Massacre at Umtali

Jim Rainey was an ex-marine from Texas who made his living doing what he did best-fighting. Now he was in Rhodesia, signing up for a nice fat fee as leader of a special anti-terrorist squad.The men under his command were a bunch of steel-hard killers like himself, the kind of men you don't turn your back on even when you're facing the enemy. Their target-a homicidal maniac known as 'Colonel' Gwanda and his murderous band of guerillas.When the fighting was over, Rainey would be a very rich man … if he lived. Peter J. McCurtin was born in Ireland on 15 October 1929, and immigrated to America when he was in his early twenties. Records also confirm that, in 1958, McCurtin co-edited the short-lived (one issue) New York Review with William Atkins. By the early 1960s, he was co-owner of a bookstore in Ogunquit, Maine, and often spent his summers there.McCurtin's first book, Mafioso (1970) was nominated for the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, and filmed in 1973 as The Boss, with Henry Silva. More books in the same vein quickly followed, including Cosa Nostra (1971), Omerta (1972), The Syndicate (1972) and Escape From Devil's Island (1972). 1970 also saw the publication of his first "Carmody" western, Hangtown.Peter McCurtin died in New York on 27 January 1997. His westerns in particular are distinguished by unusual plots with neatly resolved conclusions, well-drawn secondary characters, regular bursts of action and tight, smooth writing. If you haven't already checked him out, you have quite a treat in store.McCurtin also wrote under the name of Jack Slade and Gene Curry. McCurtin sets his series apart from the pack by having the books narrated in first person in a tough hardboiled style by Jim Rainey, an American mercenary and arms dealer. He plies his trade from Rhodesia, Arengtina and Lebanon in the first three books