Fight Card: Counterpunch--More Than Just a Punny Title

This book is more than just a pun-derful title. It's darn clever plotting, too.

Organized crime had its filthy mitts all over professional boxing in the 1950s and, appropriately, it plays a major part in this tightly written retro-pulp novella.

Characters will make or break a work of fiction, and author Wayne Dundee ("Jack Tunney") scored a decisive win with the Duke, here. He's tough, brave, streetwise and yet a good joe to his very core. To paint it in crude brush strokes, he is similar to a Louis L'Amour western hero, only in a gritty postwar urban setting.

I have great appreciation for the classic pulps, and admiration for the pulp writers. But frankly, those guys were meeting deadlines and worried about bills most of the time; so even some of their great works weren't as carefully polished as this novella. And yet Counterpunch maintains a vintage pulp fiction flavor from cover to cover.

All the Fight Card books are great reads, and this one is exemplary.



The second issue of Fight Fictioneers is hot off the press, too. There are interviews and articles about fight fiction, including some by us Fight Card authors. If you'd like a free copy, let me know.