The Phantom Novels - Killer's Town!

Killer's Town is the ninth in the "The Story of The Phantom" adventure series from Avon Books way back in the 1970's. I've been reading the Hermes Press reprints and finding them great brisk reads. This was actually written by Lee Falk and not one of the several ghost writers such as Basil Copper and Ron Goulart who wrote many of these books. This particular novel is based on two series from the comic strip titled "Bullet's Town" and "The Killer" by Falk and artist Sy Barry. 

Killer's Town is a dandy adventure which leaps into action when a rundown and largely abandoned town is taken over by killers and criminals from the United States and elsewhere. The allure of the town called "Metropolis City" before its new "owner" a man gangster named Killer Koy took possession. An oddity of politics had somehow made this small territory into its own independent state, not unlike the Vatican or Monaco for instance. The shabby rundown ghost town became a haven for criminals of all sorts who found protection from the law for their crimes. 

The novel rumbles along quite nicely with a number of the thugs and hoods getting great descriptions. Some are thieves, some are corrupt lawyers, some are muscle, and at least two of them are psychopaths, not the least being Killer Koy himself and the other a handsome young murderer named Pretty. His representative and mouthpiece Eagle had purchased the town from its "Governor-Mayor" named Matthew Crumb for a case of beer. The local authorities, and especially the Jungle Patrol attempt to end the scourge but are stopped by legalities. Things really begin to heat up when the leader of the Jungle Patrol's daughter unknowingly enters Killer's Town and is taken hostage. That's when the call goes out to the Commander of the Patrol, the man we know as the Phantom. 

I love the hooligans in this yarn. Falk gives them great names such as Greasy, Gutsy, Fats, Sport, Banana, Scarface, Slim, Spaghetti, Frenchy, Ossie, Fingers, Pilot, and Moogar. Don't get me wrong, this is a foul bunch who deserve every skull mark on the chin they get and more, but there is also a gang-that-shoot-straight quality to these mopes. The murderous impulses and actions of Koy and Pretty help to temper the story and give it a real sense of danger, but overall, they seem a pretty ineffective mob. But of course, with the Ghost Who Walks on their collective tails how could it be otherwise. The story takes a dramatic turn in the last third of the saga. The focus is on Pretty and the native Moogar who find themselves on the run with the Phantom at their heels. 

After a few novels which had the Phantom operating in America and elsewhere, it's nice to have a story set squarely in jungle which is his home. Next time it's The Goggle-Eyed Pirates. But that will be in June. I am taking a break from Deep Woods doings for a month for something special. More details to come. 

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