DREAMSICLE

Here's one for the boys who love to kick butt. Newcomer Ripley's Wyatt Storme, who quit the NFL for his privacy, is vacationing in Paradise, Missouri, when he finds a field of marijuana growing wild and reports same on a confidential basis to the local sheriff—who's killed a few hours later. Joining forces (and what forces) with Chick Easton, a bounty hunter on the track of a bail-jumping chemist, Storme slugs his way through gallons of canine, drug-tainted, mob-related, rogue-cop, and troglodyte blood and rescues the requisite spunky, leggy females to bring in slippery local Willie Boy Roberts, aspiring entrepreneur for a new designer drug, and his few surviving cohorts. As much joyful bashing as Red Harvest on uppers, though completely innocent of Hammett's dark vision. Fighting the good fight has seldom been so much atavistic fun.