A new kind of horror
only Harry can smash-
in San Francisco's underground!

The Killing Connection
(Oct 1982)

"I'm going to do something worse.   I'm going to assign you to this case."

Damned if he does, Damned if he doesn't Dirty Harry stands alone!  Anything goes in San Francisco, but now it's gone too far!  Somebody is carving up beautiful lesbians- and that somebody has the right friends.  Only Harry can stop the slaughter, but now both the gays and the cops stand in his way.  Will he have time?  The answer is at the end of a barrel- a .44 Magnum barrel!

6 Shots, Or Only 5?
*****

An interesting set-up and good first half lend fuel to this solid entry.  When a secret graveyard of bodies is discovered in Golden Gate Park, Harry is called in by none other than Captain McKay.  The story also shares a few other similarities with The Enforcer, particularly Harry's attempts to ally himself with the leader of a group of gay activists.  His infiltration of one of their group's meetings recalls his encounter with Mustapha.

Lynn McConnell, Harry's love interest from The Long Death, returns to assist him- making it the first (and only) title to reference another book in the series.  We also see the return of Magnum Force's Bill Mackenzie, (who later appears in a slightly larger cameo in Death in the Air).

There are a lot of good action sequences worth noting, including a rainy morning showdown with Harry attempting to interrupt a hitman's deal, and a chase that ends with Harry cornered in a suspended parking garage.  Harry also proves the 'every dirty job' theory once again, as he gets to crawl through a sewer pipe against current.

Cover Story, part II
Another odd cover, this time with Harry shadowed by a subway train, despite the fact that no subway appears in the story!   Perhaps the cover was accidentally switched with the one for Death in the Air, which prominently features the subway in the plot.

Starting with this title, the tagline was changed to "Never before published or seen on screen".