Dirty Harry: The Novels

Following the release of the third Dirty Harry movie, The Enforcer, in 1976, Clint Eastwood made it clear that he did not intend making any more. In 1981, Warner Books (the publishing arm of Warner Bros., who made the films) began publishing a number of men's adventure series, including one featuring further adventures for Harry Callahan. The books, written primarily by Richard S. (Ric) Meyers (1953- ) and Leslie Alan Horvitz (1948- ), appeared under the house name Dane Hartman. The series was brought to an end when Eastwood decided to direct, produce and star in a fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact, which was released in December 1983.

Pictured below are the six (out of twelve) books in the series that were reprinted in the UK. There's a very good site here with more information on the American series as well as scans of all 12 Warner Books' covers, which the UK covers were adapted from. Also an interview with Ric Meyers talking about his time on the series.

Dirty Harry 1: Duel for Cannons by Dane Hartman [Ric Meyers] (New York, Warner Books, Sep 1981)
NEL 0450-05419-5, Jun 1982, 173pp, £1.25.

'Dirty Harry' Callahan is back. The Magnum maverick from Homicide. Who blows away the rules when the rules get in his way. And blows away the opposition like a .44 force in his own heavy calibre campaign of war on the most wanted.
__Dirty Harry's back, blasting his way from the mean streets of San Francisco to the blazing byways of San Antonio. His target—a crime boss who's got the whole town under his thumb, cops included.
__Harry's all alone now with nothing except his hand-held enforcer, a stash of dirty tricks up his sleeve and a deeply held belief that the best way to a man's heart is clean through the ribcage.

Dirty Harry 2: Death on the Docks by Dane Hartman [Leslie Horvitz] (New York, Warner Books, Sep 1981)
NEL 0450-05420-9, Jun 1982, 189pp, £1.25.

Dirty Harry's back and it's a labor of love when he busts a Labor racketeer. Especially when the Union boss is Matt Braxton, the biggest deal on the docks. Corrupt enough to be cosy with the Mob, rich enough to afford the price of friends in high places, ruthless enough to wipe out anyone who stands in his way.
__And starnding in his way right now is Dirty Harry. Who negotiates from strength and knows that any enemy will see the point when he's hit smack between the eyes.

Dirty Harry 3: The Long Death by Dane Hartman [Ric Meyers] (New York, Warner Books, Dec 1981)
NEL 0450-05510-8, Sep 1982, 172pp, £1.25.

There's trouble on campus. But these days the students at Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco, aren't protesting, rioting or dropping out. Instead they're being taken out. Vanishing. Not seeking the hippie dream but driven into white slavery. Drugged, beaten, tortured, Californian beauties turned into brutalised sex slaves. Killed if they resist.
__Dirty Harry's no academic. But he does know how to drive home a lesson and set up a final examination. With a bullet.

Dirty Harry 4: The Mexico Kill by Dane Hartman [Leslie Horvitz] (New York, Warner Books, Mar 1982)
NEL 0450-05511-6, Jan 1983, 191pp, £1.25.

Dirty Harry's all at sea: an ocean fishing trip on a millionaire's yacht down Mexico way. But the Big Game he hopes to net are heroin smuggling pirates and Harry's boat is the bait. Unlike their victims, they're hard to get hooked and harder still to land.
__Still, when Harry starts to shoot up he scores a lot of hits and terminates a lot of lifetime habits as the blue Pacific waters are bloodied red by a Force Ten storm of lead.

Dirty Harry 5: Family Skeletons by Dane Hartman [Ric Meyers] (New York, Warner Books, Apr 1982)
NEL 0450-05619-8, Sep 1983, 175pp, £1.25.

And this time he's on the East coast—for the first time in ten years. Visiting relations in Boston. But this is no quiet domestic reunion—not with a knife-wielding rapist cutting a swathe of bloody terror through the rain-sodden streets. Not with Dirty Harry dragged into the hunt and dispensing his own particular brand of instant justice.

Dirty Harry 6: City of Blood by Dane Hartman [Leslie Horvitz] (New York, Warner Books, Apr 1982)
NEL 0450-05650-3, Jan 1984, 192pp, £1.50.

Winos brutally slaughtered on San Francisco's skid row. Beautiful young women butchered in the act of sex by a perverted killer. Or killers? For this psychopathic rampage seems almost too much for one man to carry out. But one thing is sure, one man is going to find out. Dirty Harry. Who will chase and wade through the sexual sewers of the city's underworld, struggling through the depraved flotsam that drifts with night-time currents. For this is a manhunt that will leave only one survivor.

The series was continued by Warner Books for a further six titles which were not reprinted in the UK.

Dirty Harry 7: Massacre At Russian River [Leslie Horvitz]. New York, Warner Books, Jul 1982.
Dirty Harry 8: Hatchet Man [Ric Meyers]. New York, Warner Books, Aug 1982.
Dirty Harry 9: The Killing Connection [Ric Meyers]. New York, Warner Books, Oct 1982.
Dirty Harry 10: The Blood of Strangers [unknown, possibly Horvitz]. New York, Warner Books, Dec 1982.
Dirty Harry 11: Death in the Air [Ric Meyers]. New York, Warner Books, Feb 1983.
Dirty Harry 12: The Dealer of Death [Leslie Horvitz]. New York, Warner Books, Apr 1983.