey at $16, especially since the book doesn't really lend itself to easy reading on an e-reader.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very enjoyable overview/reference work. The author used criteria that covers a specific type of "men's adventure" fiction, and I was disappointed that it completely left out the huge post-apocalyptic genre. Perhaps a future volume?

[Glen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the only reference book for this genre of fiction. There are some minor series omitted, but on the whole, an invaluable guide for fans.