C.A.T. #01 - Tower of Blood

The C.A.T. series by house name Spike Andrews was supposed to have monthly installments, but the short-lived series only lasted for three books in 1982. Books one and three were authored by Canadian Duane Schermerhorn and book two was by George Ryan from North Carolina. Paperback Warrior interviewed Mr. Schermerhorn before his 2018 death, and he told us that the C.A.T. series was Warner Books’ attempt to capitalize on the success of the Dirty Harry franchise. The first novel in the series is available as a 99-cent ebook, and used copies of the original paperback are plentiful online.

Tower of Blood introduces us to New York City police officers Stewart Weston and Vincent Santillo. Together, they form the core of the NYPD’s Crisis Aversion Team (C.A.T.), a group assigned “the touch-and-go suicides, the murders with racial overtones, the snipers flying high and shooting wild, the desperate hostage holders, the bomb scares and bomb blasts.” As you can see, Warner Books had big plans for this versatile duo. What the novel actually delivers is a violent, but largely run-of-the-mill, police-based action novel.

After a police informant is gunned down in a Harlem tavern before he can pass on valuable information, cops Weston and Santillo set out to understand why he was killed. The opening carnage in the bar is pure 80s bloodbath filled with heads exploding and rifle slugs ripping into flesh and bones followed by a violent chase and shootout that goes on for pages and pages.

It doesn’t take long for the reader to be introduced to a local drug dealer who has it out for the C.A.T. boys basically for doing their jobs - albeit rather violently. Meanwhile, Weston and Santillo follow logical clues to get closer to the source of all this mayhem which leads them from the slums to Manhattan’s power elite. Along the way, they bust a lot of skulls and leave piles of dead bodies in their wake before the climactic kidnapper-with-hostages standoff.

Throughout the novel, Schermerhorn sets up all sorts of minor plot points with an eye toward developing them over the course of a long series. Sadly, these elements never blossomed into something fully-realized because the series was cancelled right out of the gate. Fortunately, for action-oriented readers, the author did not skimp on the long action, chase, and gunfight scenes. Trust me, they go on forever in “Tower of Blood” - like a John Woo action movie set to print.

The premature death of the C.A.T. series was a shame because it could have been something special. Tower of Blood was no masterpiece but following the cops from one blood-soaked action set piece to another was a lot of fun. The bare bones plot was about average for the genre and the era, but Schermerhorn certainly knew his way around over-the-top, long-form gunplay and chase sequences. Personally, I would have liked to see where he wanted to take this series over more installments. In the meantime, I can certainly recommend this paperback for literary adrenaline junkies. 

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