Bloody Jungle

Author Charles Runyon experienced commercial success with his fourth published work, 1965's crime-fiction novel “The Prettiest Girl I Ever Killed”. The Korean War vet followed up that novel a year later with a rather unique literary choice. Like Harry Whittington, Runyon authored a single fictional novel about the Vietnam War, “Bloody Jungle.” It was published by Ace with cover art by famed western pulp artist Gerald McConnell.

Lieutenant Clay Macklin is a battle-hardened Green Beret stationed at Phu Duc, near the Cambodian border. As the novel opens, both Macklin and his demolition Sergeant Bill Cranor locate a North Vietnamese defector crawling through the base's outer perimeter. Under some distress, the defector warns Macklin and company that a battalion of NVA soldiers have regrouped and are heading to Phu Doc the next night. With only 34 US personnel on base, the team feels that the NVA will slaughter the team and the 2,500 sympathetic villagers.

In an early plot twist, Macklin and select riflemen are separated from the base as Phu Duc is overcome with NVA. Stranded miles from the nearest US camp, Macklin drags a wounded man into a small village where he befriends a young woman and her baby. Here, Macklin learns more about the attacks and where the NVA are campaigning next. As the narrative explores Macklin's harrowing journey, Runyon enhances the storytelling with a budding romance between Macklin and the villager.

“Bloody Jungle” has many twists and turns on its ultimate road to Hell. I can't spill much of the second half of this novel, but it's a real powder-keg ready to explode. Runyon takes readers through jungle battles, base bombings, torture sequences, romance and even some detective work in downtown Saigon. At only 160-pages, the action is nearly non-stop and extremely violent. This isn't a novel for weak stomachs...but I think readers familiar with the author's work realize there is a violent temperament in many of his characters. Overall, this is an expensive, rare paperback that deserves a reprinting.

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