He was a high-living, hard-loving giant, a knight astride the front seat of a jeep, who had handled women and explosives all his life with the same results.

He was Mad Baxter, mining engineer, and he had never been blown up or married - yet.

Then he returned to the island of Sardinia - that craggy mountain wilderness of blood feuds and passionate slaughter - and it was like swan-diving into boiling oil.

For Mad Baxter had forgotten all about Grazia, the Sard girl he had once made love to in a moment of careless enthusiasm.

Hell hath no fury like a Sard girl wronged, and they came hurtling down from the mountains - this tigress of a Grazia and her whole wild-eyed clan - to wreak their noisy vengeance.

And to bear home in triumph Mad Baxter's skull on a stick.