THE SAND SHOCKERS

THE SAND SHOCKERS 

One of the toughest tough guys in men’s adventure fiction is Ennis Willie’s Sand—A former crime lord with a price on his head, an army of hit men on his back, and a .45 riding in a shoulder rig under his arm to do his talking. A man alone, with few friends and many hates. There is nowhere to hide…and it's too late to pray.. 

Short, terse, full of sex and graphic violence, the Sand Shockers, took their cue from Richard Stark’s far better known Parker novels. But Sand is far more than an imitation Parker. Sand’s violent cross-country crusade to break from his past as a mob hitman and rectify past wrongs—killing a morgue-full of minions and former mob bosses without qualms in the process—forms the template followed a decade later by Donald Pendleton’s Mack Bolan The Executioner series and its myriad of imitators.

Ennis Willie wrote many novels published by the low-circulation sleaze imprint Merit Books in Chicago. Merit also published the nine Sand novels, but the distribution of Merit’s books was erratic at best, condemning the Sand Shockers to obscurity. However, the inner circle of hardboiled fanatics—in particular Stephen Mertz and Ed Gorman—have kept Sand’s flame alive, ensuring his continuing legacy.

A hardboiled icon in his own right, Max Allan Collins acknowledges his series featuring tough crook Nolan and his later series with calculating hitman Quarry were inspired by Sand. Regarding Ennis Willie the writer, Collins declares, Among American writers, only one caught Mickey Spillane's magic—only one managed to create a fever-dream world of sadistic gangsters, willing women and larger-than-life tough guys. 

THE SAND SHOCKERS 

Scarlet Goddess 

Aura Of Sensuality 

Haven For The Damned

Game Of Passion 

And Some Were Evil 

Warped Ambition 

The Case Of The Loaded Garter Holster

Passion Has No Rule Book

Code of Vengeance 

  

The original Sand novels are incredibly rare and expensive, however, Ramble House has resurrected a number of Sand tales in two readily available collections, Sand’s Game and Sand’s War.