3.5 stars

This was an interesting story. There is a serial killer who is slaughtering gay men across Europe, leaving a trail of gruesome dead bodies. Jake Gold is a detective with the UNCC and he is determined to hunt the killer down and so the chase begins.

The killer is nick named the Man-Eater because of how he kills his victims but as we read the story we get to realise that the killer is not the only 'man eater' in the story. Jake lost his lover in Vietnam and his death still haunts Jake. He is only just holding things together, driven by his own sexual needs and the need to find the killer. Jake in a sense is also a man eater as he has sex with men along across Europe. In a sense he hunts the killer but he also hunts down men for himself.

I am not really a great fan of long sex scenes but these were written really well and moved the story along. The writing depicts Jakes loss, his lusts, his frustrations and also his determination to find the killer. At one point the hunt becomes personal and Jake almost loses himself as he masquerades as a sex worker.

The book has a 'Silence of the Lambs' feel to it. The story is dark and gritty. None of the characters are truly that likeable and Jake is a wild character who pushes himself relentlessly.

The end of the hunt, when it comes, is over very quickly and there are lots of unanswered questions about the killer which left me speculating. I actually enjoyed reading this because of the mystery. Jake was such a dark and dangerous risk taking character and I was kept on tenterhooks because I wasn't sure what he was going to do next. Was he going to hunt down the man eater or was he going to hunt for himself? Would he survive the chase?

This is part of a series of gay pulp fiction books which are being re-published. This volume was well written and held my attention. Despite the gore and grittiness I will definitely be reading more.

this was quite a fun melange of thriller, horror and erotica, with a bit of political philosophy thrown in too because why the hell not. it had a lot of promise, but the thriller part kind of drops out in the middle only to pick up again later - it would have been nice to have the thread running all the way through the narrative.

also, there are some really (really) questionable things said with regards to race and transgender folks; although this was published 40 years ago and more things were able to fly back there, it's still something to be aware of and something we really could have done without.

overall, a pretty fun romp, but nothing particularly stand-out about it.

"If I got laid half as much as the characters in some novels I've read, I'd be long dead of friction burns. Some day people will get smart and there will be some books that treat being gay as just one aspect of being human, rather than a sexual road race."

One thing I really love about these old erotica novellas is how self-aware they are. I mean this line is in a book where the main character literally just bounces from orgy to orgy every night, but that was the only way that a book with a gay detective as the lead could be published during this time period so the authors did what they had to do. And as always I really want to stress that you should read the introductions with books in this reprint series. It definitely does a good job of setting up the book and putting it in the context of the time period in which it was originally published.

If you've ever thought 'wow I really like Red Dragon, but it would be so much better if Will Graham had to screw his way across the country to find the killer' then this book might be for you. I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as Vampire's Kiss, but I still had a lot of reading it. I think most of why I couldn't get into it as much is because there were a LOT of orgies in this book. Like at one point there are literally 30 guys all going at it and that's a bit much for me. Any scene featuring more than three people at a time is a bit much for me, so I did do some skimming in this book. But overall it was still very interesting and I continue to be impressed how much political commentary can be crammed into a book that essentially pure porn [and in this case a fair bit of gore].

I would like to say though that this book definitely has some ...issues when it comes to trans people. I mean I get that it's almost 50 years old at this point, but still it's not great and could be potentially triggering. Although, continuing with the Thomas Harris references, if you're okay with Silence of the Lambs you will probably be okay with this. It's a bit more graphic but probably not much 'worse' overall.

While Man Eater may not be a literary masterpiece, it's still a worthy read, especially for it's historical significance as gay pulp classic from the 1970s.

3,5 stars


"What became clear to me after a lot of thinking was that the world doesn’t really give a damn what you do in bed. The fact that there were great men who were homosexual meant no more than the fact that there were a lot of great men who were heterosexual."


You shouldn't expect a literary masterpiece when you decided to pick up Man Eater. But if you hope to get solely smut then you'll be probably overstrained.

Even if a new republished and almost forgotten adults-only gay novel could hardy be ranked higher than a common pulp fiction, I have to admit, that I had a lot of fun reading it. Man Eater is a very entertaining mixture of thriller, horror, erotica, philosophical exploration and not least political statements.

Our protagonist, Jack Gold, is a Vietnam veteran and a UNCCC agent who is hunting a serial killer. The victims are exclusively gay hustlers of a high class and, believe me, the killer didn't get his nickname Man Eater for nothing. Be prepare- not only sex scenes are pretty graphical but also scenes of crimes. The method Jack Gold choses to find the Man Eater is quite funky but considering the genre very enjoyable.

I have to thank Maitland McDonagh for a very interesting and informative introduction. Please, don't skip it! I think it is also important to know that this novel is a reprint gay pulp classic Man Eater from the 1970s. You'll view it from an entirely different perspective.