Cherry Delight #3: Silverfinger

Cherry Delight #3: Silverfinger, by Glen Chase

No month stated, 1973  Leisure Books

Other than Where The Action Is, which was written by Len Levinson, I’ve never had any interest in Cherry Delight. Like Ted Mark’s books, it’s another of those spoofy spy-parody series with goofy acronyms and lame attempts at comedy and, even worse, it’s written in first-person -- a male author writing in the voice of a woman. But then I saw this third volume for a few dollars at an antique store and figured what the hell. 

There were actually two series: this initial Cherry Delight, which ran in the early 1970s, and then the later The All-New Cherry Delight (which is the series Len wrote one volume of), which ran in the late ‘70s. Veteran writer Gardner Fox handled all 24 volumes of the initial Cherry Delight, which is another reason I’ve never had much interest in the series; I’m not the biggest fan of his writing, as noted in my reviews of his two Commander Craig novels. 

But for a few bucks I couldn’t say no. However, Silverfinger turned out to be another reminder of how I just don’t like Gardner Fox’s work. It’s a slow-moving caper that operates on a threadbare setup with few thrills and hardly any action at all, only livened up by the occasional sex scene – sex scenes that are admittedly odd in that they’re written by a man but relayed in the first-person narrative of a woman. The conceit has always baffled me. 

In the 1960s Fox was one of the authors on the similar Lady From Lust series, another spoofy spy-fy series featuring a lusty female protagonist. But by the ‘70s The Executioner had overtaken James Bond and thus Cherry Delight is a spy who fights the mob, and she works for NYMPHO…the goofy and punny (and unfunny) ‘60s acronym titles making their unwelcome way to the ‘70s. 

Otherwise Cherry is essentially a spy who takes on the Mafia, and she’s a redheaded beauty with huge boobs (which she often reminds us of), and somehow she finds the time to narrate her adventures for us. The same thing Nick Carter began to do around this time. Personally I think any editor or publisher who demands a men’s adventure series be written in first-person is an editor or publisher who doesn’t know what the hell he or she is doing. 

 But then, one might argue that Gardner Fox doesn’t know, either. Case in point is this third volume, titled Silverfinger. Clearly it’s a take on Goldfinger, and the reader might envision a sex-and-violence-filled yarn about Cherry Delight taking on a Mafia chieftan with a penchant for painting women in silver and having his own personal army at his disposal…maybe with grand plans for taking over Fort Knox or somesuch.

Instead, the reader gets a threadbare, mundane, humdrum yarn about a Mafia boss in rural Italy who wears silver clothes, drives a silver car, and goes around to a shipyard to try to talk the employees into working for him. This, folks, is the threat Cherry Delight is up against in Silverfinger. It’s baffling how mundane and inconsequential the story actually is. 

What’s even crazier is that Fox writes like his life depends on it; the book runs 150-some pages of small, dense print; Silverfinger is similar to the “sleaze” paperbacks of a few decades before in that for the most part it’s made up of crafted narrative…but frequently will cut over to hardcore sex scenes. But as mentioned these sex scenes are odd because “Cherry” tells us all about the dudes she’s banging, and she has an odd way of referring to her anatomical parts. 

In the course of Silverfinger Cherry will have sex with a brother and a sister (not at the same time), and then later on she’ll conjugate with her NYMPHO handler, Mark Condon. Bizarrely enough, back in high school I dated a girl named Jennifer Condon…the name being so unusual that I of course remembered it. Plus she was a dead ringer for Elizabeth “Bewitched” Montgomery…but built like Barbara “I Dream Of Jeannie” Eden. No, I don’t know why I didn’t marry her, either!

I really need to stop drinking before I write these reviews. Okay, I’ll focus. Cherry is in Italy, with her red hair dyed black, trying to convince a trio of siblings that their shipyard is about to be taken over by the Mafia. The siblings, all young jetsetters, don’t believe Cherry…until mobsters start showing up to make threats or try to kill them. 

Cherry soon deduces that the mysterious “Silverfinger” is behind the group, and ultimately she’ll discover the otherwise dapper and silver-garbed older man who is indeed in charge of them…but for a main villain, he lacks bite. Then again the same can be said for the entire novel. 

Probably the highlight is a random bit where Cherry and Ines, the hotstuff sister of the trio, goes to a friggin Satanic ceremony in an old abbey, one attended by the shipyard workers. Cherry and Ines get so turned on by the nude congregants that they enjoy a brief lesbian fling, Cherry informing us that she’s done this sort of thing often. A lesbian fling that features the memorable image of Ines dipping her nipples in Cherry’s womanhood before dining at the Y. Hail Satan! 

The sex goes on for pages when it happens, but truth be told it lacks any heat and is undone by the bizarre decision on Fox’s part to suddenly become guttural; Cherry, otherwise highfalutin in her narrative, will suddenly be referring to her “pussylips” and her “girly-girl body.” There were parts, honestly, where I got the impression of an AI program attempting to write hardcore sleaze from the perspective of a human female. 

And really, the sex is the only thing Silverfinger has going for it. There certainly isn’t any action. Cherry takes on a few thugs with her bare hands early in the book, and gets in the odd shootout or two, but there’s no big action scene and for the most part the novel operates on a long-simmer approach, with Cherry more concerned with figuring out what Silverfinger’s plans are. To this end she goes undercover as a country girl working on the shipyards, gaining her way into Silverfinger’s confidence. 

More frustratingly, the finale comes on us without us even realizing it; Cherry gets in a protracted catfight with Silverfinger’s girlfriend, and some of Cherry’s hair is pulled out and she sees that her red roots are showing, so doubtless Silverfinger will realize that Cherry is the mysterious redhead who has been hitting his places. Then suddenly someone is sniping at Cherry moments after she’s had sex with Mark Condon, then there’s a harried action scene…and then the novel’s over…and Silverfinger has gotten away; Cherry figures she’ll see him again. 

Personally, I don’t give a damn whether she did or didn’t. Len’s Where The Action Is was worlds better than this, so unless I ever come across more volumes of Cherry Delight for a pittance, I figure I won’t be reading another volume of this particular series. I know Gardner Fox is well respected and all, but his writing just isn’t for me.