The Rat Bastards series: #4. Meat Grinder Hill, by John Mackie, Jove Books, 1984.
I’d never seen any books from this series until I was in
Maine and found a small bookstore that carried volume 4. Being a sucker for war
series, especially WWII series, I snapped it up, and have finally read it. The
story takes place on Guadalcanal as the American forces make a last push to
take the island from a starving and undersupplied Japanese army. Here are my thoughts:
First, John Mackie is a pseudonym of Len Levinson. Here is a
link to a blog called “Glorious Trash,” where there is an interview with the author about the series. Another discussion with Levinson can be found
over at the Post Modern Pulp Blog.
Though I’ve only read one volume, I think I can make some
general deductions about the series, which runs to at least 16 books. What we
have is a kind of “Dirty Dozen” tale. The “Recon Platoon” is made up of
misfits, criminals, and barroom brawlers. They don’t like to follow orders but
they’re tough as hell and good in a fight. There are a number of characters who
fit fairly standard molds. Longtree is
descended from Apache warriors and great at stealth. Homer Gladley is a big but
not terribly bright farm boy from Nebraska. Frankie La Barbara is a handsome
Italian who has a way with the ladies. Then there’s sergeant Butsko, tough as
nails and no nonsense. The characters are drawn broadly and behave mostly in
expected ways.
I’d firmly place the series in the Men’s Adventure category.
There’s a lot of action, a lot of rough talk, and quite a bit of sex, at least
in volume 4. Most of the sex comes from Frankie seducing a variety of nurses
while recovering from some injuries at the military hospital. The sex is the
weakest element of the story and might have better been left out. It’s often a
part of the Men’s Adventure package, though, and I imagine that’s why it’s there. It’s hard
for me to tell whether the sex scenes were meant to be funny or erotic. The
slang used suggests humor, and I did get some laughs at phrases like: “…touches
his fingers lightly against her precious love-starved little gazoo,” or
“…pressing her hand against his hairy canary.”
The action sequences were much better done, and we do get to
see some of the fear and self-doubt that the characters experience. A
particularly nice touch to the book was how the Japanese enemy were treated with quite a bit of respect. Their
hardships, bravery, and loyalty to their leaders was well displayed, which I
found somewhat unusual for WWII series, where often the enemy is virtually
faceless. I found that this aspect of the story upped my enjoyment.
All in all, I liked “Meat Grinder Hill” fairly well. It was
about what I expected. I may try another
volume. I see that most of the series has been released fairly recently for the
Kindle and are available on Amazon under the author’s real name.
