Showing results by author "Len Levinson" in All Categories

On the dodge south of the border, Duane Braddock lands in a luxurious Mexican hacienda, where he befriends a powerful nobleman’s lonely wife. It’s only a matter of time before hot lead starts flying, especially when American bounty hunters are closing in on the Pecos Kid, Apache have been seen in the vicinity, and his former great love, Miss Vanessa Fontaine, is hot on his trail. But Duane Braddock is 18 years old, and thinks he can handle anything. His problem is that Lady Luck might not agree.

They love to fight and live to kill! Start with an insane sergeant with a genius for leadership and a lust for blood. Add a bank robber. A racketeer. A guy who goes berserk on the battlefield. A gun-happy Texan. A silent Apache. A movie stuntman who swings from trees. Put them all together and you have the killing machine known as… the Rat Bastards.

It’s hot in the jungle. And with the Rat Bastards, what’s hot becomes sheer hell. Prison can slow them down. Women can make them happy. But it’s killing that keeps them going. In the jungle, every shadow, every noise can mean friend - or foe. They shoot first and ask questions never. For them, the war is always just beginning.…

He killed before he could shoot, kissed before he could love, won before he could lose. He was too green to live, too lucky to die. He was a natural, born to be a legend. Outlaw Hell. Everyone tells Duane Braddock to stay out of Escondido. But a month alone in the desert, even with his keen Apache-trained survival skills, is a month too long. He’s just partial to trouble - and when he’s hired to bring order to the outlaw town, there’s plenty for the taking.

He killed before he could shoot, kissed before he could love, won before he could lose. He was too green to live, too lucky to die. He was a natural, born to be a legend. Apache Moon. Everyone in town says Braddock is innocent. Two men are dead at the Bar-T Ranch - a clear case of self-defense. But an angry Army officer has personal reasons for pressing charges and Braddock is on the run, headed for Mexico with marriage on his mind and high-spirited Phyllis at his side. Between Mexico and freedom lays treacherous Apache land. For Braddock, it becomes a haven - a place to discover a priceless piece of his heritage.

They crawl through jungle. Claw through caves. Slog through swamps. Nothing can stop them. And every moment their minds are dominated by a single thought: kill, or die. They take the impossible jobs no ordinary outfit will touch. Because these aren’t ordinary men. They’re the toughest team in the Pacific War, the one the enemy fears most...The Rat Bastards.

Friend or foe, stay out of their way! Malaria can’t slow them down. A stockade can’t keep them penned up. Tanks can’t stop them. They’re the most blood-hungry platoon of killers in the jungle. The enemy fears them. Their own army hates them. But friend or foe, when they’re on their red-meat rampage of terror, you’d better steer clear of...The Rat Bastards.

He killed before he could shoot, kissed before he could love, won before he could lose. He was too green to live, too lucky to die. He was a natural, born to be a legend. Beginner’s Luck. Bastard son of an outlaw and a whore, handsome Duane Braddock, seventeen, stumbles off the stage into lawless Titusville and gets his first look at the real world just before he’s robbed. Two weeks out of the monastery that raised him, Duane can’t ride a horse, shoot a gun, and is defenseless against the wiles of Wild West life, such as warm whiskey, wanton women, and screaming lead. But within forty-eight hours, Duane is feared by every gunman in the country as the notorious, quick-shooting, tough-riding, hard-loving Pecos Kid. Before the week is out, his victims include the town’s best and worst: the richest man, the meanest gang, the fastest gun, the prettiest woman, and the greatest friend a lucky new cowboy ever had. How it all comes to pass is how real legends are born…

The year was 1846 and the great American Southwest was the prize in an epic conflict. The U.S. Army and the army of Mexico met in a battle that would shape the course of history, while the legendary Apache warrior chief Mangas Coloradas looked on, determined to defend his ancestral lands and age-old tribal traditions against either of the invaders or both.

The quiet of the jungle is shattered by a single command. The air fills with voices of death. A Texas cattle call. An Apache war whoop. A piercing scream of bloody blue murder. And a killing chorus of zinging hot lead. A mighty green wave surges up the hill. The Rat Bastards are on the rampage, and what the enemy began, they are about to finish.... The Rat Bastards.

He killed before he could shoot, kissed before he could love, won before he could lose. He was too green to live, too lucky to die. He was a natural, born to be a legend. The Reckoning. Running from an angry town, Duane Braddock takes a job as a cowhand at the Bar T Ranch hoping to settle down. But two things stand in the way: the son of a neighboring rancher who wants him dead and a ruthless Army officer who wants his fiancée. Duane could have handled these two men if they hadn’t found out why he’d left Titusville. And if he hadn’t fallen in love with another woman, things would have worked out okay. But now Braddock’s reputation as the quick-killing, hard-loving kid is on the line – just one wrong move and he’s dead.

When you want to win a battle, you get real men. When you want to win a war, you get The Rat Bastards. When they’re not fighting among themselves, they’re tearing raw, living chunks out of the enemy. Nothing - not death lurking in the jungle, not the wrath of a raging river - can stop the killer squad they call…The Rat Bastards.

The Japs are staging a surprise attack.

But a bigger, bloodier surprise is waiting for them! Whoever controls New Guinea can turn the tide of the war. That’s why the Japs are mounting a bold sneak attack designed to wipe out the Americans. But the Rat Bastards know when and where the enemy plans to strike. Can they quit thrill-hunting and fighting each other long enough to become the killer combat until the Yanks need to survive?

Cutthroat Comancheros, wandering banditos, the Mexican Army, the Fourth Cavalry - and Miss Vanessa Fontaine - all want Duane Braddock, who has the fastest gun in the West and much more than a price on his head. But it is the Apaches who leave him for dead in the Coahuilian Desert. Found by a ragtag outlaw band led by an ex-Confederate soldier, Braddock is brought back to the land of the living. By the time he is well enough to run, a greedy plan to seize half-a-million dollars of Army payroll is in place.

No one - friend or foe - wants to take on this band of marauders. After all, they don’t call them the Rat Bastards for nothing. But now this bunch of mavericks, once welded together into a crack fighting unit, is coming unstuck between battles. It’ll take the music of gunfire to bring the grimy gang back to life. And blood is the only life they know....

The enemy wants them dead. Their own side wants them to shape up. They’re the Rat Bastards. They steal. Lie. Kill. And they never respect the rules. The stuntman. The Indian. The gangster. The bum. The most awesomely effective fighting team in the history of man-to-man mayhem. And now they’re all that stands between the Japs and their plan to retake the bloody Pacific island of Bougainville.

Send them out on leave and they’re a ragged band of losers who will tear any town apart. Bring them back and they’re the most effective bloodletting machine the Japanese have ever had to face. The Rat Bastards. The MPs can’t bust them because the Army needs them to win the war. This time they’re faced with their bloodiest challenge ever, as the brass sends them on a trop to the closest thing to hell on earth…The Pacific war zone known as Nightmare Alley.

The enemy’s plotting against them - while they’re tearing at each other’s throats! Malaria could lay them on their backs. Jungle fever threatens to strip their sanity. An army of death marches through bloody war zones looking to tear their guts out. But over the roar of grenades and the swish of Samurai swords you can always hear the spine-curdling battle cry of the guys who kill their way to victory.

To the victor go no spoils in the bloody battle for New Guinea. This is the Rat Bastards’ kind of war. They don’t fight for glory, but for survival. Reluctant heroes and outlaw soldiers, they hate the steaming, Jap-filled jungles, but they wouldn’t trade places with anybody. So for a high kill ratio, the Army calls on the experts. The Rat Bastards. Making history is what comes naturally to them.

The twisted trail of blood! Slicing and stabbing hand-to-hand for the bloody booty of war. Ramming a hijacked truck through the hell of enemy lines. Escaping over water made choppy by hot Japanese bullets. Defending a cave full of frightened American nurses from a brutal onslaught of killers. The Rat Bastards fight on, turning New Guinea into an island of savage slaughter. They’ll take on their own top brass, then roll flat the whole Jap army. For them, war isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.