Showing posts with label Chopper Cop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chopper Cop. Show all posts

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Chopper Cop #3: Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert


Chopper Cop #3: Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert, by Paul Ross
No month stated, 1975  Popular Library

I didn’t realize this third and final volume of Chopper Cop came out three years after the previous volume. Surely it didn’t take producer Lyle Kenyon Engel that long to come up with a replacement for Dan Streib, whose work sucked so royally in the first two volumes – in fact I’m certain it’s Streib’s half-assery that caused this series’s short life, as otherwise Chopper Cop has a strong concept: dopesmoking anti-establishment cop handling counterculture cases on his custom chopper.

But anyway there was a gap of three years between installments, and finally the phenominally-titled Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert appeared. According to Hawk’s Authors’ Pseudonyms, it was the product of two authors: Bill Amidon and Nat Freedland. Info is scant on the two; Amidon published a novel, in hardcover only, titled Charge… (Bobbs-Merrill, 1971), apparently about the early ‘60s hippie movement, and Freedland was a reporter, mostly remembered today for having written a 1966 article on Marvel Comics that caused a schism between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In 1972 he published The Occult Explosion, an overview of the various fringe beliefs of the day; the book got its own soundtrack LP, which is collectible today due to a segment with notorious Church of Satan figurehead Anton LaVey.

I’m curious how these two authors came together for the final Chopper Cop novel, and how they even went about writing it – I’m betting they traded off on chapters, as each chapter ends on a quick cliffhanger, one that’s generally wrapped up just as quickly at the start of the next chapter. My hunch is the writers were having fun with each other – “Let’s see how you get our hero out of this one!” and the like. There’s also a disparity in how the trashier stuff is written; one writer keeps all the sex completely off page, whereas the other gets down and dirty and doesn’t leave one sleazy stone unturned. Otherwise the book seems to be of a piece, and I bet I only noticed this because going in I was aware that it had been written by two authors.

Anyway, we learn late in the novel that it’s one year after the first volume; hero Terry Bunker, who is given a bit more of a background this time, still sports longish hair and thick sideburns, and still tools around California on his blue Rickman chopper at the behest of the famous but never-named Governor, for whom Terry acts as the chief handler of all cases concerning the counterculture movement. Otherwise Terry’s boss is Chief Raymond Haggard, who is much more accepting of Terry here, and in fact the two have a friendly working relationship. Actually Freedland and Amidon cut out the needless “other cops hate Terry” stuff that became so annoying in Streib’s books. 

Another element they introduce is that Terry throughout is actually referred to as “The Chopper Cop,” which I though was both stupid and cool at the same time. These authors, or one of them at least, have also actually ridden a motorcycle before, or at least read up on them, as Terry’s chopper for once is an integral piece of the story. In fact when we meet him he’s busy testing out a new auto shotgun device he’s had created for his Rickman; it’s hidden in a “fake bedroll” at the back of the bike, and with a few quick adjustments Terry can affix it to the handlebar and blast away. He actually uses it in the novel, but not to actually shoot anyone – sadly, one thing the authors do keep from the Streib installments is a curious reluctance to provide much violence. Terry in fact doesn’t shoot a single person, though the novel does end with him smashing someone in half with the Rickman.

The authors, apparently having used Valley Of Death as their guide, have also retained Streib’s bizarre decision to make Chopper Cop a mystery series. I still suspect that Engel was “inspired” by The Blood Circus when he came up with this series; I mean that one novel is more “Chopper Cop” than all three of these volumes put together. But anyway Engel might’ve had a grand concept, but – and this is by Engel’s own admission, as I wrote in my review of the first volume – he got a shitty author for it, and for whatever reason Streib wrote something more along the lines of a Gothic mystery. Well, Amidon and Freedland continue the trend, with Terry trying to figure out who plans to sabotage the upcoming Monster Boogie concert, to be held in the Mojave Desert. It must be said though that these authors turn in a novel much more entertaining than either of Streib’s.

For one, you can see how these authors melded their interests: there’s a red herring subplot about a Process-style Satanic cult, which could come straight out of The Occult Explosion, and there’s a strong grasp of the dopesmoking hippie movement that no doubt recalls Amidon’s novel, which I might get around to reading someday (I’m just more of a “late ‘60s” guy than “early ‘60s”). While they follow Streib’s mystery template, they do offer a little more action, and more importantly Terry Bunker doesn’t come off like a wuss. He doesn’t pine over some lost love – though we do learn one of the things which set him on the path from ‘Nam vet hippie student activist(!) to “Chopper Cop” was the OD death of his girlfriend, Ginny. This comes from Streib’s background setup, but whereas Streib’s version of Terry still pines and mopes over this, these authors have him briefly reflect on her and then get back to banging the latest chick – and Terry gets lucky pretty often this time.

Anyway a mad bomber is threatening the upcoming Monster Boogie, a one-night event which will feature the top rock acts of the day; someone’s sending threats to the management, and as the novel opens he or she sabotages a press event, nearly frying right-wing newscaster Grady Frazier. The Governor is alerted, and he calls in his one-and-only Chopper Cop, Terry Bunker. As we’ll recall, Terry’s the youngest lieutenant in LAPD history and serves in the State Department of Criminal Investigation, meaning he can cross over county lines and keep his authority. The authors try to keep to this with Terry shuttling around the state; he sees action in Los Angeles, San Francisco (where he has an expensive home, bought for him in gratitude by Thackery Caldwell from Valley Of Death), and the Mojave.

Terry is put in charge of security for the concert, which is coming up in three weeks. He checks out the acts, hanging around a bit with show headliners Chrome Lightning, “the American Rolling Stones.” He gets on most with their biker keyboard player, but there’s also superstar Jack Byrd, the handsome singer-guitarist, and “spaced out” Happy Watson, aka “the Ringo Starr of Chrome Lightning.” Here we see Terry not only smoke a couple joints but also snort some coke, but he draws the line at heroin, as we see later on when he gets down and dirty with Janis Joplin-clone Mona Drake, “sort of homely but ballsy” singer for Braincandy. There’s also a Grand Funk-esque hard rock trio, but the authors don’t make much mention of the other two Monster Boogie acts. Chrome Lightning gets the brunt of the mad bomber’s threats, and one of the leads has Terry checking out the local Satanic cult of sexy brunette Princess Diana – a cool scene with a nice lurid element, what with the “black magic orgy” going on at the time, but as mentioned a total red herring so far as the plot goes.

Let’s get to the sleaze, shall we? While hanging out with Chrome Lightning in their LA warehouse studio, Terry takes an 18 year-old groupie up on her offer and repairs to one of the apartments – quick cut to the next chapter, with not one detail given. This repeats throughout; we’re informed Terry pays frequent visits to some actress girlfriend who remains off-page for the duration, and late in the book Terry even scores with a pair of jailbat at Monster Boogie who just swear they’re 18 (after debating it for a hot second Terry says to hell with it and crawls into their tent). In each case this particular author will cut straightaway to the next scene. However the other author has no qualms with sleaze, as we see when Terry spends the night with Mona Drake: “Without any further discussion [Terry] forced her legs apart with his hips and drove his shaft to the root up her vaginal canal.” This after Mona has delivered one of the greatest lines in pulp fiction: When Terry tells her he’s conducting a police investigation, Mona responds, “You can come upstairs and investigate my pussy.”

Mona, a “perverted lesbian junkie” per yet another mad bomber threat, pretty much steals the novel. She carries around a “truly deluxe heroin kit” and seems dead set on a suicide trip. That’s no doubt supposed to be her on the cover, as she hitches a few rides on Terry’s chopper. She’s also the closest we get to a leading female character in the novel. A memorable sequence has a would-be sniper almost taking the two out after their boisterous banging in the loft of Terry’s house, which leads to a barely-clothed Terry chasing after the sniper on his Rickman. But Terry’s not wearing any shoes, so the authors really play up on the hell his foot goes through while trying to keep the bike from spinning out, etc. However he kind of gets over it pretty quick; a day or two in the hospital and then a cast for the foot, and after that the injury is seldom mentioned.

But once again Terry’s only up against a single foe, so really there isn’t too much action throughout. It’s usually of the lame cliffhanger variety, like one chapter ends with Terry about to get in a through-down fight with a bunch of outlaw bikers, but then the next chapter opens and we learn Terry’s old friends of sorts with the leader of the gang. It’s lame stuff like this that makes me suspect the novel was the product of a pair of authors playing “gotcha!” with one another. I mean this particular chapter ends with a crazed biker springing out of nowhere and hurling a dagger at Terry – then the next chapter opens and the dagger lands harmlessly at Terry’s feet and the biker starts laughing.

Another middling action scene has Terry almost run off the road by a truckful of redneck hunters. This bit, clearly inspired by Easy Rider, has Terry almost getting killed, so he whips out his auto shotgun and takes out the truck, but doesn’t kill anyone. In fact he ensures they’re arrested and vows to show up at the trial. Same goes for the finale, where Terry finally figures out who’s behind the Monster Boogie threats – but he’s too late, as the guy has already taken out a flame thrower(!) and is shooting flames over the audience. Here the authors actually work in the whole “Chopper Cop” setup, with Terry pulling a stunt jump to take out the terrorist before he can kill anyone.

As a result, Terry’s in a coma for a few days, and wakes up in the hospital with a broken leg, broken ribs, and etc. Plus his Rickman’s been totalled, but the Chrome Lightning guys have given him “a blank check at the Pinky Stevens motorcyle custom shop” to get the chopper of his dreams. We also get the interesting tidbit that Terry plans to start using “disguises” on the job now; this after the Governor wonders if Terry should retire, as given his heroic jump in front of 500,000 people at Monster Boogie Terry’s become the most famous undercover cop in the world. So clearly the authors planned more installments, perhaps having Terry adopt a variety of disguises as he worked the counterculture scene.

Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert ends with a goofy tribute to the Chopper Cop himself, as we learn the Monster Boogie headliners have recorded a song in his honor:

The disc was a silly but toe-tapping ditty with Jack Byrd and Mona Drake harmonizing a duet on simple lyrics about an impossible superstud detective who made love to all the ladies and caught all the baddest crooks. The title was, “We Can Dig the Groovy Pig.”

It's this sort of playful spirit the men’s adventure genre needs, and it’s a shame the authors didn’t have a chance to deliver more entries of Chopper Cop. It would be nice to know the story behind its cancellation – if Popular Library was willing to wait 3 years to bring out another volume, I wonder why they decided against publishing more?

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Chopper Cop #2: The Hitchhike Killer


Chopper Cop #2: The Hitchhike Killer, by Paul Ross
No month stated, 1972  Popular Library

Fortunately, the second volume of Chopper Cop is the last one to be written by Dan Streib; one can almost imagine series producer Lyle Kenyon Engel putting down Streib’s manuscript and immediately drafting a letter of termination (not that he wouldn’t still send it to Popular Library – there being a deadline to meet and all). For once again Streib fails to grasp the gist of the series plot, turning in a slow-moving murder mystery that could just as easily feature a 90 year-old widow as the protagonist.

As we’ll recall, the titular “Chopper Cop” is 27 year-old Terry Bunker, who despite the cover image has “slightly long brown hair and muttonchop sideburns.” He’s based out of California and basically answers to the Governor only, though he reports to “stupid chief” Raymond Haggard, with whom Bunker has a venemous relationship (Haggard refers to Terry as a “long-haired ape”). We’re often informed that Terry’s “craggy looks” are appealing to the ladies, and he’s racked up quite a healthy score-count in his day, with the tidbit that at one point he even had to hire a secretary to keep track of all the women calling for him.

Not that we get much of that, this time. No, Streib once again must remind us that Terry is “lonely;” as I mentioned in my review of the first volume, Terry Bunker is altogether womanly, at least when compared to the average men’s adventure protagonist. He’s constantly moping or brooding, and he’s more often afraid than not. So far as the babe magnet quotient goes, there’s a part early on where he runs into Haggard’s sexy secretary, with whom Terry was once involved, and Terry thinks to himself that, while the lady is suitably hot and being with her was fun, she wasn’t able to quelch “the loneliness inside” Terry. Oh, brother!!

Streib makes vague references to some woman in Terry’s past, one who was apparently killed sor something, and Terry’s never been able to get over her. Streib doesn’t elaborate, and I can’t recall if this woman was mentioned in the previous book, but as someone once said, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” This was it for Streib on Chopper Cop and I highly suspect the co-authors of the next one (which was to be the last) won’t dwell on all the maudlin bullshit and just deliver a fun book about a chopper-riding cop. At least, here’s hoping they will.

Streib does make Terry suitably rule-breaking – but to the point where he’s mostly an asshole. When heading into Sacramento to meet with Haggard on the latest assignment, Terry, for no reason at all, begins taunting his fellow cops – none of whom realize biker Terry himself is a cop – and leads them on a chase through the city streets, with the outcome of Terry being arrested on the steps outside the capitol building. Chief Haggard has to come out and admit Terry is actually a cop. One begins to understand why Terry is so hated by his brothers in blue.

Terry refuses to read the paper so the recent murders of three girls around California is literally news to him. We readers have already witnessed one murder in the book’s opening: a biker in a leather jacket and a “full face mask” of white plastic picks up a hitchhiking young girl named Diana Cole, gives her a lift, and takes her to an abandoned area, where the biker then runs over her. Terry learns there have been two similar murders across the state and the governor, aka Terry’s boss, wants Terry on the case, as he’s certain only the “Chopper Cop” (a title never used in the books, by the way) can prevent more murders.

Here’s the funny thing about The Hitchhike Killer. Throughout the book Haggard keeps nagging Terry to look into “the biker gangs” that are plaguing California, as Haggard and his fellow cops are certain it’s a bunch of bikers doing the killings, and not just a sole murderer, as Terry suspects. So in other words a bona fide pulp biker novel is promised in the text but denied us; Streib is determined to turn in another slow-moving murder mystery when he could’ve easily done something like The Blood Circus (which likely is what editor Lyle Kenyon Engel had in mind when he came up with the series concept!).

Because honestly, Terry’s biker aspect doesn’t factor much into the tale; he spends the majority of the narrative flying a commuter airline around California and then staying in a house with a pair of stews. Immediately upon looking at the items found at the murder sites Terry notices something the other cops missed – cigarettes from sample packages once given out by certain airlines. While Haggard keeps pressuring Terry to look into those biker gangs, Terry instead flies around with a regional plane that goes to the three areas the murders occurred – and sure enough, the crew reveals that those cigarettes are no longer given out due to “health concerns,” but there’s so many of them left over that the crew has open access to them.

So basically Terry’s already solved the case…someone in the crew of this very plane killed the three girls. We even learn that all of them, pilots and stewardesses alike, are biking enthusiasts! But Terry shoots the breeze with them, smoking cigarettes in the cockpit(!), and here we meet the incredibly small cast of characters Streib gives us for the duration: co-pilot Paul Dunn, Terry’s instant prime suspect; super-sexy blonde stew Lisa; and Lisa’s roommate, equally-sexy brunette stew Chris.

Terry has an instant thing for Lisa, but we’ll recall that Terry is more than just virile lust; he thinks Lisa might be “the one.” (Oh, brother again!) He thinks there’s equal sparks, thus he’s crestfallen when it turns out Lisa is having an affair with Paul, who is married. Instead, Terry goes back home with the stews and ends up boffing Chris, who doffs her top and says “Announcing Twin Mound National Park.” Streib doesn’t get too explicit in this or the few other sex scenes, though he does add the memorable bit that a climaxing Chris starts screaming for someone named “Joey.”

But mostly Terry just tries to put the moves on Lisa, who is alternately interested and stand-offish. Occasionally he tracks clues, visiting the various murder sites and putting himself in the minds of the victims, complete even with a moronic scene where Terry runs along the desert, tracing the footsteps of one of the murdered girls, and only stops when he notices his fellow cops laughing at him(!). Chopper Cop, baby!! I mean the whole book is damn hilarious in how lame it is. We do finally get a bit of biker stuff when, in San Bernadino, Terry runs afoul of some teen bikers who discover the two-way radio on his chopper, call him “pig,” and beat him unconscious.

Streib from what I’ve read of him was fond of female villains, and he pretty much lays all his cards on the table with an arbitrary chapter from the point of view of “the killer,” in which the gender is cagily never mentioned. But anyway “the killer” dreams as the various girls die over and over again, unsure if they are dead in reality or if it’s all a dream. So by this point the reader is pretty certain the mystery has been figured out – the killer is a woman. Couple this with stew Chris, given to her flighty emotions, her disappearing at night, and her being near the murder locations in each instance.

We get a chase scene in the final quarter – but notably, Terry is not on his bike during it, which should be all the more indication that Dan Streib was the wrong writer for a series called Chopper Cop. Instead, Terry’s not only in a car for the chase, but he’s riding shotgun as a fellow cop drives! They’re chasing after Paul Dunn, who turns out to be innocent – Chris, meanwhile, has been uncovered as the villain, killing the girls in vengeance for a boyfriend named Joey who was sent to prison on a rape charge.

Terry finally gets on his bike for the finale, high-tailing it into the desert, where an oblivious Lisa is going to pose as a hitchhiking decoy for Chris, in one of Streib’s more belabored and unbelievable setups. Terry’s desperate to get to her in time, as Terry has finally gotten to act upon his “thing” for Lisa, engaging the somewhat-reluctant girl in one of Streib’s somewhat-explicit sex scenes (“He did things with his hands and his tongue until she was ready” and the like). And since Terry earlier cried wolf by having Chief Haggard summon the forces on a bust of a stakeout, the chief refuses to answer Terry’s pleas this time, so it’s only Terry himself who can ensure Lisa doesn’t become the latest victim.

But our hero is such a friggin’ chump, he fails!! He gets there just in time to see Lisa’s bloodied form, having been run over by Chris, and Terry goes off in pursuit. Here Chris becomes a raving lunatic before driving herself off a cliff, all while “the Chopper Cop” just sits there like a lummox on his bike. And meanwhile we never learn if Lisa even dies…Chief Haggard, who did in fact send a squad car after all, has her sent off to the hospital, and tells Terry “if she lives” it will only be because Terry got to her in time…

And here Streib ends the tale, on a downbeat note that was typical of the grindhouse biker fare of the era, so at least he got that part right. But boy The Hitchhike Killer was a lame, tedious affair. The next one has to be better, if only for its awesome title: Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Chopper Cop #1: Valley Of Death


Chopper Cop #1: Valley Of Death, by Paul Ross
No month stated, 1972  Popular Library

Yet another men’s adventure series produced by Lyle Kenyon Engel and his BCI outfit, Chopper Cop attempted to meld the vibe of Easy Rider with the tough cop genre. It ran for three volumes and, at least judging from this first volume, wasn’t very successful in its attempt.

According to Hawk’s Authors’ Pseudonyms, Chopper Cop was the work of three writers: Dan Streib, who wrote the first two volumes, Valley Of Death and The Hitchhike Killer, and the writing team of Bill Amidon and Nat Freedland, who collaborated on the third volume, the awesomely-titled Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert.*

The series protagonist is Terry Bunker, 26 years old and described as “craggy, but handsome.” Formerly a lieutenant (the youngest police lieutenant in the country, we’re informed), he was spotted by California’s “colorful” governor, who retained Terry to be his own personal go-to guy. Now Terry is an agent for the State Department of Criminal Investigation, and gets his missions directly from the governor, though he reports to Chief Haggard of the Sacramento police. Terry has “longish” hair and drives a chopper – a “Rickman frame with a 659 Triumph engine” – and gets a lot of grief for his appearance.

But anyone expecting “Hell’s Angel turned cop” will be disappointed. Terry Bunker is just a regular action series-type cop and there’s nothing to differentiate him from the genre norm. Other that is than his chopper, which really doesn’t factor into this particular story much, anyway. Rather, we’re informed that most cops just don’t get along with Terry because of his long hair and his casual threads, like jeans and a “turtlenecked sweater.” What a rebel! If anything I’d say this is another indication where the book’s producer wanted something much different than what the author delivered.

Because here’s the thing about Terry Bunker – he’s kind of a wimp. Throughout the novel he’s constantly afraid; there are innumerable scenes of him taking deep breaths to steady himself and to remember his “training.” He’s also kind of womanly, as just as often as he’s afraid he’s lonely…! There are many parts where he’ll wish someone else was with him, as he feels so alone. I mean what the hell kind of a shit-kicking men’s adventure protagonist is this? And when he does get in fights he’s usually just ducking and shooting and hoping he doesn’t kill anyone. For that matter even his weapon of choice is blasé; it’s just a standard police-issue revolver.

In a 1981 interview with Will Murray, which was published in Paperback Parade #2 (1986), Lyle Kenyon Engel had this to say about Streib:

Dan Streib, oh God, Dan Streib I see is with Chet Cunningham. I knew Dan, I used him on another series, and then I stopped using him because he wasn’t any good.

Engel mentions Streib being “with” Cunningham because the two authors collaborated on a volume of Nick Carter: Killmaster titled Night Of The Avenger. Engel’s reference to “another series” he used Streib for must be Chopper Cop, because after this Streib was on his own, publishing under various house names for different publishers, like the Death Squad and Kill Squad books. And while Engel’s off-hand criticism might sound harsh, I can’t say I disagree with him.

What’s interesting though is that Valley Of Death presents Streib as filtered through the editing/producing of Engel. The writing here is a little more polished than that in the Kill Squad or Death Squad books, ie the ones Streib did without Engel. But it seems pretty clear that Engel envisioned Chopper Cop as being more about the concept he’d come up with, whereas Streib turned in a rather standard mystery novel, one graced with a lackluster protagonist at that.

In fact, parts of Valley Of Death are like a Gothic novel, except instead of a virginal heroine we have a “craggy, but handsome” long-haired cop for a protagonist. And at 207 pages of big print, the book at least moves at a snappy pace. This caper has Terry investigating a “hippie sex cult” that operates out of Death Valley; three beautiful young Californian women, each of them members of wealthy families who became members of the cult, have committed suicide in unusual ways. But now, a few weeks later, their parents are receiving ghostly phone calls from their deceased daughters, asking for half a million dollars so they can be “resurrected.”

The Gothic stuff mostly plays out in the palatial home of Annette Caldwell’s parents; one of the three suicides, Annette apparently jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, her suicidal act witnessed by a random motorist. But the beautiful young girl’s ghost seems to haunt the home; during his brief stay there Terry sees a ghostly female form rushing from various scenes, hears her playing an organ in the house, and he even kisses her in a strange sequence. Meanwhile Terry’s being constantly propositioned by Penny, Annette’s equally-pretty but virginal 19 year-old sister, who is a fellow biking enthusiast.

There isn’t much action to be found. After a few ghostly visits Terry heads over to San Clemente, where another of the “dead” girls has returned. This leads to a scene where Terry goes out into a desert cemetery in the middle of the night for the money drop off, but it leads to an assassination attempt, culminating in a quick motorcycle chase. But really Terry’s chopper knack isn’t much highlighted by Streib. You get the impression that Engel came up with this cool idea and handed it off to a dude who didn’t know what to do with it.

The cover proclaims a “hippie cult of sex and death” but it must’ve sat out on the actual book, as the cult here is lead by a dude named Arnold Van Doren who appears maybe a page or two and doesn’t offer much. The “sex and death” angle is woefully underplayed, the farthest it gets being a sort of orgy ceremony Terry and Penny walk in on in the middle of the desert, but Terry flashes his badge and the hippies disperse. But the whole cult deal is really just a snow-job, as Valley Of Death is more about a typical blackmailing scheme.

The climax returns to the Gothic tones, playing out in an old mansion somewhere in Death Valley. Here Terry, once again alone (and afraid), sneaks up on the big house in the middle of the night, only to be frightened by an organ that plays in the otherwise-deserted place. (Turns out to be a player piano.) Streib has used female villains in his other books I’ve read, and he does so here too, though you’ll see her “surprise reveal” coming a mile away. But she’s not a bloodthirsty villainess, and the finale, tying in to the womanly feel mentioned above, features the poor girl crying on her father’s shoulder!

Valley Of Death is not an auspicious beginning for the Chopper Cop series; action is minimal and sex and violence are nonexistent.  Let’s hope that Streib’s next one is better. Failing that there’s always the third volume, which should be better if for no other reason than it’s not by Streib.

*Lyle Kenyon Engel also produced another book credited to “Paul Ross” which was not associated with the Chopper Cop series. It was titled The Assassin (1974, Manor Books) and was one of those standalone BCI crime paperbacks; it was written by William Crawford.