Springblade #8: Betrayal

Springblade #8: Betrayal, by Greg Walker

August, 1991  Jove Books

I keep forgetting about the Springblade series…and then when I read one of the books, I remember why I keep forgetting it. Seriously though, this is military fiction more so than men’s adventure, and the escapism one expects from the latter genre is not to be found. It’s all military jargon, acronyms, and characters who talk about their time in the service. 

This one’s even more military-themed than the others, as the entire novel takes place during the Vietnam War. A more accurate title for this volume would’ve been Flashback, as that’s all we get for the majority of the 188 pages…series protagonist Bo Thornton flashing back to 1965 and all the shit he got into when he was in the SOG outfit in ‘Nam. 

What’s unfortunate is that the opening of Betrayal promises something else. Two DC politicians plot against the Springblade team and want to get them killed off; one of them holds a personal grudge, because back in #2: Machete his “balls were smashed in” by team member Jason Silver when Springblade was faking a hostage attempt for reasons I cannot recall. 

Well, these two guys have a plan up their sleeves to get Springblade, and it would appear that this is only so far as the copyeditor read the book…because that’s the story that’s sort of promised on the back cover, only it’s not the story we readers actually get. Instead, as mentioned, the entire damn thing is a flashback to Vietnam. 

Presumably occurring in the previous volume, Bo Thornton has finally married Lisa, aka the Smurfette of Springblade, the one who used to sit at home in the earliest books but has now been retconned into “the computer girl” on actual missions. Now she’s become Mrs. Thornton, and Betrayal opens the morning after their wedding, with the entire team hanging out at the Thorntons’ beachside home, which is where the wedding took place. 

Nothing says “men’s adventure novel” like telling us your main protagonist just got married, but Springblade is only packaged as men’s adventure. More than ever the focus this time is on the military life. While everyone else is asleep, Bo and Lisa sit on the beach and Bo lights a cigar and proceeds to tell Lisa, his new wife, all about his days in ‘Nam, down to the last Cong-blasting detail, and Lisa sits there avidly listening! But I guess Bo is smart to do stuff like this in the early days of a marriage…I could just imagine Springblade #25, in which Lisa tells Bo she’s sick to goddamn death of hearing about Vietnam, and when the hell is he going to fix that garage door?? 

We head back to 1965 and stay there for the duration. Betrayal tells the story of how young Bo Thornton become involved with SOG, the Studies and Observations Group, going deep in-country in ‘Nam and getting in various commando fights with the VC and NVA. His teammates are not ones who would eventually feature in the Springblade team, and there are also a few Montagnards who fight alongside him. Rather than telling a cohesive tale, the novel is more about the various things Bo had to do in SOG, like collecting dog tags at crash sites, and etc. There is also an extended bit in which they rescue some POWs, and curiously this is where the titular “betrayal” occurs, as there’s a turncoat soldier at the VC compound where the POWs are being held, so Bo and pals get double bang for their buck: freeing prisoners of war and killing off a traitor. 

The only enjoyment I got from Betrayal was that, apropos of nothing, it brought to the surface a memory I’d long forgotten, so I guess in a way I should be grateful. Back in college I was friends with this demented guy named Tim, a big football player type who I always thought looked slightly like Henry Rollins – this was back when the video for the Rollins song “Liar” would play on MTV, and we’d joke that it looked almost exactly like Tim at times. 

Well anyway, Tim was slightly “batshit crazy,” as one might say, and he’d go through various phases – like he’d go all-in, whole hog crazy over some new pursuit or activity, usually as a way to impress some girl (there were precious few girls at our college – as one very astute young woman once asked me, years later as she looked through my college yearbook and noted the lack of girls in the photos: “What did you guys do, jerk off all the time?”). 

For example, just a few of Tim’s phases were: “solving” the JFK assassination (which entailed Tim wearing a suit and tie every day, carrying around a briefcase that had nothing in it, and watching the Zapruder film over and over in slow-motion on the Oliver Stone JFK VHS); being a cowboy (which entailed wearing a cowboy hat, chaps, and learning to ride horses – we had an equestrian program in our college, and yes, one of the girls he was interested in for this particular phase was in that program); and also there was a brief phase where he wanted to play hockey, which entailed him wearing his hockey gear all the time, even at lunch and dinner. 

But my favorite of all Tim’s phases was the “mission” phase, where Tim would don black clothes, blacken his face, and go run around at night, like he was a commando in Vietnam. As I recall, the “mission” phase came soon after the “JFK” phase, so I guess it was a logical progression. Our college was in West Virginia, but it was early on the “multicultural” front, so there were literally students from all over the world, in particular from Japan. Well anyway, one night Tim insisted that I go out on a mission with him, and this is the memory Betrayal brought back for me. 

As it turns out, I also remembered that I’d taken a photo on this particular night! It’s hard to believe, but once upon a time it wasn’t very common to constantly take photos…I mean you needed a camera and you needed film. But for whatever reason, the night Tim insisted I go on a mission – which of course entailed dressing up all in black – I took a photo. And here it is, straight from the Glorious Trash Archives: that’s Tim with the blackened face, kneeling, and that’s me standing beside him: 

To the best of my knowledge, this photo was taken in late winter or early spring of 1995. Thirty-one years ago, as hard as it is to believe. I was a junior in college, and I would’ve been twenty years old at the time. That was my dorm room, and note the blacklight Grateful Dead poster, with the fun fact that I am not and have never been a Grateful Dead fan!! Also note the Japanese girl calendar on the wall…now that I think of it, I might still have both of those somewhere, the poster and the calendar. 

But as you can see, Tim went all-in when he was on a phase: note the blackened face and the thousand-yard stare. So this night we went out and our college was right in the woods, right in the mountains of West Virginia, and it was slightly cold and very foggy – very cinematic. Tim’s “missions” would have him sneaking around the dark woods and pretending to be a comando; I went along that night as an observer, because I realized even then it wasn’t too common to be around someone so batshit crazy, so why not enjoy the experience? 

Anyway, here is what Betrayal made me remember, and it’s a wonder I almost forgot it, because previously I’d always thought it was one of the more funny experiences in my life. There was a steep hill with a wooden bridge that connected two of the dorms, and as we were running around in the cold, misty night, Tim caught sight of two Japanese students coming toward us on the bridge – I remember we could just see their silhouettes in the moonlight, as it was pitch black out there, and the two Japanese couldn’t see us. 

Tim turned to me and whispered a certain slur you’ll often hear in Vietnam War movies, referring to the race of the poor unsuspecting Japanese students who were approaching us, and then he pushed me down so that we were crouching in the shrubs beneath the bridge as they walked over us. Folks it was just like a movie, I kid you not, because the two Japanese students even stopped on the middle of the bridge and each of them lit a cigarette, all while talking to each other in Japanese, totally oblivious of the fact that they were being watched by two American guys in black and facepaint – like something out of every single Vietnam War movie ever made! All the two of them needed was an AK-47 slung across their backs. 

Now I do recall at this point I was trying not to lose it, hiding below them in the dark, but one of the rules of a mission was to stay silent. But to make it even funnier, Tim leaned to me and whispered, “Give me the knife.” The two Japanese students obliviously went on their way, and then I recall Tim said something like, “That was close,” and then we were off on the mission…and I can’t recall much else, only that I got bored and decided to go back to my room and get drunk, which is pretty much how every night ended. And still does today, in fact! (Just kidding…sort of.) 

As I was writing this post, I realized the impact Tim had on my life: it was because of him that I moved to Dallas, back in 1996. He moved out here after college to get in the Dallas Police Department, but for reasons I cannot recall he did not get in (they probably found out about his JFK file), and he eventually left Texas.  But when he first moved here he convinced me to come down to Texas, and I stayed here after he moved on. I wonder what my life would’ve been like if I had not come down here and eventually met my wife and had a son...and honestly I can’t imagine a world without at least one of those two people, so batshit crazy or not, I owe Tim a debt of gratitude.

Anyway, if not for Betrayal I might have forever lost this memory of that crazy Vietnam mission in West Virginia, which once upon a time was one that would make me chuckle. I can’t remember the last time I even thought about the incident, but man for a long time I’d laugh, because I kid you not it was exactly like stepping into a Vietnam War movie. But otherwise this novel has nothing to do with the Springblade series; it starts off being about one thing, and then veers off into an interminable flashback…something I’ve attempted to replicate in my own review, as you might have noticed.

MIA Hunter #13: L.A. Gang War

MIA Hunter 13: L.A. Gang War, by Jack Buchanan

January, 1990  Jove Books

Stephen Mertz turns in one of the better volumes of the MIA Hunter series, which sees Martin “MIA Hunter” Stone and his erstwhile colleagues Hog Wiley and Terrence Louglin fully transformed into a government-sanctioned commando squad that handles any type of action, not just ‘Nam POW rescues. In this way they are now along the lines of the innumerable men’s adventure teams of the ‘80s and ‘90s, but what’s interesting is that Mertz, who created and edited the series, injects more background and character development into the tale than you would encounter in those other ghostwriter-written men’s adventure series. 

To wit, L.A. Gang War opens with a flashback to 1965, with Martin Stone 21 years old and a new Green Beret on his first patrol. Mertz well captures a greener, much-less-experienced Stone in this prologue; while he is not the experienced commando of the series proper, he still has the same determination. This opening also establishes characters who will factor into the novel, like Master Sergeant Chug Brown, “a big black bear of a man” who serves as Stone’s commanding officer, as well as the villain of the piece: Lou Conte, a turncoat Green Beret who, when we meet him, is working with some drug-running Cambodians to ambush Stone’s patrol. With a birthmark running across his face, Conte is easily the most memorable villain we’ve yet had in the series. 

Stone gets his trial by combat, one of the survivors of Conte’s ambush – and also Stone takes a shot at Conte, but sees him get away. We will learn that this has long been a sore spot for Martin Stone…and, of course, here in L.A. Gang War he will get his decades-delayed revenge. We cut to 1989, and Stone and team have just flown in to San Clemente, California, having just completed another mission in South America. Stone has his first post-‘Nam reunion with Chug, who works now as an anti-gang cop here in California. Stone’s team has been brought in by the Feds to rescue a reporter who has been taken hostage by a drug lord he was investigating – and the reporter is Chavez, another of Stone’s buddies (and who also was introduced in the 1965 prologue). 

This is a crafty way to stay true to the original series concept – rescuing prisoners of war – while expanding on it a little, and the action scene here could have come out of a contemporary action film, with Stone and comrades blasting away at Hispanic drug-runners on full auto. Mertz also captures the long-running banter between Louglin and Wiley, with even more of that background stuff thrown in; we’re told here that the two were partners back in ‘Nam, which is a tidbit I had forgotten. But there is a lot of bantering between the two, and Mertz does a good job of making the two characters memorable (I enjoyed the little note that Loughlin reads Robert Ludlum novels). 

Perhaps the best part of this sequence is the introduction of a sexy young black woman named Silky Brown: her first appearance has her in the passenger seat of a Mercedes (with none other than Lou Conte behind the wheel) as it escapes the drug lord’s place in San Clemente. Later we learn that Silky is undercover, merely posing as Conte’s latest girl for some unspecified reason. From her name to her looks, Silky seems to be a clear nod to Pam Grier’s Blaxploitation flicks, particularly Foxy Brown. I was hoping for some Coffy-esque “This is the end of your rotten life, you motherfuckin’ dope pusher!” shotgun-toting sass, but unfortunately – spoiler alert – it was not to be. While Silky is indeed a great character, probably one of my favorite ever in the MIA Hunter series, she does not turn out to be a Foxy Brown type. Hell, her name isn’t really even “Silky Brown,” and she’s just a wanna-be reporter who is trying to investigate the drug-running in the area, due to her involvement with the much-older Chavez. 

Those taking notes will realize of course that this means there will be no Stone-Silky conjugation, which would have been par for the course if this novel had been published two decades before (as hard as it is to believe, we’re in the ‘90s now, even though the novel is stated as taking place in 1989). This is because Stone has a steady girlfriend, something that would have been anathema in a ‘70s men’s adventure series; this of course would be April, who has been with the series from the start, and who has slowly integrated herself into the team in proto-DEI fashion. Even here Mertz gives us more background than is typical of most men’s adventure, with the note that Stone has been with April for a while, and that she still turns him on (in other words, they aren’t married). But as is typical of this series (or ‘90s men’s adventure in general), any sort of hanky-panky between the two must be a product of the reader’s own fevered imagination. 

For the most part, Mertz here delivers a crime thriller that has no parallels with the early volumes of the series; the closest point of comparison, men’s adventure-wise, would be G.H. Frost’s Army Of Devils, only without the drug-fueled zombies. Otherwise there are frequent scenes of Stone, Hog, and Loughlin suiting up and blasting away crack dealers in inner-city shitholes; one part, quite similar to Army Of Devils, has them trapped in a building as both the Crips and the Bloods set in on them. While not nearly as gory as Army Of Devils, we do get good word-painting like “reddish-gray mud” to describe blasted-out brains sitting on the street. 

Oh, and another “modern” intrusion here is the introduction of comlink-type headsets Stone and team wear on missions: “earsets” that allow them to stay in contact while in the field. Certainly this was novel in 1990, but here in 2025 I can’t tell you how sick I am of seeing action movies with commandos touching their ears and talking into their comlink headsets, or whatever the hell they’re called. It’s become just as much of a cliché as the ass-kicking girl who is a better shot and a better fighter than all of the guys put together. 

Well anyway, I sort of lost the plot there. Mertz also pays tribute to his writing mentor, with the mention of a top cop named “Pendleton.” And in many ways L.A. Gang War is sort of a “modern” take on a ‘70s Executioner novel, what with its cast of squabbling criminal gangs who prove absolutely no match for a hardened commando team. The only difference is, instead of Mafia goons, it’s black crack dealers. However Lou Conte emerges as the main villain, and Mertz delivers several scenes from his perspective; another similarity to Pendleton’s Executioner novels is that L.A. Gang War hops around a fairly large cast of characters, not just staying focused on Martin Stone. 

Overall, this one was an entertaining read, and to tell the truth I prefer urban action to the jungle exploits of the earlier MIA Hunter books. But speaking of which, the final sentence of L.A. Gang War informs us that Stone and team will in fact be heading back to ‘Nam, as new POWs have just been discovered. Like they said in the old NBC ads, “Be there!”

Angel Dust

Angel Dust, by Lindsay Maracotta

January, 1979  Jove Books

Well friends, somehow I’ve managed to discover yet another obscure paperback original rock novel from the ‘70s. This one promised much, too, following the trash template of the era: a roman a clef about the famous personages of the era, opening in 1974 and then flashing back to 1964, detailing the torid year-by-year events of the age of rock. I mean I was in trash heaven when I saw that the back cover was like so many of the trashy bestseller paperbacks of the era, listing off the characters and noting their kinky proclivities.

But man, first of all, let’s take a look at this uncredited photo cover…and try to figure out what the hell is going on. So I get the guy with the guitar and microphone is supposed to be a rock star up on the stage, but what are the women doing below him? Are they in rock rapture, or are they bending their heads back in cultlike supplication? I guess both things are the same, but still. Then if you look at the back cover, you’ll note the cover is a wraparound, with more “bent back in supplication” heads below the rocker – but the perspective just seems off. Are these “bent heads” people standing or lying on the ground? 

This however isn’t even the big question. TAKE A LOOK AT THE ROCK STAR’S FACE. Here’s a closeup – don’t look if you don’t want nightmares! 

I think I speak for us all when I ask, “What the fuck??” I’ve spent altogether too much time trying to puzzle out what exactly this guy’s expression represents…this insane leering sneer. What is this, “Tim Curry as Mick Jagger?” I mean has the cover photographer ever seen a rock star? Or perhaps the goal here was to mimic (or mock) a shock rocker of the day, like Alice Cooper or something. The only problem is, there’s no shock rocker in Angel Dust, so perhaps this bizarre and lame (but for those very same reasons, friggin’ great) cover is why the book is so obscure. 

And speaking of which, the title of the book, “Angel Dust,” has nothing whatsoever to do with the contents of the novel. Perhaps it is a play on the underworld name for PCP, but if so that is not made clear in the narrative itself. While several characters do get hooked on drugs, it’s the same heroin and speed that is common in rock novels. Also, there’s a bit of a morality tale at play, as the drugs are part and parcel of the various downward spirals the large cast of characters go through as the sixties become the seventies. But then, another theme here is that essentially everyone involved in the rock biz is a self-involved narcissist hell-bent on destroying themselves. Well…so what if they are? I mean the last thing I want is a self-respecting and well-behaved rock star… 

No, the main issue with Angel Dust is that Lindsay Maracotta, to borrow a phrase Kirkus used in their review of contemporary rock novel Rising Higher, “hasn’t even bothered to be inventive” with her story. Basically Angel Dust takes all the topical points of ‘60s rock and filters them through a bland prism of characters who are analogs of real rockers. Bob Dylan going electric, Altamont, the Rolling Stones becoming increasingly “evil” and decadent, Yoko Ono and John Lennon breaking up The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix dying young…hell, even the Redlands bust: all of these and more are here in Angel Dust, only the, uh, names have been changed to protect the (not so) innocent. 

Not only that, but like so many of these contemporary rock novels – ie Triple Platinum, Rock & Roll Retreat Blues, or the aforementioned Rising Higher – actual rock stuff is scant at best. Indeed, the entire “rock” theme could be replaced by any other theme, and the essence of the novel would be the same. By which I mean, this could just as easily have been a novel about movie stars, or hell even opera singers or something. Angel Dust is more of a tepid soap opera than a “rock novel,” having even less to do with the business than those previously-mentioned books. Maracotta spends hardly any time at all on the creative process of the music, or the recording of the albums; other than a handful of too-brief scenes, we rarely see these famous rockers creating or performing. Rather, the focus is on their mundane soap operatic lives, with the caveat that the novel rarely attains the trashy level one might hope for. 

Not surprisingly, given that the author is a woman, the main characters are women, all of them analogs of real women in the rock scene. The male characters – ie the famous rock stars – mostly exist on the periphery, and come off as callous pricks. There’s even a Paul McCartney analog who is a self-involved cad who demands his women to be subservient. The Hendrix analog is a heroin junkie who constantly needs to be told how great he is and walks over women with scorn; a far cry from what the real Jimi Hendrix appeared to be like. To make things easier, I’ll just follow that back cover format and tell you who the characters of Angel Dust are clearly intended to be: 

Jim Destry: The “smouldering eyes” line on the back cover had me hoping Destry was going to be a Jim Morrison analog, as in the 1970 rock novel Cold Iron. But unfortunately, Destry is in fact…Bob Dylan. (Dylan, by the way, was the inspiration for a surprisingly sleazy paperback original in 1970, The Golden Groove.) 

Meredith Fairchild: This is the closest we get to a main character in Angel Dust. A beautiful American gal from a wealthy family who becomes a rock photographer and ultimately marries a member of the most famous rock group of the day, The Shades. Meredith Fairchild is, of course, Linda Eastman. 

Bryan Revere: The guy Meredith marries, the best-looking member of The Shades who all the girls go crazy for – Paul McCartney. 

Morgan Meeker: Lead singer of “the second best band in England,” the Marked Cards, Morgan is the stand-in for Mick Jagger. 

Christina de la Inglesia: This is the Bianca Perez-Mora Macias to Morgan Meeker’s Mick Jagger. 

Averill Sloane: This is the only original character in the novel, a manipulative mastermind in the mold of Jango Beck, from the contemporary rock novel Passing Through The Flame. 

Humorously, the back cover doesn’t even mention some of the more important characters in the novel. Here they are, as well as less-important characters who are based on famous rockers: 

Tom Sampling: This is the John Lennon analog, the lead singer of The Shades, who becomes increasingly gaunt and politically aware as the sixties progress. 

Monica Choy: The Yoko Ono to Tom Sampling’s John Lennon…only she’s Chinese! Otherwise this is Yoko in all but name, or at least the Yoko of the tabloids of the day – a self-involved social-climber with delusions of her own importance, who latches onto famous men. 

Lazarus “Laz” Allen: The Hendrix analog, but a far cry from the real thing; he barely appears in the novel. 

Bill McHale: Aka Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone; upstart publisher of rock magazine Tumbling Dice, though accused by his subordinates of being domineering and not possessing any writing talent of his own; he started the mag to be around rock royalty. 

Sabina: Foul-mouthed and fat-bottomed lead singer of The Psychedelic Invention, “the high priests of acid rock.” Aka Janis Joplin, who was the basis for a much superior rock novel also published in 1979, The Rose. 

Josie James: One of the more curious misses on the back cover, as Josie is a fairly important character, a Joni Mitchell-style folk singer who must sell her soul to become famous – and, this being a trash novel, can only find true happiness in the sack with other women. Her parts reminded me very much of another contemporary rock novel, The Scene. 

Sonny Lanahan: A hot-tempered businessman who fights Averill Sloane for control of various groups – no doubt supposed to be Allan Klein. 

So there are a lot of characters afoot, but Maracotta does a fairly good job juggling them. The only problem is Angel Dust is constructed a little strangely. It runs to 395 pages of small print, but Tom Sampling and Bryan Revere – ie the John and Paul analogs – aren’t introduced until page 295…and practically the rest of the novel revolves around them! What makes it worse is that the majority of this is just John-Paul rivalry stuff (the two aren’t introduced until 1969, long after their group, The Shades, has been a tight unit), with slightly more soapy recreations of the real-life fights between the two. Also, Angel Dust opens in 1974, giving the impression that all the “rock world” stuff was long in the past…but as the novel progresses, Maracotta takes us from 1964 to 1970, before finally returning to that opening 1974 sequence…meaning that the opening is really just four years later! 

The “1974” opening has Jim Destry about to make his long-awaited return concert in Madison Square Garden, and Meredith Fairchild has come here to relive “the old times” or whatever. We learn here she’s married to a “Bryan,” a guy who has a rivalry with a “Tom,” but it won’t be for like 290 pages until we even find out who these guys are. Meredith also runs into old friend Josie James, there to open for Destry and now an angry, hard-edged bitchy type, a far cry from the willowy and idealistic girl Meredith once knew… 

From there we flash back to 1964, and Maracotta actually spends most of the narrative here in the early days of the age of rock. But despite her Cliff’s Notes take on rock, Maracotta still pulls some anachronistic blunders…most particularly with Tumbling Dice magazine. A newspaper-style underground rag devoted to rock and the youth movement and what not, running out of San Francisco…four years before Rolling Stone. And hell, eight years before the Rolling Stones would even release the song “Tumbling Dice!” I mean this Bill McHale guy might’ve been a hack, but he sure did have a knack for seeing the future. 

One unique thing Maracotta brings to the tale is that this group of characters is essentially the main movers of rock; hardly any other musicians are mentioned, though in true roman a clef style we will have super-brief references to real groups, like the Beatles or the Stones or Dylan…or at one point even Rolling Stone is mentioned as a competitor magazine. But clearly this is an alternate reality where those groups are not nearly as famous as The Shades, Jim Destry, or the Marked Cards. Otherwise what Maracotta adds is they all have shared history, beginning in 1964: Jim Destry is in love with Josie James, two folkies in New York, and Chinese-American artist Monica Choy makes her way through basically all of the guys here, until finally scoring her biggest coup in Tom Sampling. But man, if you’ve ever wanted to read some Yoko Ono-Bob Dylan slash fiction, you’ll find it here in Angel Dust. 

Well, sort of. It’s my sad duty to report that the novel is incredibly timid in the sleaze and trash fronts. Most all of the sex occurs off-page and what we do get is tepid stuff along the lines of, “His strokes were quick and hard.” I mean, is this dude screwing or swimming? Also, what with Lindsay Maracotta being a woman and all, there’s zero in the way of the customary female exploitation one might demand from their trashy paperback cash-in fiction. But that’s another curious thing. A not-so-subtle theme at play here is that none of these studly rock gods can satisfy their women in bed! Not only that, but they’re all closet homosexuals; multiple times Bryan is accused of being in love with Tom, and vice versa. On the female front, all the women are latent lesbians; Meredith’s first time is with Morgan Meeker, the Jagger analog, and she finds herself unsatisfied afterward. Despite which, we get the unforgettable line, “Meredith felt a sharp pain as [Morgan] thrust deeper in her body, which increased as the full length of his cock penetrated her.” The Marked Cards, baby! Meredith with also be unsatisfied with Bryan Revere…her only true orgasm in the novel occurs in a lesbian fling in 1969 with Josie James. Hell, even Laz Allen can’t keep her happy – though as mentioned the Laz here is a cad. Jimi clearly made his way through a ton of women, but per the bios of him I’ve read he didn’t go out of his way to brag and boast about it, or flaunt it in the faces of other women. 

The unwieldy construction runs through the book; Meredith is mostly the main character, using her father’s connections to get a gig as a photographer for Tumbling Dice. She’s there for when Jim Destry is still unknown, getting some of his first pictures, and also some of the Marked Cards’s first show in the US. From there we hopscotch through the sixties, with Morgan and the Marked Cards becoming increasingly brutish and decadent, the drugs becoming increasingly commonplace, and an eventual spreading of malaise and boredom through the rock elite. Curiously, Woodstock is the one real-life incident Maracotta doesn’t rip off, though we do have a pseudo-Altamont in 1969…complete with Jim Destry appearing on stage with the Marked Cards. This, confusingly, will be the first of Destry’s two “return concerts,” this one being after a motorcycle crash he got into a few years before (humorously, right after being heckled onstage for coming out with an electric guitar, Maracotta getting double-bang for her real-life-ripoff buck); Destry’s second “return concert” is the opening one in 1974. 

I’m also sad to report that Lindsay Maracotta is another of those rock novelists who makes the curious decision to hardly ever describe the music. This is such a recurring failing of these novels that it almost makes me wonder if there was an unspoken agreement among all rock novelists in the ‘70s. Indeed, the characters here are rarely if ever shown on stage or in the studio; if they are, Maracotta will hurry through the proceedings and then get back to lots of soap opera-esque dialog. One gets the impression from Angel Dust that being “a famous rock star” entails nothing more than looking the part and doing the right drug; there’s no feeling that any of these characters are musicians capable of selling albums – other, that is, than the occasional bit of expositional dialog where characters will tell Meredith about recording or performing. 

Also, like Passing Through The Flame, midway through the novel becomes focused on the mercenary practices of the businessmen who plundered the rock world, “soiling” the art and whatnot…but again, none of these characters seem very artistic, not even Monica Choy, who is an artist. Otherwise the focus is on the increasing torpor and decadence of the rock world, with Morgan Meeker treating Meredith like shit and Meredith gradually becoming a “groupie” who sleeps her way through sundry rockers (all off page), before ending up with Bryan Revere in 1969. Her fling with Laz Allen is barely mentioned, other than a random bit where Laz screws Meredith in a New York City porno theater – one of the few scenes in the novel that does get fairly explicit. As for Morgan, his descent into sexual sadism is hard to understand, given that he starts the novel as a relatively cheery and thoughtful individual, but my assumption is Maracotta’s intent is that the mysterious death of a friend of his, midway through the novel, pushes him into the path – him and Christina, who also gets off on being beaten around during sex, thus becomes a perfect match for Morgan. Also special mention must be made of the arbitrary bit where Morgan breaks the neck of a pigeon before that Altamont analog concert. 

It's funny though how when the John and Paul stand-ins Tom and Bryan make their belated appearance, it’s like Angel Dust has been about nothing but them since the beginning. What I mean to say is, Destry, Morgan, Josie – all of these characters who were important for the past 290 pages are mostly brushed aside, and the stars of the show are now Bryan and Tom as they bicker and banter. It’s almost embarrassing how Maracotta just lifts real-life incidents without bothering to change them up at all, complete even with Monica bringing a mattress into the studio during the recording of a Shades album so she can be with Tom all the time – and also pushing him into more of a radical political direction. 

Monica is also of course duplicitous and vindictive; above I said that Bill McHale could see the future with Tumbling Dice. The same could be said of Lindsay Maracotta herself. In the 1969 section, Monica is getting her hooks in Tom, and has made herself a rival of Meredith, just as Tom is a rival of Bryan. To get revenge on Bryan and Meredith for the latest bantering session, Monica calls in an anonymous tip to the cops that they’ll find a lot of marijuana at a certain residence – the same residence Bryan and Meredith happen to be renting here in England. In the ensuing bust Bryan is arrested and spends time in jail. Angel Dust was published in January 1979…and exactly one year later Yoko Ono, according to Albert Goldman and Frederic Seaman, called in a tip to some friends in Japan to bust Paul and Linda as they arrived in Tokyo, all because the two threatened to ruin John and Yoko’s “hotel karma” by staying at their favorite Tokyo hotel. Now, who knows if this is what really happened; what’s incredible is that Lindsay Maracotta has here predicted something that mirrors what would become a real-life incident. I mean, imagine if John and Yoko got the “let’s get Paul busted” idea from this very novel! 

The narrative gets more interesting, and more sordid, as the sixties progress. The Redlands bust analog is one of the first instances of this sordid nature, with Maracotta again mixing and matching her Rock Babylon material; whereas it was just the Stones in the Redlands caper, here it’s the Stones analogs the Marked Cards, along with Josie James (the Joni Mitchell analog) and Sabina (the Janis Joplin analog). But we even get the infamous “candy bar” bit, but here it’s an acid-soaring Josie who has a candy bar inserted into her nether regions and the Marked Cards take turns taking bites from it – humorous stuff here with one of the Cards being a closeted gay and disgusted by the whole thing, but going along with it. Curiously, a character Maracotta doesn’t even return to in the novel; only her penchant for perspective-hopping even lets us know who this guy is. 

The Altamont analog isn’t a match for its real-world counterpart, though Maracotta tries to amp it up by having one of the characters shot while on stage…sort of a prefigure of The Armageddon Rag. From there we are thrust back into the opening 1974 section, where we learn that Morgan is truly into his decadent trip, having a three-way with wife Christina and a “glitter rock” star clearly modelled on David Bowie. But curiously even this framework section doesn’t work, because Angel Dust opens and closes on a section titled “1974,” yet a few pages toward the end we’re told it’s 1975! Oh and also, this novel features an insane finale that’s reminiscent of Once Is Not Enough in how it seems to come from a different novel. Since Angel Dust is so obscure and scarce, I’ll describe it, but skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know. Basically, Meredith accuses Bryan of wanting to fuck Tom and Bryan storms off in a rage. Meredith, losing her mind, takes a ton of drugs and gives her toddler daughter a sleeping pill (Maracotta intentionally leaves the child’s fate vague). Then Meredith, totally insane now, gets in her car and roars off into the night on what is clearly a death trip – truly a WTF? type of bitch-slap finale. 

But man, if only the entire novel matched the sheer bitch-slappery of that finale. Instead, Angel Dust is strangely dull and lifeless, despite being a sort of “greatest hits” of various ‘60s rock-world hijinks. The characters don’t seem real and are pale reflections of their real-world inspirations. And there is zero feeling for the time and the place; essentially Angel Dust is a “rock novel” for people who are only vaguely aware of rock music. As I said above, the characters here could just as easily have been actors or models or whatever, and the story wouldn’t have been much changed – the focus is on soap opera dynamics between the various characters, nothing more. Still, I was super happy to discover the book – I’m always excited when I discover a new rock novel paperback original – so I can’t complain too much.

MIA Hunter #12: Desert Death Raid

MIA Hunter #12: Desert Death Raid, by Jack Buchanan

June, 1989  Jove Books

Bill Crider returns to MIA Hunter with another installment that finds Mark Stone and his team venturing out of their old ‘Nam stomping grounds and opertating in a never-named country in North Africa. Parts of Desert Death Raid reminded me of ‘70s adventure-pulp novel Valley Of The Assassins, in fact, and given that Bill Crider himself was an admirer of that novel, I’m going to suspect that any such similarities are intentional. 

One thing I’m happy to report is that Stone’s girlfriend, Carol Jenner, does not appear and is not even mentioned in this one; in the previous volume, which was by Arthur Moore, Carol had been retconned into a shrill nag who bossed Stone and the others around like she was the series protagonist. So I was happy to see she was gone without a trace this time around; and hell, for that matter, Stone this time is propositioned by two lovely women, and while our hero does not give either of them the goods, he also never once thinks about his girlfriend back home. 

That though is still the line of demarcation between ‘70s men’s adventure and ‘80s men’s adventure. That’s right, friends, Stone is offered sex by two lovely babes and turns ‘em both down, like several times. Imagine John Eagle doing such a thing! It’s all about the mission in the ‘80s, all about the action and the guns and stuff, with none of the sleazier indulgences of ‘70s men’s adventure. It’s curious, because Crider seems to be catering to that earlier aesthtetic, with both women propositioning Stone at the oddest of times – I mean like “during a sandstorm in the middle of the desert” oddest of times – but then he’ll have Stone turn the women down. So it’s like Crider is at least going through the motions of catering to the earlier demand for sleaze in the genre, but it actually comes off even worse that Stone constantly spurns the attention. It would’ve come across better if none of it even ever came up. 

Well anyway. Crider even further delivers a vibe similar to the ‘70s with a “sweats” opening in which some poor nameless woman is the prisoner of some Arabic jackals in a fortress in the desert. The author capably brings this woman’s plight to life, with her desperate attempt to escape…only to be rounded up by the jackals, who have kept her here for nearly a year. Similar to the openings of earlier installments – only in those cases it was usually an American male prisoner who’d been stuck in a ‘Nam hellhole for decades – this sequence will not be returned to until late in the novel. 

There’s no elaborate setup for Stone and team, either: we meet them as they’re already on location in this country in North Africa, and even Hog Wiley and Terence Loughlin aren’t privy to all the details of the mission. As we’ll recall, Stone’s team now officially works for the US government, and Stone has taken this last-second job from the CIA, to rescue the embattled president of this country from his own people, who are rioting against him. There’s also a Russian defector here for Stone to bring back to America. This new government backing for Stone leads to the occasional deus ex machina, like when Stone and team are saved by the somewhat random appearance of a helicopter in the Sahara near novel’s end. 

Bill Crider continues to be one of the few authors who served as “Jack Buchanan” who manages to give Loughlin any personality, with the Britisher mostly being the dry-wit straight man for wild Texan Hog Wiley. And Crider also gives Hog some memorable dialog, again having him refer often to his homestate of Texas – which makes sense, as Crider himself was a Texan. The only character who does not much come to life is Stone himself, who comes off as rather cipherlike here. He also has a penchant to “growl” his dialog, to such a humorous extent that you get the impression the guy’s more animal than man. If I’m not mistaken, Michael Newton poked fun at this in his How To Write Action-Adventure Novels. Or wait, maybe Newton was poking fun at how Stone’s full name, “Mark Stone,” was repeatedly stated in both the dialog and the narrative in one particular volume of the series…I think it might have been standalone volume Stone: MIA Hunter. But it’s been over ten years since I read Newton’s How-To book. 

Crider isn’t much for the bloody violence, though. There seems to be less action in Desert Death Raid than previous volumes of MIA Hunter, with only a few pitched battles. One of the first occurs right after Stone and team arrive on location; this is a somewhat humorous scene as they watch a battle being fought, the rebels against the president’s men, and then “improvise” a way to get around them. But it’s very much a “get shot and fall down” sort of affair, with none of the arterial-jetting bloodshed I demand in my men’s adventure. Crider does come up with the memorable phrase “blasted his head to flinders,” which he likes so much that he actually uses it twice in the book. I don’t even know what flinders are, but the line sure sounds cool. 

There’s a fair bit of coutroom intrigue as the embattled president is surrounded by enemies, some of them in his own entourage. There’s also his sexy daughter, Helene, and “Al,” aka Alyonya, a super-sexy Russian defector. “The woman virtually radiated sex,” Crider informs us, as if taunting us with the potential for the ensuing boinkery that would have been expected if Desert Death Raid had been published in 1973 instead of 1989. Instead, Stone often muses on the “spark” that exists between Alyonya and himself, not that he does anything about it. And as mentioned, Helene even makes a pass at Stone, only to be shot down; she ends up engaging one of her father’s men in some off-page screwing…screwing which Stone interrupts and prevents from resuming, as it occurs during a trek through the desert and might attract enemy forces, or some other such buzzkilling shit. 

For the most part Desert Death Raid is comrpised of a trek across the Sahara; first via an armored limo (one stocked with booze, much to Hog’s delight), then via helicopter, and finally on camel. Periodically the group will be attacked by the rebel forces, or Touregs in another sequence. Crider captures the desolate setting and the heat of the desert sun, and again it all made me think of Valley Of The Assassins. There’s also a bit of plotting here, as Stone learns that Alyonya has some secrets – a bit that plays out unexpectedly for sure, and does remind the reader of something the more brutal heroes of ‘70s men’s adventure might do. Indeed, the playout of this subplot is so unexpected that the last chapter of Desert Death Raid is focused on Stone coming to terms with what he himself did and why he did it; I almost got the impression that this last chapter could’ve been written by series editor Stephen Mertz, so as to keep readers from thinking “hero” Mark Stone was a total bastard. 

As mentioned the opening sequence of the imprisoned woman comes back up at novel’s end; turns out she is the president’s wife, kept here by certain traitorous members of his cabinet, and Stone decides to go save her. This is even more along the lines of Valley Of The Assassins, with Stone and team infiltrating a fortress deep in the Sahara. It’s pretty cool, not to mention a nice way to cater to the (former) series template of Stone and team serving in a “prisoner rescue” capacity. 

Overall Desert Death Raid was one of the better volumes of MIA Hunter. Crider returned for one more volume, and I’m sure it will also be a good one.

Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon, by Joel Norst

March, 1987  Jove Books

Even though I was obsessed with action movies as a kid in the ‘80s, I didn’t see Lethal Weapon until around 2001. It just didn’t seem like an “action movie” to me, a la Rambo or Predator. It seemed more like a cop movie. In fact, I recall thinking it looked like a bigger-budgeted episode of Miami Vice. But as mentioned I finally saw it in 2001, mostly because at the time I was checking out all the films that had been written by Shane Black, a guy who should’ve been huge…sort of a proto-Quentin Tarantino, but it wasn’t until the 2000s that he started directing his own movies. 

Anyway, this Lethal Weapon novelization is notable because presumably it’s based on Shane Black’s original script, and not the revised version that was ultimately filmed. There’s a lot of stuff here that’s not in the movie, and overall I found the novel superior to the movie. Author Joel Norst, aka a novelist named Kirk Mitchell, delivers exactly what you would want from a movie novelization: a novel that stands on its own. He adds background material and thematic work that certainly wasn’t in Black’s script, and there’s a voice of experience in play throughout. It wasn’t until I finished the novel that I learned Kirk Mitchell had been a cop, but I was not surprised; he inserts a lot of cop-world detail in Lethal Weapon, but never to the point that it’s bogged down in “realism.” This is still the novelization of an ‘80s action movie, with the appropriate fireworks…there’s just a lot more emotional grit and introspection here than in the film. 

It's now known that Shane Black claimed his Lethal Weapon script was inspired by Warren Murphy’s Razoni & Jackson series, but that is not evident in the novelization. In fact, the most similar comparison would be the novelization of Hickey & Boggs, which itself was supposedly the inspiration for Razoni & Jackson. What I mean to say is, there’s none of the race-fueled bantering of Razoni & Jackson; the bantering humor here comes more from the disparate personalities of the co-protagonists. In fact race is hardly mentioned; other than the early establishment that Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is black, Mitchell doesn’t beat us over the head with the fact. And absolutely nothing is made out of Murtaugh being paired with white partner Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson). The bigger deal is that Riggs is a nutcase known for his shootouts. 

One thing that doesn’t come off as well in the novelization is the cutesy schtick Shane Black came up with of “M” and “R,” ie Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh. In the film you’d never notice, but here in the novel Mitchell will arbitrarily refer to the characters by either first or last name in the narrative. Meaning, you’ll be reading about “Riggs” doing something, and then suddenly he’s being referred to as “Martin,” and your mind initially misreads the “Martin” as “Murtaugh.” Well hell, maybe it’s just me. I found the “Riggs” and “Roger” stuff especially confusing. But this was Black’s way of showing how his heroes were two sides of the same coin; Mitchell takes this into even further thematic territory, carefully establishing in the opening sequences how Roger Murtaugh is terrified of violence intruding into his family life, thus going to exorbitant lengths to ensure their safety. Martin Riggs, meanwhile, walks directly into the path of a sniper without even bothering to crouch for cover. 

Another bit of thematic backstory here in the novel which I’m certain is solely Mitchell’s contribution is that Riggs’s old trainer at the police academy committed suicide; we’re informed that suicide is common among hardbitten cops. Riggs hasn’t taken that step yet, but he’s close; we learn early in the novel that Riggs’s wife of eleven years died just two months ago. Here in the novel it’s established that she had a weak heart due to a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, and one day she just passed on while Riggs was out on the job. Now he keeps his TV constantly on, set to the channel she was watching when she was died (which appears to only play old movies), and he spends most of his days drunk off his ass – that is, when he isn’t engaging in what is now referred to as “toxic masculinity.” 

Reading this Lethal Weapon novelization is a frustrating experience, because it’s another lesson in how the original screenwriter knows how to turn in a compelling story…a compelling story that is ruined by producers, directors, rewriters, and actors. The first quarter in particular is excellent and better than anything in the actual film. We are treated to several instances in which Riggs’s lack of self-care is proven in action. First he stops a random kidnapping attempt when, coming out of a convenience store, he blows away a trio of armed guys who are trying to make off with two young women in their van. Riggs doesn’t even bother calling it in and just high-tails it out of there with his six-pack of beer. There’s another part where he challenges a patrolman to a race to Las Vegas (as in the film, the novel occurs in Los Angeles); here Mitchell shows his cop roots with the patrolman going through the various hoops that will fool his dispatcher into thinking he’s busy for the next few hours. 

This part, while entertaining, just shows how Lethal Weapon comes from a different era; it would be hard to imagine a movie today where the hero cop throws all safety concerns to the wind and races another cop at 130 miles per hour through sleet and rain for several hours, even evading fellow cops along the journey. But it’s still kind of funny, like when Riggs is pulled over by Highway Patrol and comes up with a story that he’s transporting a baboon heart for an emergency operation. Coupled with his wanton drinking and smoking, all this serves to make Martin Riggs seem even more dangerous in our coddled “Nanny State” era than he did in 1987. 

But the most notable element of Riggs’s disinterest in safety is one of the best sequences in the novel, and another that didn’t even make it to the film. Actually it did, but the scene was cut; I recall seeing it as a deleted scene on the DVD. But here in the novel it is so much more powerful – with the added element that it has extra resonance in our post-Uvalde world. Riggs responds to a call that a sniper has holed up outside a daycare; when Riggs gets to the scene, he finds the cops sprawled around and more concerned about their own safety than the kids trapped inside the building with an active shooter. Even though there is a veritable army of cops present, they show no interest in doing anything except waiting for SWAT, which is stuck in traffic. When Riggs is informed by a disinterested cop that one kid was shot in front of everyone and “is probably dead now,” Riggs goes into action. 

None of this material survived in the scene as filmed, which you can see here. I’m not sure if this sequence is the product of Mitchell’s imagination or was in Black’s script, but it is vastly superior to what director Richard Donner actually filmed. For one, the sniper is even worse here in the novel; we learn he’s killed a few kids, and also he’s wearing a gas mask to protect himself from the inevitable tear gas the cops will shoot at him. And when Riggs goes into action, he doesn’t just blindly walk into the fray as Mel Gibson does in the cut scene; instead, he relies on the fact that the gas mask will obstruct the sniper’s view, and his “Hello, Mr. Sniper” dialog is intended to distract the killer rather than to just taunt him as in the film. Also, Riggs here sees first-hand the shot kid the disinterested cop told him about, and the child is indeed dead, but Riggs manages to save another young kid who is hiding on the playground. Here we even get a reference to Miami Vice, which I wonder if was in Black’s script…surely he must’ve realized the similarities between his screenplay and the hit TV show. 

The first quarter of the novel is where all the major differences are. Mitchell proves himself just as good at bringing to life the much less danger-prone Murtaugh; indeed Mitchell seems to identify with Murtaugh more, and if I’m not mistaken the sequences from Murtaugh’s perspective slightly outnumber those from Riggs’s. As mentioned Murtaugh is terrified something bad will befall his family, and Mitchell does a phenomenal job of weaving this element throughout the story via random, incidental details – like later in the book when Murtaugh’s hotstuff, 17 year-old daughter Rianne is necking (as they once called it) in a car with her boyfriend, and we’re informed the car doors are locked because Murtaugh drilled this into Rianne from an early age. What I mean to say is Mithcell skillfully develops the disparity between his two protagonists in ways that Black was unable to in his script – I mean a script isn’t going to tell you incidental background stuff like a novel can. 

I ended up enjoying the first quarter of Lethal Weapon most of all, with the two protagonists separate. Around page 70 however they are teamed up, and the story begins to more resemble the film. One thing I noticed in the novel is that it follows more of a procedural vibe than the movie; as mentioned, Mitchell was a cop, and thus peppers in just enough real-world details of a crime investigation to lend the tale the right amount of versimilitude. And the plot is the same as the film; a call-girl – the daughter of a guy Murtaugh knew in ‘Nam – has jumped to her death from a high-rise, only it turns out she’d really been poisoned, and in investigating the murder Murtaugh and Riggs will discover a plot that ultimately takes in a global drug operation run by former ‘Nam badasses. 

One thing missing here in the novel is the age difference that was really played up in the film. In the novel, both Riggs and Murtaugh are ‘Nam vets; Murtaugh is older, as the novel opens on his fiftieth birthday, but Riggs can’t be much younger. He too fought in ‘Nam, and we’re told he was married for 11 years. Also, Murtaugh was still in the shit in the late ‘60s, so it’s not like he was fighting in ‘Nam in the earliest years of the conflict. The novel also makes it clear that Murtaugh was a Green Beret in ‘Nam, so in a way he’s just as much an ass-kicker as LRRP guy Riggs. But it’s the age difference that’s not much a factor here; indeed, Murtaugh’s famous “I’m too old for this shit!” line does not appear in Mitchell’s Lethal Weapon novelization, implying that it’s something that was come up with during production. 

Curiously I found my interest waning as the action increased. This surprised me, as I’m an action junkie. But I really did enjoy the first half of Lethal Weapon more, with Riggs and Murtaugh engaged in their separate lives before becoming embroiled in an investigation together. But due to the demands of the action genre things pick up, same as in the film, with frequent explosions and gunfights. One thing Mitchell makes more clear in his novelization is that Riggs finds his meaning with this case; when the villains start going after Murtaugh’s family, Riggs takes on a new drive, telling Murtaugh’s wife that there’s “no one better at making war” than himself. Oh another thing not in the novelization is the spelling out of the title phrase; it’s been many years since I saw Lethal Weapon, but I seem to recall it was stated that Riggs himself was registered as a lethal weapon or somesuch. Here in the novelization, this phrase only appears in a sequence from Murtaugh’s perspective, when he realizes that Martin Riggs is exactly what he needs: a “lethal weapon” who will take on the bad guys who have kidnapped Murtaugh’s teenaged daughter. 

Oh and speaking of teenaged, there’s another bit here in the novel that’s about as unacceptable in today’s world as the race to Vegas. When meeting Murtaugh’s family, Riggs is momentarily taken aback by teen daughter Rianne’s beauty – and body. There’s even a part where he sneaks a look at her shapely rear while Murtaugh is otherwise distracted. Riggs later realizes that this is the first time he’s felt any “sexual urges” since his wife’s death…and nowhere is it belabored that he’s felt these urges due to the sight of an underaged girl. At any rate, this leads to yet another sequence that was not in the film; Riggs picks up a streetwalker and takes her back to his place…and pops some popcorn so they can watch old movies all night on TV. This part was wisely cut, and also it reminded me of Pretty Woman…of course Pretty Woman came out later, but still. 

The villains are more military here in the novel; led by a never-named “General,” the group includes in its ranks Joshua, as memorably played by Gary Busey in the film (who would reunite with Danny Glover a few years later in the underappreciated Predator 2). Joshua in the novel is more creepy than Busey’s portrayal, and also he’s as close to being albino as you can get without being Edgar Winters. He’s the lead heavy in the novel, same as the film, and as the novel progresses it becomes more like the movie, only with minor variations – like when Riggs is captured and tortured, here in the novel Riggs is strapped up in a bathtub, not hanging from a girder or whatever it was in the film. But while the action scenes are similar, they are just better played out here in the novel. Most notable is the bit where Riggs, with a long-range gun, raises hell when the General’s goons try to exchange Murtaugh for Rianne. Mitchell develops this sequence a helluva lot better than the film does, and this extends to the emotional content. Whereas Murtaugh just lamely yells “Everything’s gonna be all right” to his daughter before the shooting starts in the movie, here in the novel Mitchell really brings home how terrified a father would be in such a situation: 

The finale is especially different and an indication of how much change the script went through in production – and how much society has changed as well. Believe it or not, but Mitchell’s novel – and presumably Shane Black’s original script – ends with the Murtaugh family and Riggs going to church on Chrismas day. With Murtaugh introducing Riggs to the congregation and the preacher grumbling that Riggs hasn’t been there for a long time. Not only is it a lame way to end the story, but it’s also an indication of how much things have changed…I mean imagine a Hollywood action film ending with the heroes going to church. I guess even in ’87 this would’ve seemed odd, and it would seem positively bizarre today. But then in a way I appreciated it for this very reason. I’m not a religious man by any means, but it seems clear to me that western society has sort of lost its way with the abandonment of Christianity – I still recall my mind being blown last year when I was into all that Space Race stuff and saw how the astronauts would pray during their missions and whatnot. Imagine such a thing happening today! They’d probably get sued for mixing religion with “the science.” 

Well anyway, I really did enjoy Lethal Weapon. It joins the ranks of Hickey & Boggs and Invasion U.S.A. as a novelization that’s better than the film it’s based on. Mitchell’s writing is strong throughout, and I look forward to reading another of his novelizations I have, for the Chuck Norris vehicle Delta Force (which I saw in a jam-packed theater when it was released in 1985 – and the audience enjoyed the hell out of it in a totally non-ironic way).

The Hard Corps #8: Devil’s Plunder

The Hard Corps #8: Devil’s Plunder, by Chuck Bainbridge

July, 1989  Jove Books

The final volume of The Hard Corps is courtesy Chris Lowder, who previously wrote the sixth volume. He no doubt wrote the seventh volume as well, given how often its events are referred to, but I don’t have that one. Lowder was clearly British, as the Hard Corps quartet, Americans all, often sound like Brits during the course of Devil’s Plunder. This is especially humorous in the case of wiry Joe Fanelli, who happens to be from Jersey. But then maybe “arguing the fucking toss” is a Jersey-ism and not a British-ism. 

Speaking of which, this must be the most crudely-toned series in all men’s adventuredom. “Fucking” is used as an adjective repeatedly in the narrative; it’s all “fucking this” and “fucking that,” with the occasional “shit” or some other curse word thrown in. I mean it gives the impression that “Chuck Bainbridge” is just the most burned-out, grizzled, and uh, hardcore son of a bitch in history, spewing out his inner venom via the narrative. I was going to excerpt an example of this but soon realized I could almost just exerpt the entire novel; I mean this book’s like a David Mamet script. Only with more gunfights…and, spoiler alert, one of the most depraved and insane sex scenes I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. Now that I’m gonna excerpt in full, later in the review. 

We meet the Hard Corps already on the job: O’Neal the boss, Wentworth the sword-loving “gentleman merc,” Fanelli the loudmouth demolitions guy, and Caine the bearded blade freak. They’re all sort of the same as they were in the first few volumes by William Fieldhouse, only a bit diluted; Caine in particular lacks the weirdo spark he had in the Fieldhouse books, coming off just like the other three. Meanwhile McShayne, the gunnery guy or whatever he is, stays off-page for the majority, back home doing computer stuff. We learn via incidental dialog that the Hard Corps had a “disastrous” mission in the previous volume, to the extent that they have taken this current job, which sees them providing protection for a Papa Doc-style dictator in the Caribbean, in exchange for a hefty payment. 

I had the belated realization that “Devil’s Plunder” was actually a pun; the dictator is named Deville, and he has accumulated his share of plunder over the years. (Those Brits and their fancy word games!) This is on the “tiny Caribbean island of Esmeralda,” which is near Cuba and is ruled by “Big Daddy” Deville, corpulent sadist who is infamous for frequent massacres of his own people, torturing them for pleasure. Whereas Deville is the type of guy the Hard Corps would normally take out, this time they’re here to safely escort him off the island. They’ve taken the job because it’s paying a cool million, and we’re informed they swallowed their pride because they needed the money; once again they’ve gotten the assignment courtesy their CIA contact Saintly. 

Whereas An American Nightmare was relatively tame in the action department, Devil’s Plunder is reminiscent of the Fieldhouse installments with its occasional action overkill. The opening is our first indication of this, as the Hard Corps, newly arrived on Esmeralda and posing as hapless tourists as they eat in a restaurant, are attacked by gun-toting Cubans. They’ve come without weapons, and also argue whether they should even try to fight back, given that they’re just “tourists.” Of course it quickly escalates into a gun-blazing melee, with Wentworth indulging in the usual series schtick of picking up some stray object (in this case an old man’s cane) and using it as an impromptu martial arts weapon. 

Here our heroes learn that the situation is a bit complex. The CIA wants Deville safely off Esmeralda because he has gathered incriminating evidence against a host of American VIPs; later in the novel we’ll learn Deville’s got photos of famous senators in bed with underaged children and whatnot. But Deville’s people are revolting against him, and the FFE domestic terrorists (Freedom For Esmeralda) are stirring up a lot of trouble. There are also the Cubans, who are looking to take advantage of the increasing turmoil on the “tiny island” and take the place over. The Hard Corps find themselves being shuffled around these various contigents, trying to remain professional and do the job they’re here for, but increasingly seeing how monstrous Deville really is. 

Lowder peppers the novel with a few female characters: first there’s Marie-Claude Colbert (no relation to Claudette, I assume), leader of the FFE. She’s a feisty hostuff babe whose father was set up by the CIA to take over Esmeralda, but was asssassinated. Now she’s here leading the terrorists against Deville. There’s also mention that she was once a lawyer in New York(?). At any rate she wants Deville dead, and occasionally her forces run into the Hard Corps, accusing them of being CIA plants. A recurring gag is that everyone knows who the Hard Corps really is from the moment they arrive on Esmeralda. It’s also through Marie-Claude that we learn of the horrors Deville has perpetrated on his subjects over the years; later the team will see photographic evidence of the torture sessions. “Snuff film stuff,” as Fanelli puts it. 

And indeed the novel really picks up when Big Daddy Deville and his depraved entourage show up. “The Supreme Chief and Savior of the Esmeraldan People” is morbidly obese and calls to mind the similar island dictator in Agent 3S3: Massacre In The Sun, only a lot more evil. He’s also got a cache of stolen artwork, which he’s willing to shower on the Hard Corps as additional payment; Wentworth chooses the antique samurai sword instead, of course. But the novel really kicks in gear when Deville’s latest wife, the “beautiful wanton” Simone, shows up. This light-skinned “mulatto” is notorious for personally overseeing the torture sessions, with the clear intimation that she gets off on them. She’s also known for taking any man – or woman – she desires to bed, “Big Daddy” no longer able to please her. Simone sets her sights on Joe Fanelli, drawn to his wiry build. This leads to one of the most bonkers sex scenes I’ve ever read: 

I mean ten points for “rich reek” alone. Actually there are a ton of memorable descriptions in that sleazy sequence, to the point that you figure Lowder was cacking madly as he tried to outdo himself. To say a sequence this explicit was rare in ‘80s men’s adventure would be an understatement; the majority of men’s adventure protagonists were celibate that decade, content to clean their guns while hanging out with other guys. That this sequence comes so out of the blue in Devil’s Plunder makes me regret that this was the final volume of the series. If Lowder could write wonderfully depraved stuff like this, who knows where he could’ve taken The Hard Corps. 

But this was to be the final volume; after the fatal bout with Simone, the climax (the book’s climax, that is) comes off as underwhelming. It’s the usual action onslaught, with the Hard Corps blasting away in full-bore automatic hellfire. This excerpt should suffice – actually it encapulates the entire novel, with the curse-filled narrative, parenthetical gun-porn, and bloody gore: 

The finale inadvertently points toward the end of men’s adventure novels in general, seeing as it does a focus on “computer stuff.” A subplot has it that Deville’s son is a computer geek and has built a data warehouse of that incriminating evidence, and McShayne has been working to hack it or something. So in a way Devil’s Plunder is not only a capoff for The Hard Corps itself but for the genre as well – one last volume of high testosterone, hellfire blasting, rich-reeking men’s adventure action before the “techno-thrillers” of the ‘90s. It was also easily my favorite volume of the series, if only for the sequence with Simone Deville, though I did enjoy Fieldhouse’s take on the characters more.

MIA Hunter #11: Crossfire Kill

MIA Hunter #11: Crossfire Kill, by Jack Buchanan

February, 1989  Jove Books

Unforunately this eleventh volume of MIA Hunter is a definite low point for the series; it seems to have been written by an author who has no knowledge of the previous volumes and just wants to do a Robert Ludlum style Cold War thriller. The editorial hand of Stephen Mertz is only occasionally present, usually just adding clarifying points about the changing nature of Stone’s mission. This disconnect from previous books is odd, given that Arthur Moore wrote Crossfire Kill, and he wrote two earlier volumes, #8: Escape From Nicaragua and #9: Invasion U.S.S.R. Checking my reviews of those two previous books, it looks like I wasn’t very fond of either of them…but Crossfire Kill is real patience testing, and definitely my least favorite volume of the series. 

For one, some revisionism seems to have taken place; Carol Jenner, hotstuff blonde who much earlier in the series was nothing more than “Mark Stone’s girlfriend,” now comes off like the boss of the team! We’re informed that she’s “on assignment from Fort Bragg,” with the official capacity of overseeing the taskforce that is Mark Stone, Hog Wiley, and Terrence Loughlin. There’s absolutely no indication here that she is (or was?) Stone’s woman, and what’s more she now seems to have an antagonistic relationship with Hog, easily frustrated with his one-liners and ever-randy attitude. Now we know that a few volumes ago the series overall changed, with Stone and team now working directly for the US government; Carol’s role changed as well, acting mostly as “the computer girl,” giving intel and whatnot on each mission. But this time she’s not only giving intel but basically dictating what Stone and team does. She also seems to have lost the ability to use contractions when she speaks. All very, very strange, and not exactly welcomed. 

But then, the change in the series itself isn’t much welcomed. Capturing POWs was the gimmick of MIA Hunter, and with the gimmick removed the series is struggling. Particularly here, as Crossfire Kill is really just a sluggish thriller with “action scenes” that seem to be huriedly grafted on to meet a series mandate. In fact, Stone and team pretty much disappear for long portions of the narrative, Moore focusing instead on the one-off Eurotrash villains. In this regard the novel most reminded me of S-Com #1: Terror In Turin (which curiously also had a main character named Stone), another slow-moving “men’s adventure novel” that kept its heroes on the sidelines so as to focus on the annoying bickering and bantering of its too-many villains. But at least Terror In Turin had some sleazy sex to keep things interesting; we don’t even get that in Crossfire Kill. The genre has been neutered of such stuff by 1989, anyway; I mean there’s even a hooker in the book, but she’s just there to add more pseudo-suspense to the tale. In a men’s adventure novel from the ‘70s her role would’ve been entirely different. That’s progress, I guess. 

So Stone and team are now tasked with saving kidnapped people all over the world, at the behest of the US government; this time though their role is pretty muddled. The opening chapter lets us know what we’re in for: an overlong sequence in which one of the villains of the piece carries out his hit, assassinating a German official. The assassin is a “potato-faced” little man named Danzig(!). He’s just one of the many villains we have to keep up with…there’s also Neff, a terrorist leader initially presented as the main villain of the novel, until we ultimately meet Von Schiller, a former SS officer who truly runs things. But man. The majority of Crossfire Kill is comprised of these dudes fighting each other, with long portions of the narrative devoted to Danzig trying to kill Neff, or Neff trying to kill Von Schiller, or whatever. And every once in a while we’ll cut over to Stone and team in their Frankfurt apartment, where Carol Jenner bosses them around a little more. 

After this opening assassination, Stone’s team is called to Frankfurt…for something. Even Hog questions why they should give a damn if some German official has been killed. (Of course Carol doesn’t take kindly to this.) The explanation is that the murdered official was organizing a visit from the US Secretary of State or somesuch, so Stone’s here to ensure everything goes smoothly – but wait, an American General has just been adbucted right off the Army base here in Germany, so Stone’s team will indeed have someone to rescue after all. When Stone rescues the General we get our first indication that Crossfire Kill won’t have near the action quotient of previous books; as we’ll recall, some of the early volumes of MIA Hunter were nothing but long-running action scenes. Here it’s over and done with in a few pages, Stone, Hog, and Loughlin making a few bloodless kills as they storm a Euroterrorist compound and rescue the General. 

Here also we get the bizarre revelation that some chick Loughlin once had a thing with is now with Neff; we’ll eventually learn she’s a hardbitten SAS agent, thus her shocked yelp of “Terry!” when she sees Loughlin comes as a bit hard to buy. But whatever, this is the absolute most focus the cipher known as Terrence Loughlin has ever received. I mean I honestly thought the dude was gay (“not that there’s anything wrong with that”), but here we have an ex-girlfriend for him and everything. And hell, later in the book Loughlin even gets in some casual gay-bashing, putting down some dude who appears to hit on Stone in a German bar. Well anyway, the girl is named Eva Ullman, and once he gets over his shock Loughlin tells Stone and Hog that he had an affair with her many years before, when he was still with the SAS, and this is the first time he’s seen her in all these years, etc. 

But for veteran commandos, the Stone group seems easily fooled. Eva just happened to be standing right beside terrorist leader Neff when she saw Loughlin, and the two then ran away – Loughlin unable to tell if Neff was pulling Eva, like she was a captive or something, or if she was willingly running off with him. Shortly after this Loughlin receives a message at their apartment complex, presumably from Eva, asking to meet “Terry” at a certain location – a location which the team’s German contact tells them just happens to be in the middle of the friggin’ forest. “Well, let’s just go see how it plays out,” our heroes basically decide. Of course, it turns out to be a trap, leading to another bloodless action scene as Stone and Hog, lying in cover while Loughlin drives around on a dirt bike, cut down the assassins who unsurprisingly show up. 

There is such a focus on the one-off characters that we even have sections from Eva’s point of view, with the intent that we’ll be afraid that Neff will have her killed. She’s on assignment from SAS, you see, which makes her shocked yelp of “Terry!” even harder to believe. Not that she should worry about Eva’s wellbeing, as Neff is such a lame villain that he actually forgets to do anything about Eva, who might, you know, be familiar with at least one of those mysterious commandos who keep killing Neff’s men. She’s eventually taken to some countryside retreat to be interrogated, but manages to escape on her own, Stone and team luckily coming upon her before she can indeed be killed. After this though she basically disappears from the narrative; about the most we learn is that she needs to take a nap to calm her nerves and she’s determined that this will be her last SAS assignment! 

But yeah, most of the last third is composed of Von Schiller hiring Danzig to kill Neff, due to all Neff’s screwups, and then Neff trying to get the better of Danzig, and then Neff trying to get revenge on Von Schiller, and on and on. And meanwhile Stone and team stand around and try to put together the clues to figure out who is funding Neff. Occasionally we will have a super-brief action scene, Stone and his crew cutting down Neff’s seemingly endless supply of Eurotash terrorists in spectacularly bloodless fashion. Hog will occasionally make a quip or two; he has a strange fetish for talking about “tits” this time, sometimes in the most unsettling of ways, like implying that Neff is going to torture Eva by beating on her boobs. To the extent that even Loughlin and Stone wonder what the hell’s going on with Hog. That being said, there’s one goofy part where Hog merely backhands a guy and kills him! 

Even the climax is pretty unspectacular, with Stone and team racing around Germany and Holland and then back to Germany to put the hammer down on Von Schiller. Who by the way has a great track record, despite all the internal squabbling; he and his men manage to kill several more European officials during the novel. Stone seems to be especially driven to take out Von Schiller, once he learns of the man’s Nazi past, but even here the final battle is pretty quick and anticlimactic. I mean it features an exploding car, like an episode of Knight Rider or something. 

I think here in the very final pages is the only part where Stephen Mertz contributes to the tale; we get a sudden glimpse into Stone’s perspective. His was the most common perspective in earlier books, but it’s hardly present this time. He muses over “the shifting role of his team.” Here we also learn that Stone’s “main” objective is still rescuing POWs in Vietnam, but there’s been no recent “hard intel” of any. I know eventually Mertz delivers an installment which returns Stone and team to ‘Nam, and I have to say I’m looking forward to it. Like I wrote above, saving POWs was the gimmick of this series; these guys should be in the jungle, hitting Charlie in long-running action scenes. That’s their thing. Taking them out of their element hasn’t really been working out, at least not for me, so I’ll be looking forward to this eventual return to the original series template.