The Penetrator #44: Deep Cover Blast-Off

The Penetrator #44: Deep Cover Blast-Off, by Lionel Derrick

December, 1981  Pinnacle Books

Man, how have I gone over a year without reading a volume of The Penetrator? For a while there I was reading a few books a year. Well anyway, at this point we are in the homestretch, with less than ten installments to go in the series. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been reading The Penetrator for 14 years now; it’s like it has become a part of my life at this point. 

Fortunately, the series refresh seen in the previous volume continues with this one; Chet Cunningham seems to come out of the doldrums that he was in for the past, oh, I don’t know, 15 or so volumes. Maybe series editor Andy Ettinger told Cunningham and series co-author Mark Roberts to get their shit together. To be sure, Deep Cover Blast-Off is not a return to the violent form of early Cunningham entries like #4: Hijacking Manhattan and #12: Bloody Boston, but at least Mark “The Penetrator” Hardin kills a bunch of bad guys this time, instead of just knocking them out like some TV detective. He also lives up to his name, uh, “penetrating” not just one but two sexy babes in the short course of the novel, though for the most part Cunningham leaves the sexual material off-page. I’ve often thought of doing the opposite of Bowdlerizing, ie adding explicit sex and violence to books. 

Curiously, Cunningham in this one seems to recreate Joanna Tabler, Mark’s casual girlfriend of earlier volumes (and a character Cunningham introduced to the series). Joanna was a tough but beautiful federal agent…and in Deep Cover Blast-Off, Cunningham introduces another tough but beautiful federal agent who becomes involved with Mark Hardin. This one’s named Malona and she’s an Intelligence officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which we’re informed is Canada’s version of the FBI. Also curiously, Cunningham never once refers to Joanna Tabler in the course of this book – other than vague mentions of “women” who have suffered for becoming involved with Mark – but it’s funny because Malona is pretty much the same character, only she’s Canadian and she’s a brunette. 

But then, Mark suffers another female loss early in the book. Up in Windsor, Ontario to investigate the murder of an old ‘Nam pal who went on to work for the CIA, Mark becomes involved with a hotstuff waitress named Beda. She’s soon caught and suffers the ultimate price for being with Mark, but Mark spends about a hot second mourning her…and then Malona is literally introduced a few pages later. Cunningham clearly has his tongue in cheek, with the bonus that Mark takes the first girl’s death in stride and is promptly checking out Malona. But as I’ve already mentioned Cunningham for the most part ends the scene when the hanky-panky gets started, and in fact doesn’t even dwell much upon the ample charms of either Beda or Malona. 

A funny thing about Deep Cover Blast-Off is that Mark Hardin heads to Canada to research the death of an old ‘Nam pal…but spends more of his time investigating the death of some other guy. It turns out that three CIA agents have been killed while investigating affairs in Canada, Mark’s ‘Nam buddy being the most recent. Humorously, the Agency isn’t much concerned over the deaths, chalking them off as random murders or somesuch, so it’s up to The Penetrator to do his own investigation. 

Curiously, despite this being the 44th volume of the series, we get the usual brief rundown and recap of who Mark Hardin is and some of his past exploits. We even get that recurring note of how his voice lacks a regional accent; this time Cunningham humorously refers to Mark’s accent as “CBS neutral.” Man, if only CBS was neutral! But another curious thing is the stuff Cunningham forgets. For example, there’s a part where Mark uses this new concoction of Professor Haskins to knock someone out without harming them or killing them…which is weird, given that this is what Mark previously used his dart gun “Ava” for. But Ava seems to have been written out of the series, and I’m not sure the last time the Penetrator used it. 

Cunningham delivers some fun stuff this time around, as if he’s finally invested in the series again. Most notably is a bit early on where a lead takes Mark to a gay bar (“There wasn’t a woman in the place”), one that’s filled with “swivel-hipped males.” Raise your hand if you remember when Mark, in an earlier Chet Cunningham offering, once posed as “the Pierre?” But Cunningham doesn’t do much with this scene, other than Mark acting incredily aggressive toward the patrons (“Which of you queers here pulled the trigger?”), and for the most part it’s all just setup for an action scene, as Mark finds out the owner of the place is somehow involved with the murders. That said, the chapter is titled, “Mark Three, Gays Zero.” 

Another returning gimmick from earlier novels is that Mark gets hurt in the ensuing action; he’s shot, but manages to get away, and later hooks up with the busty waittress he literally said only a few words to, earlier in the day. This would be Beda, who gamely takes Mark in and nurses him to health, with the expected shenanigans resulting: “[Mark]…kissed her pulsating breasts.” Man, she must be in the X-Men or something! “I shall unleash my pulsating breasts!” But as mentioned (frequently, now), Cunningham leaves the actual sordid details off-page. Mark’s a slow learner, though, as sure enough Beda is captured by the bad guys the very next morning, suffering fatally for it, but Cunningham spends more time detailing how Mark escapes the police once he has dealt with Beda’s captors. 

And like a few pages later Mark is already salivating over hotstuff Malona Mitchell, RCMP Intelligence. Cunningham has the two get down to it posthaste, with a lot of saucy banter between then but again fading to black during the actual sleaze. Malona becomes Mark’s companion for the rest of the novel, under the impression that he works for the CIA. The RCMP also suspects something is up with these agent murders…and meanwhile we readers know it’s the Russians, in particular a deep-cover agent named Ustinova, who was implanted in Canada back in the 1960s to research germ warfare and was gradually forgotten by his superiors in Russia. Now Ustinova has gone insane and plans to carry out an attack on DC; to this end he sends out his sadistic thug, Turgun, to dispatch anyone who gets in his way. 

Action is more frequent than previous volumes, and again Mark Hardin once again kills most of his opponents, rather than just knocking them out. He’s also picked up a gift for very lame one-liners, like when he tells a guy, “Don’t be a nerd.” This might be the earliest usage of that word I’ve encountered in a book…and no, the guy Mark calls a nerd isn’t a dweeb in Coke-bottle glasses, it’s a dude with a gun, so either “nerd” meant something else in 1981 or Chet Cunningham just didn’t know what it meant. 

Despite being a sadistic thug, not to mention the guy who killed Mark’s pal, Turgun is the victim of Mark’s “kill-free” takedown: a concoction of tear gas and ether made by the Professor. Curiously though, not much is done with this concoction despite much build up. And besides, Mark does eventually deal with Turgun…in a sequence that seems to come out of the Penetrator of old. Vowing to get brutal justice for his slain pal, Mark uses a tractor’s manure spreader to mete out Turgun’s comeuppance, though Cunningham doesn’t get as gory as he could in the sequence. 

The finale of Deep Cover Blast-Off further demonstrates the détente of the early ‘80s, as Mark takes down Ustinova’s missile-firing silo with…a group of KGB agents. There is a friendly rapport between the group and the reader can tell much has changed in the world since the series started in the early ‘70s. And the novel ends on this sequence, with a quick capoff noting that Malona has gone on a fishing trip with Mark…which, curiously, was the same thing the never-mentioned Joanna Tabler used to do. So, one wonders if Malona will return in future Penetrator installments.