Pulp Fiction Reviews: CRUSADERS OF THE SALTIER

CRUSADERS OF THE SALTIER

CRUSADERS OF SALTIER

By William Speir

Strategic Book Group

230 pages

Last year William Speir introduced the man to a super secret organization known as the Knights of the Saltier;

a grouping of loyal men and women consecrated to serving the legal authorities of the world maintain law and order. Into this extremely complex organization he set his protagonist, Tom Anderson, a former military officer looking to determine significance in his life beyond the normal goals of calling and monetary success. By the end of that first volume, Anderson had united the Knights and observed his own father was one of the Grand Masters.

At the sentence I reviewed KNIGHTS OF THE SALTIER, I made a period of applauding it`s originality in giving pulp fans something new and fresh. Whereas with this second entry in the saga, Speir has inadvertently gone downward a real popular plot path considered to be one of the most remembered in the story of the genre. In 1934 Popular Publications launched OPERATOR 5, the adventures of a Secret Service agent named Jimmy Christopher. The stories were penned by veteran pulp scribes Frederick C. Davis and Paul Tepperman. Tepperman was responsible for the 13 interconnected novels that take up The Imperial Invasion, a serial in which the Royal Empire (an unknown European power) conquers the UnitedStates after conquering the remainder of the world. Jimmy then led the insurgency against them. The saga is frequently referred to as the War and Peace of pulps.

In CRUSADERS OF SALTIER, Speir has America conquered but not from an external force. Rather it is seized from inside by a corrupt Washington Administration led by a megalomaniac President set on a form of totalitarianism and using his ability to illegally circumvent the Constitution. When dissenting Americans begin mysteriously disappearing without due process, the Knights of Saltier must present their greatest challenge ever, how to battle corrupt government agencies and fix the area to the true ruler of the people.

This is an intense thriller with a fascinating, and very chilling plot line, extremely well realized. Speir balances the action sequences with the more mundane occurrences in Anderson`s life, ala his meeting a lovely young woman and dropping in bed all the while caught up in the Knights` struggles to keep the government. His skills as a storyteller are growing exponentially with each new book. Once again I heartily recommend this to pulp fans looking for a new construction on action-adventure prose. CRUSDAERS OF THE SALTIER is a grand chapter in a truly excellent series.