Pick Up A Pulp [53]: CAMP BLOOD by John Slater

Camp Blood is a wartime pulp set in the jungles of Timor where a troop of Aussie fighters are pinned down by a Japanese contingent, hellbent on eliminating the Australians in order to strengthen their hold on the jungle and its surrounds. 

I'm not one for reading wartime fiction but took a chance mostly due to the delicious pulp cover and I wasn't disappointed. Camp Blood reads more like a men's adventure story rather than a classic war novel; largely centered around 'Big Ben', an Aussie soldier who gets separated from his comrades during a heated battle only to find his way into the waiting arms of a Eurasian beauty who'd been hiding in a hut with her father deep in the jungle.  

From there things get pretty interesting when the couple are captured and by the Japanese and sent to the notorious Camp Blood for interrogation. 

While light on description, the implied torture of the couple at the hands of the vicious bad guys adds a dark element to the narrative and exemplifies the good verses evil tone of the book. 

I'd given Camp Blood a solid 3 (out of 5) stars. Published by renowned Australian pulp published, Horwitz Publishers in 1963, the story holds up pretty well and is just the thing to spice up your pulp collection. I'll be on the look out for more John Slater books in the secondhand bookstores.