Jefferson Boone, Handyman #4: The Swiss Secret

Jefferson Boone, Handyman #4: The Swiss Secret, by Jon Messmann

September, 1974  Pyramid Books

At this point Jon Messmann has essentially turned Jefferson Boone, Handyman into a mystery series; what little action that does occur in The Swiss Secret is over quick and also bogged down by Messmann’s nigh-endless sentences, lacking any of the tension one would expect from such scenes. The main “action” of this fourth installment concerns Jefferson “Jeff” Boone, the Handyman, trying to figure out why two billion dollars has disappeared from a few Swiss bank accounts, and what nefarious means the money will be used for. And also there’s a girl who seems to fall in love with Jeff and incessantly nags, doubts, and disobeys him throughout the entire novel. I mean it’s like they’re already married. 

There’s no pickup from the previous volume, but then there hasn’t been much continuity in Jefferson Boone, Handyman. Jeff (as Messmann refers to him) is in Paris taking a vacation – or “holiday,” as he refers to it. I realized one of the things I don’t like about this series is that Jeff Boone, ostensibly a roving freelancer for the US government, doesn’t even come off like an American. He’s constantly saying stuff like, “I haven’t a gun,” and the like. I guess Messmann’s trying to convey that Jeff has a continental background or whatever, but Americans just don’t talk like that. It almost gives the impression that the series is British, and the sluggish pace, nigh-endless-sentences, and penchant for quoting poetry doesn’t help things. 

Well anyway, Jeff’s in Paris when we meet up with him, taking a well-deserved vacation. And of course he’s managed to pick up some chick: Meredith Pryor, a daughter of minor British royalty. Here we get Messmann’s patented “sex scene where you don’t know what’s really happening” material, with Dean Koontz-approved stuff like “cresting waves” and whatnot instead of the hardcore filth us sleazebags want. All this takes a sudden detour when Jeff and Meredith go to dinner at a bistro, and some guys with guns come in, and Meredith is killed in the crossfire. 

Here The Swiss Secret takes on its mystery vibe. Jeff will spend the rest of the novel trying to figure out if and why Meredith was involved with a scheme in which a combined two billion dollars have been snuck out of a few Swiss bank accounts. Messmann adds some pizzaz to the storyline with the appearance of Dianna (yes, with two “ns”), whose memorable intro has her blasting away at Jeff with a .38 while calling him a “rotter.” Again, the book just seems British. But then, Dianna herself is British, and what’s more she’s the sister of Meredith Pryor (and of course the daughter of Lord Pryor), and she’s after Jeff for revenge – info on the underground has it that Jeff and Meredith were working together on something, even though they weren’t, and thus the assumption is Meredith was killed because of Jeff. 

Messmann seems to have been inspired by Goldfinger, what with the Jill and Tilly Materton bit of the dead sister and the surviving sister who is now hunting the killers for revenge. Messmann’s even more overt with the girl’s name, ie “Dianna,” as in the ancient goddess of the hunt Diana. In fact it’s a wonder Messmann doesn’t have Jeff refer to The Golden Bough in this one, I mean something like that would be right in-line with our “phallic and literate” hero. But as mentioned in previous reviews Jeff’s a prick when it comes to women; the previous volume in particular featured him being a total ass for no reason. Messmann turns the concept around this time; Dianna as mentioned starts off literally shooting at Jeff in her intro, and will spend the rest of the novel fighting against him. 

The funny thing is, Jeff isn’t nearly as much of a dick toward Dianna as he was to the girl in the previous book, so it’s like Messmann increased the sexual hostility on the female front but toned it down on Jeff’s side. Granted, Jeff does spend the majority of The Swiss Secret telling Dianna to go home and leave it to the experts, and also he’s constantly pulling her out of the fire due to her stubborness. Otherwise Messmann tries to develop a belabored “love” deal between the two, with Dianna growing feelings for Jeff and constantly nagging at him for being “cold” and not opening himself up and etc. Indeed the lame finale has Dianna pulling a number where Jeff will have to chose between his “cold” devotion to duty or his feelings for Dianna. But once again the poor “full breasted” brunette is in over her head and Jeff must once again save her dumb ass. 

That I think is the main drawback of The Swiss Secret: Dianna is one of the more annoying female characters in the series, and Messmann spends too much time on her. This is because his plot doesn’t give him much else to work with; literally the entire book is Jeff chasing clues to find out why two billion was stolen, who stole it, and what the money will be used for. But this only causes even more friction between Jeff and Dianna, because Jeff is relatively certain that Dianna’s father was in on the plot, along with Meredith. Messmann foreshadows Meredith’s treachery at the start of the book, with the mention that Meredith has “small breasts;” per my doctorate paper on men’s adventure, only traitorous, evil, or ugly women have small breasts in this genre. Regardless, Dianna spends the novel trying to prove Jeff wrong. And meanwhile making a mess of things; for example, one of the novel’s few action scenes has Dianna getting caught by some bad guys in Paris, and Jeff has to go to her rescue, leading to a fight in the back alleys of Paris that honestly lacks any tension due to the protracted way Messmann writes. 

The same holds true for the lovin’. When Jeff and Dianna have their expected conjugation, something which actually occurs a few times throughout the novel, it’s rendered in overwrought prose like this:

Eventually Jeff deduces that the two billion is going to the Libyans, leading to a mention of Qadafi, almost as if we’re reading a men’s adventure novel from a decade later. But even here there’s no major action scene; as mentioned Jeff must save Dianna, leading to another Bond-esque bit where he must swim across a dark sea and infiltrate a Libyan boat and rescue Dianna before torpedos destroy them all. After this we have another fizzling action bit where Jeff and Dianna try to get to Lord Byron before the bad guys do; even here Dianna shows her stubborn foolishness, and also Messmann has wasted so many pages that he rushes through this climax to the point that it’s almost comical. 

Overall The Swiss Secret was my least favorite installment of Jefferson Boone, Handyman yet. I get the impression that, given that he was writing The Revenger at the same time (plus other stuff, I’m sure), Jon Messmann was getting a little exhausted with the whole “men’s adventure” scene. 

 I wonder if Pyramid Books was also getting tired of the series. Not only is the cover design different from the previous three volumes, but that doesn’t even look like Jefferson Boone on the cover. It looks more like Dakota! That was from a different publisher, but still. I wonder if the uncredited cover art for The Swiss Mystery was originally commissioned for a different series entirely.