Showing posts with label Mystery & Suspense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mystery & Suspense. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Frogs At The Bottom Of The Well


Frogs At the Bottom Of The Well, by Ken Edgar
No month stated, 1976  Playboy Books

I recently discovered this obscure paperback original, and it pretty much offered all I could want in vintage pulp fiction: a hotstuff female cop goes undercover with a group of “man-hating women” who plan to carry out a terror attack on New York City. The stepback cover – complete with ‘70s-obligatory female pubic hair on the interior art (below) – only sealed the deal. 

But before even reading the book I encountered a bit of a mystery. For one, there’s hardly any info at all about Frogs At The Bottom Of The Well online, other than two terse Goodreads reviews. (The title, by the way, is taken from a Chinese proverb: that “frogs at the bottom of the well only see a part of the sky.”) But looking up the book I saw that there was also an edition published by Hamyln Books in England in 1975 – a year before this Playboy Books edition. (Cover for this one also below.) This of course was cause for concern – was Ken Edgar a British author, meaning that the novel would have that sterile, “I don’t want to get my hands dirty” vibe typical of British pulp? 

Well for one, I can happily report that Ken Edgar was indeed an American author; the Playboy edition also has an “About the author” section at the end, kind of unusual for a PBO. But what’s strange is, no mention is made anywhere that Frogs At The Bottom Of The Well was previously published in the UK. Indeed the copyright page makes it clear that this is the “First Edition,” and it’s copyright 1976 under the name Ken Edgar. So who knows. In one of those flukes I think I got a signed copy, at that – mine is signed “For my friend Gary – Ken.” 

It was interesting knowing who Edgar was as I read the book. Get this: he was the professor of psychology at Indiania University of Pennsylvania, and here in this novel he clearly identifies “radical leftists,” particularly “socialists,” as terrorists who must be wiped out. Imagine that today! Good grief, we live in an era where college professors get cancelled for not openly endorsing Hamas terrorism. Edgar’s age isn’t given in the brief bio, but searching online I found that he was 52 when this Playboy edition was published (he died in 1991), which also brought another interesting layer to the book – it features solely young characters, but there is a wisened vibe to the narrative. One imagines Professor Edgar became concerned with the young “radicals” at his college, and how they were polluting young minds…one wonders, then, if Edgar suspected that these young radicals would grow up and instill that very same radicalism as college administrators and professors themselves. 

Edgar only published a few novels, this one of the last ones. He was also mostly a “hardcover author,” and that is how Frogs At The Bottom Of The Well is written: more literature than pulp. I mean, to a certain extent. This is still a novel about a lesbian hippie terror cell complete with a super-hot redheaded cop going undercover and having hot lesbian sex with the cell’s leader – that is, when she isn’t lusting after the mysterious FBI agent who put her on the case, or having hot straight sex with the male hippie terrorist who created an A-bomb that will be used to blow up…the World Trade Center. 

That’s right: the plot of the novel ultimately concerns the planned terrorist destruction of Building One of the WTC. Ken Edgar died ten years before that event became a reality, but despite which his terrorists are a pale reflection of the real thing – these ones intend to blow up the World Trade Center on a weekend, to minimize innocent casualties. For these are your typical hippie terrorists, up against “The Man” and “The System;” and one must gun down a police officer in cold blood to be initiated into FUN (aka “For an Ultimate New Society,” which techinically is “FAUNS,” which also would’ve worked given that these are all girls!). 

Into this world is thrust Molly Reagan, a 29 year-old policewoman in Indianapolis who, when we meet her, is pulling off that total ‘70s pulp-crime role: serving as sexy bait for a killer-rapist who targets women. With Molly’s breasts already mentioned in the second paragraph (indeed, “Her breasts were unusually perfect for a girl so tall and slender”), I knew I was in for just the type of read I was seeking. We are to understand without question that Molly Reagan is smokin’ hot, with a body to match. But she isn’t just all beauty, as Edgar gives her a lot of depth; in particular, she has a gifty for witty repartee. In fact, a lot of Frogs At The Bottom Of The Well is given over to bantering dialog, to the extent that, ultimately, forward momentum is lost. 

While the novel never really descends into trash, the opening indicates the possibilities that it could: Molly is introduced to us as she waltzes through a park in hardly anything, being called “Slut!” by the angry old men sitting around on park benches. It also indicates that Molly will not be the kick-ass female cop demanded in today’s entertainment: when spotted by the slasher Molly is scared and runs – though she does bash him in the face a few times. She’s saved by her partner, a treetrunk named Roy who is a ‘Nam vet and who harbors a secret love for Molly, despite being married; Ken Edgar will dwell much on Molly’s worry that Roy might ruin things by saying he loves her or whatever, but Roy is presented as such a good-natured doofus that the entire subplot is moot. 

But then, the narrative baggage accumulates, making Frogs At The Bottom Of The Well seem a lot longer than its 234 pages would imply. This is mostly through much introspection on Molly’s part; we do get very much into her thoughts at times, and there is a lot of waxing and waning on various things – but I guess that’s to be expected when the author’s a professor of psychology. But Molly is really the idealized woman, with looks to spare, intelligence, and a quick wit. But we know she’s missing something, and she wonders if it’s her fate to never be married, still single and living with her mother at 29. Right on cue mysterious – and of course handsome – FBI Inspector Kittaning shows up: Molly’s name was picked by the “computer” as the only policewoman in the country who might be able to help with a case that threatens the nation. 

Of course, this satisfies the need Molly has been searching for, so she takes the job – with Roy going along as her backup – which requires her to move to New York City and pose as a Indianapolis transplant who is engaged to be married to a high school phys ed teacher (Roy), but who has latent lesbian proclivities…all so as to serve, once again, as bait. But this time for a woman: May-One, lesbian leader of New York’s FUN cell, a 26 year-old slim brunette who has a preference for redheads, particularly ones with lots of intelligence and a quick wit. The goal is for Molly to play the long game: become May-One’s girlfriend, and ultimately get inducted into FUN, so she can stop the threat the FBI suspects: that FUN is teaming up with an all-male radical leftist cell and together plan to blow up the WTC with a “suitcase atom bomb.” 

Only when she and Roy arrive in New York will Molly understand all that is required of her: Kittaning has not been very forthcoming (like for example how previous agents assigned to this job have never returned), but that will turn out to be typical of the mysterious FBI veteran, who doesn’t even tell Molly his first name or his age. We know he’s single, at least (and it will develop that he is single due to the murderous actions of FUN), which of course will cue the eventual sparks between the two. Not that Kittaning is in the book much; this is very much Molly Reagan’s show, and Edgar keeps the narrative focus on her throughout. It must be said though that Molly doesn’t seem too shocked that Kittaning intends for her to enter into a sexual relationship with another woman. But brace yourself: all the sex will be off-page, for the most part, with only a few sleazy moments here and there. 

Rather, characterization is more Edgar’s concern, and he really does bring Molly to life, as he does May-One, a self-involved and egotistical girl with a penchant for drugs, casual lesbian sex, and quoting Nietszche. It was interesting to once again be reminded that the more things change, the more they stay the same. We’re informed that radical socialism only draws two types: intellgent people and “misfits.” And the most radical are made up of narcissitic children of wealth who didn’t get enough love from their daddys as children, hence they lash out at society, looking to fill an emotional void with revolutionary invective. They cannot create and can only destroy. Kittaning is very concerned about these malcontents, and here in this 1976 novel the FBI is determined to wipe out the socialist threat…we don’t even need to wonder how the FBI is aligned today

The events occur over the span of some months, and things become more real between Molly and May-One, who by the way takes the bait almost humorously fast. In fact on her first night in New York Molly meets May-One, taken to one of the girl’s favorite bars to play her role of sexy bait, but the relationship develops over time. Despite the bushy interior art, there really isn’t much vis-à-vis lesbian exploitation, other that is a part where May-One strips down and has Molly give her a bath. But Edgar keeps all the juicy details to the reader’s imagination; curiously, even how Molly feels about the sex itself is left unspoken, which is strange given the focus otherwise on Molly’s mental musings. The closest we get on this is a bit later on where Molly has a quickie with the leader of male terrorist cell, thinking to herself “a man, at last.” But even here the focus is more on emotions and reactions, not lurid descriptions. 

This extends to how the narrative plays out as well. Despite the cool cover on the Hamlyn edition, the FUN girls at no point tote subguns and go blasting. More of the book concerns Molly hanging out in their safehouse in New York and trying to prove herself to May-One’s distrusting comrades, a distrust that goes away once Molly has proved herself in FUN’s initiation: gunning down a cop. This part is carried out like an episode of Mission: Impossible, and Edgar brings a great deal of suspense to it. But otherwise the girls of FUN spend more time fighting with each other, with lots of trouble in particular caused by drugged-out “misfit” Halsey…who by the way initially is used by May-One to keep Roy away from Molly. But again Edgar doesn’t dwell on any of this stuff, like how married man Roy feels about having so much adulterous sex with a female radical (I’m sure it must have been terrible!). But then this is I guess another indication of a time long gone, as Molly and Roy have the unspoken understanding that they must sacrifice themselves for this job. 

It's more on the suspense tip with lots of emotional and psychological asides, and as mentioned the characterization is strong – Ken Edgar, despite the pulpy setup, is intent on making the novel realistic. In some ways Frogs At The Bottom Of The Well is like the “serious” version of contemporary paperback The Savage Women, which also featured a cell of “man-hating women” in New York. But Edgar’s novel is more of a psychological suspense yarn, whereas The Savage Women trades on coarse vulgarity and exploitation (yes, I intend to read it again someday!). Even the few “action scenes” here are built up around character development, like when Halsey goes nuts. 

As professor of psychology Ken Edgar really plumbs the thoughts of his characters and what makes them tick. He is good however at not being too obtuse. From her first briefing by Kittaning, Molly is aware that the female radicals of FUN all had absent fathers as children…as did Molly, whose own father was a career Army man, always off fighting some war, and finally losing his life in Vietnam. That Molly has the same psychological background of the FUN girls is what, obviously, the FBI computer picked up on, but Edgar leaves this as a subtext…an emotional subtext, in how Molly will see May-One and the others as “just girls,” before reminding herself how they’re all cold-blooded murders. 

The finale also goes for the psychological edge; Molly struggles to retain her undercover status through the book, at one point going so deep that Kittaning and Roy essentially disappear from the narrative. Even when Molly finally gets confirmation that the FBI was correct, that FUN plans to bomb the World Trade Center, it goes for more of a suspense-thriller vibe, with the terrorists painstakingly digging a tunnel beneath Building One. I did appreciate how they didn’t “want too many innocent workers to get hurt” in the blast, a far cry from the real-life terrorists of 2001. I did enjoy Molly’s final confrontation with May-One, Edgar well paying off the long-boil tension that Molly will be outed as a cop. 

Overall Frogs At The Bottom Of The Well was entertaining, with the caveat that at times it seemed to drag; it should have been a lot more fun to read than it turned out to be. The characters were all pretty well-rounded, and Edgar also did a good job of making the FUN girls more than just caricatures. I just felt that he got a little too inside the heads of his characters, so that forward momentum was often nill; and also the witty banter, while humorous at first, quickly got to be grating. 

Here is the two-page interior art, credited to Chuck Hammerick: 



And finally here is the cover of the Hamyln paperback from the UK, which makes the book seem more pulpy than it truly is:

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Vice Row


Vice Row, by Fletcher Bennett
April, 1963  Playtime Books

My friends, there are covers and then there are covers, and this obscure early ‘60s “adult” novel has a cover. It fills my head with so many thoughts, all of them depraved. In fact the cover art is so good I’m sure it will be censored by the prudish AI bots that now patrol Blogger. As is typical the art is uncredited, but I’m sure someone out there might have an idea who it’s by. Also, it doesn’t really illustrate a scene in the actual novel, but it certainly captures the vibe of the book – which, as one might expect, really isn’t even very “adult” at all in today’s world. I mean the book would be considered PG-13 at best today…either an indication of how things were just too conservative and sutffy back in the early ‘60s, or an indication of how morally bankrupt we have become in our modern era. (Prudish AI bots notwithstanding.) 

I picked this one up several years ago and I’m not sure why I took so long to read it. What I was not prepared for was how good of a book Vice Row turned out to be. Actually the cover, despite being so great, is detrimental to the actual quality of the novel itself, but I’m sure that’s typical for a lot of the so-called “sleaze” paperbacks of the era. For example The Devil’s Lash, another “racy” paperback that had quality writing throughout, or even the work of Ennis Willie; with the caveat that Fletcher Bennett is more risque here than either of those examples, though even Bennett’s actual sex scenes are either vaguely described or fade to black. No idea who Bennett was, but a few paperbacks were published under his name by Playtime Books; also no idea if it was the same author for all of them or if “Fletcher Bennett” was a house name. 

Whoever Bennett was, he proves himself quite familiar with the mindsets of whores – or “girls,” as one of them requests she be called in Vice Row. I like to imagine that Bennett just carried out a lot of field research. Seriously though, he brings more to the story than the sleaze one might reasonably expect; the “girls” here are all fairly three-dimensional (so to speak!), and Bennett invests the tale with a sentimental touch that never descends into maudlin sappiness. Even the finale, in which the killer’s identity is exposed, packs an unexpected emotional punch. 

I love the coarse cover copy, which calls out that “the new girl becomes the most popular whore on vice row.” This would be Laurie, a ravishing auburn-haired young woman fresh on Vice Row who is so gobsmacking beautiful that most people can’t believe she even is a whore. We get our first indication that Vice Row is slightly more risque than other “adult” novels of the era when Bennett describes Laurie’s ample charms: 

Her face was smooth and sweet as that of a schoolgirl. Her mouth was soft, her nose was narrow and upturned, her cheeks were rosy as spring flowers. Only her eyes betrayed the knowing mind hiding behind that innocent face. Beneath the long black sweep of her lashes, the dark pools of her gaze flashed a signal as old as time, and it was a signal the regulars of the Row knew very well indeed. 

The eyes of passersby didn’t linger on her face, however. There were far more interesting things to look at. 

Such as her breasts. 

They were as round and sweetly-shaped as autumn apples, and rode proudly on her torso with a firmness that did not need the enhancement of a bra. A moment’s close study told the simple truth – the girl wasn’t wearing a bra. At the tips of her round breasts, the tiny protrusions of her nipples made buttons in the material of her dress. The girl’s breasts belonged to her entirely, and they were obviously a pair to be conjured with. 

Among other things. 

The girl’s bottom was just as beautifully-fleshed as her bust. As she walked, twin tense cheeks worked in a rhythmic flexing against the seat of her dress. The curves were smooth and taut, of a size and shape to fit the curl of a man’s fingers neatly. 

Her legs were long. The roundness of her thighs could be glimpsed in the way the cloth of her skirt clung to their contours, and her shapely calves shifted with subtle muscle as she walked. She wore simple sandals on her feet; her ankles were finely-boned, her toes were slender and straight, the toenails were painted red. 

Now that my friends is how you exploit a female character! 

I forgot to mention, but “Vice Row” is really named Water Street, an area well-known for prostitution in some never-stated city. Bennett keeps the entire 224-page novel focused on this area, and populates it with a small but memorable cast. Surprisingly, “new whore” Laurie will not turn out to be one of the main characters; rather, she is a source of much discussion among the Vice Row regulars, and Laurie herself only appears in a handful of scenes – none of them, I should specify, being a sex scene! Rather, the majority of the heavy sexual lifting will be carried out by a blonde pro named Bunny, one who – we are copiously informed – has big boobs and a big butt and, unlike most pros, really enjoys having sex. 

The novel features a memorable intro of Laurie arriving on Vice Row, looking like some goddess among the riff-raff; she’s carrying luggage with her, which everyone finds hard to understand – surely she isn’t a new girl on the Row? Immediately she is accosted by a youth who drums up the courage to ask Laurie for her going rate, but Laurie shuts him down cold, even threatening to slam him in the jewels with her suitcase. Surprisingly, this affronted youth will become one of the novel’s many characters, simmering with rage that Laurie spurned him and trying to find her so he can get revenge – while taking out his anger on other hapless hookers. 

Another main character is soon introduced: Pop, elderly proprietor of the Double Eagle, a bar on Vice Row that is frequented by the girls, though Pop himself has no involvement in the business. This greatly puzzles sleazy Sergeant Polowski, a corrupt cop who allows Vice Row to operate because he’s paid off by Pop and the brothel owners and whatnot. However the main madam on the Row is Nell, a heavyset lady who “offices” out of a diner – which she owns, as well as the building it’s in. Bennett shows some foresight here with Nell being a successful businesswoman, owning quite a chunk of Vice Row and keeping her affairs in order. 

But then, throughout Vice Row Fletcher Bennett shows an understanding of character well beyond what one might expect of a vintage sleaze paperback. Pop in particular is prone to philosophical ruminations, and there’s a nice running theme about his “dream” to one day retire from Vice Row and live on a farm out in the country. There’s also a nicely-developed rapport between new girl Laurie and Pop, who immediately takes a paternal interest in her, sensing that there is something special about this girl – however, I was a little surprised that Laurie soon after essentially faded into the narrative woodwork, only appearing in passing. 

Much more focus is placed on Bunny, Bennett again expanding on his theme with the sentimental storyline of a prostitute falling in love with her john – a story Bennett handles so successfully that it’s actually a moving storyline. This would be Louie, an unhappily-married dude who, when we meet him, has just engaged Bunny for an hour’s work. This is how the two meet, and also where we get an indication of the type of sex scene Bennett will write in Vice Row

She rubbed against his belly, positioned herself, then thrust her body upward in an expert lunge. 

Their flesh blended. 

His mouth continued to kiss her breast as she began the tingling rhythm, moving her hips in time with the ticking of timeless mechanisms. Instinctively, he took up her beat, measuring his own plunge downward so that it corresponded with her lunge updward, slapping bellies with her, then pulling apart so that their deep sweet connection was almost lost. 

Almost, but not quite. 

Bunny felt the thrill coiling inside her. This, she decided, was going to be a real man. This one was going to be a blast. 

“The ticking of timeless mechanisms” – almost sounds like the title of a Pink Floyd song. So as you can see, the topical details are mostly relegated to the bodies of the women, but the actual “dirty stuff” is more intimated, or happens off-page. The above is actually the most explicit sex scene in the novel. So I guess even sleaze books could only go so far in the early ‘60s. I find this stuff so interesting; ten years later Harold Robbins would have best-sellers that featured not only super-explicit sex but even had characters pissing on each other

I also found it interesting how the meanings of words have changed over the decades. For example, that “hunk” was once used to describe an attractive woman! “You’re some hunk of woman,” etc. But then “hunk” is also used to describe a good-looking man in the book, so I guess once upon a time “hunk” was a unisex description. Even stranger is that the same, apparently, could be said about the phrase “well hung!” Judging from Vice Row, “hung” was once also used to describe a woman’s ample charms – “The way you’re hung” and etc, referring to a lady. And no it’s not a transvestite being discussed! 

There’s also a thriller element at play with the gradual reveal that a killer’s on the Row, one who specifically targets hookers. Bennett periodically cuts over to the perspective of the killer, never divulging his identity; we only know he wears a “disguise” when in public and also that he uses a straight razor – and has killed 30-some hookers in his career, slashing their throats and then mutilating them. Bennett well handles the mystery of the killer’s identity, but I must confess it soon became apparent who the killer really was; the revelation is another indication of how things have changed since 1963. What might have been shocking then is “I figured that out a hundred pages ago” today. But I won’t divulge it here so as not to spoil the surprise for those who decide to read Vice Row

That said, Bennett really handles the story with skill, jumping often from character to character to keep the story moving. Even Sgt. Polowski comes off as a realized character, and not the cliched corrupt cop one might expect. Though he does prove himself an unlikable character, taking “payment” from hookers at his whim, leading to a bit where slim pro Fay must keep her gorge down while taking care of the “thoroughly unpleasant” Polowski. Fay is mistreated throughout the narrative, and again not to go into spoilers but Fletcher Bennett sufficiently develops his prostitute characters so that it resonates with the reader when some of them are killed – and one becomes especially concerned that others in particular might also be killed. 

There’s almost a vibe of Herbert Kastle in the murder sequences; not in the style of the prose but in how the killer realizes he can basically get away with anything, given that he’s killing off the scum of society. And Bennett again shows the plight of these hookers when one of them is murdered, and we’re told that “by the end of the week” most people on Vice Row can’t even recall what she looked like. But as mentioned the reader does care for them, especially Bunny, who as it develops is essentially the main female character in the novel; Bennett skillfully dovetails her growing love with Louie alongside the imminent threat that the killer will slash Bunny’s throat. Speaking of which Bennett doesn’t much dwell on the gore, though we’re told the bodies are so disfigured that characters puke when they see them – most notably Polowski, who discovers the first corpse. 

But there’s also quite a bit of genuine humor in Vice Row. To be sure, there’s nothing satirical nor spoofy about the book – everything is on the level. But some of the character interactions are humorous, especially a conversation between Bunny and a hooker named Jan, who suspects every other hooker of being a “dyke.” But when Bunny questions Jan on why she suspects this – namely how those “dykes” will refer to other girls’s bodies so adoringly – Bunny exposes how Jan talks the very same way about the other girls. Hence, one might reasonably suspect that Jan herself is a “dyke.” There’s also some darker comedy – and another indication of changing sentiments – when Louie decides between Bunny and his cold fish of a wife. Louie’s wife refuses to have sex with him, so an angered Louie goes home, “belts” his wife a few times to snap her out of it, then forces her to go down on him – and when he realizes she’s just faking her excitement, he tells her “Goodbye, bitch!” and heads back to Bunny! 

There really isn’t much wasted space in the book, and Bennett really keeps the story moving. He also successfully weaves together the connecting dynamics of the various characters, from Bunny and Louie to the punk kid who likes to beat up Vice Row hookers. Also the unmasking of the killer is very well handled, and despite being a bit harried – one gets the impression Bennett was quickly approaching his contracted word count and thus wrapped it up – it still packs an emotional wallop. What could have been a bonkers, sleazy reveal is instead cast in a more somber glow, given that it’s elderly Pop who ruminates on it all – in fact I got the impression Fletcher Bennett himself might have been older, as there’s more of an introspective and reflective vibe to things than the primal rush one would expect from a younger, hornier author.  Then again, I did find it curious that the majority of the sex scenes were relayed through the perspective of Bunny, which almost led me to suspect that “Fletcher Bennett” might have been the pseudonym of a female author.

Overall I very much enjoyed Vice Row, and it’s inspired me to read some more of those vintage “adult” crime paperbacks I picked up several years ago.

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Mission: Impossible #4: Code Name: Little Ivan


Mission: Impossible #4: Code Name: Little Ivan, by John Tiger
No month stated, 1969  Popular Library

After a one-year gap the Mission: Impossible series returned with this fourth (and final) volume. Walter Wager also returned as “John Tiger;” he’d written the first volume back in 1967. That one tied in with the show’s first season; Code Name: Little Ivan ties in with the fourth season. Series regulars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were gone, meaning that their characters Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter do not appear in this book; instead, we have magician/actor Paris (as protrayed by none other than Leonard Nimoy in Seasons 4 and 5), and a female character named Annabelle Drue, a “sloe-eyed” beauty who previously worked as a model before becoming an IMF agent “three years ago.” This character is unique to Code Name: Little Ivan, and likely was a creation of the editors at Popular Library. 

For, page 12 and the back cover copy of Code Name: Little Ivan reveal that Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter did appear in Wager’s original text: Paris is mistakenly referred to as “Rollin” on page 12, and the back cover lists Cinnamon as one of the characters in the book. So it seems clear that these two characters were originally in the book, but had to be replaced when the actors left the show. And only the names were changed, as Paris acts in the same capacity as Rollin Hand – a noted actor who seems mostly into the whole IMF thing for the drama – and Annabelle Drue is described in the same terms Wager used for Cinnamon Carter in the first novel: a “leggy blonde,” etc. I’d imagine some editor at the imprint had to go through the text and change all mentions of “Rollin Hand” to “Paris” and “Cinnamon Carter” to “Annabelle Drue;” other than the aforementioned two misses, the editor did a good job. 

Wager again proves himself the best writer on this short-lived series, and not just because he’s clearly the only writer who actually bothered to watch the show. Once again his novel feels very much like an episode of the series, perhaps one with an expanded budget. While the previous two novels just seemed like generic ‘60s spy action, Code Name: Little Ivan is clearly intended to be a genuine Mission: Impossible story, following the template of every show: IMF “chief” Jim Phelps (described by Wager as an athletic “blond” man…who packs a .357 Magnum beneath his “expensively-tailored” sport coat!) is briefed via self-destructing tape and then goes about pondering the assignment and then putting together a team for the job. Here we get the tidbit that the Impossible Mission Force is comprised of “volunteer civilian daredevils.” 

One additional thing Wager injects into his version of Mission: Impossible is a sense of humor. I wasn’t too fond of this – the show itself is usually pretty cold and aloof – but fortunately it wasn’t too egregious. We aren’t talking pratfalls or anything, but we have a lot of goofy bantering between idiotic East German officials, with a bungling assistant who is the source of his superior’s wrath…and also a lot of the payoffs on the caper are done comedically, which doesn’t gibe with the series vibe at all. This even extends to the typically-cold IMF agents, particularly Paris, who often chortles to himself about “going too far” in his portrayal of an overly-patriotic Red Army officer. There’s also a little more “friendly banter” among the IMF agents than typically seen in the show; Paris, for example, is a bit egotistical, and Phelps convinces him to take the job by appealing to his egotism. 

Now that I think of it, Code Name: Little Ivan doesn’t veer too far from the constraints of the show; given some of the relatively implausible sci-fi scenarios seen on Mission: Impossible, I think the plot of this one could have fit right in. Basically, the IMF team must get into East Germany and steal a protoype Russian tank that’s made of a new alloy. As it turns out, though, there aren’t any big fireworks or really any action whatsoever; late in the novel there is a staged assault on a German military base, but in true Mission: Impossible style it’s all a fakeout, nothing more than Barney Collier hoodwinking the moronic soldiers with a sound effects tape. 

Wager has the mandatory opening down pat: Phelps shows up at a carnival in his unstated home city and proves his marksmanship skills to win a stuffed animal. After exchanging some code words with the proprietor, Phelps gets on a roller coaster – one that stops at the top so he, alone on the ride, can hear the secret tape that’s embedded in the stuffed animal. A secret tape which of course self-destructs after playing. From there to the also-mandatory bit of Phelps in his swank pad going over his IMF dossier to put together his team; here we learn that “Paris” was injured in a recent assignment and has not been stated as fit for duty by the medics, but Phelps figures Paris will take the job when he hears how impossible it is. 

And it truly is one for the “master thieves” of the IMF: they must steal an entire tank and sneak it out of East Germany. So they go about this in the usual caper way: Phelps and Barney pose as salesmen for “Lovely Lips,” a lipstick manufacturer(!), Annabelle is their hotstuff French model, and Paris poses as a KGB agent, with typically-sidelined muscleman Willy Armitage acting as his chaffeur. Willy’s presence was apparently challenging even for the screenwriters – how do you integrate a strongman into every single caper? – but Wager has it that he and Paris often work together as a pair, even though they are so physically mismatched. Of course, this likely made more sense with the original Rollin Hand/Martin Landau of Wager’s original text, rather than the tall and lanky Paris/Leonard Nimoy. 

Despite a brief 128 pages, there’s still a fair amount of padding in Code Name: Little Ivan, mostly due to the scenes featuring one-off East German characters. Also, the caper itself doesn’t unfold with as much tension as on the show. Wager does try to instill a little suspense in some spots, but it comes off as at odds with the show itself, where the capers most always went off without a hitch – even when they seemed to be going wrong, it would turn out to be yet another bit of “5D chess” by mastermind Phelps. Here we have sort of “tense” bits where the machine they plan to use to hide the tank starts leaking water from beneath the big “Lovely Lips” truck and Annabelle must distract the East German guard with some small talk; stuff like that. 

But otherwise there’s no action per se, unlike the previous two novels in the series with their car chases and shootouts. The caper goes down on more of a comedic nature, with Paris – wearing one of the show’s famous “rubber masks” – posing as a Ukranian tank expert and steering it for the awaiting IMF team. Spoiler alert, but just to note it for posterity: the way the IMF team hoodwink the Commies is they have a water-filled rubber replica of the tank, which they leave on the road while Paris drives the real tank into the awaiting Lovely Lips truck. Even here the tone is one of comedy, with an idiotic East German officer insisting one of his men to get on the “tank” the next day, only for the nonplussed soldier to claim the tank is sinking beneath his weight – because it’s a rubber replica filled with water. 

Wager does sort of replicate the moment where the villains realize they’ve been swindled – always one of the highlights of the show – but here, again, it’s mostly comedic, other than an off-page bit where two of the Commies shoot each other due to some IMF hijinkery. But that’s it; the two separate teams drive over the border to West Germany and that’s all she wrote for Code Name: Little Ivan, as well as the Mission: Impossible tie-in series itself. All told this was an okay series, with the caveat that the second and third volumes seemed to be novelizations of an entirely different show.

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

The Last Scam


The Last Scam, by David Harris
No month stated, 1981  Delacorte Press

I first discovered this obscure novel, only ever published in this hardcover edition, some years ago while searching the Kirkus review archives for novels about marijuana smuggling in the ‘70s. Really! While the review was negative (as is typical for vintage Kirkus reviews), I still wanted to read the book, so ordered a copy through Interlibary Loan. I think this was about three or so years ago. 

When I got the book from the lending library – and curiously the book had never even seemed to have been opened before, let alone read – I flipped through the pages, and rather than seeing the pot-fueled madcap hippie dope smuggling fun escapist yarn I wanted, it was a barrage of Spanish language, Mexican locales, and hardly anything about marijuana smuggling at all. I returned the book to my library, which returned it on to the lending library, still unread. But I recently went on another of my random “I’ve gotta read a book about marijuana smuggling in the ‘70s” tangents, and found myself looking at that Kirkus review of The Last Scam again. And this time, I swore to all the trash gods, I’d read the damn thing. 

Once again the book I received seemed to be in perfect, pristine, never-touched shape, save for the fact that the dustcover had been removed. And I cracked open the uncracked spine and tried to read this 364-page monstrosity again. And realized within the first few pages why it sunk without a trace, never garnering a paperback edition – not even from a low-budget imprint like Manor Books! So again, there’s absolutely none of the ‘70s dope-smuggling fun escapism I wanted here in The Last Scam, not even anything approaching similarly-themed contemporary novels like Night Crossing and The Mexican Connection. Even the deranged and reactionary Maryjane Tonight At Angels Twelve was better than this slow-moving chore of a novel. 

So here’s the thing. That Kirkus review, while negative, actually makes The Last Scam sound better than it is. Those colorfully-named dope-world characters mentioned in the review turn out to be paper-thin ciphers who have no backgrounds or interests or personality – I mean, we don’t even learn why the main character, a veteran dope smuggler named Henry Amazon, even got into the drug game to begin with! And hell, other than an occasional puff of “motta” (again, Spanish words proliferate in the text), Amazon is straight-edged the entire novel, keyed up on the planning of the titular last scam. 

None of the cool period drug world stuff I wanted was here, ie stuff like in Smokestack El Ropo’s Bedside Reader. It’s all so bland and boring, with no mentions of the world outside of desolate patches of Mexico where Henry Amazon plans his final marijuana run. And yeah, “Henry Amazon.” Author David Harris has this annoying quirk of repeating the dude’s full name constantly in the narrative: “Henry Amazon,” over and over. But that’s not bad enough. The other names are just confusing. Like Ramon Ramon, Amazon’s former partner…but who turns out to really be a “gringo” like Amazon. I mean despite having a novel in which 90% of the characters are Mexican, author Harris even gives one of the few white protagonists a Spanish name! 

But then, The Last Scam is so “Mexico First” that there are parts where Henry Amazon, the friggin’ protagonist of the yarn, is referred to as a “gringo” in the narrative! This gets confusing because Harris will willy-nilly refer to Amazon or Ramon Ramon as “the gringo.” But then again, Harris is really bad with POV-hopping, by which I mean one paragraph we’re in one character’s perspective and in the next we’re in another character’s perspective, and there’s no white space or anything to warn us of the perspective change. One of my true pet peeves in books. It just generates confusion, confusion which is only compounded by all the similarly-named, cipher-like characters. 

I also suspect Harris was influenced by Joe Eszterhas’s series of Nark! articles for Rolling Stone in the early ‘70s, which were eventually anthologized as a hardcover by Rolling Stone’s publishing venture Straight Arrow Press. As in Nark!, the government agents are an unhinged, sadistic lot, particularly the Mexican ones. This brings me to a more interesting parallel. There are a lot of similarities between The Last Scam and the work in general of William Crawford. The overall grimy, dirty vibe (everyone seems to be dirty and greasy), the sadistic cops, the penchant for torture, the sudden eruptions of brutal violence, even the weird quirk of characters shitting themselves. Even some of the phraseology is similar: “drop his mud” is used here, as in someone giving away info, and the only other place I’ve seen that phrase is in Crawford’s novels. 

Now, I’m not saying David Harris was William Crawford, though I guess it’s possible (though I think Crawford died around 1979 or so). I’m just saying it’s an interesting similarity. Because William Crawford would’ve written a more entertaining novel, I’m sure. I mean comparatively speaking. The problem with The Last Scam is the unlikable, ciper-like characters who plod through its boring events with absolutely no escapist thrills for the reader to enjoy. It’s a humorless beat-down of a novel, the complete antithesis of the fun sort of dope smuggling yarn I wanted…like the more recent High Fliers. It’s also curiously devoid of any background detail on drug smuggling; as mentioned, why Henry Amazon or Ramon Ramon even became smugglers is not mentioned. And about the most we learn about either of them is that they were in ‘Nam together. That’s it. 

The novel opens with a prologue set in 1977, in which Henry Amazon and Ramon Ramon run into each other in some dingy Mexican restaurant – almost the entirety of the novel takes place in such locales. We quickly learn some background on the two; Amazon and Ramon were partners until 1971, when they had an acrimonious splitting of ways. This had something to do with a screw-up a third partner, The Patchouli Kid, happened to make on a scam (ie a drug run). Speaking of whom, here in this prologue Ramon casually mentions that the Patchouli Kid has been killed by the sadistic Federales, ie the Mexican cops. Amazon storms off, and I guess all this is Harris’s foreshadowing of how dangerous “scams” are becoming. 

We then pick back up in 1978…and we’re again in Mexico. And Amazon is planning another scam. And he’ll again run into Ramon Ramon. Here though we learn there was more to their falling out: years ago Amazon’s girlfriend Wanda Lamar (also an assumed name), ran off with Ramon. But even this is just muddled backstory; Wanda is mentioned infrequently, in particular that she eventually “went native,” living with the Indians in the Mexican jungle to the point that she came off like one. Or at least Amazon took her for one, last time he saw her. But the point is, Wanda even eventually left Ramon, however she turns up in the last quarter of The Last Scam to complicate the lives of both men. However, Amazon no longer even “feels anything” for Wanda, so any potential for some drama or fireworks is also neutered. As I say, David Harris does a thorough job of consistently ruining the potential of his novel. 

Oh and meanwhile there are the sadistic Feds, both American and Mexican. In charge of the latter is Cruz, who tortures with relish in some of the book’s more shocking scenes; there’s a bit in the middle where he tortures a captured American drug-runner with a flame-heated knife. In charge of the Americans is Purdy Fletcher, aka Purd, a fat moron of reactionary values who seems to have stumbled out of Eszterhas’s book Nark. Under Purd’s command is new Federal agent “Hog” Wissel, which of course made me think of Hog Wiley. These guys work with Cruz, though Cruz and Purd have an antagonistic relationship; on both sides, the cops are presented as bumbling psychopaths who don’t care so much about drugs as they do capturing, torturing, and killing their prey. 

But that’s about it so far as an underground vibe goes to The Last Scam. I mean there isn’t even any tie-in to when all this really started a decade before, with all the hippies running drugs across the border and whatnot…you know, the sort of stuff in Smokestack El Ropo’s Bedside Reader. No mention of the passing of time, or of the drug culture in general…nothing. It’s just a bland, dispirited, boring novel, which is mind-boggling when you consider it. About the only mention we get of any of that stuff is that minor character Beef Stew (another assumed name) was once a member of the Brotherhood of Love…a California-based LSD cult that was featured in, you guessed it, Nark

Otherwise David Harris’s focus is on the business end of the scam, the planning and the waiting. Oh, the waiting. There are so many parts in this nigh-on 400-page novel where Henry Amazon or Ramon Ramon just sit in a dingy Mexican motel room…and wait. Wait for their connection to drum up some money, wait for someone to call them on the meet. It’s just endless wheel-spinning. Midway through things pick up when Ramon’s scam with Beef Stew goes haywire, in violent fashion. Another thing: Ramon Ramon is himself close to being the novel’s antagonist, given how he’s supposedly blown away a narc and is now on the FBI’s most wanted list. But even this doesn’t pan out into anything memorable; Ramon manages to elude Purd and the others several times, but when this subplot reaches its conclusion it is very anticlimactic. 

Harris is also guilty of a weird, half-assed omniscient tone. Throughout the novel we’ll be told stuff like, “Amazon didn’t know it, but the car he’d just passed happened to belong to…” That sort of thing, where we are constantly being told things the character doesn’t know, or couldn’t know. But otherwise there’s no omniscient narrator voice to tie all this together. In other words, it’s half-assed, and of a piece with the POV-hopping. What I’m trying to say is, I really didn’t enjoy The Last Scam, and there’s no mystery why it didn’t find a greater readership. I think David Harris had a fine idea for a novel (he even dedicates it to the supposed “real” Henry Amazon, wishing him to stay safe), but he ruined it with such a humorless, boring approach. Decades later Robert Sabbag would take a similar plot and do much better with it, in Loaded.

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Digger #1: Smoked Out


Digger #1: Smoked Out, by Warren Murphy
February, 1982  Pocket Books

The prolific Warren Murphy wrote this private eye series for Pocket Books, and ultimately it ran for four volumes, after which Murphy jumped ship to another publisher and changed the series (and protagonist’s) name to Trace. But for this initial series, Pocket followed the same angle as Popular Library did a decade earlier when they packaged the similarly action-free P.I. series Hardy as an “action series.” 

Not to imply that Digger is as bland and boring as Hardy. I mean, at least Julian “Digger” Burroughs does more than watch TV and eat in Smoked Out. He finds time to hook up with a couple women and even get in a fistfight. But otherwise the action is about on the level of The Rockford Files or some other private eye TV show of the era. And if I’m not mistaken, Trace did end up as a TV show, or at least a TV pilot. Anyway, Digger doesn’t even carry a gun; his weapon of choice is a tape recorder, “the size of a pack of cigarettes,” which he usually straps to his chest to surreptitiously record the witnesses he interviews. 

Like the earlier Killinger, Digger is a claims investigator, but unlike Killinger he isn’t a “ruggedly virile” type who lives on a Chinese junk with all the bachelor pad trimmings. Digger is in more of your typical sleazebag private eye mold, and operates out of Las Vegas, where he shares an apartment with a hotstuff Japanese babe named Koko who happens to be a high-class hooker. The Digger-Koko relationship is by far the best thing about Smoked Out, and in truth is a little reminiscent of the Remo-Chiun relationship in The Destroyer, if only for the acidic barbs which are traded back and forth. There’s also the element that the two love each other but cannot admit it (to each other or to themselves), just like Remo and Chiun. 

But, obviously, it’s a romantic love in Digger, instead of the father-son love of The Destroyer. Otherwise as you’ll note, it’s the same setup: smart-ass white protagonist and calm-natured Asian, with all the bickering and bantering Murphy does so well. In fact he does it too well, as ultimately I found that my problem with Smoked Out was the same as with the other Destroyer novels I’ve read: it was all just too glib for its own good. I kept having bad flashbacks to Chevy Chase in Fletch (which I only saw once, in the theater when it came out, and I was just a kid), as it was quite hard to take Digger as a serious character as he spent the entirety of the novel making one glib comment after another. 

As with The Destroyer, there was nothing believable about the character, at least nothing that made his drive to solve the case believable. Digger, like Remo, seems to exist in his own self-impressed world, mocking and laughing at everything, thus it is hard to understand why he even cares about cracking insurance cases. Same as when Remo is suddenly all resolved to stop some bad guy. Why does he even care? What drives him? This must be a recurring gimmick of Warren Murphy protagonists. They’re such glib smart-asses that I personally can’t believe in them when they’re suddenly retconned into determined heroes due to the demands of the plot. 

In other words, if things aren’t serious for the protagonist, how are they supposed to be serious for the reader? But then, we aren’t talking about globe-threatening plots in this series: Digger’s first case has him investigating the death of a wealthy doctor’s wife in Los Angeles. This would be Mrs. Jessalyn Welles, who’s car ran over a cliff while her doctor husband was a few hundred miles away at a conference. Digger gets the job from his company and heads to L.A., where we learn posthaste the method of his investigation: he goes around to a seemingly-endless parade of people who knew Mrs. Welles, introduces himself with a different fake name to each, and then runs his mouth endlessly in the hopes of getting info from them. 

It gets to be confusing – and not just to the reader. Digger gives one new name after another, seemingly coming up with the names on the fly, as well as what his job is. And of course trading glib dialog with the person he’s trying to get info from. Pretty soon he gets confused which name he gave which person. It’s all funny at first but quickly becomes grating. I guess I just have to accept the fact that I’m not a big fan of Warren Murphy’s novels. And the dialog just gets to be grating. He finds a dimwitted babe who is into vitamin pills and trades lots of glib dialog with her about them. Or he concocts the novel scheme of going around and telling people he’s working on a remembrance card for Mrs. Welles and wants input from those who knew her. 

Speaking of babes, Digger manages to get laid – not that he seems to enjoy it much. Another curious Remo parallel. Anyway, it’s a Scandanavian gal who casually admits she’s had an affair with Dr. Welles, and soon enough Digger’s in bed with her. And thinking of Koko the whole time. That said, Murphy gets fairly explicit here, more so than any of the Destroyer novels I’ve read. But still, Digger doesn’t seem to enjoy it. For one, Murphy’s sarcastic vibe is so perpetuating that any cheap thrills the reader might want are denied; the gal in question is treated so derisively and dismissively by Digger that one would be hard-pressed to understand that she is in fact very attractive and incredibly built. Digger could just as easily be screwing a cardboard cutout, is what I’m trying to say. Also, more focus is placed on Digger’s certainty that the gal is faking it, with his running commentary on how he’d rate her performance. It’s only when Digger himself finally orgasms that he is “Surprised once again at how good it felt.” This is the sort of robotic shit that plagued The Destroyer

One difference between Remo and Digger is that Digger isn’t a “superman” (like the old Pinnacle house ads described Remo). Shortly after the lovin’ there’s a part where Digger is ambushed by a few guys; certainly the inspiration for the cover art, as this is pretty much the only “action” scene in the entirety of Smoked Out. Digger gives as good as he gets, but still gets his ass kicked and is only saved by the appearance of another female character. The ambush was due to Digger’s investigation, of course, and true to the template of most all P.I. novels Digger soon discovers that Mrs. Welles was into all kinds of shady stuff, and that her death might not have been so accidental. 

But still, Smoked Out was a chore of a read. The glib protagonist, the glib dialog, hell even the glib author – I could only imagine Warren Murphy smirking to himself the entire time he wrote it. I mean the dude could write, there’s no argument on that. I just don’t like what he wrote. But as the cover of Smoked Out declares, “over 20 million” Warren Murphy novels were in print in 1982, so clearly my sentiments aren’t shared by everyone.

Thursday, October 6, 2022

Brute Force (Jericho Quinn #6)


Brute Force, by Marc Cameron
January, 2016  Pinnacle Books

They were having a book sale at my local library the other month and I took a look at the paperback section. I was surprised to see the Pinnacle logo on the spine of this particular book. I pulled it off the shelf, to of course see that it was the typical too-long “suspense thriller” of today, complete with mandatorily bland Photoshopped cover. But when I got to the back cover it was a different story; I had to check the copyright, given how topical the back cover copy was. I knew without question that I was going to hand over the fifty cents they were asking for the book. 

I am completely out of touch with the modern publishing world and so was unfamiliar with the Jericho Quinn series by Marc Cameron. This is the sixth volume, and I believe there have been a few more since. They are all Pinnacle PBOs, but as mentioned they’re clearly more “upmarket” than Pinnacle PBOs of yore. I mean there are even industry blurbs on the back cover! But really Brute Force, while entertaining, is of a piece with modern suspense thrillers, with that same sort of “PG” mainstream vibe. Interestingly, it’s a lot like a Gold Eagle publication, like a Stony Man or SuperBolan joint, only with less action, violence, and gun p0rn, with a bit more focus on suspense and characterization. 

That said, hero Jericho Quinn is such a cipher I had a hard time picturing him. We’re not given much description or setup for him, which is understandable given that this is the sixth book he’s appeared in. But basically he’s your typical ex-military badass who, at least in Brute Force, acts almost in the capacity of a vintage men’s adventure protagonist in that he’s a one-man enforcer for a rogue intelligence director. Quinn is in his late 30s, sports a beard for most of this novel, and has a seven year-old daughter who is currently hiding in Europe for unexplained reasons (again, likely in a previous book). He also has a fondness for motorcycles. 

He also, par for the course of our miserable modern age, has absolutely no libido. Brute Force is kind of unintentionally humorous in that it has the setup of a vintage men’s adventure novel (only bloated to 423 pages, compared to the 200 pages max of the old days), with Quinn spending most of the novel running around the world with a sexy Chinese secret agent. At least I assume she’s sexy, as Cameron, again par for the miserable modern course, doesn’t exploit her in the least. I think the most we get is an offhand comment by a character that she’s “pretty,” and there’s also a part where she’s riding behind Quinn on a motorcycle and wearing a short skirt and a bunch of guys catcall her. And even though she and Quinn get as close as two people can get, even sleeping in the same bed at times, even pretending to be married at one point, there is zero in the way of any sex. 

I mean folks it’s sad and depressing how emasculated male protagonists have become in today’s mainstream thriller fiction. Now Cameron seems to imply that Quinn’s heart belongs to another gal, a spunky fellow operative named Veronica “Ronnie” Garcia, but the two aren’t even on the same page together until the end of the novel. Before that Quinn spends days flying around the world with the Chinese babe, Song – and for all they know they could be killed at any moment. They see each other shower, Song cares for Quinn when he’s injured (which is often), and they clearly seem to have chemistry, so you’d think a friendly roll in the hay might not be too out of the question, especially given that the world might end if they fail in their mission…but nope, it’s a more progressive age, folks, and we can’t be having any of the sordid thrills that were once part and parcel of escapist fiction for men. 

Even the plot is fairly generic, and could have been lifted from any of those Gold Eagle books: terrorists, a Maguffin weapon of mass destruction, lots of globetrotting, a couple shootouts and car chases. Basically a sadistic pair of Chinese brothers break out of a hellish prison in Pakistan in the opening pages, make their way to China, and from there intend to sow havoc in the US with a secret weapon they’ll get from a Chinese accomplice. Jericho Quinn and Song, a Chinese agent who wants to prevent her country being framed for an attack on the US with the WOD, travel from country to country, trying to stop the threat. Along the way we have colorful sequence like a car chase in Croatia and a contest with horses that Quinn takes part in which seems inspired by a scene in Rambo III

The helluva it is, this “terrorist of the week” main plot line detracts from the much more interesting subplot, which has to do with the rogue administration that Quinn is trying to stop. I forgot to mention, but the President and Vice President are in league with the terrorists, and are behind the plot to attack America, so as to start a war with China. And Quinn and his accomplices are on their Most Wanted list. Quinn works with a former intelligence guy who gives him his orders, sending him around the globe on this task and that. But nowhere do we get an idea what makes Quinn tick; I mean there’s no personal impetus we’re told of that causes him to act in this capacity. There’s nothing overly “heroic” about him, and he doesn’t even display much patriotism. In addition to Quinn there’s Thibodeaux, Quinn’s eyepatched sidekick, a mountain of muscle Marine who calls Quinn “chair force,” mocking Quinn’s Air Force background. There’s also Miyagi, a Japanese woman who trains Quinn in fighting techniques and carries a sword into battle…and yes, the book actually has a female ninja in it, which is as pulp as you can get, but Cameron stays on the level. 

Actually the book has two female ninjas in it, the other being Ran, a cruel Japanese woman who serves as the bodyguard for the despotic Vice President; she has tattoos all over her body and also casually sleeps with the VP, but again there’s nothing sordid in the novel. That is save for one bit where Ran and the VP are taking a shower together, but this scene – like many in the novel – doesn’t do much to move the plot along. There are many such “filler” scenes in Brute Force, where Cameron will drop in on his large cast of characters as if to check in on them, but nothing happens. It’s clearly just a way for Cameron to meet his big word count. 

But as mentioned it’s the subplot that made me drop my hard-earned, uh, quarters on this book. When I read that back cover I had to go to the copyright page to confirm the book hadn’t just been published. I mean check this out: 


So how prescient is this back cover? Let me count the ways. Well first you’ve got the “biological attack,” which should be pretty self-explanatory; we don’t hear much about it in the actual novel, but I can only assume it was created in a Chinese lab. But the super-interesting stuff concerns the rogue administration that stole power through a coup. Presumably the previous volume gave the background on how this happened, but in Brute Force the seditious administration is in full power. And folks you’d have to be living in a deep, dark pit of denial to not see the similarities to today. I mean for one we learn the new administration is less interested in governing the country than it is in criminalizing its rivals. We also learn the President is a corrupt and mornic figurehead whose staff constantly walks back his statements. Not only that, but the corrupt and moronic President also has a fondness for young women – okay, maybe not that young, but still. We even learn that a certain federal bureau has become fully politicized, sending out sadistic agents to capture and interrogate anyone who dares to oppose the junta; yep, that tracks, too. All of this is so uncomfortably close to the US of 2022…not bad for a book published in January of 2016. 

Perhaps the only difference here is that in Brute Force those who oppose President Drake and VP McKeon truly must live underground, carrying guns and getting in shootouts with the FBI agents who come after them. The irony of course being that Quinn and comrades are the heroes who are looking to save the country, despite being villified by a rogue administration and hunted by its jackbooted thugs. Again, as prescient as you can friggin’ get! I mean I wanted to know more about this country Cameron gives us. Does it too suffer from a Brandon-style economy? (Which by the way is totally the fault of Russia! And Covid! A-and unicorns!) Has the voice of anyone who opposes the rogue administration also been cut off? Has the White House been surrounded by barbed wire to “preserve and protect our precious democracy?” Does the administration decry fascism while espousing fascism? 

Unfortunately that damned “terrorist of the week” main plot gets in the way of all this. I was so much more interested in the rogue administration element, with Ronnie Garcia and Win Palmer, Quinn’s boss, staying in a safehouse in Virginia and trying to find members of congress who will believe their story that the President and Vice President are traitors who are literally in league with terrorists. This entails another nice action scene with FBI agents getting mowed down by Miyagi’s blade, but after which more time is spent on Ronnie Garcia’s unfortunate plight as an FBI captive. This though entails another cool bit where Thibodeaux and Miyagi go to her rescue. This sequence to me was the highlight of the book and could’ve easily been expanded. Instead it’s that damn A plot that takes up more time, complete with an anticlimactic (to me at least) chase across Seattle as Quinn tries to prevent the Chinese Maguffin WOMD from being unleashed – while at the same time somehow unmasking the President and Vice President as traitors. 

Cameron’s writing is good, and he really has that Gold Eagle vibe to his prose. I mean this book could easily be a volume of Stony Man. He POV-hops a lot (ie changing perspectives with no warning), and he confusingly refers to characters by multiple names in the narrative. Initially I thought “Ronnie,” “Veronica,” and “Garcia” were three different people, but they’re all the same gal. Also he cheats on some of the payoffs. Like most notably with the VP. This is the guy behind it all – remember, the President is a corrupt and moronic figurehead (if you take nothing else from my review, be sure to take that!) – but Cameron denies us the expected confrontation with Quinn and instead focuses on the VP’s relationship with Ran. (That said, there’s yet another subplot here involving Ran and Miyagi, but it’s not resolved this volume.) Worst of all, Quinn’s confrontation with the Feng brothers – the terrorists he has been chasing for the entire damn novel – is almost perfunctorily handled, with Quinn instead chasing down some newly-introduced villain in the final pages. 

It occurred to me toward the end of Brute Force that it’s a wonder Hollywood hasn’t jumped on the Jericho Quinn series, particularly this volume. Because – and in another divergence from vintage men’s adventure – this book is stuffed to the gills with the “empowered women of color” that are mandatory today. There’s ass-kicking Hispanic (sorry, Latinx) beauty Ronnie Garcia, and not one but three ass-kicking Asian women: Miyagi, Quinn’s ninja-type sensei; Ran, the bodyguard of the evil Vice President; and Song, the Chinese agent. Again, I presume the three of them are pretty as well; Cameron doesn’t tell us, probably due to editorial mandate. (“For God’s sake, do not exploit the female characters – the two or three women who might read this book could get offended!!”) 

Anyway, Brute Force kept me interested for most of its runtime, but it seemed clear that Cameron was struggling to fill the pages at times. He does a good job of it, though, and he’s certainly got his readers: just look how many reviews this and the other installments of Jericho Quinn have garnered on Amazon and Goodreads. But in a way it was just like all the other modern suspense thrillers I’ve passed by in bookstores over the past few decades, only livened up by the unwitting prescience in regards to our modern day. The only question of course is where Jericho Quinn is in the real world. We need him now more than ever.

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

The Gang


The Gang, by Herbert Kastle
December, 1976  Dell Books

This was the first of two paperback originals Herbert Kastle published through Dell; most of his previous novels had been hardcovers. Given the late ’76 date I’m going to assume it was the oil crisis that resulted in this book being paperback only; it’s my understanding that the crisis caused publishers to revisit their entire lines, in some cases outright canceling them – the fate that befell most men’s adventure novels at the time. I guess it was only a temporary setback for Kastle, as by 1979’s awesome Ladies Of The Valley he was back in hardcover (though the paperback was also published by Dell). 

Back in 2013 I reviewed Cross-Country, the novel which preceded The Gang. As I mentioned in my review, Cross-Country started off a sort-of trilogy, with The Gang being second and Death Squad, Kastle’s other Dell PBO, being the third. However the only thing linking the novels is Detective Sergeant Eddy Roersch of Manhattan West Homicide; the events of Cross-Country aren’t even mentioned in The Gang, so reading that book first certainly isn’t necessary. In fact someone just picking up The Gang would have no idea it even is a sort of follow-up to a previous book. However there is a bit of a benefit in reading the books in order; for example, we learn here that Roersch, a 58 year-old widow, has married the former hooker who lived down the hall from him, and is about to have a baby boy with her. In Cross-Country it was established that Roersch was starting to feel more for the former pro, Ruthie, than just the occasional freebie. 

I knew something was up when Roersch was happy in his intro; no one’s happy in a Herbert Kastle novel. I’ve read a few of the guy’s books and I love his writing, but I can’t help but feel that Herbert Kastle himself was one unhappy guy. The theme is constant in his books of rage boiling just below the surface, of people ready to lash out. His protagonists are most always unlikeable pricks…like the rapist stalker protagonist in Hot Prowl. Not to read too much into the book, but one of the protagonists of The Gang is a novelist who decides to live out his crime novels by going on a kill-spree rampage. In fact I think there was a similar subplot in Ladies Of The Valley, with a screenwriter who was a serial killer or somesuch. 

Well anyway, in my earlier reviews of Herbert Kastle I wasn’t yet aware of the work of Lawrence Sanders. Now that I have read a few of Sanders’s novels and researched some others of his I plan to read, I can’t help but suspect that Kastle, like many other crime writers of the day, was influenced by Sanders…particularly The First Deadly Sin. Kastle’s style even seems similar to Sanders’s in The Gang, mixing a methodical police procedural with lurid elements. This of course is a good thing; I’m just noting, not criticizing. But then again it could just be a coincidence. It’s just that the milieu, the focus on actual detecting instead of “cop movie” style escapades, and the periodic detours into graphic sex seem to be what put Lawrence Sanders on the map. But I guess Sanders just had a better agent, as his novels were all bestsellers and Herbert Kastle’s came out as a paperback original. 

But as I’ve said before, I prefer paperback originals, if for no other reason than the cover art, which is always better than hardcover cover art. The cover for The Gang is especially cool, but uncredited. Also a bit misleading, as the lead female character, Cynthia Derringer, has dark hair. And, unfortunately, she does not wield an Uzi at any point in the story. But otherwise one of the best covers ever, and surely had to move at least a few units in December of 1976. Or maybe not, as The Gang only received this paperback printing in the US (I think it came out in hardcover in the UK, where Kastle had more fame, it seems – in fact his last novel was only published there), and now appears to be entirely forgotten. 

So back to the unlikeable protagonists. Roersch is not the main character in The Gang, which again brings to mind the work of Lawrence Sanders, in how his cop character Edward X. Delaney would be the protagonist in some novels, like The First Deadly Sin, but a minor character in others, like The Anderson Tapes. Note even the same first names for these characters: Eddy Roersch and Edward Delaney. Well anyway, Roersch does feature in much of The Gang, and is the only thing akin to a hero we get in the novel…however he has no real interraction with the main plot, despite Kastle’s valiant struggles to make it seem as if he does. Indeed, Roersch could be entirely removed from the novel and the plot would not be impacted…Kastle ensures we understand this, for some curious reason, often reinforcing how Roersch is “too late” to change the tide in several situations. 

The actual “heroes” of the book are the fucked-up losers who make up the titular Gang. A big problem with the novel is how implausible all this is, though. In fact there were times I was wondering if Kastle was spoofing Sanders, even down to the bloated page length…I mean The Gang is “only” 316 pages, but good gravy does it have some small and dense print. It sometimes seemed that no matter how dogged an effort I was putting into the reading, the book still wouldn’t get any closer to the end. And that’s the other thing…The Gang isn’t very enjoyable or entertaining. It’s kind of ridiculous and hard to buy, and not helped by its rushed conclusion. One almost gets the impression that Kastle himself didn’t believe in the book and was just bulling his way through it. 

So here is the plot: A quartet of people who have been screwed over by life in various ways decide to become “The Gang” and pull a series of violent robberies across the country, with the intent of heisting enough money to go off to South America and live like kings for the rest of their lives. But they aren’t professional thieves or even criminals…save for one of them, 17 year-old Mark Corman, who is a criminal only in that he has a juvenile record for breaking and entering and other stuff that he now regrets. His backstory is what brings Roersch into the tale, though it’s a bit hard to buy. The belabored setup has it that Mark got pulled into the robbery of a jewelry store in Manhattan in which the owner was killed, not by Mark, and Mark freaked out and took off, leaving his two comrades behind. Roersch gets the case, and given his Columbo-esque detecting abilities soon figures there’s more to it than a simple robbery gone wrong, and indeed there is. Though it has no bearing on the major plot per se. 

Meanwhile Mark’s dad, Manny Corman, a promoter gone to seed who lives in Los Angeles and hasn’t seen his son in six years, has fallen in with Bert Brown, a successful novelist in his 40s. The two men each have a casual sex thing going with hotstuff brunette Celia Derringer, a beauty with “balloonlike tits” and a “big” rear who is the kept mistress of a famous bandleader in LA. Yes, it’s all very convoluted. But long story short, Celia’s also got a thing going on the side with Bert and the bandleader suspects her – rightly, it turns out – of whoring, and has been keeping tabs on her, and shows up while she and Bert are mid-coitus. This leads to a violent confrontation in which, typical for a Kastle character, Celia’s latent rage is unleashed in full force. 

These four characters (Manny, Mark, Celia, and Bert), now on the run from the law – Manny because he’s gone on the lamb to help his son – decide to become “The Gang,” all an idea of Bert’s. The brains behind the group, Bert convinces them to form a “family,” which appears to have spawned the cover blurb comparison to Helter-Skelter. Celia herself even thinks of the Manson Family, though notes that they’re too grungy and unkempt for The Gang. But it’s all so very implausible, how these four people just suddenly decide to band together as criminals, as they have “nothing to lose,” even down to Celia becoming the “Earth Mother” for them…having sex with all of “her men!” Weird stuff for sure, and while Kastle does his best to make it all seem plausible, it just rings hollow from beginning to end. 

As I read the book I concluded that the reason it all seemed implausible was because Kastle hadn’t sufficiently set it up. Bert Brown is the originator of the idea, and we’re told it’s because he’s done some crime novels and now wants to live them out. But we’re not told anything about his books, and really the character is introduced to us shortly before he begins his criminal career, so it’s not like there’s much establishing material. Bert’s real driving force is that, a la Alex Jason in The Enforcer, he has terminal stomach cancer. The fact that he’s soon to die is what unshackles him from society’s norms and causes him to push The Gang further and further into crime. But his ensuing viciousness – gunning down a hapless waiter in an early heist – is just hard to accept. Again though Kastle tries to cover his bases; previous to this Bert was secretly a coward, and after being called out on this in the confrontation with Celia’s cuckolded bandleader it’s clear he’s driven to prove how much of a man he is. 

And yes, a theme of masculinity also runs through the novel, and while Kastle often compares and contrasts “the old days” with the novel’s present of 1976, surely he didn’t realize that masculinity itself would one day be questioned. I mean Supreme Court justices don’t even know what women are these days! I guess things were just more clear-cut in the ‘70s. One of the many subplots concerns how men can survive in this increasingly stultifying world, and also there’s a running subtext about fathers and sons. Even here though Kastle stumbles in the actual plotting, because while Manny Corman is introduced as being desperate to help his son Mark, soon enough Manny’s convinced the whole Gang idea is the only option they have…and the fact that he’s putting his son in even greater danger is just sort of brushed under the narrative carpet. As I say, the entire novel is just so implausible in so many ways. 

Meanwhile Eddy Roersch has his own shit to deal with. As mentioned he’s 58, with 30-some years on the job, and a great record with cracking cases. Even though Columbo is dissed in passing, that’s the cop Roersch most resembles, a sort of mule-headed investigator who refuses to see the “easy” case his fellow cops see and will keep sifting through details until he finds something deeper. However Roersch always “freezes” on tests, thus he’s never advanced beyond Sergeant, even though people without nearly his track record have. Such would be the case of Roersch’s new boss, Lt. Krinke, who immediately takes a dislike to Roersch; Krinke is a stickler for detail, more concerned with rules and regulations, and bridles at Roerschs’s intuition-based approach. This rivalry takes up most of Roersch’s plot, with Krinke seeming to have it in for Roersch. Oh and speaking of changing times…later in the novel a colleague informs Roersche that rumor has it Lt. Krinke might be a closeted gay, hence his animosity, and Roersch can’t believe it: “Gays in the police department?” 

The titular Gang starts small, hitting a restaurant they happen to be eating at. This is another implausible bit, as Bert realizes he needs to sort of shock the system to make the others realize that the Gang is all they have. In other words Kastle is at pains to create a twisted family dynamic, and it occurred to me that this was the same thing he did in Cross-Country (which also had characters increasingly “act crazy” at the whims of the plot). But I had a very hard time believing that Manny, whose entire presence here to begin with is to to keep his son out of danger, goes along with it, holding a gun per Bert’s order and chortling over the unexpectedly-large haul they get. From there it’s to a furtner cementing of the familial bond; Bert has it that Celia will sleep with all three men – and Celia is all game for it. In fact the novel’s most explicit sequence concerns her initial boink with teenaged Mark. 

This particular sex scene goes on for a few pages, whereas the (relatively few) others go for just a few not-very-graphic paragraphs. There’s also a weird bit where a highway patrolman inadvertently pulls over the Gang, not realizing who they are…and they get the drop on him…and Bert urges Celia to screw the bound officer. It just all seems so dispirited, and I got the impression Kastle was just going through the motions, so to speak, maybe trying to provide the lurid stuff ‘70s crime readers demanded, but his heart wasn’t in it. But Kastle certainly delivers on the lurid vibe with a random focus on sleaze – both Manny and Mark, we learn, are well-hung…something Manny is happy to learn about his boy, peeping at him over the wall of a urinal! And then wondering if it’s acceptable for a dad to talk to his son about such things! 

Regardless, the stuff with Roersch is more entertaining than the entirety of the Gang plot, even though the Roersch material lacks much action and has zero sex. It’s really just a methodical procedural, with Roersch stubbornly tracking leads in what every other cop – especially his despotic boss – thinks is an open and shut case. Of course it wouldn’t be much of a plot if there wasn’t more to the case, and Roersch’s unraveling of the web is more entertaining than the various heists the Gang perpetrates. In fact I found much of their material tedious and unwelcome. They’re just too savage to be believable; I mean on the very first job Bert is gunning down some hapless waiter. They also take up this cutesy schtick of leaving coy messages in blood or lipstick at their crime scenes; another Manson inspiration, I guess. Their hits become increasingly reckless and violent, with each member, save for Mark, becoming increasingly crazy. 

This was another thing I remembered about Cross-Country; a female character in it started acting nuts toward the end, even though she’d been relatively normal beforehand. The same thing happens here, with Celia just getting more and more aggressively schizoid, at one point almost getting “her men” killed when she starts up some shit with a waiter. (Waiters particularly seem to suffer at the hands of The Gang.) Little does Celia realize that a few armed cops happen to be dining in the restaurant, something Mark desperately tries to warn her of. Throughout all these escapades Mark is the sole voice of reason, never taking part in the actual violence; this is the thing Roersch clings to, back in New York, as he’s determined to save Mark Corman somehow. 

But the two plots never gel, despite how much Kastle attempts to make it seem like they do. Roersch, a 30-some year veteran, suddenly gets touchy-feely about 17 year-old petty criminal Mark Corman, initially just one of the subjects in Roersch’s latest case…but as things progress Roersch starts thinking of him like a father. This is another thing that upsets Lt. Krinke, leading to another face-off between the two. The cop-world detailing here is very realistic and Kastle excels at bringing to life the monotonous routine of police work. He’s clearly done his work on how the NYPD operates; perhaps his advisor was former police captain Tom Walker, author of Fort Apache: The Bronx, who provided blurbs for both The Gang and Death Squad

It's implausible how the confrontation with Krinke ultimately comes to a boil, though. However Kastle delivers a nice wrapup to this that’s touching without being maudlin (referring here to the name Roersch decides to give his son, who is born at the end of the book). The wrapup with The Gang isn’t nearly as well constructed. After various heists, The Gang is riding high – and then we suddenly learn via dialog that they’ve been spotted along a road near Peekskill, New York, shot it out with a patrolman, and are now holed up in a particular house, which is under siege by an armada of cops. This climax is basically thrust upon us with no real setup, and it’s almost as if Kastle felt the book was getting too long and decided to cut to the chase. Or it’s more indication that he himself didn’t believe in the entire premise of the book and wanted to get it over with. 

To make things worse, Roersch still has no interraction with the main plot; throughout the book he is always “too late” to do anything about the situation with Mark Corman. Again, it makes Roersch seem completely unnecessary to the novel. Hopefully he will be more integrated into the next one, Death Squad, which apparently concerns a rogue force of cops. Roersch’s storyline was I felt the best part of The Gang, which otherwise was a curiously deflated novel from Herbert Kastle. 

Great cover art, though! And also I’ll always remember The Gang as the book I read when I got Covid. Speaking of which, I apologize if any of the preceding review was hard to understand – I wrote it while I was getting over Covid, which essentially was like a bad cold for two days. But at least now I can mark “Get Covid” off of my bucket list.