The Butcher #26 - The Terror Truckers

Along with a couple of contributions from Lee Floren, The Butcher series was authored by James Dockery until October 1977. This 26th installment, The Terror Truckers, proved to be the last Butcher novel to be published for over two years. The publishing hiccup by Pinnacle was due to Dockery leaving the series (or being dismissed?) and the title finding a suitable author. By December 1979 literary journeyman Michael Avallone was brought in for the remaining nine books. 

The Terror Truckers is an unusual men's action-adventure novel. Aside from the obligatory graphic sex-scene, which is pretty darn dirty, this book could work as a juvenile fiction novel. It features a young boy and his dog assisting Bucher in his case to disrupt criminals gassing the heartland of America. It is literally Lassie meets The Butcher. If I'm lying' I'm dyin'. 

The book begins, like all Butcher installments, with the entire first chapter consisting of Bucher's abandonment by his parents, his childhood at the orphanage, and his later recruitment into the Mob as a a hitman. The author then goes into Bucher's reversal to back out of nefarious activities, the bounty on his head offered by the Syndicate, and his involvement now with the shadowy good-guy organization White Hat. Par for the course, two Mob gunners (always named something like Mazulli or Lorenzo), try to kill Bucher in the first chapter and he gives them the 'ole KOOSH! That's Batman for the sound of a silenced Walther P38 spouting a 9mm dumdum. 

The Terror Truckers plot consists of a group of domestic terrorists unleashing mysterious gas on the farming community of Dayton, Ohio (official home of The Book Graveyard booktuber). The gas spews from tanker trucks (“thermos bottles” in trucker jargon) and it is up to Bucher to delve into the mystery. Bucher's journey to Dayton from New York is met with an incident on the road from the truckers. It turns out there is a leak within White Hat and the terror truckers know Bucher is on the case! The next logical step is for Bucher to eat at a truckstop and then ravish and horizontal bop a beautiful waitress later that night. 

Soon, Bucher is thrust into the chaos and fights the truckers on the highway, at a local farmhouse, and then at a covert meeting in Pittsburgh. But his unlikely ally isn't the partner White Hat sends in for a rare assist. Instead, it's a young farm kid named Lem and his Lassie-imitating canine hero Old Ben. Lem is sporting a .22 rifle and has enough spunk and determination to save Bucher's bacon a time or two.

The Terror Truckers is a fun pulpfest that never takes itself seriously. My early readings of this series was met with disappointment due to my lofty Mack Bolan-esque expectations. The Butcher is modern pulp with zany villains, outrageous fighting sequences, impossible heroic saves, and a colorful character that is on the same pages as any Black Mask superhero from the early 20th century. Butcher is Black Bat...not Bolan. Once you figure that out then the series makes way more sense and can be enjoyed for what it is – senseless fun with predictability. Get The Terror Truckers HERE.