Starfist: Hangfire

Six agents have died hideously trying to penetrate the crime families behind a vast empire of pleasure and debauchery--
Now it's up to the Marines to break the circle.

Most people will visit Havanagas only in their dreams, for few can afford the exclusive resort planet that recreates ancient worlds and caters to every taste. Witches are burned at the stake in medieval towns while riotous hordes fill Rome's Coliseum to watch gladiators battle. Even the basest of human lusts are satiated by deadly sex acts and a thriving slave trade.

The crime bosses' control of Havanagas and its people is brutally effective. Now three Marines from Co. L's 3rd Platoon--masquerading as discharged military buddies on holiday--are going in to break the kingpins' bloody stranglehold. From bordellos and rebellious enclaves to the very pit of the Coliseum filled with deadly beasts, Corporal Pasquin and Lance Corporals Claypoole and Dean face certain death with only their wits and skills as weapons. But they're Marines, built to survive. . . .

Autorentext

David Sherman is a former United States Marine and the author of eight previously published novels about Marines in Vietnam, where he served as an infantryman and as a member of a Combined Action Platoon. He is an alumnus of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and worked as a sculptor for many years before turning to writing. Along the way he has held a variety of jobs, mostly supervisory and managerial. Today he is a full-time writer. He lives in Philadelphia.

Dan Cragg enlisted in the United States Army in 1958 and retired with the rank of sergeant major twenty-two years later. During his army service, Mr. Cragg served more than eleven years in overseas stations, five and a half of them in Vietnam. He is the author of Inside the VC and the NVA (with Michael Lee Lanning), Top Sergeant (with William G. Bainbridge), and a Vietnam War novel, The Soldier's Prize. In real life, Mr. Cragg is an analyst for the Defense Department. He and his wife, Sunny, live in Virginia, where honest citizens are allowed to pack heat. Visitors after dark are strongly urged to call ahead.