The Falcon Killer
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
The Japanese military has turned the once-thriving Chinese city of Nencheng into a reeking pile of blood and ash. And now the Japanese Rising Sun threatens to scorch the ancient—and oil-rich—Kingdom of the Silver Lake. Can the Chinese survive the onslaught? Do they have a prayer?
The answer is about to fall out of the sky. He is The Falcon Killer. China's ace fighter pilot and scourge of the Japanese air force, he is, in fact, Bill Gaylord, an American orphaned and self-reliant—a man without a country and without fear. Like William Holden, he's the guy every man wants to be … and every woman wants to be with.
Shot down over Nencheng, Gaylord parachutes into the arms of the one woman who can give him reason to live … and to rejoin the fight against Japan—as he squares off against their top spy. His prey is in his sights, and catching it will change everything … for The Falcon Killer.
As a young man, Hubbard visited Manchuria, where his closest friend headed up British intelligence in northern China. Hubbard gained a unique insight into the intelligence operations and spy-craft in the region as well as the hostile political climate between China and Japan—a knowledge that informs stories like The Falcon Killer.
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At the start of this "golden age" pulp novella, Hubbard (Dead Men Kill) describes the effect of a Japanese attack on the fictional Chinese port city of Nencheng: "First there had been a city; then there had been bright and hungry flame; now there was nothing but a corpse-gutted ruin where men moved with dazed determination to refuse the shambles all about them." Unfortunately, the rest of this dated action yarn doesn't live up to the power of the opening. Bill Gaylord, a typical two-fisted and resourceful Hubbard hero who's known as the Falcon Killer for his success in shooting down Japanese aircraft, makes a dramatic entrance by parachuting to earth near Nencheng after his plane is hit. Gaylord takes refuge with the household of American Henry Thompson, complete with impending love interest in the form of Thompson's daughter, Marion. Gaylord's efforts to evade capture aren't particularly exciting, and even newcomers to the genre will anticipate every major plot development.
