Tag Archives: Ralph Hayes

Pulp Friday: The Deadly Prey

Deadly Prey

“A sadistic maniac was developing a deadly virus by using children as guinea pigs.”

Vigilantes were one of the key themes of the muscular over the top world of seventies pulp fiction. And one of the biggest, meanest and weirdest of them was John Yard aka The Hunter.

Published in 1975, The Deadly Prey is one of four books I know of in The Hunter series, the other titles being Scavenger Kill, Track of the Beast and A Taste for Blood. All of them were released by New York pulp publisher, Leisure Books. You’ll find the covers to the other three books here on my Pinterest site.

Yard is a former African game hunter who has changed professions and, along with his side kick, Moses Ngala, now works as a gun for hire.

The subject of his attentions in The Deadly Prey is a mad scientist who is testing a lethal super virus on the inhabitants of an Appalachian hippy commune. Unfortunately for the scientists and his backers in the military industrial complex, one of the kids he kills happens to be the son of one of Yard’s former hunting partners and, of course, a former Green Beret.

Whatever, the back cover blurb does much more justice to the story than I ever could.… Read more