The Penetrator #22: High Disaster

The Penetrator #22: High Disaster, by Lionel Derrick
September, 1977  Pinnacle Books

Holy boredom, Batman! This volume of The Penetrator is a total snoozefest, and author Chet Cunningham has a lot to answer for in the men’s adventure tribunal that exists in my imagination – he’s guilty of a lack of sex, action, violence, and thrills, serving up a listless plot which sees hero Mark Hardin aimlessly driving around Oregon while listening to “soft music” on the radio.

In my review of the previous volume I mentioned that High Disaster was one of the two titles in the series I didn’t have, but due to the usual obsesiveness I had to get it…but it turns out I would’ve been better off if I hadn’t. Methinks Cunningham must’ve gotten really bored with being “Lionel Derrick” around this time, and perhaps took a trip to Oregon and decided to frame it up as a Penetrator story.

What’s most unfortunate is that it starts off so well – or, at least, so fun. Spoofing the then-popular “Washington fringe benefit” tell-all books and news reports, Cunningham introduces blonde bimbo Arlene Day, who has recently outed Senator Harland W. Harrington as her pimp in all but name. In addition to boffing the senator, Arlene was also whored out to visiting notables. Now she’s come forward with her story – that is, after she’s written her tell-all book, which is about to be published.

This is all relayed via a news conference Arlene gives, where she blithely informs the newsmen (and outraged newswomen) about sex with the senator. A scene capped off by a funny bit where Arlene sheds her top “for the boys in the editing room.” It’s all goofy and fun, and sadly it’s the only entertaining moment in the entire damn novel. And plus, you might wonder what all this stuff has to do with a Penetrator novel.

Meanwhile, Mark Hardin kicks back at the Stronghold, eating raw steaks with Indian mentor David Red Eagle and badgering him with lots of un-PC dialog. The novel keeps plodding on and you have no idea what the point of it all is. Not until a drunk Senator Harrington, his political career ruined, accidentally starts a forest fire near his mountain retreat in Oregon, does High Disaster start to come together.

Harrington, a middle-aged veteran of the war, gets off royally on the destruction. He’s still senator until January, and immediately figures that he can start a wrath of destruction on his own state of Oregon, and no one will suspect him! He hates the entire state because no one came to his defense during the Arlene Day scandal. Also, he has a particular hatred of “the Indians,” because they had reservations on a lot of areas that he wanted to renovate for various business ventures.

Aided by his bodyguard, a former boxer who is loyal to the senator for clearing him of a murder rap, Harrington becomes the “Oregon Terror,” and begins his war against the state. Arson, explosions (Harrington was a demolitions expert in the army), and poisoning of the state’s water supply are the main avenues of his attack. Hardin becomes interested in the situation due to the suffering this causes Oregon’s American Indian population, and hops in his plane to fly to Oregon and kick ass.

The “Indian” motif is really ramped up this time around, with Hardin several times referred to as “the big Indian guy” by other characters. It gets to be a bit much, though Hardin does at least poke fun at himself for his newfound interest in all things Indian. But anyway, he hooks up with some Indians on a reservation in Oregon, assessing the damage caused by one of Harrington’s fires. In the destruction Hardin discovers overlooked evidence which will eventually lead him to figuring out that Harrington is the Oregon Terror.

But what a snoozefest it is! Cunningham writes endless detail of Hardin tooling around Oregon in his rented LTD, listening to “soft music” on the radio. This phrase is repeated so many times in the text that it gets funny – I mean, seriously, vast portions of High Disaster are comprised of bloodthirsty Mark “Penetrator” Hardin just driving around and listening to, I don’t know, James Taylor or something.

And even worse, we readers already know that a middle-aged senator is the villain of the piece – a villain, that is, who only has a single henchman! To say these two guys are outmatched by Hardin would be an understatement. Where’s the crazed violence and action setpieces of previous volumes? There’s nothing of the sort in High Disaster, in which Hardin is still just tooling around in the LTD while Harrington burns down half of the state, even killing several people in the process.

As usual, a female presence serves to brighten things, if only slightly; this is Maxine O’Reilly, hot blonde Oregon office secretary of Harrington, who, despite still being loyal to the man, relents to Hardin’s questioning when he enters the office and concedes that she too suspects that Harrington is the Oregon Terror. Now Hardin has a passenger who can ride around in the LTD and listen to “soft music” with him. However, Cunningham does not deliver the sex scene you figure would be mandatory, and Hardin and Maxine only maintain a working relationship.

The novel’s first action scene doesn’t happen until well over halfway through, when Hardin spends the night at that Indian reservation. Hardin patrols the grounds – and fires at a mysterious car that drives through late that night. Two black men get out, armed with Molotov cocktails, and lay down a story that they were hired by some dude to come here and torch the place. The guys are hauled off to the police station, and Hardin is certain they were hired by Harrington. Did you notice though that Hardin didn’t even kill them in the firefight? It’s like this throughout the novel, as if the violent hero of the previous volumes has been replaced by an American Indian Mister Rogers.

Apparently the state police and FBI are clueless, and only Hardin is capable of figuring out where Harrington will likely strike next: Bonneville Dam. And in fact the senator is there, having hired a few goons to help him out for the occasion. It isn’t until almost the very last page that Hardin actually kills someone, blowing away one of Harrington’s goons. And it’s his only kill of the entire novel! Otherwise the action scene here is perfunctory and bland; again, Hardin’s up against a heavyset senator and a few stooges, so there isn’t much potential for a big firefight.

And just as in his previous volume, Cunningham delivers an anticlimatic death for his villain, having Harrington, who’s been shot by Hardin, dive to his death off the dam, after informing Hardin that the entire thing’s going to blow. Hardin has seconds to defuse the bomb, including a “tense” part where he has to let the cops allow him past the barricade so he can help them. But good gravy it’s just all so boring, bland, and tepid – though we are informed that Hardin and Maxine, now that danger’s out of the way (and the novel’s about to end) are about to heat up their previously-platonic relationship.

Previous Cunningham installments have been sort of boring – in fact, a general malaise has overtaken the entire series by this point, with even co-writer Mark Roberts’s most recent book being a dud – but High Disaster takes it to a whole new low. To repeat, I should’ve skipped tracking this one down. And so should you.

Stone: MIA Hunter

Stone: MIA Hunter, by Jack Buchanan
February, 1987  Jove Books

Some online booksellers mistakenly list this installment of the MIA Hunter series as the first volume, but in fact it falls between the sixth and seventh volumes. Also, this is a double-length tale, coming in at 261 pages, all courtesy our old friend Chet Cunningham, who here turns in his second and final contribution to the series. Rather than filling all those pages with one epic plot, Cunningham instead tells four separate storylines, but even so Stone: MIA Hunter happens to be one of my favorite volumes yet.

The first storyline opens with Mark Stone and his companions Hog Wiley and Terrance Loughlin busting a few POWs out of a camp in ‘Nam; this is a taut, action-packed sequence. Cunningham (who names one of the POWs after himself) gives most narrative time to Commander Farley Anderson, who can’t believe he’s finally free, let alone that it’s 1987. As the group struggles across jungle terrain, desperate to get over the border, they are attacked by unseen gunmen, who mercilessly take out Stone’s Laotian guides. This turns out to be minions of CIA goon Alan Coleman, the series’ recurring villain; he arrives via helicopter and demands Stone and the POWs get onboard.

This leads to the second storyline, as Stone, Hog, and Loughlin are arraigned in Federal court in Los Angeles on trumped-up charges. As a result Stone’s private investigator license is stripped (bet you forgot that’s his day job, didn’t you??) and it looks like the three of them may do some serious time. Hog and Louglin heed Stone’s advice and take off. Stone meanwhile spends some quality time with his girlfriend, Carol Jenner, who we are informed now lives in DC, working for the Defense Department. Funny, because the last we saw her, back in #3: Hanoi Deathgrip, she was on the run from various government agencies!

Stone is informed that this court deal could take a few weeks. Do you think he just takes it easy for a while? Hell, no – Mark Stone is a Man Of Action. Responding to a letter he receives from the widow of an old ‘Nam buddy, Stone checks out the man’s son, Jose Ortega, Jr, and learns all about the Chicano gangs in this area and the drug-running Mexican mob that employs them. In a sequence that comes off like a flashback to Cunningham’s earlier Penetrator work, Stone suits up in black and launches a hard probe on a PCP factory in the desert outside LA.

This whole part is like nothing before in the series, and in fact seems to point in the direction the series would eventually go, with Stone even realizing that someday he might need to branch out from his MIA rescuing efforts and focus on situations closer to home. Anyway he kills a whole bunch of Mexican goons, and takes on El Lobo, the leader of the gang. Here in El Lobo’s hidden crypt Stone discovers hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug money, and he gnashes his teeth over what to do with all of that cash. But before he can decide, the next storyline comes along.

Going home, Stone finds a dying man in his garage. The dude mutters something about a “Rosalyn” still being alive, and then croaks. Stone meanwhile experiences a lengthy flashback to early 1974. We learn here that Stone, in the final days of the Vietnam War, was in love with an Army nurse named Rosalyn James and that the two planned to get married. (It goes without saying of course that we’ve never heard of her before!) Strangely, Cunningham writes this whole sequence like it’s occuring in 1968 or something, with the war raging in full force, but in reality 1974 was in the waning days, as the US was slowly pulling out its forces. 

Anyway, Rosalyn was a medevac nurse, and one night while Stone was on some in-country mission, she took a last-second job for some other nurse, and her helicopter came under heavy fire. Rosalyn ended up falling out of the ‘copter, which later crashed, everyone onboard burnt to a crisp; Rosalyn was listed as KIA. However she survived her fall, and was found by a Vietnamese soldier who ended up selling her to a sadist who goes by the name “the General;” a powerful Laotian warlord who rules a clifftop fortress on the China-Laos border.

Stone only eventually pieces this together. Using his girlfriend Carol’s government resources he discovers that the dead man in his garage was a CIA agent who worked the Southeast Asia field. Also, given that Stone has only ever known one “Rosalyn,” he quickly deduces that she must be the woman the dying man said was still alive! From this leap of logic Stone, who discovers the charges against him have been thrown out of court, jumps right back into MIA Hunter mode; now he just has to track down Hog and Loughlin, who he discovers have taken a job in El Salvador.

This is the next storyline – Cunningham here delivers a sequence reminiscent of a war novel, as Stone ventures down to South America and hooks up with his two pals, who have been training government soldiers to fight against the insurrectionists. This bit is a little plodding and really has nothing to do with anything, but it does lead up to a climax in which Stone, in pure ‘80s action hero mode, hops on a dirt bike and fires LAW rockets while driving it. And judging from the series cover paintings, Stone even wears an ‘80s-mandatory headband, so the picture is complete.

Finally we get to the last storyline, which happens to be the one promised on the back cover. Stone and pals head for Thailand, where they learn more about the General’s fortress. It’s on a 500-foot cliff which can only be scaled by “bucket elevators,” and it’s guarded by a few hundred elite guards. Also, the General makes his money through the poppy fields beneath his fortress, from which he produces heroin. After a lot of worry over how few supplies they can carry, they find an American merc who flies a helicopter that can fly them and all their gear the few hundred miles to the China-Laos border.

Cunningham occasionally cuts over to Rosalyn’s viewpoint, so we can see how her life has gone over the past thirteen years. She runs a clinic in the fortress, where she lives in a “gilded cage” of three opulent rooms. The General has treated her kindly, except for the time she discovered he was a heroin manufacturer; the General escorted her down to the dungeon for a view of his torture chamber, and Rosalyn complained no more. However the General only occasionally “visits” her now, and Rosalyn has taken a lover, a young soldier named Lu Fang who is part of a group that plans to overthrow the General.

Weaving the various plots together in a taut finale, Cunningham delivers an ongoing action scene in which Stone and companions raid the fortress shortly after the doomed rebellion. He even stays true to the pulpy tone with Rosalyn hooked up to the rack in the General’s dungeon and Stone coming to her rescue in the nick of time. The fight with the General plays more on the villain’s weasely nature, so there’s none of the superhuman figtihng of say #4: Mountain Massacre, however Cunningham does drop the ball here because toward the beginning we’re informed that the General likes to dress in ancient Chinese armor and carry around ancient weapons, but our author apparently forgets all of that when the General finally appears.

The MIA Hunter series has never had much continuity, but I’m hoping this installment has repercussions on later volumes. For after a memorable final confrontation with the General in his torture chamber, Stone and Rosalyn (who survives, much to my surprise) spend some quality time together, and the next day escape the fortress. Here though they are attacked by ground forces – only to be saved by the last-second appearance of a Huey helicopter, with Carol Jenner manning a machine gun and blowing everyone away. At first I thought she was going to turn out to be some deep-cover operative, but Cunningham instead has it that Stone’s girlfriend used her smarts to figure out where Stone would be, and hired a helicopter to come rescue him and etc.

Anyway, Stone: MIA Hunter ends with Mark stone in the center of a veritable love triangle, choppering out of Laos with his one-time fiance, having been saved by his current girlfriend. Cunningham doesn’t provide a clue which way it might go, though he does seem to indicate that Stone decides Rosayln is the one for him. I’d love to say we’ll find out in the next volume, but I’m not holding my breath.

The Penetrator #20: The Radiation Hit

The Penetrator #20: The Radiation Hit, by Lionel Derrick
May, 1977  Pinnacle Books

I think it’s time I took a long hard look in the mirror and realized that I’ve now read twenty volumes of The Penetrator. And by god I’ll keep on reading them until the bitter end. But man, this one, courtesy Chet Cunningham, is bland and listless for the most part – for whatever reason, Cunningham has been floundering in his past few contributions to the series, and I still think it’s because Pinnacle asked him to soften the edges of his psychotic Mark "Penetrator" Hardin.

The Radiation Hit capitalizes on so many mid-‘70s fads that it almost comes off like it was put together by a marketing department. The Smoky And The Bandit craze must’ve been in full force as Cunningham penned this volume, with all of the CB radio mania that ensued; you can just imagine “Convoy” blaring in the background. (Some of my earliest memories were of the CB craze, and given that I grew up on the West Virginia/Maryland border, you can just imagine how popular it was there in hicksville.)

The plot – and Cunningham, unlike his series co-writer Mark Roberts, never bothers to ground his installments in any sort of continuity – has Hardin in Colorado, where he’s chasing down leads in a possible nuclear factory assault. Another indication of how many books of the Penetrator I’ve read is that I started to experience déjà vu during The Radiation Hit; it’s very similar to an earlier Cunningham installment: #10: The Hellbomb Flight. Just as in that novel, this time Hardin’s up against scientists who have gone rogue due to their fears that technology will be used for the wrong purposes.

Cunningham is in fact more concerned with doling out CB lingo (the back of the book even features a handy CB glossary) and writing about big rigs than delivering a Penetrator novel, as Hardin scopes out a nuclear facility and gradually deduces that the terrorists, whoever they are, will try to steal the highly-radioactive nuclear reactor fueling rods in a tractor trailer. Meanwhile Hardin (somehow) has gotten information from an insider, a scientist named Dr. Richard Banscomb who is one of a trio of nuclear scientists who have quit the facility due to its unsafe practices, and gone public with it.

But as mentioned, the CB phenomenon and truck drivers are given so much focus that Hardin doesn’t even see any action for the first hundred pages, other than a few soft probes of a facility where he knocks out a guard or two with his sleep darts. The Penetrator isn’t really that bright this time out, either, easily falling for a trap set up for him when later he goes back to the same facility and steals the rig in which he thinks the stolen fuel rods have been stashed. Only later does he discover that he’s been duped with a duplicate rig.

Part of the reason for the minimal violence in the first half of the novel is that the villains themselves aren’t a bloodthirsty lot; instead, they’re a team of nuclear scientists who want to alert the world of the dangers of nuclear power. More topical ‘70s material is presented with reams of “dangers of radiation” articles Hardin reads as part of his research, all of it straight out of Silkwood. We gradually learn that these scientists have arranged the heist of the nuclear reactor fuel rods so as to use them to pollute a large flock of sheep with radiation, so the media and thus the world can see how dangerous uncontrolled nuclear power could be. 

Some of the lurid goofiness of earlier Cunningham installments returns with the appearance of Lisa Golden, wife of one of the rogue scientists; Hardin visits the notoriously-promiscuous young lady, posing as a reporter, and she immediately strips down and asks him to tie her up for a little S&M. This is actually yet another callback to The Hellbomb Flight, where Hardin was similarly propositioned out of the blue by yet another sex-starved woman, but Lisa doesn’t immediately drop out of the narrative. In fact she becomes the novel’s main villain, a bloodthirsty, dopesmoking, sex-crazed radical, and not until she becomes so does the book become enjoyable.

Lisa, seducing her elderly husband, convinces him to allow her to go on the late-night run in which the big rig will deliver the fuel rods to the farmland where the scientists will unleash their plan. But Lisa has her own plan – she gets the young co-driver to leave the rig with promises of sex, but instead leads him into a trap where her hippie-terrorist comrades use the poor bastard for knife-throwing practice! The other poor driver Lisa shoots several times in the head with her .25. After which she and her friends make off with the rig, smoke a few joints, and let Lisa’s jiggling breasts decide which turns to take on the road!

Now, well over a hundred pages in, we have the makings of a Penetrator novel. Lisa’s hippie terrorist comrades plan to blow up the trailer in some desolate patch of Colorado, killing all of the locals. They will then use this mass murder to inform the world of how dangerous radiation is. They send out CB messages to the media, informing them of their plans and making demands, however Lisa tells her followers that they will blow up the fuel rods and kill the populace regardless if their demands are met or not.

But as it turns out, Lisa’s followers are more “hippie” than “terrorist,” and Hardin so outmatches them that it’s not even funny. Instead of building toward an action-packed climax, Cunningham instead has Hardin sort of just drive around rural Colorado, trying to luck into wherever the trailer has been hijacked to – there’s a laughable bit here where Hardin tells himself there’s “no time” to involve the Feds, as by the time they got in gear the radiation would already be let loose. As if the government wouldn’t hurry through red tape in emergency situations.

But of course Hardin locates the area, not far from Colorado Springs, and deduces that the rig is hidden in a barn outside of a remote farm. He plays a cat-and-mouse game with the hippies which proves to be the novel’s climatic sequence, just walking around in the dark and looking inside the house, slowly drawing them out. One of them proves to be Hardin’s first kill in the novel (like 130 pages in!), and Cunningham makes you feel sorry for the poor bastard, who lies at Hardin’s feet and calls for his mother as he dies. Meanwhile Lisa, who has morphed into a guerrilla general or something, orders her minions about and threatens to shoot “cowards.”

The finale is very anticlimatic, with the hippies trying to wire the trailer to blow on the farm and escape. Even here Hardin doesn’t kill anyone, but instead plays on their nerves. He’s secretly dismantled the trailer from blowing, but the hippies don’t know it, and they think they only have minutes to get out of there. When the final confrontation between Hardin and Lisa comes, she instead proves her own undoing, accidentally ramming her getaway van into the trailer. Dazed from a concussion, she climbs into the rig, exposing herself to the massive doses of radiation and dying in seconds – and even here Cunningham makes you feel sorry for her, despite the fact that she’s a cold-blooded murderer who planned to kill off an entire town. 

And that’s that. Hardin calls Joanna Tabler, unseen this volume, and asks her if she’d like to spend a few weeks with him in Colorado Springs.  She says she can’t, so Hardin figures he’ll spend some time here alone fishing! It’s just a listless end for what is for the most part a listless volume of The Penetrator, Cunningham obviously enamored with the CB scene and doing his best to shoehorn his enthusiasm into what is a very underwhelming and passable installment.

The Penetrator #18: Countdown To Terror

The Penetrator #18: Countdown To Terror, by Lionel Derrick
January, 1977  Pinnacle Books

This volume of the Penetrator finds Chet Cunningham once again revamping his version of Mark “Penetrator” Hardin. Gone for the most part is the sadistic bastard of earlier Cunningham installments; though Hardin starts off the book by shooting one guy in the throat and “accidentally” breaking a woman’s neck, as the novel progresses he not only morphs into a sort of mother hen but also goes out of his way to not kill the young members of the latest terrorist group he’s up against.

The villains this time out are the FALN, an assemblage of Puerto Ricans who are united in the cause of freedom for their country. Currently they’re carrying out terrorist attacks on New York City, thus bringing Hardin into the fold, returning to his old stomping grounds from back in #4: Hijacking Manhattan. Also returning is Joana Tabler, Hardin’s occasional girlfriend who first appeared back in that earlier book; she still continues to appear in the Cunningham-penned volumes, and he really builds up the relationship between the two, with Joanna in love with Hardin and wanting him to “retire” so they can get married and have kids.

The FALN is a sadistic bunch of bastards, bombing various parts of NYC and leaving mass casualties in their wake. These guys do more damage than any other Penetrator villain yet; by novel’s end they’ve initiated the titular “countdown to terror,” in which they give authorities less than twenty four hours to meet their demands, carrying out one bombing per hour. Their leader is El Chico, who leads his terrorists into battle but also enjoys the cushier aspects of running a terrorist organization, sleeping with all of the women and taking what he wants.

Hardin arrives on the scene and promptly murders the aforementioned FALN man and woman; the latter as he’s trying to kick away her pistol. This “accidental” killing is just the first indication of the changes Hardin’s going through. Cunningham makes it part of the narrative, with Hardin, once he reconnects with Joanna, telling her that he’s attempting to create a new, “softer” image for himself! I still wonder if all this stuff was at Pinnacle’s urging or if Cunningham himself chose to make his version of the Penetrator less bloodthirsty.

Sadly though, it’s this character overhaul that’s most memorable about Countdown To Terror. It’s not that the book is bad, it’s just forgettable. Not much happens, and certainly nothing outrageous like in other volumes in the series. It’s more of a procedural affair as Hardin attempts to track down El Chico and stop his homegrown terrorists while the FALN continue to bomb public buildings and structures.

The majority of the book is given over to the sort of partnership Hardin forms with Delgado, a young Puerto Rican who is the only person Hardin encounters while scoping out the PR-frequented dives and bars in NYC who offers to help Hardin track down El Chico. Eventually Hardin discovers that Delgado is actually part of FALN and meets regularly with El Chico. Instead of butchering Delgado as he once would have done, Hardin instead plays along with the guy, driving around empty streets with him into what Hardin is certain will be an ambush.

Hardin in fact has a plan together – he figures the FALN will consider Delgado expendable in their planned ambush, and he’s right. When gunmen spring from the shadows, they blast away at Delgado, too. Once Hardin has blown away the attackers and gotten a legshot Delgado to safety, Hardin successfully turns the kid to his side, so that Delgado sees how vile and despicable El Chico really is. But they’ve actually gone beyond that, taking Delgado’s kid sister prisoner, where we later learn that she’s been raped and beaten.

But there is unusual stuff (considering past installments) where Hardin worries over Delgado, ensuring he’s getting well and etc. Beyond that there’s even more unusual stuff throughout the novel, like several times where during a skirmish Hardin will come across some kid or woman, both of them part of FALN, and tries not to hurt or kill them. There’s even a scene where Hardin knocks out a FALN guard and promises the dude that he won’t be harmed in the bomb Hardin plants in the building, and they aren’t just empty words; Hardin really does ensure the guard doesn’t die or get harmed. I mean, this is a dude that previously would blow away people for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Things begin to heat up as Hardin gets a lock on El Chico’s master plan, Operation Luz, a mysterious affair which promises to be catastrophic. This leads to a taut climax where Hardin, in a rented helicopter, follows after a few boats of FALN and discovers that Operation Luz entails the bombing of the Statue of Liberty. Hardin stages another of his one man raids on the terrorist army, taking a lot of damage during the firefight. Joana meanwhile is still back at the pier, awaiting Hardin’s call (turns out the FALN initiated Luz earlier than expected, which Hardin only discovered by accident); needless to say, the two have a chance to get reconnected at the end of the tale.

I have to say I miss Cunningham’s earlier version of Mark Hardin. Without the bizarre brutality Cunningham’s installments are coming off as pretty rote and forgettable. And that sucks, because we’ve got a long way to go until the final volume.

The Penetrator #16: Deepsea Shootout

The Penetrator #16: Deepsea Shootout, by Lionel Derrick
September, 1976  Pinnacle Books

Man, what a misfire of a Penetrator novel. Easily the worst volume yet of the series, Deepsea Shootout comes off like a lazy first draft from Chet Cunningham, who usually delivers the more unhinged installments. This time it’s the narrative itself that’s unhinged, never certain what its plot is, hopscotching all over the place in a desperate attempt to fill pages. Most unforgiveably, it’s boring, something which can’t be said about Cunningham’s previous sadistic offerings.

Even the back cover can’t figure out what the storyline is – the blurb has you thinking Mark “Penetrator” Hardin is heading to the Caribbean to save Dr. Jamison Hutch, an archeologist who’s gone missing. Instead we open with Hardin posing as a reporter as he just sort of hangs around on the young archeologist’s boat; Hutch is down here searching for a sunken Spanish galleon from the 17th century, and has brought along his attractive colleague Beth Anne, who spends the narrative sunning in her bikini and checking out Hardin.

A group of pirates are working the area, nailing tourist boats outside the harbors of the Bahamas. This is the real reason Hardin has come here. In a brief prologue we meet the pirates: made up of radicalized natives, they’re lead by a beautiful black lady who happens to be a voodoo priestess; later in the book Hardin runs into her as she’s leading her people in a ceremony. Really though this character and her priestesshood and the entire bit is woefully underdeveloped; Cunningham introduces her and her pirates as the villains, then forgets about them, then introduces some unrelated guy as another villain, and then quickly disposes of the pirates.

I suspect Cunningham must’ve taken a well-deserved vacation to the Bahamas before penning this, as the majority of Deepsea Shootout comes off like a Caribbean travelogue. Also many pages are just recaps of sunken galleon ships which were discovered in past years, Dr. Hutch going on and on in bland exposition which again just appears like a gambit to fill pages. And no surprise, this stuff has no bearing on the story – hell, when we meet him, Hutch is going on and on about the Concepcion, the ship he’s certain is here in this area, but later in the novel he’s just like, “Oh, I was wrong – it’s not here,” and the entire subplot is dropped.

There’s absolutely no action for about 70 pages or so, a Penetrator first. That would be fine if the story was gripping, but it’s not. It’s repetitive and boring, padded to the extreme. In fact it comes off like some low-budget early-‘70s TV show, Hardin recast as Mannix or something, just hobknobbing around and doing a half-assed job picking up clues.

Even those weird plot elements of previous Cunningham installments is gone, with little of the sadism we’ve previously seen. Save, that is, for a bit at the end where Hardin blasts someone with white phosphorous, and the guy pleads with Hardin to allow him to kill himself, jumping into a shark pool! This scene is strange because Cunningham writes it that even Hardin feels sorry for the dude, when meanwhile he’s the one who doused him with WP in the first place.

I’m reading my way through this series, but I have to say Deepsea Shootout isn’t a necessary read. It’s just tepid and underwhelming, and actually doesn’t even seem to be a part of the normal Penetrator universe, more like a Travis McGee rip-off sort of thing. The highlights are few: the voodoo ceremony bit, which does flash a bit of the old Cunningham quirks when Kama, the pirate leader and priestess, offers herself to Hardin (it’s an obvious set-up, though), and the climax, where Hardin infiltrates an underwater lair straight out of a James Bond movie, one complete with that aforementioned shark pool.

Oh, and for once Hardin gets hurt badly, shot in his calf in the climatic battle, the bullet smashing the bone. This leaves him incapacitated for a bit, but in the final pages he’s already planning a detour to Miami, setting us up for the next installment. Here’s hoping it’s better than this dud.

MIA Hunter #5: Exodus From Hell

MIA Hunter #5: Exodus From Hell, by Jack Buchanan
February, 1986 Jove books

The MIA Hunter series gets another shot in the arm with its latest version of “Jack Buchanan,” who turns out to be none other than our old friend Chet Cunningham of the Penetrator series. Cunningham’s prose here is a little more polished than that earlier series, but make no mistake there’s still his patented sadism and characters who do bizarre things with little explanation.

As I’ve mentioned before this series is very repetitive. Each novel is basically the same as the one that came before, only the minor details are different. And what with the repetitive story angle and the revolving cast of journeyman ghostwriters (most of whom only stuck around for two novels or so), there’s no continuity or any sense of a building narrative. It’s just Mark “MIA Hunter” Stone once again sneaking into ‘Nam to break out some prisoners of war, along with a team of natives and his ersthwhile partners Hog Wiley and Terrance McLoughlin.

Actually that’s not fully true. This time Stone goes into Cambodia, not Vietnam. Already then the novel is worlds different from its predecessors. Okay, enough sarcasm. The country-change doesn’t make much difference at all. What’s funny though is that Stone and his team have freed the POWs within the first forty pages of the novel; Exodus From Hell is really about Stone and his team’s long journey back through Cambodia as they try to avoid enemy patrols, pick up a missionary (who is of course gorgeous) and her flock of orphans, and even encounter pygmies.

The reason they have to hoof it through Cambodia is because Stone’s helicopter is destroyed after they free the POWs. Speaking of which it’s here that Cunningham gets to unleash his trademark sadism, as one of the prisoners, Patterson, relishes the opportunity to mess up the camp commander pretty royally, basically butchering the guy. But after this pretty great opening scene the novel settles into more of an adventure-fiction flair, with the team trying to survive the elements.

Cunningham also indulges in his other trademark, the infrequent stream-of-consciousness material where he can jump into a character’s mind and go from topics A to Z in the course of a single sentence. He does so here with Patterson, who as we meet him is strung up in the camp for some minor infraction; he does so again later in the novel with Hillburton, the other freed POW, one who is close to losing his sanity.

Another constant with this series is the endless onslaught of action. Exodus From Hell is no exception. It starts off pretty well, with the expected skirmish as Stone frees the prisoners and then makes his escape, but gradually the book wears you down with nonstop scenes of Stone et al bumping into some Camodian (or Vietnamese) patrol and getting into yet another firefight. Stone by the way uses an SPAS-12 combat shotgun this time, newly introduced by Cunningham, as in the past Stone basically stuck with a CAR-15. However Cunningham plays it conservative with the many action scenes, not dwelling on the violence and gore as he did in say Bloody Boston.

One of the many goofy charms of Cunningham’s entries in the Penetrator series was hero Mark Hardin’s frequent encounters with nubile women, most of whom would throw themselves into his arms with almost a reckless abandon. It actually happens here as well, with Stone scoring with that missionary gal, an actual virgin named Mary Eve who has taught orphans in Cambodia for the past decade. The scene where she gives herself to Stone – while the rest of the team is apparently just a few feet away – is especially chuckle-inducing, mostly because it’s just so hamfisted and hard to believe. But at least Cunningham put some sex in the book, a rarity in the sterile, gung-ho world of ‘80s men’s adventure novels.

There’s a definite air of desperation as Stone and his men realize they’re up shit creek without a paddle. Cunningham works some tension into the narrative as they begin the dangerous journey back the way they came, and along the way they take a lot of damage. Loughlin gets hurt early on, but since he’s more cipher than man you quickly forget about it. But Hog really gets hurt, to such a point that they have to construct a rig to carry his massive frame – all of which adds to the futility of their plight.

The action scenes, while too frequent, are nevertheless well done, with Stone and team using their better equipment and training to take on much larger forces. Cunningham also jumps often into the POVs of the native guides, in particular Sen, a Cambodian woman who serves as interpreter before Mary Eve arrives on the scene. (Another hallmark of Cunningham’s is the sudden dropping of characters with no warning or reunion, as if he forgets about them before finishing the manuscript; Sen just drops out of the tale and we keep waiting for her to return but she never does.)

I think Cunningham also wrote Stone: MIA Hunter, ie the unnumbered volume of the series that was published after volume #6, but I’m not sure. Who all served as “Jack Buchanan” is something of a mystery, and it would be great if series honcho Stephen Mertz could someday shed light on it.

The Penetrator #14: Mankill Sport

The Penetrator #14: Mankill Sport, by Lionel Derrick
May, 1976 Pinnacle Books

As if realizing his version of the Penetrator was becoming more sadistic than the villains he fought, author Chet Cunningham in this installment tones down his approach, with hero Mark Hardin coming off more like a "regular" men's adventure hero and less like the ruthless psycho of previous Cunningham books. Or who knows, maybe Pinnacle Books requested the change.

At any rate, when we meet Hardin in the opening pages of Mankill Sport, he's on vacation with his on-again, off-again girlfriend Joanna Tabler, a Federal agent who has worked with (and gone to bed with) Hardin in previous volumes -- supiciously enough, only those volumes written by Cunningham. The couple is spending time in the beachfront home of Joanna's married friends, and here we not only get scenes of Hardin playing with the kids -- complete with him giving them horsey rides on his back!! -- but also "emotional moments" where Hardin and Joanna share a heart-to-heart and Joanna cries because she wants to marry Hardin and have his kids, but they both know it could never happen. Without question, the Mark Hardin here presented is a far cry from the torture-loving sociopath of #12: Bloody Boston.

Even more unbelievably, Cunningham continues to reign in Hardin's bloodlust for the duration of the novel, only allowing him to cut loose toward the very end. But even then, he shows little of the sadism displayed in previous Cunningham offerings. However Cunningham does make his villains pretty sadistic; this time out the target is Johnny Utah, a mob gangster from Detroit who is involved in the "narco trade" and has also been behind a lot of murders. When we meet Utah he's about to waste a cop, and here Cunningham comes off like a proto-David Alexander, detailing in endless detail the gory death of a minor character:

The slug caught Sergeant Manning on the chin and drove half the bone straight back into his mouth, pushed it past more tissue, then ripped and tore through the policeman's neck bone and heavy muscles, decapitating him. Manning's head, carried backward by the tremendous force of the magnum slug, flopped against his back as his body, which had not yet received the nearly instantaneous nerve responses, remained erect for a fraction of a second. Then his knees buckled and dropped him to a sitting position before his torso fell backward, completely covering his severed head which remained attached to the body only by a few strained muscles and stretched tendons.

Did I mention that Manning only appeared on the previous page, and didn't even have a single line of dialog? Anyway, Utah is as mentioned involved in all sorts of illicit stuff, but his latest plan is to hunt man -- "the most dangerous game," of course. Utah has bought a huge patch of land in the Canadian wilderness; here Utah assembles fellow gangsters and villains, among them a German sharpshooter, with the intent of setting loose one captive at a time into the wilderness, and then hunting after them.

Utah and his men snatch various runaways and transients from local Canadian towns and imprison them in cages on the property, leaving them there until their moment arrives. In a hasty and unelaborated subplot, one of the captives is a young hooker who runs afoul of one of Utah's colleagues; due to her big mouth she too finds herself in a cage, waiting to be hunted. And, of course, all of the prisoners are nude.

Hardin spends the majority of the book in research mode, only getting in one quick firefight when sneaking into Utah's mansion in Detroit. Here he figures out something is going on in Canada, and so for a long portion of the narrative Hardin snoops around a small town, trying to figure out the connection between Utah and the disappearance of so many locals. Gradually he deduces what's going on, and so poses as a bum in the hopes that Utah's men will capture him. Sure enough they do, and Hardin finds himself naked and caged with the rest of the captives, just where he wants to be.

I guess it's part of the charm of men's adventure novels that the hero, despite being nude, caged, and unarmed, knows that he is more than a match for the armed villains who have caught him, and can't wait for them to set him into the wilderness and start hunting after them, certain that he will make quick work of his pursuers. I mean, all tension and suspense is lost, because we readers also know that Hardin will have no difficulty turning the tables.

But while he is caged we get the brain-scarring scene of Hardin actually throwing his own excrement at Utah. You read that right. Utah of course has no idea who Hardin is, but after Hardin berates the guy, screams and rages, and throws shit at him (literally), Utah finally has had enough and sets Hardin free into the wilds. But Utah's so pissed that Hardin won't have the obligatory hour before his pursuers come after him.

Again, little matter. Mark Hardin, as we'll recall, has been trained in all of the esoteric arts of the Cheyenne warrior. The men who come after him provide little challenge, and soon enough Hardin has armed himself with an appropriated M-16. Very quickly he frees the captives and captures Utah. Here again, in the strangest moment of all, Cunningham still presents a "kinder, gentler" Mark Hardin. You'd figure Hardin would basically butcher Utah, but instead Hardin just takes him out of action with a shot and then ties the man up, allowing the captives their chance to vent their rage on the bastard -- but only to a point.

When the captives start to get sadistic, especially the hooker, Hardin blows away Utah with a mercy shot, stating that even such scum deserved more respect. I mean, who the hell is this guy?? We're talking here about a character who basically crippled an unarmed teenager in #14: Hijacking Manhattan, for absolutely no reason. I think it's safe to say there was some behind-the-scenes tinkering going on with this series. But who knows, maybe this was a momentary lapse in the sadism of Cunningham's version of Hardin. I guess I'll find out as I continue to read the series.

It does look, though, like the authors tried to goof with each other: Cunningham ends the novel with Hardin actually planning to take the hooker back with him to the Stronghold -- you know, the top-secret base of operations for Hardin and his two partners -- and wondering what the Professor and David Red Eagle will have to say about it. As if Cunningham was baiting writing partner Mark Roberts -- checking the next volume, however, proves that the hooker goes unmentioned. I guess she didn't like living with three guys. Plus it would be hard to turn tricks in the middle of the desert.

The Penetrator #12: Bloody Boston

The Penetrator #12: Bloody Boston, by Lionel Derrick
January, 1976 Pinnacle Books

Chet Cunningham delivers another rough and wild volume of the The Penetrator that's light on plot but heavy on sadism and gore. Once again Cunningham's version of Mark "Penetrator" Hardin is more vicious than the villains he fights, and the tale -- about a former college pal of Hardin's who has been replaced by a mob lookalike -- is just a convenient framework for Cunningham to depict countless scenes of Hardin brutally torturing various Mafia henchmen before killing them in novel ways. In other words, the book's pretty great.

The setting this time out is Boston, not that the reader gets much of a feel for the place. Instead, the focus is on carnage; Bloody Boston opens with a horrific scene in which Mark Hardin, our friggin' hero, tortures and mutilates a mob goon for intel. I mean, I started to feel bad for the goon. But Hardin shrugs it off, getting the information he needs; his schooltime chum, Tony Rossi, has called Mark for his help.

Tony Rossi is the son of a Boston Mafioso (I wonder if he's any relation to Bruno Rossi??) but really isn't involved with the family. Instead, Tony's been in the Amazon for the past few years; a researcher, he was kidnapped by a local tribe and held hostage. Escaping to the US, Tony found that a stand-in was posing as "Tony Rossi," and his wife and son were held captive in a mob stronghold. His father, ailing and near death, has disappeared.

Why exactly Tony calls Hardin is never made clear; Tony has no idea that Hardin is the Penetrator. Like I said, it's all immaterial, really. Hardin's going to torture and butcher a few people, that's all there is to it. In one of Chet Cunningham's patented WTF? scenes, Hardin answers a knock at their hotel door only to find a beautiful gal standing out there, one who asks if he is Mark Hardin, then produces a revolver and takes a shot at him. Saved of course by his spry reflexes, Hardin disarms the lady, only to discover it's Tony's sister Angie. Having received a panicked call from Tony, Angie came here to Boston, bought a gun, and, despite her panicking, apparently was able to remember not only Hardin's name but also the name of their hotel -- all while forgetting that Tony said that Hardin was helping him. Pretty dumb.

Anyway Angie's presence sets the stage for lots of sexual bantering between her and Hardin. The three work together with Hardin of course doing the dirty work himself. There are some fun sequences in here, like when Hardin infiltrates the Rossi mansion and poses as a loudmouthed Mafioso. There's another fun scene where he portrays a short-tempered repairman; this scene culminates in something out of a 1930s cliffhanger, with Hardin and Tony stuck in a locked cell that slowly fills with poison gas, all while a voice on a speaker tells them they're about to die.

I lost track of the number of mobsters Hardin wastes. Cunningham must've been in one nasty mood, because these poor Boston mobsters suffer like hell. There's a particularly grisly scene where Hardin sneaks on a mob-rented fishing boat; Hardin takes out the crew and mauls the mobster and tosses him into the ocean, putting a massive hook into the guy and pulling him along behind the boat. After the mobster finally spews the desired info, Hardin thanks him kindly and then shoots him in the face.

Just to give a taste of what I'm talking about, check out this scene, where Hardin has just knocked out a guard in a stairwell with his poison dart gun. Hardin, not sure if the man was Mafia or not, only hit him with a knockout dose. After confirming that the man is indeed Mafia, Hardin...well, just read for yourself:

Mark tensed his right hand and slammed the side of it hard against the underside of the hoodlum's nose. The Penetrator felt the small bones in back of the nose crush, knew that deadly splinters of bone and cartilage were being driven backwards, slanting through pulpy areas and directly into the Mafioso's brain. The body trembled; then a strong gush of air flowed from the man's mouth and at the same time Mark smelled the stench of feces as the involuntary muscles quite working. That was one hoodlum who had shit his pants for the last time.

That paragraph could've come out of Blood Bath. The only difference between the Penetrator and the Sharpshooter or the Marksman is that Hardin occasionally questions the rightness of his brutal actions. But of course he always convinces himself that he is just. Cunningham even has Hardin's pal Tony gradually become concerned about Hardin; there are a few scenes here where Tony will just gape at Hardin after he's performed the latest bit of sadism.

However this is merely Cunningham setting us up. Indeed he is so focused on sequences of graphic violence that he loses the main plot of the book. I spent the entire novel waiting to see Tony go head-to-head with the stand-in who'd replaced him, but we never even get to see the guy. Instead Cunningham has Hardin and Tony capture the Mafioso behind the plot, and Tony goes full-on insane on the bastard, giving the guy a stomping that would make even Gannon puke. I'm talking total demolition, complete with the mobster's eyeballs popping out and everything!

Yeah, Bloody Boston is certainly something else. Manor Books and the aforementioned Sharpshooter and Marksman series get all the credit for their graphically-violent sleaze level, but Chet Cunningham's Penetrator is right down there in the gore with them.

The Penetrator #10: The Hellbomb Flight

The Penetrator #10: The Hellbomb Flight, by Lionel Derrick
August, 1975 Pinnacle Books

Chet Cunningham's back in the saddle as "Lionel Derrick," casting The Penetrator, Mark Hardin, into a goofy and convoluted plot that never quite comes together.

The "villain" this time is Dr. Orlando Fitzmueller, a NASA scientist who is certain the Russians have launched a nuclear missile-firing device into space, under the guise of an innocuous weather sattelite. Fitzmueller realizes that if this weapon got into the wrong hands -- or if the US and USSR engaged in open warfare -- mankind itself would be doomed.

But when his NASA superiors refuse to heed his warnings, Fitzmueller breaks free of them and becomes a regular mad scientist, holed up in a compound in the middle of the desert. With the assistance of a sadistic right-hand man, Fitzmueller commands a group of science-type contractors who don't realize what their boss's main goal is: namely, to commandeer the Russian missile-launcher and use it to blackmail the leaders of the world into destryoing their nuclear arsenals. In other words, to threaten untold destruction in order to attain peace.

Mark Hardin enters the fray when his DC pal Dan Griggs -- who, by the way, is the man tasked by the US government to track down and capture Hardin -- gives him a call and points Hardin in the direciton of Fitzmueller. From there we have the usual method of operation as displayed in previous novels in the series: Hardin arrives on the location, scouts it out, kills a few guys, and somehow finds the time to have sex.

The lady in question this time is Joanna Tabler, Griggs's assistant; we last saw her in the Cunningham-penned Hijacking Manhattan. There Joanna and Hardin appeared to become quite serious, but in true men's adventure fashion she disappeared in the following novels. Regardless the two pick their hot affair right back up. Otherwise Joanna doesn't add much to the storyline, other than a few page-filling scenes where she talks to Griggs on the phone.

Cunningham also finally ties up a plotstrand that's been going on for the past few volumes; Sal Mitzutaki, Hardin's one-time gun supplier who tried to get Hardin killed back in Tokyo Purple, finally gets his comeuppance. This scene has nothing to do with the rest of the book, but again provides Cunningham with the opportunity to show how merciless his version of the Penetrator is.

For once again Mark Hardin is a cold son of a bitch this time out, torturing mobsters and then killing them once he's gotten his information. In one chilling scene he puts an incindiary device in the pants of a mobster -- a mobster Hardin's already been torturing for several pages -- and then runs away just before the bastard blows up. What makes it all the weirder is that the mobster doesn't believe it's really a bomb Hardin has stuck in his waistband, and so continues jabbering on as he meets his doom.

The finale is anticlimatic in that instead of a one-man raid on Fitzmueller's compound, we instead have Hardin chasing around Fitzmueller's henchmen (who have taken control of the operation from Fitzmueller; they want to blackmail the leaders of the world for money, not peace). I say "anticlimatic" because Hardin merely follows after them in a helicopter, with the ensuing air battle quite one-sided.

Cunningham also provides the expected lurid stuff; Fitzmueller has a daughter, and when Hardin tracks her down in order to get some info from her, the girl -- who's gorgeous, of course -- immediately strips down and tries to seduce him. Hardin ignores the offer; strangely, Fitzmueller's daughter then drops from the plot.

So then, it's still rocky going for this series; hard to believe that it continued on for almost another ten years. I'm assuming some good stuff must be coming along, eventually.

A Study of Action-Adventure Fiction: The Executioner and Mack Bolan

A Study of Action-Adventure Fiction: The Executioner and Mack Bolan, by William H. Young
January, 1996 Edwin Mellen Press

Who would've thought that a scholarly tome was published about the Executioner series?? Well, one was, and it's one hell of a weighty tome, packed with detail and insight. The author, William H. Young, is a literature professor who has taken it upon himself to document the series, and while it's interesting to read one man's thoughts on the novels, the cost of the book is prohibitive. I got it via InterLibrary Loan, and I suggest you do the same.

The majority of the book is Young's summary of every installment in the Executioner series from #1 up to the final volume published in 1991, including the SuperBolans and Stony Mans. (Able Team and Phoenx Force are not covered.) This same information is of course available on mackbolan.com, in the reviews section; only there you get the perspectives of several reviewers rather than one man. And given that Young is a professor, you get more of a scholarly view here -- however not as much as I would've liked. Instead Young relays the plot of each volume and comments on the author's skill, how each ghostwriter's version of Bolan differs from Pendleton's (he vastly prefers Pendleton's work to the ghostwriters), and he also takes time to point out troublesome entries in the series (he very much dislikes the work of Dan Schmidt, E. Richard Churchill, and Peter Leslie; there are others he roasts but these are his least favorite).

What's odd is that Young often relents that so many latter entries in the series are "gory," as if he has no idea the genre he is reading. He even comments on the "regrettable violence" of some of Pendleton's originals, and shows much disgust with the scenes with the "turkey doctors." This book, published in 1996, bears all the hallmarks of the then-current Politically Correct scene, with Young apparently wishing for a "kinder, gentler" Executioner, and he also goes on about various "racist" bits he encounters...again not realizing that this exploitative, over-the-top nature is part of the genre's charm.

He ranks Mike Newton as the best of the ghostwriters -- further, he ranks Newton's Prairie Fire as the best Executioner novel ever, even better than Pendleton's originals. I have this volume but haven't yet read it.

Young shows special distate for Chet Cunningham's Baltimore Trackdown, spending two pages going on about that volume's "sadism" and gore. (Of course, immediately after reading this I got myself a copy of Baltimore Trackdown!)

The biggest draw to the book is the behind-the-scenes stuff, which admittedly isn't much. Young wrote this in the pre-Internet world and so didn't have access to as much info as we do now. (Ie, he has no idea who 16th-volume author "Jim Peterson" was, when a simple Google search today will tell you it was William Crawford.) Young instead gains insight from interviews with various authors, conducted by mail, which are published at the end of the book: from 1986 he has interviews with Don Pendleton, Mike Newton, and Chet Cunningham. Of the three, Cunningham proves himself the funniest, sort of poking fun at Pendleton's original books. Then from 1990 Young has another mail-conducted interview, this time with Mel Odom.

It's a bit frustrating in there's no rapport in the interviews; each interviewee was given the same set of questions to answer. We do however get a little information about the troubles Pendleton had with Gold Eagle, including a lawsuit in 1986. In fact twice he almost lost the rights to the series, first with Pinnacle (which resulted in the Jim Peterson-written Sicilian Slaughter, which Pendleton admits here to never having read), then with Gold Eagle, which increasingly distanced itself from Pendleton and his advice on the direction the series should take.

In summary, about 400 pages are given over to Young's rundown/commentary on the entire series up to 1991. Then we have a section on the Pinnacle cover art, where, believe it or not, Young comments on every single cover, explaining what they look like. This is followed by another chapter where he does the same thing for the Gold Eagle books! These two sections will be a trying read for most.

We also have another short section where Young looks at the Executioner's "competitors;" ie other men's adventure series. But this is a woefully short list; he is unaware even of the Sharpshooter series -- however he does list the Marksman series, commenting that it is only for "the very sick." (Honestly, Young comes off like a total wimp in this book.) And again he demonstrates his lack of research; in the entry for the Penetrator , Young states that he only knows that Chet Cunningham was one of the authors for that series, and he has no idea who the other author was. But all a person has to do is open up any odd-numbered entry in the Penetrator series, look at the copyright page, and there find "Special acknowledgement is given to Mark K. Roberts."

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this one as a purchase; I'd say get it via InterLibrary Loan like I did. However if you do buy it, it might prove valuable in the long run, as something you can often check back to for various (but scant) behind-the-scenes info.

The Penetrator #8: Northwest Contract

The Penetrator #8: Northwest Contract, by Lionel Derrick
February, 1975 Pinnacle Books

Did Edward James Olmos pose for the cover painting or what?? Anyway, this installment of The Penetrator is a big improvement over the last one. It's another breezy, action and violence-filled offering from Chet Cunningham, who if it isn't clear by now has become my favorite of the two "Lionel Derricks."

It also has become clear that Cunningham and Mark Roberts (aka the other Derrick) were only collaborating to a certain point on the series; I'm betting they were writing their respective volumes at the same time, as each of them only peripherally refer to the other's installments. This almost makes Mark Hardin come off like he suffers from multiple personalities. I can see how two authors switch-hitting on a title could keep it from getting stale (it's my understanding that Don Pendleton's original Executioner series eventually suffered from repetitive storylines), but in a way it hurts the continuity.

Hardin decides to pay a visit to an old 'Nam buddy in Seattle, a guy who has now become a cop. Our hero is so out of touch that he doesn't even know his friend has been dead for six months, killed while on duty. But Hardin sticks around because he suspects foul play; quickly he determines that there is a dirty subset in the Seattle Police Department. A group of cops who extort, murder, and even run whorehouses on the side. Hardin decides it's killing time.

There's not much of a plot here, or even any sort of suspense. But at the same time it's fun in its empty-headed way, because it's just a series of action bits in which Mark Hardin kills a bunch of cops. In his bloody quest he drafts another former 'Nam pal, a black guy named Zip who is now confined to a wheelchair thanks to a VC landmine. Zip runs a leather goods store in Seattle and gathers intel for Hardin, but we don't see much of him in action; rather, the narrative is given over to Hardin beating the shit out of various cops for information, taping their confessions, and then raiding their storehouses. Along the way he leaves his mandatory arrowhead calling cards, dropping dimes to a newspaper reporter to ensure the story gets out.

What I enjoy about Cunningham's entries in the series is the unexpected twists and turns he sometimes takes. In a way his books are like the grindhouse/drive-in exploitative fare that was popular at the time -- grim and gritty sensationalistic stuff that didn't cater to the expected form. For example, Hardin gains another ally here, an Asian prostitute he saves from one of those cop-run whorehouses. The girl has a vivacious personality and is ready to help Hardin take on the crooked cops, and just when the reader expects to see her play a bigger role in the story, Cunningham throws a curveball and destroys your assumptions.

There's the usual in-jokery afoot in Northwest Contract, as has now become de rigueur in the series. For one Hardin uses the cover name Mack Colan, but in a funnier instance -- and another sign of how the times have changed -- he pretends to be a gay interior designer. And I mean gay of the flaming variety. He "swishes" through the lobby of an upper-class apartment and announces himself as "the Pierre," all while wearing a shoulder-length wig.

The action scenes in this one aren't as spectacular as previous volumes, but then Hardin is only fighting a few guys at a time. He again takes a substantial amount of damage, getting shot in the shoulder and going into another of his deliriums. He also manages to pick up a lady, the widow of his old 'Nam buddy, and a somewhat explicit sex scene ensues.

But once again Cunningham delivers a Penetrator more cruel than the average men's adventure hero; the finale of Northwest Contract features our "hero" announcing himself as "judge and jury" and then fatally shooting a naked and unarmed woman -- right "between the breasts," even. And as if that wasn't enough he immediately thereafter blows away another woman. Safe to say this scene wouldn't have made it into the film version.

The Penetrator #6: Tokyo Purple

The Penetrator #6: Tokyo Purple, by Lionel Derrick
October, 1974 Pinnacle Books

You know Chet Cunningham's back in the author's saddle when one of the first lines of the book is: Now he wanted a short vacation far from the smarting smell of cordite; away from the blazing guns and sudden death; far from the surrealistic display of a skull exploding three feet in front of him with brains, blood, and bone fragments splattering the nearest wall. Now that's how you start a novel!

Published the month and year I was born, Tokyo Purple finds our pal Mark Hardin, the Penetrator, taking a much-deserved vacation. As the title indicates, he settles upon Tokyo; he last visited the city during some r-n-r back in "the 'Nam." On his way there Hardin makes a brief stop in Hong Kong, sightseeing with his new girlfriend: Akemi, a genuine Groovy Stewardess. Hardin the superstud actually picked the lady up during the JAL flight; unfortunately Cunningham robs us of this scene. I would've given anything to see Hardin the pick-up artist at work.

Hardin figures he can rest a bit easy in Asia as he isn't a wanted man over here, and the mob tentacles likely don't reach this far. But this being an action novel, he's nevertheless attacked posthaste. With only his dart gun, nicknamed Ava, Hardin kills the pursuers. They appear to be Japanese and each of them carries a purple cord. A horrified Akemi informs Hardin that these men are members of the Sendai Purple, basically the Japanese mafia (Though he sprinkles the narrative with some basic Japanese, Cunningham never uses the term yakuza.)

Once he and Akemi move on to Tokyo, Hardin discovers that he's for sure being hunted. The Sendai Purple is after him, and at length he discovers why: back in the fourth volume, Hijacking Manhattan, Hardin ratted out on his Japanese arms supplier in exchange for some needed intel. It turns out the supplier has now sicked the Japanese mob on Hardin in retaliation. This is enough plot for a men's adventure novel, but Cunningham muddles it with a subplot: Hardin's benefactor, Professor Haskins, calls Hardin to tell him that an American girl named Melissa Broadhurst has gone missing in Sendai, and wants Hardin to try to find her. And guess who kidnapped the girl? Yep, the Sendai Purple. It's a bit too pat, but what can you do.

Melissa, despite being a brick-shithouse blonde, is a nuclear scientist, and the boss of the Sendai Purple wants her to build some triggers for atomic bombs he plans to sell to the highest bidder. This boss is named Kamisori, aka the Razor, and he runs his show from a fortress in Sendai, surrounded by armed guards. The novel's more lurid stuff occurs early on: Melissa refuses to work for Kamisori, who then strips the girl nude and locks her in a room, telling her he will come back to rape her in three days if she doesn't change her mind. And he carries through on the threat, even going so far as to torture her a bit.

Meanwhile Hardin, who has left Akemi back in Tokyo, drives across rural Japan searching out clues in Melissa's disappearance. Vast stretches of Tokyo Purple come off like a travelogue, which makes sense...Hardin is on vacation, after all. And after the action onslaught of the previous volume, it's good for the guy and the reader to get a little breather. Cunningham also takes the opportunity to butcher the language as the native Japanese speak in overdone pidgin English.

But to be sure Cunningham does provide the occasional action sequence, including a nice one early on where Hardin is trapped in a pulping plant, hurtling down a tube to be pulped with old newspapers and junked books: a fitting end for a pulp hero. There's also a funny scene where Hardin visits a steam bath, but can't handle the lava-heated water. I spent a semester of college in Japan and fell in love with these things (onsens), but then, when I was in one armed thugs weren't coming after me.

After hooking up with a group of anti-nuke students who have aligned themselves with a high-tiered member of Sendai Purple -- who is against Kamisori's plans to use atomic weapons -- Hardin infiltrates the fortress headquarters and goes into action. This is another action-packed sequence with Hardin again taking a massive beating, not to mention ruptured eardrums after one guy fires a howitzer within an enclosed space. During the battle Hardin finds Melissa, who helps the injured Penetrator get out of the burning building; Cunningham builds up some romantic tension between the two but then quickly drops it.

One thing I enjoy about this series is that authors Roberts and Cunningham always provide a novelty death for the main villain. A lot of these books usually suffer from anticlimatic endings, with the boss bad guy either just getting shot or blown up or done away with in an offhand manner. The Penetrator series however delivers climatic final fights that are more satisfying for the reader. In the case of Tokyo Purple it's Hardin going up against Kamisori in the bowels of the Sendai Purple headquarters, fighting each other with an array of vintage handheld weaponry.

And by the way this volume features my favorite cover art yet in the series, with its groovy psychedelic pattern and foxy nude lady (who appears to lack nipples, but you can't win 'em all).

The Penetrator #4: Hijacking Manhattan

The Penetrator #4: Hijacking Manhattan, by Lionel Derrick
April, 1974 Pinnacle Books

This was Chet Cunningham's second go as "Lionel Derrick," and though I was a bit hard on his first contribution to the series, #2: Blood On The Strip, I have to say Cunningham redeems himself in a big way here: Hijacking Manhattan is a whole bunch of lurid, trashy fun, and is probably my favorite volume yet of the Penetrator series.

This fourth volume also proves the line of demarcation between the two Lionel Derricks. Whereas Mark Roberts, author of the even-numbered volumes, delivers hard-edged thrillers along the lines of The Executioner, Chet Cunningham instead delivers sordid trash more in the vein of The Sharpshooter. Also, Mark "Penetrator" Hardin himself is a different character, depending on the author: in the Mark Roberts-penned books, Hardin is a tough s.o.b. who kills the bad guys with impunity but shows mercy when necessary, and is at heart a "good" guy. However in the Cunningham books Hardin is a psychopath more along the lines of Johnny "Sharpshooter" Rock, a nutcase who kills, tortures, and maims anyone who gets in his way. If the Penetrator was coming after me, I would pray for the Mark Roberts version.

Hijacking Manhattan could just've easily been a volume of The Sharpshooter or The Marksman. A cabal of black radicals calling themselves Black Gold has united in New York City, working with the Red Chinese to bring down The Man. Lead by a hateful little bastard named Abdul Daley, a guy actually kicked out of the Black Panthers for being too radical, Black Gold has begun a war against the nation. The novel truly preys on the fears of the conservative white male, circa 1974; Daley and his brothers (all of whom Cunningham repeatedly describes as "black" so there be no confusion) will stop at nothing to destroy the white man's world and usher in a new era of Black Power. Already they have destroyed one subway station in NYC and have threatened to destroy more if there demands are not met.

After a brief respite from his recent adventures in D.C., as documented in the previous volume, Mark Hardin gets on the case. This leads to one of the most enjoyable and unintentionally (?) hilarious sequences I've yet read in men's adventure fiction: Hardin, as white as the Hardy Boys, attempts to go undercover as a black man. Using makeup and a wig, he even walks the streets of New York City, attempting to learn how to "act black." It's like Soul Man with guns. What makes me suspect this entire sequence was an intentional joke is that Hardin is instantly discovered -- by an airheaded secretary at the Abdul Daley-run auto paintjob garage, no less.

About those disguises: this is another difference between the two Lionel Derricks. For Chet Cunningham also plays up the spy-fy elements of the series; Hardin is always wearing some sort of disguise, and even wears disposable gloves which have fake fingerprints on them, gloves which look like real skin. This is a nice "bit" which gives the otherwise-bland Penetrator a nice spin. However as mentioned his disguise fails in this instance and so Hardin must revert to his usual method of investigation: ie, killing everyone.

As these things happen in the world of men's adventure fiction, Hardin eventually meets up with a gorgeous gal who helps him: Joanna Tabler, who claims to work for a private detective firm but whom Hardin suspects is really a government agent. The two have instant chemistry -- Hardin has Joanna strip all the way down when he meets her, to ensure she isn't wearing a wire -- but our hero keeps her at arm's length, not wanting to get involved with a woman (apparently forgetting that he slept with another woman in the previous volume).

Meanwhile Abdul Daley and his gang bring New York City to its knees. Their demands are always carefully stated and go off without a hitch. First they insist upon a black female cop delivering the initial payment of ransom money -- money they demand if the city wants to prevent another bombing. In a lurid sequence they abduct the cop and gang-rape her; the last we see of this unfortunate character she's hog-tied to a hotel bed, wondering how long until she's freed. Did Cunningham forget about her? The next ransom-paying sequence is more humorous, as Black Gold demands that the millions be delivered by "a midget in a Honda Civic." There's more hilarity as Hardin watches the TV newscasts of the failed attempts by NYC cops to stop Black Gold, the newscasters snidely berating the cops for their stupidity and many failures. Hard to imagine in today's "unbiased" media.

Hardin gets in several battles and tortures various stooges, showing no compunction for age or innocence. In one WTF? scene he cripples some poor college kid whom Hardin suspects of Black Gold-alliance just because the kid's a member of a Black Power movement -- a nonviolent one at that. In another scene Hardin mauls a pair of Asian youths who run drugs; the first kid he carves up with a knife and then squirts lighter fluid into the open wounds, lighting them up with a match; the other kid he nearly strangles and then ruptures his ear drums. And yet, despite all of this we learn that Hardin "can't shoot a woman," one "Puritan" trait that he cannot shake; we learn this when Soo Lin, Red Chinese operative and Abdul Daley's lover, tries to kill Hardin, and Hardin finds himself unable to shoot back at her. It goes without saying that Hardin learns to overcome this failing of his before novel's end.

Of course it all leads up to a full-on assault by Hardin on the Black Gold compound, which is filled with trained and armed militants. This is a taut scene and very well done. Hardin, again in his "thermal suit," goes in alone with various weapons, including an Uzi and a few white phosphorous grenades. This must've been one of the first appearances of an Uzi in men's adventure fiction, as Cunningham spends a few paragraphs explaining it. This sequence comes off like 24 a few decades early, as Hardin discovers that Black Gold has an experimental virus which they plan to unleash on the city; Hardin, outgunned, must get the virus out of the compound before it blows. And again Hardin takes more damage than the typical men's adventure protagonist; he gets shot in the chest in the climax and must crawl, half-dead, for an awaiting helicopter.

After a bit of field surgery in Joanna Tabler's apartment, Hardin is ready for a brief vacation with the lady in Miami or somewhere equally sunny. This implies that the two are about to become an item -- it's clearly stated that Joanna has fallen in love with Hardin -- but a brief glance through the next volume shows that Joanna does not appear. Oh well. The Penetrator can't be tied down by any one woman!

I really enjoyed this trashy and fun installment and now look forward to continuing on with the series.

The Penetrator #2: Blood On The Strip

The Penetrator #2: Blood On The Strip, by Lionel Derrick

October, 1973 Pinnacle Books

The first Penetrator was a fun if passable tale firmly in the tradition of Don Pendleton: fast-moving with good crisp narrative and prose. This one is a lot more rough, downright inept at times, with lame dialog, poor characterization, and laughable "plot" developments. But at the same time, it's much more lurid than The Target Is H, coming off like The Sharpshooter, with gleefully-described gore and all sorts of perversion. The difference in style is easily explained: "Lionel Derrick" was a psuedonym for Mark Roberts and Chet Cunningham, the former author handling the odd-numbered volumes and the latter handling the even-numbered ones.

The Mafia-vendetta of volume #1 is quickly jettisoned. Instead, this volume appropriates a freeflowing angle: Mark "Penetrator" Hardin takes on a personal job this time out, vowing to destroy a sordid organization which has mutilated a female acquantance. After wiping out the California branch, Hardin traces the organization down to Las Vegas. What these people do is provide female talent for clubs and casinos; the girls are ordered to provide sex for the clientele, and if the girls refuse they are locked up in cages and "trained." If that doesn't work the girls are mutilated, their faces chopped up, to serve as examples to the others. A busty blonde named The Fraulein helms the operation, an ice-cold bitch who puts all her resources into locating this "California Man" who has destroyed her CA branch and who now appears to be wasting members of her Vegas headquarters.

The battles between Hardin and the Fraulein's men are pretty boring. Indeed, this novel comes close to the nadir of The Sharpshooter #9: Stiletto. It's all just so choppy and clumsy. And repetitive; Blood On The Strip quickly sets into a rut, with multiple variations on the scenario of Hardin staking out the Fraulein's buildings, setting bombs, calling her to gloat, and then killing a few of her men. The Fraulein has the makings of a good villain but in the hands of this version of Lionel Derrick she's more laughable than threatening. She comes off like a total idiot and only after suffering much loss does she smarten up and fight back. To wit, she captures the mutilated girl which set off Hardin's entire campaign, but even this development is quickly curtailed with another middling action scene.

An unintentionally (?) hilarious development occurs halfway through the novel with the appearance of Andrea, a pretty girl who, with her mother, has been hunting down Mark. Andrea's father was one of the Army officials sanctioned in the black market-fiasco Mark exposed in Vietnam (rendered in flashback in The Target Is H). After her father committed suicide in shame, Andrea's mother vowed to find and kill Mark Hardin, the man responsible. Taking her daughter along, she travelled about the country in search of him. And, so close to finding him, died herself in a random car crash. Now Andrea alone survives to gain vengeance for her family.

This would've made for a grand subplot, one that could've been spun out for a few volumes, but the above background is relayed in two pages of dense background immediately upon Andrea's introduction. It comes off like an afterthought, especially when, right after her introduction, Andrea confronts Mark -- and is so overcome by his manly charisma that she hands him her pistol and renounces her family's vendetta. She even agrees to go out to dinner with him! It's all pretty funny and a definite "WTF?" moment -- but then, such moments are hallmarks of the men's adventure genre.

One good thing about Blood On The Strip is that it gets more and more twisted as it goes along. Any rosy conclusions the reader might expect are blitzed in a gory finale in which, again, Hardin acts more like Johnny "Sharpshooter" Rock than the hero we met in The Target Is H. There's a total "Johnny Rock moment" where Hardin tortures a gunman by stomping him on the kidney and then blowing off his kneecaps: "What'd I ever do to you?" the gunman groans, and we can only feel his pain. In the world of '70s men's adventure novels, there isn't much distinction between the heroes and the villains.

Anyway, a bumpy ride, but one with a few rewarding moments. I'm hoping the Chet Cunningham contributions to The Penetrator improve, but again, the rough nature does lend Blood On The Strip a little charm.

The back cover also provides another unintentional laugh, with the line:

It is late. He has penetrated, now he must complete the mission and escape.