The Penetrator #24 - Cryogenic Nightmare

The Penetrator series was a Mack Bolan knock-off written by Chet Cunningham (even numbered installments) and Mark K. Roberts the odd ones) under the house name of Lionel Derrick. The books are generally mind-numbing, escapist fun of varying quality. The cover of the 24th installment, Cryogenic Nightmare, promises a Florida setting, and who doesn’t like some fun in the sun to fight the winter blues?

The Penetrator is Mark Hardin, an American Vietnam vet action hero with Native American blood, a fat bankroll, a fortress of solitude and a passion for wasting bad guys. His vigilante missions have made him a fugitive, and the FBI likens him to Robin Hood in the paperback’s prologue. His target selection and assignments are managed through a college professor who also provides analytical support to Hardin on his missions.

In this installment, The Penetrator’s target is Preacher Mann, an organized crime figure with tentacles stretching into all sorts of badness, but pimping seems to be his true passion. Cunningham gets right to the point by describing Mann as a “vegetarian negroid” and shows off the pimp’s opulent lifestyle by explaining that Mann owns a Betamax hooked up to a 48-inch TV screen. Even in today’s world, one would have to control a substantial criminal empire to achieve such entertainment-system decadence.

After receiving his assignment from the professor, The Penetrator heads down to West Palm Beach, Florida and begins a lot of pretty standard gumshoe work investigating Mann’s business interests and shell companies. These scenes have some decent gunfights but go on much too long. Readers want to see the sexy, frozen babes we were promised on the cover art and synopsis.

It’s not until well into the second half of the paperback that Hardin learns of Mann’s diabolical plan to kidnap super-hot chicks and cryogenically freeze them for future consumption as high-price call girls. Hardin eventually penetrates Mann’s hidden island lair where the villain is kind enough to fully explain his creative and moronic plan in painstaking detail to our hero.

Cryogenic Nightmare is really a prose comic book with fun action set pieces building towards a final showdown between The Penetrator and the evil Preacher Mann. The novel owes a lot to corny, 1930s-style pulp fiction where bad guys experiment on damsels in distress in underground island hideouts until the swashbuckling hero can save the day. The pacing of this installment wasn’t great, but you don’t read The Penetrator for literary greatness. Mostly, it’s a fun read as long as your expectations are under control. 

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Soldier of Fortune #02 - The Deadliest Game

The Soldier of Fortune series was published between 1976 and 1985 with a brief hiatus in the early 80s. The series was created and edited by Peter McCurtin (1929-1997), a talented action-adventure scribe who also authored 10 of the series' 18 installments. The premise is very simple: anti-hero Jim Rainey is a professional soldier for hire whose loyalties always lie with the side who signs the checks. The Deadliest Game (1976) is the series' second novel and finds Rainey hunting terrorists in Argentina.

Political extremists calling themselves the Cordoba Committe are terrorizing the Argentinean city of La Boca. While visiting a friend named Quinlan, Rainey finds himself in the terrorists' crossfire at the War Ministry Annex. After teaming with Quinlan to kill the baddies, the country's president offers Rainey $5,000 if he can dispose of the terrorist cell. Rainey accepts under the condition that he has complete autonomy in his methods. However, the president still wants Rainey to adhere to some military rules of engagement and assigns him an ex-Nazi leader named Richter to assist.

The book's early chapters features Rainey recruiting the vilest of mercenaries for the job. Playing off of 1967's The Dirty Dozen (and Garrison's Gorillas television show), Rainey eventually incorporates military criminals into his small Army. But aside from the Cordoba Committe, Rainey's stiffest opposition is Richter, an old war horse who favors uniformed parades over modern day guerrilla tactics.

I've always loved McCurtin's writing style, and this novel nicely showcases the author's talent. His first-person narrative adds a unique perspective to what is quintessentially a team-based combat book. In the hands of another author, Rainey's character could have been one-dimensional with the familiar formula of 1-2-3-Kill. Thankfully under McCurtin's prose, both Rainey and the supporting characters are far more dynamic. McCurtin's colleague, author Ralph Hayes, wrote seven of the series' installments under McCurtin's name, and I think they are equals in terms of storytelling.

Despite the average finale, I found The Deadliest Game to be a riveting, high-caliber read. The novel was released by both Tower and Belmont in the U.S. and features two different covers. For a complete bibliography and some additional series background, check out the Paperback Warrior review for the 17th entry Bloodbath HERE. Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Sin Hellcat

Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake are two of the most beloved writers in crime fiction. However, most fans are unaware that they co-authored three books together when they were young men starting their writing careers in New York City. The trio of paperbacks fell broadly into the category of “sleaze fiction,” and the best of these collaborations is said to be Sin Hellcat, a 1961 Nightstand paperback written under the name Andrew Shaw that’s currently available as a paperback reprint and cheap eBook.

Harvey is living a mundane, split-level suburban existence with his frigid wife and a job as a mid-level Manhattan advertising executive. He likes to remember his college years when he was a sexual, albeit inexperienced, young lover with his girlfriend, Jodi. The novel’s opening act treats the reader to generous flashbacks from Harvey’s college years when he and Jodi were first exploring one another sexually and later when he was trying to get laid at the ad agency as a mailroom clerk. These are the sexy - but never overly graphic - scenes that comprise the first half of the book in a rare example of actual genre fiction character development.

In present day, Harvey reconnects with Jodi who is now a high-end prostitute - a plot twist disclosed in the novel’s opening paragraph (which, honestly, sorta took the oomph out of what would have been an interesting twist). After spending the night at Jodi’s place, Harvey is awakened by a goon with a camera and a blackmail proposition. I won’t give it away, but I was happy to read that Block and Westlake chose to add some intrigue and muscle to the sexy mix with a plot involving international smuggling of sorts.

As a huge fan of both Block and Westlake, I had fun reading this early collaboration by them before they made it big. There were sections of the novel where I recognized each of their narrative voices in their tadpole states. Most of the paperback toggles between flashbacks from Harvey’s checkered past to the current, genuinely intriguing situation with Jodi on an international mission.

Is Sin Hellcat a lost masterpiece? No. But it’s way better than a 1961 sleaze paperback deserves to be. There’s enough titillation to keep the dudes flipping the pages, and enough edgy, adventurous content to add some substance to the work. Meanwhile, the writing style(s) is pretty excellent and genuinely funny and insightful at times. It’s not top-tier Block or Westlake, but it was a nice way to kill a few hours. Recommended. 

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 28

In the newest Paperback Warrior Podcast episode, we discuss John D. MacDonald's iconic Travis McGee character, including a review of the series' ninth installment, "Pale Shade for Guilt". We also evaluate the debut novel in Jon Messman's Handyman series, "The Moneta Papers", and have an impromptu look at Lawrence Block's Chip Harrison novels. Stream wherever fine podcasts are presented or stream below. Direct downloads are HERE. Listen to "Episode 28: Travis McGee" on Spreaker.

Hell Ship to Kuma

Calvin Clements (1915-1997) utilized his experiences in the US Navy to author a number of adventure novels and short stories. After serving in Southeast Asia, Clements would become a fireboat pilot with the New York City Fire Department. Beginning in 1959, Clements would begin writing for television shows like “Gunsmoke”, “Have Gun, Will Travel”, “How the West Was Won” and “Dr. Kildare”. His original paperback novels were nautical-themed and often set in remote locations of Asia. Fawcett Gold Medal published three of his literary works: Satan Takes the Helm (1952), Barge Girl (1953) and the subject at hand, Hell Ship to Kuma (1954).

Clements introduces readers to the fearless, but financially strapped, Captain John Roper. After a disaster at sea, Roper's former employer has relieved him of his duty. Now, Roper is a lowly ship mate looking for work in an Asian port. It's here where our protagonist meets up with Captain Murdoch and his salvage boat, The Wanderer. After a brief job interview, Roper finds his new employer to be arrogant and belligerent. But despite Murdoch's shortcomings, money talks and Roper is broke.

Life on The Wanderer proves to be a hard and cruel existence. Murdoch is a madman, often scolding the crew with Old Testament scripture while simultaneously belittling their roles on his ship. Thankfully, Roper befriends a passenger named Karen and the two have an instant attraction. Karen is journeying to the island of Kuma to become a dancer, but Roper has suspicions that she's being too naive to believe her performances will be limited to just dancing.

While all of this is somewhat interesting, the narrative itself is built around a heist. The idea is that Murdoch and the crew will cooperate with the tiny island of Kuma to steal a freighter of metal. Once they replace the freighter's labor with their own crew, they will offload the metal onto the island and then radio that the ship and it's freight has sunk. Over a two year span, they will slowly sell off the metal and split the profits among the crew. But like any good heist novel...mixing money, greed and criminals is a dangerous combination.

Hell Ship to Kuma was entertaining enough but never rises above average. For a 1954 adventure novel, I think the author prides himself too much on describing Southeast Asian ports and islands to readers who will likely never see these exotic locations. John Roper is an admirable hero and his plotting with Murdoch was an engaging read. However, the entire heist aspect doesn't come to fruition until page 100, leaving only 60 pages remaining to tell the tale that matters. Overall, Hell Ship to Kuma is worth reading if you control your expectations and don't spend a fortune on it. 

Thankfully, the good folks at Stark House Press have reprinted this novel as a twofer along with the author's Barge Girl. Buy a copy of this book HERE

Quarry #15 - Killing Quarry

Killing Quarry is the 15th published novel in Max Allan Collins’ terrific hitman series. The chronological order of the books is quite a mishmash, but the author has done a great job of making every book stand alone quite nicely. Although this one is a 2019 release, it takes place in 1986, fairly late in the chronology.

Earlier in the series, the Vietnam vet turned paid-assassin came into possession of a list of other hitmen on-contract with his former boss, The Broker. Quarry switched his business model to stalking hitmen and hiring himself out to their intended targets to stop the assassins before the kill is completed. That’s the setup in this one, but some unusual developments send this novel in an unusual direction.

Killing Quarry begins with our anti-hero driving from his home near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin to Naperville, Illinois. He’s chosen the name of a hitman named Bruce Simmons from The Broker’s list. The idea is to surveil Simmons until he goes to his next murder gig and spoil the fun before Simmons can do his job. Things take a shocking turn when Simmons drives up to Lake Geneva and begins watching Quarry’s home. Yes, Quarry is his intended target. We are treated to two people in the murder business basically stalking each other for the kill.

Who is paying Simmons to kill Quarry? Has Quarry’s killing hitmen gambit finally caught up with him? Or is the agenda something completely different? The answers are revealed gradually on a roller coaster of twists and turns that also provides fans of the series an interesting look under the hood of Quarry’s world of hitters, brokers, envoys, and mobster clients.

As the alluring cover art indicates, a sexy hitgirl works her way into the plot. It’s interesting to note that Killing Quarry is a sequel of sorts to the 1976 entry in the series, The Dealer, re-released by Hard Case Crime in 2015 as Quarry’s Deal. Collins does a nice job of summarizing the events of the prequel, so new and forgetful readers are never lost. That said, if you’re working your way through the entire series, you might as well read Quarry’s Deal before Killing Quarry.

However you choose to tackle the series, be sure to make time for Killing Quarry as the paperback is a total winner. There’s excellent action, great humor, hot sex, and a compelling mystery at the core. Picking the best Quarry novel is a heavy lift, but Killing Quarry is among my favorite in the series. Highly recommended.

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The Broken Gun

Louis L'Amour's name is synonymous with the glory days of the American West. Authoring over 100 novels and countless short stories, L'Amour's work is just as popular now as it was five decades ago. While the author's body of work is dedicated to frontier life of the 1800s, occasionally L'Amour crossed genres to write pulpy detective stories. With that in mind, I was pleasantly surprised to find a modern western in his catalog, The Broken Gun, published by Bantam in 1966.

The main character is a popular western writer named Dan Sheridan who has researched and examined dozens of manuscripts about frontier life in the 1800s. Throughout his writing career, Sheridan has been obsessed with a missing persons case from 1864. Two Alvarez brothers led a drive from Texas into a rural Arizona valley only to vanish with their 4,000 head of cattle. Over the decades the mystery has become folklore, but Sheridan hopes to author a non-fiction book about the case. On a research trip to the area, his arrival at a small Arizona town is met with murder.

An Arizona sheriff leads Sheridan to a murder victim with the last name Alvarez. After further research, Sheridan learns that the man's brother was also found murdered. Could they be linked to the 1864 disappearance? Why would someone keep these men from talking to Sheridan? Soon, a cattle baron named Colin Wells invites Sheridan to his ranch hoping to educate him on the modern cattle business. But once there, Sheridan realizes that Wells and his family may have a link to the murders and the 1864 missing persons case.

I was really excited to learn that L'Amour had written a crime-fiction novel. My expectations were rather high simply because the author has a new canvas for his art. Unfortunately, The Broken Gun is just another western. The 1966 setting is nearly interchangeable with 1866 with all the characters on horseback wearing six-guns. There's plenty of action and enough story to make it all plausible, but it never really feels like a modern endeavor. I did enjoy some of the backstory on Sheridan, particularly his military experiences in Korea and Vietnam. I just couldn't shake the feeling that L'Amour probably wrote this as a traditional western and simply changed a few key elements to modernize it (maybe a publisher request?).

Overall, The Broken Gun is a quality read from a master of the genre. If you manage your expectations of what L'Amour's modern novels resemble, you might find more joy than I did.

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