As far as I know, Jack Badelaire coined the term “post-modern pulp.” It describes the “men’s fiction” paperbacks that replaced the old classic pulp magazines in the publishing world. Jack’s blog was recommended to me back around when my literary career was just getting started. I found his tastes and interests to overlap mine in several areas.

He still reviews books and movies on the PMP blog, but in Killer Instincts, Badelaire has pumped the heart and soul of the genre he loves into a post-modern pulp of his own.

Killer Instincts is like The Punisher/The Executioner, Deathwish and The Professional all crammed together.

New England millenial William Lynch loses his family to an old-school crime syndicate back East, and vows revenge. He is trained by professionals for his war on the gangsters, and transforms into a killer himself. One might worry, based on the title and the original synopsis, that this is an intense psychological thriller delving deep into the id (or superego?) of a privileged frat boy transforming into a homicidal vigilante. While that transformation certainly does take place, and even though the story is told in first-person, the author’s camera  follows the bloody, bullet-ridden action rather than lock on a close-up of the hero’s tortured psyche.

Driven by revenge and punctuated by white-hot violence, Killer Instincts reads like a film Sam Peckinpah could make with current special effects.

It’s a warm, fuzzy way to spend a day or two, escaping from a reality where murderers rarely get what they deserve and the very worst criminals rise to positions of authority in civilized society, as a matter of course.