Len Levinson Back In Print

I meant to post this back in September, but better late than never, I guess. Thanks to Devin Murphy of Destroyer Books, six novels by Len Levinson are back in print, in both paperback and eBook editions. 

The six books are:

The Bar Studs 
Doom Platoon
Inside Job
The Goering Treasure 
Without Mercy 
Operation: Perfidia (with a new, never-before-published ending)

The print editions all look great and are trade paperback size. These six are the first in “The Len Levinson Collection,” but to quote those ads in the back of old Pinnacle paperbacks, there will hopefully be “more to come…”

Here’s a direct link to the Len Levinson Collection on Amazon.

The Fast Life

The Fast Life, by Cynthia Wilkerson
No month stated, 1979  Belmont Tower Books

The second of two novels Len Levinson wrote as Cynthia Wilkerson, The Fast Life is nothing at all like its predecessor, Sweeter Than Candy. Whereas that earlier novel was a sleazy yet goofy tale of a Manhattan-based harlot, this novel is more akin to a category romance, or at the very least something like Jacqueline Susann might’ve written. It’s also longer than the average Belmont Tower book of the day, coming in at only 318 pages but with fairly small print.

Like Sweeter Than Candy, The Fast Life features a female protagonist, but this novel is told in third person. Our hero is Roni Woodward, a 22-year-old blonde knockout from Savannah, Georgia who has just graduated college and is taking a leisurely tour of Europe with her wallflower of a cousin. On the first page of the novel Roni is in Paris and meets Chaz Razzoni, an Italian in his 40s who is internationally famous as a Grand Prix racer, though Roni has never heard of him.

Chaz is described as a sort of European dandy, a veritable greasy lothario, but he has his European ways with women and Roni, despite herself, feels drawn to him. He promptly begins hitting on her; the first several pages are comprised of their first conversation, in a café on the Champ Elysees. Chaz for his part feels drawn to Roni, and not just due to her stunning looks and awesome boobs. He senses something different about her, a fire burning within her that is much like his own. She’s also, he later professes, just as self-involved as Chaz himself is.

I might not be an internationally-famous sports celebrity or an Italian lothario, but I am around the same age as Chaz, and I at least would know that Roni spells nothing but trouble. When Chaz picks her up in his Guastalla 450 GT (Guastalla being the Lamborghini-like manufacturer Chaz races for) for their first date, Roni claims that she used to drive her now-dead brother’s stock car, back in Georgia, and says she wouldn’t mind driving Chaz’s car. When Chaz doubts her skills, this leads to a huge breakdown on Roni’s part, demanding that Chaz let her out, even grabbing hold of his wrist and tearing into him so savagely that she draws blood.

At this point I would’ve hooked a U-turn and dropped her ass back off at the hotel.

But Chaz shrugs it off and indeed feels bad about it. Wanting to get this off their collective chests as soon as possible, he forgoes the party they were headed for and instead takes Roni to a nearby racetrack. There he allows her to take his Guastalla for a few spins around the track. One thing to note about The Fast Life: unlike the other novels I’ve read with racing protagonists, such as the Don Miles and The Mind Masters books, this book actually does have a lot of racing stuff in it. In fact there are racing scenes that go on for several pages.

The first quarter of the novel documents Roni’s introduction to the European jet set of the mid ‘70s. (Interestingly, we aren’t informed until page 212 that all of this is occuring in 1974, the same year as a few of Len’s other books, for example The Bar Studs and Bronson: Streets Of Blood.) She instantly butts heads with most of them, in particular the Countess to whose castle Chaz takes her to on their first date. Here also Roni meets other characters who will gradually become important in the narrative, in particular Bobby Barnes, a 23 year-old American Grand Prix champion who races for a British team, and Gilles Cachen, a mean-looking Frenchman who races for Guastalla.

Roni’s brother Allan was as mentioned a stock car racer, and died in a wreck; Roni due to this (and other reasons) has kept herself from being interested in racing or from letting herself go and enjoying life. But Chaz opens this world back up for her, and she finds that she still wants to race, especially after driving his Guastalla. And after, uh, driving Chaz himself (in the first of the novel’s few graphic sex scenes – which by the way are nowhere as sleazy and explicit as in Sweeter Than Candy), Roni not only becomes Chaz’s new woman but also talks him into letting her drive one of his starter race cars.

Living with Chaz now outside of Rome, Roni competes in the Formula Junior race, which is open mostly to youngsters and women – we are reminded quite often that there are no female Grand Prix racers. Roni, driving aggressively and skillfully, wins the race, and is dubbed the “American Eagle” by the press. (This is a world by the way where junior races in Europe are reported on in Georgia newspapers, and Roni’s shocked and worried parents immediately become aware of her newfoud fame – and proceed to nag her to come home.) But this isn’t enough for greedy Roni, who insists that she should be given a chance to be on Chaz’s Guastalla team, and to race against professional drivers on the Grand Prix circuit.

Chaz for his part is so smitten with Roni that he basically evangelizes for her with his superiors at Guastalla. Unsurprisingly, they’re not interested – the girl, after all, has only won a single race in her life! But Chaz, who hasn’t had much success in racing lately, decides that if he wins an upcoming race he will be so “hot” that Guastalla will have no choice but to give in to his demands…especially if he threatens to quit. This is exactly what happens, Len turning out another long racing sequence. Oh and I forgot to mention – Chaz brings to mind other ‘70s Levinson protagonists, picking himself up a healthy cocaine addiction in his determination to win the race at any cost.

In fact this coke frenzy is what serves to drive an eventual wedge between Chaz and Roni, as a cocaine-numbed Chaz becomes increasingly withdrawn, distant, and uninterested in sex. He’s now a champion again and can think only of racing. Roni meanwhile gets her wishes fulfilled with a contract with Guastalla, the president unhappily caving in to Chaz’s demands, though she soon finds out that they plan to treat her as nothing more than a public relations prop. But Roni insists that she’s to be treated like a “real” racer and puts in serious time on the track with Giuseppi, the man who claims to have coached Chaz to greatness. As the novel progresses, Chaz fades more to the background and Roni becomes our sole protagonist.

As far as protagonists go, Roni is kind of…well, I’m not sure what to think of her. She is for the most part unlikable. “Self-involved,” “irascible,” “incapable of loving anyone but herself;” these are just a few of the ways she’s described by the other characters (and sometimes by herself). Yet she’s too multidimensional to just be disregarded as an unlikable character. She shares the same goal-oriented mindset of most every other Len Levinson protagonist, determined to storm her way through life and go for the gold. Yet at the same time she misses that spark that makes Len’s other protagonists so likable; even Len’s version of Joe Ryker in The Terrorists was more likable than Roni.

Because, as the reader soon learns, Roni feels no gratitude for what’s been handed to her. She demands this, demands that, and wonders why no one sees her as a real champion racer; never once does she sit back and realize she’s only here because Chaz Razzoni happened to spot her in a café in Paris and thought she was sexy. But we also eventually learn that Roni has deep-rooted issues, most of them due to her close relationship with her brother. Len masterfully builds this up, with subtextual glimmerings that Roni and her brother Allan might’ve been a little too close for sibling comfort, something which he plays out in a great mid-novel reveal.

In the last half of the novel Roni is in fact our sole protagonist, and this is after the most entertaining sequence of the book. In South Africa for the Grand Prix there, a jilted Roni, feeling depressed and confused over Chaz’s withdrawn nature (which she doesn’t realize is due to cocaine abuse) ends up having “heavy-duty sex” with young racer Bobby Barnes. This is the second of two fairly graphic sex scenes in the novels, and Roni’s “coital yelps” are so loud that they’re heard by the other racers on Bobby’s team. Soon word has spread and it all builds up into a lover’s spat straight out of a Harlequin romance, complete with evil racer Gilles Cachen taking Chaz out of the race in a very definite fashion.

Both Roni and the novel are in a bit of a freefall after this. So injured thanks to an exploding car in the race, it takes Roni six months to heal up, even getting her face reconstructed. Now she’s alone and desolate in New York City – not that this stops her from expecting a big monthly allowance from her rich father. Indeed, Roni is so ungrateful and self-involved that even I, a dude who doesn’t have kids (yet), got pissed off at her: we’re told her parents basically drop their lives to be at her side in the hospital while she heals, and once she’s gotten better she tells them to get lost and vows to live on her own in New York.

Len takes us into the homestretch with the building plot of Roni coming back to her “true self.” Having denied her impulses to race, she’s taken a job as an assistant buyer at a Manhattan boutique (a job which her dad, of course, gets for her via his industry connections). But when she forces herself to walk into an auto exhibit she runs into Sam Bellamy, an American entrepreneur who is familiar with her and who tells her he’s building his own racing car, the Columbia. It’s his intent to create an American Grand Prix team, and he offers Roni a job. After much deliberation she takes him up on the offer, finding herself on a team that’s made up of former NASCAR drivers, good old boys who get along with Roni like brothers.

Roni proves that both she and the new Columbia car are more than capable at the Long Island Grand Prix; further, Roni proves that she is in fact a Grand Prix champion in another long and detailed racing sequence. Here Len builds an eleventh hour love story with Roni suddenly having feelings for Bobby Barnes, the guy she slept with in South Africa. They get nice and cozy again in Long Beach and then he’s back to London to prepare for another race, and Roni begins pining for him. This leads to another setback for Roni when she later discovers that professional racers can’t have relations with one another – they live for competition, especially with one another.

The climax takes place in Durango, a fictional principality of France along the Mediterranean sea. Here Len delivers the last of the novel’s many races as Roni competes with her old Guastalla teammates, particularly murderous Gilles, who has since moved on to the same British team Bobby races for. Gilles has now set his sights on Roni, planning to kill her by causing a wreck (it seems like every other chapter ends with a character saying of Roni, “I hope the bitch dies in a crash!”). This plays out in a tense moment in which the two are separated from the other drivers on a winding road overtop a cliff.

Bobby is also in the race, and when Roni wins again she is jilted that he doesn’t come to her grand banquet award. Here Roni is given valuable advice by a racing fan – that she must put thoughts of love aside now that she’s a racer. You’d think this would be unecessary info, given that Roni spends the first 250 or so pages in love with no one but herself, but at any rate it gives Len a satisfactory way to end the tale. Now Roni has become the female version of Chaz Razzoni, an internationally famous Grand Prix racer who will likely go from one quick fling to the next, her only goal and desire in life to keep racing until she burns out.

I enjoyed The Fast Life, but it really is a different kind of novel for Len, as different in its own way as Cabby and Operation: Perfidia were in theirs, though I enjoyed The Fast Life more than either of them. But so far as the “Cynthia Wilkerson” books go, I preferred Sweeter Than Candy. It had a funny and funky ‘70s vibe, whereas I felt The Fast Life was let down by its self-involved protagonist. Also the supporting characters didn’t sparkle with that “off-page life” as in Len’s other novels; other than Roni and Chaz, many of the characters here are a little too one-dimensional. But then, that’s only to be expected from a romance novel, so you can’t blame Len for capturing the genre form.

Len offered to write his current thoughts on The Fast Life, and I was especially interested to read them, given that he hadn’t read the book since he wrote it so long ago:

As I write these words, I have no idea what Joe will think of The Fast Life by Cynthia Wilkerson, who in real life is none other than me. He probably hasn’t completed his review yet, but asked in advance for my thoughts on this old novel of mine.

So I read it for the first time in around 37 years and actually considered it great. In fact, it was so great I couldn’t believe I wrote it.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. It’s far from perfect. It’s main problem is some sentences carrying unnecessary words. I should have tightened those sentences, or perhaps they were tighter in my original manuscript but line editors added words to comply with grammatical rules no longer considered necessary by me.

I was especially pleased to note that The Fast Life lacked the extreme vulgarity that has undermined some of my other novels. Evidently I tried to take the high road this time, but that doesn’t mean the narrative lacks melodrama or even a few choice romantic or erotic interludes.

The genesis of The Fast Life started with another of my novels, Sweeter Than Candy also by Cynthia Wilkerson. And Sweeter Than Candy began with a meeting in the office of my then editor at Belmont-Tower, Milburn Smith. He asked me to write an erotic story from a woman’s point of view, similar to Blue Skies, No Candy by Gael Greene which was on bestseller lists and considered a great feminist novel, much discussed and chewed over in the media. Essentially, Milburn was asking me to knock off Blue Skies, No Candy.

So I wrote Sweeter Than Candy and delivered it to Milburn, who some time later said he was pleased with it. The novel eventually was published, and several months later I was again sitting in Milburn’s office. In the course of conversation he said: “Why don’t you bring back Cynthia Wilkerson? She was a good old gal.” He specified a word count longer than usual, probably around 90,000 words as I recall, so they could charge a higher price. Evidently Sweeter than Candy was selling well enough to justify another Cynthia Wilkerson extravaganza.

So I walked home from Milburn’s office on Park Avenue South to my pad on West 55th Street near 9th Avenue, wondering what in the hell to write about. Finally I decided to take on Danielle Steele, Jackie Collins and all the other soap opera literary queens, and beat them at their own game, writing a contemporary women’s novel that would surpass anything they did, thus propelling myself to the top of the best-seller lists, earning millions of dollars for myself and my various insatiable appetites.

Then I made what might have been my first mistake. I had long been interested in Grand Prix racing, and decided to set the narrative against that glamorous background. It didn’t occur to me that potential women readers of The Fast Life probably weren’t as passionate about exotic cars as I.

If I had any brains, I would have set the narrative in the movie world in which I used to be a press agent, which also was the world of Jackie Collins. But I’d recently written a novel about that world entitled Hype! by Leonard Jordan and didn’t want to travel the road again so soon.

For research, I had long subscribed to Road and Track magazine and knew a lot about Grand Prix racing. One of my closest friends had raced on the same team as Paul Newman. Sports car racing seemed incredibly exciting and sexy, because there were lots of gorgeous international jet set groupies.

So I sat down and wrote The Fast Life about an ambitious young American woman named Veronica Woodward, or Roni for short, whose brother had been a NASCAR driver, and she’d also driven NASCAR cars. As the novel opens she’s touring Europe with a cousin, meets a famous Italian racing car driver at a Paris cafe, and eventually he helps her get into Grand Prix racing herself after they fall in love or lust.

In my opinion, the narrative moves swiftly and never slacks off. Yes, The Fast Life is as melodramatic and lurid as any other Len Levinson novel, but thankfully not in the sewer like some of them. I thought Roni was a complex character, not just a silly chickie with delusions of grandeur. Having not read the novel for so long, I forgot its twists and turns and how it ended. Reading it yesterday and today, I thought it suspenseful, realistic and psychologically engaging. I couldn’t put it down. The actual racetrack scenes were especially exhilarating. What a wonderful movie it would make.

I admit that I’m proud of this novel. With slightly better editing, a high class cover, and a more prestigious publisher with greater marketing power, it might have sold a few hundred thousand copies and accelerated my career in an entirely new direction. I’ll bet people who read it never dreamed that Cynthia Wilkerson had (and still has) a beard.

Unfortunately The Fast Life no longer is in print or available as an ebook. I just googled it and discovered a used copy going for $26.00.

Finally, here’s a bonus cover – in March 1985 Belmont Tower reprinted The Fast Life through their Leisure Books imprint, something Len was not aware of until I brought it to his attention. Here’s the cover:

The Camp

The Camp, by Jonathan Trask
No month stated, 1977  Belmont Tower Books

An interesting obscurity in the work of Len Levinson, The Camp is notable because it was a collaboration between Len and his editor at Belmont Tower, Peter McCurtin. Len provides the full story below, but long story short, McCurtin came up with the plot, wrote the first chapter, and then handed it over to Len, who ran with it.

Speaking of obscure, The Camp is real obscure, even for one of Len’s Belmont books; the only other review you can currently find of it online is by Marty McKee. Thus once again I have to bemoan the fate of Len’s early books, the majority of which deserved better distribution and recognition. While I wouldn’t rank The Camp as a lost pulp masterwork like his earlier Shark Fighter, it is still a fun and breezily-written tale that attempts in its short length to tap into the post-Watergate paranoia that gripped the nation in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Our narrator is Phillip “Phil” Gordon, a ‘Nam Green Beret who now works as a reporter for Tomorrow magazine, which is dedicated to outing corruption and whatnot. Phil regales us with stories of the many powerful men he has toppled, and then informs us that “last summer” he went up to northern Maine for a much-needed vacation, to reconnect with the land in which he’d been born. The novel is his report of what happened to him there.

I’m not sure if I would’ve recognized this without knowing beforehand that Len and McCurtin co-wrote the novel, but the switchover after chapter one is very apparent. In McCurtin’s hands Phil comes off as a lazy sort who seems more curious than intrigued by the strange tale told by his old Indian pal, Jimmy Jacks; Jimmy informs Phil that one of his nephews, who was like a son to him, has gone missing, last seen as he was attempting to get a closer look at the mysterious new Army base that’s been built about five miles away, deep in the Maine woods.

Jimmy himself is vastly different in McCurtin’s first chapter; all he wants to do is drink beer, eat bear steak, and watch old Westerns on TV. But then Phil slouches off for bed, chapter two begins, and Len takes over – and suddenly Jimmy is waking Phil up, armed with a bow and arrow and ready to go out into the woods and kick some ass. The affable drunk of chapter one has become a “native warrior” type who dispenses his wisdom as he moves stealthfully and swiftly as a fox through the darkened forest.

Phil changes, too; per the standard Len Levinson protagonist type, he’s become a man driven to succeed in life, despite all the odds. Now he’s chomping at the bit to get at the story of “the Camp” – later to be revealed as Camp Butler, an Army installation that doesn’t exist on any record. As a sidenote, I found the name “Camp Butler” interesting, given Len’s later Leisure series Butler, which he wrote under the pseudonym Phillip Kirk. Could he have been flashing back on The Camp when he came up with it?

Sneaking through the barbed wire fence, Jimmy and Phil find a crazed Army base which is more like a prison, with watch towers and roving guard dogs. They find even crazier stuff, like the mutilated remains of a few hippies who have apparently been tied up to a post and used for bayonet practice. After a quick skirmish with the bloodthirsty soldiers who have discovered them – including a bit where Jimmy Jack takes out a bunch of dogs with his arrows – our heroes manage to escape.

Jimmy again proves himself a superhumanly capable person, showing Phil a hidden cave he’s used before, in a ravine outside of the camp’s territory. Hidden by a rock, the cave not only has a fresh-water stream but also a bunch of beef jerky and booze Jimmy has hidden here…just for these sorts of situations, of course. The two stay here for a few days, waiting for the soldiers to stop searching the immediate area. After this Phil heads back home to DC (Phil being one of the few Levinson protagonists who doesn’t live in New York), where he tells his editor that he’s got a whopper of a story.

At 155 pages, The Camp is even shorter than the average ‘70s men’s adventure novel, but Len tries his best to present it as a gripping suspense thriller, concerning a plot that threatens the American way of life. True to the era in which it was written, this means that there are shady political overtones; through a contact, Senator Wingfield, Phil is put in touch with General Ed Sutherland, an old military man who is stationed in the Pentagon and who tells Phil that “a secret government” is threatening to take over the current one.

I forgot to mention – Phil’s meanwhile found the time to sleep with Susan Cole, Wingfield’s pretty secretary. However there’s no funny business at all, Len cutting to the next chapter before the exploitative hijinks start; as a matter of fact, there’s barely any sex or violence in The Camp, even the action scenes going down with little detail of the blood being spilled. But then there really isn’t much detail in the novel, the events transpiring as quickly as Len can pound on his typewriter; I get the feeling that he wrote this particular novel very fast.

General Sutherland proposes Phil with an idea: for Phil to be the general’s inside man and actually be sent to Camp Butler. A soldier can only be ordered to the camp, and even then he must face a tribunal to be accepted; Camp Butler is reportedly the training ground for ultra-special forces. Sutherland relates that it’s really a training ground for a fascist group within the military that plans to take over America. Sutherland plays on Phil’s nature by telling him that it’ll be the story of the century – guaranteed money in Phil’s pocket.

Despite being out of the army for several years (not to mention being out of shape), Phil is able to pass himself off as a bona fide Green Beret with papers forged for him by Sutherland. He meets with the Camp Butler tribunal and gives them a bunch of fascist swill in response to their questions, ie “What would you do about hippies and other protestors?” “I’d kill them or throw them in jail,” and etc. All of it of course over the top – any man on that board would easily know Phil was bluffing – but the tribunal buys his story without question.

The actual material in Camp Butler is unfortunately brief. Phil spends a whopping single day there. In his entrance with the other camp recruits he’s informed that all of his ranking is now moot; you’re either a private or a captain here, a leader or a slave. But when Phil is bullied by his drill seargent – who has the right to beat his recruits to death, by the way; another Camp Butler oddity – he refuses to back down.

“I shit on your mother’s soul, you fat fuck,” Phil tells the seargent, in what is probably the greatest put-down in literary history. This obviously leads to a fistfight, in which Phil makes short work of the guy. Then a dude who announes himself as a captain enters the fold, escorting Phil away – and telling him that the only way to succeed at Camp Butler out of the “slave” role is to affront authority. And guess what, within like a few hours of his arrival into camp, Phil has been promoted to a captain!

From here the novel plunges into cartoonishness, likely due to that short wordcount; Phil, brand new at Camp Butler, is able to use his newly-given authority to freely walk around the top-secret camp, and also to find Jimmy Jacks’s three abducted nephews. He even blithely asks where the armory is! So then that night he merely gets up, waltzes to the stockade, informs the guards to let the Indian prisoners go, and then hands them a bunch of guns he’s stolen from the armory! Taking off in a commandeered jeep, they make their escape.

The action scene is quickly rendered, the four men barrelling across the camp fields as they’re chased by foot soldiers and helicopters. For a special forces camp, the soldiers of Camp Butler are not an impressive lot, easily taken down by an out-of-shape ‘Nam vet and a trio of untrained Indian youth. To Len’s credit he explains this away with Phil’s sideline commentary that the Camp Butler soldiers seem more interested in sadism than coordinated action, thus the four are able to get away unscathed.

And guess where they go? Yes, that same hidden cave, where they hide for three whole weeks, Phil almost in a delirium due to a flesh wound he’s suffered in the escape. Rushing for the conclusion, Len employs a requisite downbeat ending, mandatory in the mid-‘70s, in which Phil discovers that no one is interested in his story, once he’s escaped the cave, returned to DC, and written it in a feverish haste – not his editor at the magazine, nor his friend Senator Wingfield, nor even General Sutherland.

Len works this up that all of them are either concerend over the mass panic that would ensue if the story broke, or concerned over the patriotism which would be lost in America, or even that America has already become so desensitized that its citizens need only food and TV to be happy, so who cares if an ultra right-wing group is plotting to take over? The only problem here is that these characters are suddenly presented as villains, which doesn’t jibe with what came before, particularly in the case of General Sutherland; otherwise, why would he have sent Phil to Camp Butler in the first place?

So Phil, escaping an attempt on his life (by none other than Susan Cole, his former bed playmate), heads on down to Mexico, where he has now written down his account of Camp Butler…which is presented as this very novel. His intent is that, couched as “fiction,” the story will get across to Americans, who will head up to northern Maine to see what’s really going on up there at Camp Butler. I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning my trip anytime soon.

What was most enjoyable about The Camp was how Len worked with what was given to him. In addition to the title, plot, and characters, I’m betting McCurtin also gave Len the cover, and insisted he include a scene with it. There’s a part where Phil strangles a Camp Butler guard with the man’s own carbine, and Len writes the sequence exactly as shown on the cover, even down to the detail of the blood drizzling from the guard’s mouth. This brings to mind a real-life incident Len spoofed in The Last Buffoon: when Len was writing The Sharpshooter #5, McCurtin called to tell him to include a part where hero Johnny Rock was being chased by a helicopter, as that was the cover McCurtin was having painted for the novel.

The speedy writing mentioned above does lead to some unintentional humor, like when Phil tells us, “One man can make a difference. I truly believe that. Just look at Woodward and Bernstein.” Uh, Phil – Woodward and Bernstein were two men. Also, the story is not nearly developed as it needed to be, to fully impart the dire ramifations of the men behind Camp Butler; even the bizarre subplot about hippies being murdered is barely explored, and Phil himself seems to forget about it when he’s first relating the horrors of the camp to his editor and friends.

Regardless all of that, this is still a Len Levinson novel, which means there is still a lot of enjoyment in it. His characters still seem to be cut from life, and not the cardboard caracicatures you usually encounter in pulp fiction. Minor characters sparkle with life, like even Susan Cole, who trades barbs with Phil during her unfortunately-brief time in the narrative. And as usual there is a lot of fun dialog, including incidental bits of wisdom sprinkled throughout.

So long story short, while I enjoyed The Camp, I felt that something was missing from it, that it was just too speedy and bare to make a lasting impact. Len, in his comments on the novel below, seems to feel the same way:

The Camp wasn't my idea. Peter McCurtin, editor at Belmont-Tower, wrote the first 30 pages or so, and hired me to finish it. I really don't know why Peter didn't finish it, or what happened. Perhaps he had more commitments than he could handle, because in addition to being an editor, he also wrote novels.

I seem to recall that he left BT around that time, and was replaced by Milburn Smith. I don't know why Peter left, but he embarked on a career of writing novels full time. Occasionally I ran into him on the street, because he also lived in Hell's Kitchen. One day he asked if I knew of inexpensive office space he could rent, because his apartment was too noisy. I told him that if I knew about inexpensive, quiet office space, I'd rent it myself.

I was very fond of Peter's warm, affable personality, especially his sardonic sense of humor. He influenced my writing tremendously, and I'm very sorry he's no longer with us. I hope he's in a quiet corner of heaven now, with a good working typewriter.

I don't remember much about writing The Camp. I just picked up where Peter left off and kept going, creating scenes, situations and characters out of my lurid imagination. Sometimes I wonder what would've become of me if I didn't have a lurid imagination. I might've been a doctor, lawyer or engineer, and led a decent middle class life, instead of low rent paperback commando. But I've never been a very decent person, so I probably ended up where I belonged.

Sweeter Than Candy

Sweeter Than Candy, by Cynthia Wilkerson
No month stated, 1978  Belmont Tower Books

I wrote two books as Cynthia Wilkerson. The first one was disgusting. The second one was slightly less disgusting. -- Len Levinson, in a phone conversation with me in April, 2012

The more scarce of the two novels Len wrote as “Cynthia Wilkerson,” Sweeter Than Candy is “in the tradition of” a now-forgotten piece of bestselling 1970s sleaze titled Blue Skies, No Candy, by Gael Greene. Len told me this when I spoke to him the other year, saying that if his own novel was “disgusting,” so was Greene’s. When I asked him again recently about his novel, Len told me:

[Belmont Tower editor] Milburn Smith told me to write something like Blue Skies, No Candy, which was very popular back then; I think it was on the Times bestseller list. So I read Blue Skies, decided it was quite trashy, and decided to out-trash it. The plot, characters, etc. of Sweeter were all mine. In a sense, it was my response to Blue Skies. In order to review Sweeter, you probably should read Blue Skies which inspired it.

At 265 pages, not only is Sweeter Than Candy one of the longer books of Len’s I’ve yet read, it’s also by far the most trashy, sleazy, and explicit. Like Greene’s novel, this one is narrated by its female (anti)hero: Vivian Sinclair, the 35 year-old “sexual terror of Manhattan” who makes her living as a drama critic for a small New York newspaper.

With blonde hair, big boobs, and “the greatest ass in the world,” Vivian is a regular man-eater, “fucking and sucking” practically every guy she meets – much to the chagrin of her Columbia professor of a husband, Roger, who starts off the novel by informing Vivian one day that he’s divorcing her. After getting over her shock – Vivian thought she and Roger had an understanding, as they both have had multiple affairs – our heroine consoles herself that she no longer will have a husband.

Not that she suffers much. The novel occurs over a few weeks, and I think Vivian only spends one night alone (and even then she gives herself a “finger-job”). Moments after her husband’s left her, Vivian puts on her “warpaint” (ie makeup), some sexy clothes, and leaves her fashionable Greenwich Village apartment with its “ultra-modern furniture” and goes to a nearby bar, where she promptly picks up Steve, a good-looking young cocaine dealer.

At Steve’s place there follows a super-explicit sex sequence that goes on for fifteen pages(!). Len leaves no stone unturned here, as the two fuck like crazy. These sex scenes bring to mind Len’s earlier novel Where The Action Is, which also featured a female narrator relating every detail of her sex life, however Sweeter Than Candy is all about the sex, with no espionage or mystery subplot to get in the way.

A recurring thing in the novel is that Vivian fights with just about everyone, especially men right before she screws them, but during the act she’ll tell them she loves them. I think Vivian tells about four guys “I love you” in the course of the novel. Steve’s no different, but he disappears from the novel after their herculean sexual bout; next up is Dudley Tarbush, a Broadway director who has been sleeping with Vivian for years.

In fact, Vivian’s soon-to-be-ex Roger comes home the next day, hoping to mend things with Vivian, only to find her and Tarbush fucking on the kitchen floor! To make it even wackier and crazier, Len even brings Tarbush’s wife, Beverley, onto the scene, so that Tarbush and Vivian now find themselves openly caught in the act by their spouses. The two spouses leave, vowing costly divorces, but Tarbush gets over it soon, telling Vivian he’s always loved her and got married in the first place just to make her jealous.

I thought this would prove to be the plot of Sweeter Than Candy, Vivian and Tarbush falling in love while getting vengeance on their spouses, but it isn’t; in fact, Vivian and Roger have made up well before novel’s end. Like most other Len Levinson novels, this one isn’t straightjacketed by much of a plot, and instead comes off like our narcissistic and sex-crazed protagonist going from one adventure to the next.

Vivian soon finds herself giving a blowjob to Doug Gallagher, the Burt Reynolds-esque star who’s come to New York to promote his new theater production of Hamlet. Soon after this she’s trying to “make a man” out of a gay tenant of her apartment building, the sharply-dressed and charming Timothy Peabody. We get all sorts of stuff here that would be unprintable in today’s blandified world, as the things Vivian thinks and says about Peabody would be considered quite inappropriate in our modern age.

But Len is just setting us up. The joke turns out to be on Vivian, for after inviting “Mr. Peabody” to a theater opening with her (where she forces her hand down his pants and jerks him off, much to his horror and discomfort), she demands that he let her into his apartment that night…and soon discovers that Mr. Peabody isn’t gay at all! Instead, his name is Craig and he gets off on posing as a homosexual, so women will try a little harder for him. You see, Craig finds sex so easy these days that there’s no challenge to getting laid, so he’s come up with this little game.

Now, all this is relayed after Vivian has practically raped the guy, blowing him in super-explicit detail and then demanding that he go down on her. But Craig’s such an expert “cunt-lapper” that Vivian instantly suspects something. Not that she’s too crestfallen, as in Craig Peabody Vivian has found her ideal match: a narcissistic sex-fiend who is every bit as depraved, opinionated, and mean-hearted as she. They even call each other “Bastard” and “Bitch” while fucking, with Craig telling Vivian flat-out that he hates her – that is, before telling her he loves her while they’re going at it once again.

The (sort of) main plot comes to a head again as Vivian, post-coitus, realizes that Craig could really help her out in her upcoming divorce from Roger, who by the way is attempting to sue Vivian for alimony(!). In a protracted caper Vivan and Tarbush fool Tarbush’s wife Beverley into thinking she’s about to be interviewed for a tell-all book about Broadway, but instead she’s seduced by Craig, and their ensuing sex is captured on film. This is then used to prevent Tarbush from paying Beverley alimony, and also to destroy Beverley’s credibility as a reliable witness for Roger.

But Len’s characters are always seeking happiness, even when they’ve found it, and Craig promptly breaks it off with Vivian, telling her he doesn’t trust her, thus she can’t be his perfect match. This occurs around page 160, and Vivian pines for him throughout the 100 or so remaining pages of the novel, even when she and Roger have gotten back together in an open relationship that’s even more open than it was before.

The incident which causes their reunion is another of the novel’s many highlights. In the opening of the tale Roger informs Vivian that he’s leaving her for a young, pretty co-ed named Taffy. Much later in the novel, after being dumped by Craig, Vivian goes into a bar to get drunk. She’s soon checking out the super-hot waitress. Guess what her name turns out to be? That’s right – Taffy. It’s none other than the “tramp” Roger left her for, though a clueless Taffy tells Vivian that she herself has now left Roger, once she found out he was going to sue his ex-wife for alimony.

Not letting Taffy know who she is, Vivian sets about on yet another of her madcap plans: namely, taking this lovely young woman home and having hot lesbian sex with her! And after smoking a little pot the two do just that, with yet another protracted sex scene as they go down on each other in the bathtub. And in a funny callback to the earlier part, Roger once again walks in on the scene! (Strangely Len does not write the three-way I expected, with Taffy fleeing in shock from these two “freaks.”)

Vivian and Roger back together again, you’d think the novel would end…but there are still 40 or so pages to go. Len introduces an eleventh hour subplot about Sir Richard Tysedale, a reclusive British billionaire who is about to buy out Vivian’s paper. Tysedale owns papers all over the world, this being the first in New York he’ll appropriate, and in each previous case he’s always fired the old staff. Realizing her job’s on the line, Vivian finds out from a rich friend that Tysedale lives in a mansion on the moors of Scotland.

Purchasing a last-second ticket, Vivian takes off alone for the UK (blowing the good-looking guy in the seat next to her and screwing him upon their arrival in Scotland), where she’s determined to corner an interview wihth Tysedale, who has never before granted such a thing. When she meets the old recluse, Vivian once again finds a kindred spirit, an opinionated, high-born racist who hates the lower classes, minorities, and gays with even more vehemence than Vivian. After granting her interview, Tysedale then asks Vivian to “make pee-pee and poo-poo” on him in a bathtub!!

Thankfully Len doesn’t write this particular scene, but when we meet Vivian again she’s back in Manhattan, loving life as the managing editor of Beautiful People Magazine, another of Tysedale’s recently-purchased New York publications. In other words, Vivian is given the happy ending I figured she’d be denied, achieving her worldly dreams and, despite still being married to Roger, engaging in open affairs with a variety of men.

The one sad spot in her life is her unrequited love for Craig Peabody, as she still finds herself obsessed with him. Len ends the novel with the tantalizing chance that there could be sequel, someday, with Vivian declaring that, no matter what, she will find Craig, but if Len actually did plan to write another book about Vivian Sinclair he must’ve changed his mind. His other book as “Cynthia Wilkerson” was an unrelated novel more akin to a category Romance, and Len considers that one the superior of the two.

Len’s writing is as ever strong and enjoyable; there are tons of lines and pieces of dialog that are rife for quoting, but I’m a lazy man. He covers all the bases from the sleazy to the profound. He does though slip in and out of present tense at times, which makes for an awkward read given that the novel is in past tense. Also, the book is littered with typos and misprintings, though this isn’t Len’s doing; it’s the usual subpar Belmont Tower “editing” at work.

One of the more interesting things about Sweeter Than Candy is that Vivian Sinclair is like the antagonists of trashy bestsellers of the day, like the sort of stuff that made Jacqueline Susann rich and famous. She’s vituperative, shrill, self-centered beyond the point of narcissism, opionated, arrogant, highfalutin, racist, manipulative, untrustworthy, and basically just a general bitch.

Yet as the narrator, Vivian presents herself to us as the hero of the tale, which makes for an interesting reading experience – and a fun reading experience, for sure. But I can’t say Vivian is a character I much liked. After reading her self-obsessed thoughts for almost 300 pages, I kind of hoped she’d get some sort of comeuppance, but it never happens – she ends the tale just as blissfully vain as she was in the beginning.

This is not to take away from the novel itself, which is a fun and sleazy romp through late 1970s New York City.  As I read it, it occurred to me that Sweeter Than Candy was yet another of Len’s novels that would’ve gotten a lot more attention if it had been published by an outfit with better distribution -- the very scarcity of Sweeter Than Candy suggests that it likely had a small print run.  It’s a shame, really, as the novel deserved a better fate.

Len offered to write up his thoughts on Sweeter Than Candy, and as usual his “addendum” is just as entertaining as the novel itself:

I volunteered to write an addendum to Joe’s review of Sweeter Than Candy by Cynthia Wilkerson, who in real life was none other than me. I wonder what Cynthia’s fans would think if they discovered she’d grown a beard. 

To the best of my recollection, it all began in 1977 on an afternoon when I was sitting in the editorial office of Belmont-Tower in New York City, beside the desk of one of my editors, Milburn Smith. I don’t remember where my usual editor, Peter McCurtin, was that day. 

After initial pleasantries, Milburn asked me to write something similar to a novel that was on the best-seller lists then: Blue Skies, No Candy by Gael Greene, which was much discussed in the media as a sensationally erotic breakthrough in feminist literature. A friend referred to it as "Blue Skies, No Panties."  Ms. Greene also was a well-known restaurant critic for New York magazine. 

After leaving BT’s offices, I bought a copy of Blue Skies, took it home, read it front to back, and evaluated it as pedestrian middlebrow smut. My only reasonable response was to out-smut it, a challenge for which I felt fully qualified, given my smutty brain during my younger years. 

I’ve just now finished reading Sweeter Than Candy for the first time since I delivered the manuscript in 1977. Approximately 60% percent of the novel is hard core erotica spiced with zany comedic overtones. The rest is a satire on NYC snobbery and pretentiousness, also spiced with zany comedic overtones. 

A few times I laughed out loud at my own words written around 37 years ago. The sexually overactive lead character Vivian Sinclair, drama critic for a daily newspaper, is hilarious in her hypocrisy, silliness, self-deceptions and ruthless ambition. The plot firmly held my attention with its unexpected twists and turns drizzled with sparkling dialogue. 

It was fun to write a novel under a woman’s name, from a woman’s point of view. The National Organization of Women probably will put me before a firing squad if they ever read this novel, but I only was trying to lampoon certain NYC women who considered themselves completely progressive, far above traditional morality, going from love affair to love affair, perhaps getting married a few times along the way, always on the lookout for hedonistic pleasures, gold diggers par excellence, not above one-night-stands, and naturally seeing psychiatrists regularly. 

Unfortunately, there are many typos in Sweeter Than Candy, but BT was not known for its copy editing skills. For example, on page 196, a Greenwich Village bar was referred to as the Nebraska Midnight. On page 198 it had become Dakota Midnight. Such errors must have been very disconcerting for readers. The bar was based on the Montana Eve on the west side of 7th Avenue north of Sheridan Square, where my brother worked as bartender and then manager for awhile, and where I hung out occasionally. 

I’m proud to say that Sweeter Than Candy truly was more smutty than Blue Skies, No Candy, in my admittedly biased opinion, and a better read as well. Unfortunately, Sweeter Than Candy never was embraced by the New York literati, went out of print long ago, and is not available now as an ebook. But it was very enjoyable to write, and I guess that’s what mattered most to me.

Bronson: Streets Of Blood (aka Bronson #2)

Bronson: Streets Of Blood, by Philip Rawls
No month stated, 1975  Manor Books

Not picking up from the incredible first volume, Bronson: Streets Of Blood has nothing to do with Bronson: Blind Rage and indeed doesn’t even feature the same protagonist, even though this one also happens to be named Richard Bronson. But then, I knew that going in, as “Philip Rawls” this time is in reality Len Levinson, who told me a long time ago that he had never even heard of Blind Rage, let alone read it.

In fact, I mentioned this Bronson novel the first time I spoke to Len on the phone. His reaction was a slight pause and then, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.” In some ways, Streets Of Blood is like the fourth Sharpshooter installment Len never wrote, and sometimes picks up from elements in Headcrusher. This is mostly in the nihilistic feel of the protagonist, who knows his days are numbered, but vows to keep killing scum no matter what.

Now, Streets Of Blood might have a nihilistic feel, but it’s nowhere as caustic, violent, or sadistic as the first volume of this “series.” I rank Blind Rage as one of the best ‘70s pulp crime novels I’ve ever read, mostly due to its insane vibe, in its “fight fire with fire” mentality. Of all the revenge novels I’ve read, I think it best captures how a man could be pushed to insane lengths after his family has been murdered, and how the man himself could become even more murderous than the scum he’s hunting.

Len’s Richard Bronson is grim and dour, but not insane. Well, comparitively speaking so far as the previous novel’s Richard Bronson went. Len’s Bronson moved to NYC two years ago, after his wife and two kids were murdered. He owns his own engineering firm and lives in a penthouse suite in Manhattan, but at night he goes out and kills muggers and rapists. Bronson has been celibate since his wife was killed two years before (the novel clearly takes place in 1974, as October, 1972 is often mentioned as the date in which his family was killed).

This celibacy causes some issues with Bronson’s hotstuff next door neighor, Natalie Taylor, who happens to be a model. She starts hitting on Bronson as soon as she’s introduced into the narrative, practically demanding he come next door for some hot sex. Bronson constantly puts her down, and poor Natalie has to go back to her apartment to bake banana bread in sublimation and pine over Bronson, the first “real man” she’s met in the city in years.

There isn’t much action per se in the novel; Bronson goes out in his trenchcoat, armed with a Browning with silencer, and guns down muggers and rapists. He isn’t very smart about his methods, though, as within the first several pages he’s already been figured out by a cop. This is Detective Ronald Jenkins, who responds to a call about a shooting in Central Park, and happens to see Bronson walking out of there. He stops him and gets his business card in case further questioning arises, and when the witness, a girl who was almost raped before Bronson descended upon the scene, gives Jenkins her description of her rescuer, Jenkins immediately realizes it was Bronson.

Len goes an unexpected route with this, having Jenkins and his boss Lt. Levine pondering if they should bring Bronson in or let him continue his private war – just as long as he never harms the innocent. Meanwhile Bronson continues to kill, while getting closer to Natalie, but he runs afoul of her when he tries to get her to lie for him, in case increasingly-nosy Jenkins ever tries to check Bronson’s whereabouts. It all comes down with Natalie pissed at Bronson; when she demands Bronson tell him what exactly he’s trying to get her to cover for him for, he lies that he was having an affair with a client’s wife on the night in question.

Midway through the novel stops being a Death Wish riff and becomes that fourth Sharpshooter novel Len never wrote. Bronson kills a couple punks, one of whom happens to be the nephew of Big Frank Scarletti, a Mafia boss who runs his mini-empire from a bar. The novel becomes more of an anti-Mafia pulp crime deal, with Scarletti sending hitmen after Bronson, and Bronson taking them out, after which he vows to kill Scarletti himself.

Meanwhile Jenkins has fully come over to Bronson’s side, protecting him. In a way Jenkins is a lot like Len’s version of Ryker, in The Terrorists, a tough cop who isn’t dirty but doesn’t mind bending the rules to see justice done. For example, there’s a goofy part where Bronson shoots down a Mafia torpedo and demands to talk to Jenkins when the cops arrive on the scene; Jenkins merely sets up and falsely backdates a gun permit for Bronson and takes responsibility for “forgetting” to renew it. Jenkins even teams up with Bronson in the finale, both of them wanting to see Scarpetti dead.

Also, Natalie Jones comes back over to Bronson’s side; she inadvertently saves him from that mob torpedo, seeing the hitman raise his gun at Bronson while he’s walking down the street, and though she never does find out for sure that Bronson is the mysterious crime fighter the news is always talking about, she does find out that he was lying about having an affair. Thusly she forgives him, leading up to one of the more explicit sex scenes I’ve yet read in one of Len’s novels, complete with Natalie’s endearing request, “I want you to come inside me.”

The finale again calls back to The Sharpshooter, with Bronson (who in Len’s version is a former ‘Nam hero) breaking out a sniper rifle like a regular Johnny Rock and lying in ambush with Jenkins. And by the way our hero cop also sees some bedroom shenanigans, despite being happily married, going undercover in the Scarpetti-owned bar and scoring with the busty, “nymphomaniac” bartender there, who ends up falling in love with him. But all such subplots are obliterated by the finale, which has Bronson and Jenkins blowing away Scarpetti and goons from afar, after which Bronson can happily continue with his war on the streets. 

Wrapping up, I can sort of see why Len had pretty much forgotten Streets Of Blood when I spoke to him on the phone. While it’s entertaining and fun, it lacks any truly outrageous or unforgettable moments. It does though have that “Levinson Element” I enjoy, with characters who seem to exist off of the page, and I like how he didn’t waste the reader’s time with Detective Jenkins trying to bring in Bronson. It was a lot more interesting and unexpected to have the two team up.

I didn’t pester Len to write up a piece on this one, mostly because at the time I was writing this review he was on vacation in New York, and also because he already wrote a piece on it for Jack Badelaire’s Post Modern Pulps blog.

And I’d still love to know who wrote Bronson: Blind Rage!

Cabby

Cabby, by Leonard Jordan
No month stated, 1980  Belmont-Tower Books

Predating his work on The Sharpshooter (and even the porn novel he wrote as “March Hastings”), Cabby was one of the first novels Len Levinson ever wrote. However despite being written in 1972, the novel went unpublished until 1980. Len has often mentioned this book to me, saying that it was his stab at literary greatness; he also told me he really was working as a cabbie at the time, driving at night and writing during the day.

Cabby is narrated by our protagonist, Arnold Shumsky, who like Alexander Frapkin leaves no detail spared as he tells us about his sleazy life. Shumsky though is a lot more withdrawn than fun-loving Frapkin, to the point where he’s very distant from the reader. In fact, Shumsky is almost a ghost in his own novel, very rarely interracting with those around him or telling us anything about himself or his past. This obviously is part of Len’s theme with the novel, but ultimately it makes for a sometimes-frustrating read, as you’d like to get to know more about the guy.

But from what can be gleaned between the lines, Shumsky was, like Len himself, once a public relations man who worked in Manhattan but whose life took a sudden tumble, ending up with Shumsky divorced, estranged from his young daughter, and living as a shell of his former self, driving a cab through the slums of ‘70s NYC. This is of course all mirrored in Len’s own life, though it’s safe to say without the bitterness or setbacks of Shumsky’s story; when I spoke to him the other year, Len repeated several times that he had “no regrets” that he’d quit his corporate life to become a fulltime writer.

If the novel lacks much of a plot or characterization, it more than makes up for it with Len’s usual knack for capturing ‘70s New York. Cabby almost acts like a guidebook, with Shumsky detailing which streets he uses to get around Manhattan and environs, telling us of the people and places there. We also get a good cross-section of the type of people who lived in NYC at the time, though again our narrator rarely interracts with them.

The closest things to a recurring plot in Cabby would be the on-again, off-again strike his local cabbie union throws, usually incited by a politcally-active driver named Rubino who is called “the Communist.” We get to meet a few of the other cabbies who work with Shumsky, from Gasoline Louie, a legendary cabbie who lives in his car, to The Eel, to Fishface, the dispatcher. Gasoline Louie is the only one who could be considered friends with Shumsky, coming over to use our protagonist’s bath every once in a while.

Shumsky drives his passengers around, seldom engaging them in conversation. When he does interract with them it usually leads to trouble. In one early incident he’s in a wreck with an aggressive driver; this leads to an entertaining sequence in which Shumsky is hassled by a shady lawyer named Herman Schmeck into suing the other driver, complete with trips to a quack chiropractor named Dr. Irving Ginsberg, who puts Shumsky in more pain than the wreck itself.

Another incident later in the novel has Shumsky held at gunpoint by a black passenger, who tells Shumsky he’s going to kill him. Instead he pistol whips him and takes his wallet. Later on Shumsky is reticent to drive another passenger into Harlem – we learn most cabbies are – and there’s a well-written part where the passenger, a soul singer, tells him she forgot her purse and asks Shumsky to come up to her apartment with her; Shumsky’s afraid he’s about to be killed, but the lady turns out to be on the level.

Speaking of ladies, Shumsky is also like Alexander Frapkin in that he takes part in the novel’s sex scenes all by himself. Shumsky is even sleazier than Frapkin, as we learn that he sometimes masturbates, while driving, when he gets a pretty passenger. Len writes a few fantasy sequences in which we get a peak into Shumsky’s imagination, as in one part he fantasizes himself as a knight about to ravish his gorgeous passenger, who appears in his fantasy as a damsel in distress. It all gets pretty XXX-rated, ending by veering back into reality, where we find Shumsky having finished playing with himself and dropping off the passenger without ever even speaking to her.

The biggest difference between Cabby and Len’s later novels is that here he really brings on the “literary” stuff, with themes and allusions and metaphors weaved into the novel, sometimes overbearingly so, particularly Shumsky’s penchant for thinking of himself as a Catholic saint, struggling and toiling for salvation. There are many sequences which almost go into stream-of-consciousness, as Len brings these blood-soaked fantasies to life, with Shumsky seeing Jesus bleeding on the cross in Times Square and etc. It gets to be a bit much at times, however the writing itself is good, and it's interesting to see a different side of Len's style.

Ultimately the main problem with Cabby is that there isn’t enough there to make it emotionally resonate with the reader. Sure, we realize Shumsky is going through a rough patch, hence how he has so completely shut himself off, but still – if we’re to empathize with the guy, we should get more of a peek into his soul. I hate the term “emotional connection,” which is bandied about in the world of marketing and is pretty much all modern advertisers strive for in their maudlin and sappy commercials, but still – there’s no emotional connection with Shumsky, hence his self-pity comes off as annoying.

Not that there are no flashes of enjoyment in the novel. For one I was happy to see that, even in his first novel, Len was serving up unusual and memorable supporting characters, not to mention his knack for featuring the same characters in different novels; Shumsky at one point is shocked when his old boss from the PR firm gets in his cab, and it’s none other than Larry Walters from Hype!. (And Shumsky himself made a cameo in The Bar Studs – yet he was more memorable in those few pages than he is in the entirety of Cabby.)

After reading Cabby, I asked Len what his thoughts were on the novel. I was surprised to see that he felt much the same about it as I had:

Cabby was supposed to be my breakthrough novel. I actually thought it would propel me to widespread critical acclaim and lots of money, possibly even a movie deal.

First I should provide context. I quit my PR job in 1971 to become a writer. I then wrote a novel which took about a year, and got rejected everywhere. I was running out of money and needed a part-time job that would permit me to continue writing.

So I became a cabdriver on the cruel streets of New York City back when cabdrivers were murdered fairly regularly. Some drove during the day because they couldn’t handle the dangers of the night. Others drove during the night because they couldn’t handle daytime traffic. I drove on the night shift for the Metropolitan Garage located in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, a ten minute walk from my apartment.

All sorts of people sat in the back seat of my taxicabs, from Wall Street brokers to prostitutes, movie stars, working people, cops, criminals, alcoholics, drug addicts, even my former PR boss Lee Solters got into my cab one night, astonished to see me behind the wheel. While driving them around, I felt inspired to write a novel about a cabdriver who didn’t have all his marbles, and who in many (but not all) ways was me.

I drove on Thursday, Friday and Saturdays nights. My shifts began at 4pm and ended at 4am. When I wasn’t driving, I was home writing the novel that became Cabby. I had virtually no social life during this period and sank into a very strange, isolated frame of mind which became reflected in the novel.

When Joe Kenney asked me to write something about Cabby, I thought I should reread it, because I hadn’t read it for around 42 years, and still remembered it as The Great American Taxicab Novel.

I read it yesterday morning (6/24/2014)and soon came to the demoralizing realization that it wasn’t The Great American Taxicab Novel, and in fact is a very flawed novel written before I started writing action/adventure books for Belmont-Tower, before I came under the tutelage of the great Peter McCurtin, and before I understood the art of storytelling.

Cabby really isn’t a story. It’s mostly a series of cab rides interspersed with episodes in the life of a semi-psychotic cabdriver who’d been traumatized by the break-up of his marriage, as I was still traumatized by the break-up of mine. It has lots of authentic early 1970s color and some interesting scenes but overall doesn’t have narrative tension, which detracts from readability. Cabby was written before Taxi Driver starring Robert De Niro was released in 1976, yet certain curious similarities can be found between the movie and my novel.

Cabby was published in 1980, so the screenwriter Paul Schrader couldn’t have read it. And I hadn’t seen Taxi Driver before I wrote Cabby. But Schrader and I approached cab driving somewhat similarly. It’s almost enough to make one believe in Jung’s theory of the Collective Unconscious.

There are two hard-core pornographic sequences in Cabby, which I found embarrassing to read yesterday, although I suppose there’s truth in them somewhere. Men really do go crazy over women and have grotesque sexual fantasies. Those two sequences were kind of disgusting, from my viewpoint at age 79. Human sexuality is very different at age 37 compared with age 79. I must’ve been a very strange person back in 1972.

Finally I finished Cabby and delivered it to my then literary agent, Elaine Markson. I was very proud of it, and considered myself the next Henry Miller or a variation on Charles Bukowski. Elaine actually liked it and submitted it to major publishers. An editor at Little, Brown wanted to publish it as a hardcover. I don’t remember this editor’s name; she was Chinese or Japanese, and took me to lunch at a fancy mid-Manhattan restaurant where she said Cabby was an outstanding, original novel. Unfortunately, her supervisors at Little, Brown didn’t agree, and rejected the novel. Subsequently it was rejected by numerous other publishers.

After writing Cabby, I desperately wanted to escape cabdriving. Finally I hit on the plan of writing a hardcore pornographic novel, which became Private Sessions by March Hastings, published by Midwood, a subsidiary of Belmont Tower. That led to writing action-adventure novels for BT, where my first editor was Peter McCurtin, who taught me many lessons about storytelling. Finally my so-called literary career took off and I didn’t need to drive a cab anymore. BT even published Cabby which I dedicated it to Milburn Smith, who succeeded Peter as my editor.

Cabby was an attempt by a neophyte to write a complex literary novel, but didn’t quite succeed, I don’t think. I can’t recommend this novel, but writers aren’t always the best judges of their work. We can be too critical or not critical enough. I haven’t read Joe’s review yet, and am very curious about his opinion.

Operation: Perfidia

Operation: Perfidia, by Leonard Jordan
April, 1975  Warner Paperback Library

Very different from any of his other books I’ve yet read, Operation: Perfidia was the first novel published under Len Levinson's “Leonard Jordan” pseudonym (though the book itself is copyright Levinson). Len told me once that this was his attempt at writing a John Le Clarre-type spy thriller, and it shows; while entertaining, Operation: Perfidia lacks the spark of the other Levinson novels I’ve read.

I think this is mainly due to the protagonist of the tale, David Brockman, a CIA agent who has just gotten out of Attica prison after serving eight years. Brockman is nothing like the typical Levinson protagonist: he’s dour, taciturn, and pretty much a cipher. In other words, he’s what you’d expect a real-life spy to be like, a faceless guy you’d forget moments after seeing. And while this could be factored as realistic, it doesn’t work as well when such a character is the star of the show.

Brockman as mentioned has served some serious time – but again, he’s such a blank slate that you get little feel for the hell he’s endured. The thrust of Operation: Perfidia is Brockman’s struggle to find out who set him up for this prison term and why, and also to find out what happened to his wife, Miralia. But he’s so emotionless, so sterile, that the reader feels little empathy for him. I mean, if it had been Alexander Frapkin sent to Attica for eight years, I’d certainly be rooting for him to find out who set him up.

The novel alternates between sections taking place in the “modern day” (which we can determine to be 1972, given that we’re informed Brockman was sent to prison in 1964) and backstory that documents Brockman’s involvement with what would become the Bay of Pigs fiasco, starting in 1960. In the modern section Brockman emerges from Attica as a highly-paranoid person, certain the Agency is stalking him. He’s clueless why he was sent to prison, having been set up on a fake breaking and entering charge, and the reader is gradually brought into his background as Brockman tracks clues around New York.

Another big difference about Brockman is that, unlike the average Levinson protagonist, he isn’t a horndog. Brockman’s still hooked on his wife, a pretty young Cuban revolutionary named Miralia Guzman; we see how they met during one of the flashbacks, while Brockman is stationed in Guatamala in preparation for the Bay of Pigs campaign. Maralia and her brother Julio are high in the revolutionary movement, and she and Brockman get in an argument the first time they meet, given Brockman’s pessimism about the plans for the campaign and its success. However Miralia still comes to him that night, stating that despite their political differences they have an obvious attraction for one another.

Now in the present Brockman wants to find Miralia, who has been missing since he was imprisoned, but to tell the truth it’s not like he’s rabid about it. This factors into the lack of emotion in the book, and Brockman himself – he hasn’t seen Miralia since the day he was arrested, and isn’t even sure if she’s still alive, but the way Brockman goes about trying to find her comes off as almost robotic, as if he’s doing it all by rote, and there doesn’t seem to be much drive behind it. Also, Miralia clearly comes off as a duplicitous person in these flashbacks, so much so that the reader is well ahead of Brockman by the halfway point, when he finally starts to suspect her of having something to do with his incarceration.

Brockman does though score with an old friend of Miralia’s, a heavyset Cuban lady who, having been Miralia’s gynecologist, informs Brockman that Miralia had a secret abortion while she and Brockman were married. The lady throws herself at Brockman, who ends up giving in to temptation, given his eight-year dry spell. But other than that, the sex scenes are relegated to the early ‘60s flashbacks, and there’s really nothing explicit throughout, even so far as the scant action scenes go. Again, the feel of the novel is more of a “straight” or at least standard spy tale, Len trying to keep things realistic.

Another thing missing from the typical Levinson tale is the sparkling cast of supporting characters. Unfortunately, none of them are very memorable, given that Brockman interracts mostly with Cuban rebels or fellow spys, with the former all being staunch idealists and the latter all dour professionals. The only minor character who has any spark is Ollie Rimsen, a circus dwarf who rents one of the rooms in the flophouse Brockman calls home in New York in the modern sections. In his few pages Ollie makes more of an impression on the reader than any other character in the novel, but unfortunately he’s gone too soon. Even Miralia, who is alternately a loving wife or a potential enemy, doesn’t really grab the reader’s interest.

When the Bay of Pigs fiasco goes down just as Brockman predicted, he finds himself an odd man out. Miralia no longer talks to him, too distracted as she waits in campaign headquarters for word of her brother Julio, who was part of the assault. Brockman has submitted many papers to his superiors that the campaign is doomed, but not until afterwards does anyone contact him about this, and this is merely due to the President’s desire to ferret out the people who were behind it and remove them from the Agency. Now Brockman works as a double agent within his own organization, but this subplot doesn’t really go anywhere, Brockman eventually no longer even calling in to report.

There aren’t many action scenes in Operation: Perfidia, though at one point in the modern section Brockman’s jumped by a Latino-looking guy in New York. Brockman takes him out, but we never do find out who the guy was; Brockman assumes he was either CIA or one of the old Cuban revolutionairies. A strange vibe comes to the novel when Brockman gets into the apartment he once shared with Miralia in New York; visions of being tied to a bed and drugged hammer through his mind, and he passes out. Thoroughly rattled, he leaves New York and heads for Miami, where he thinks he’ll finally find Miralia.

The last quarter of the novel mostly takes place in 1963, as Brockman flashes back to a suppressed memory of how he started to suspect Miralia of being unfaithful, given how she’d often head off for New Orleans without him. On one such occasion Brockman followed her, secretly bugging her room; he came to the conclusion that she, Julio, and other Cubans were plotting the assassination of someone, likely Castro. The reader of course guesses they have someone else in mind. And by the time Miralia’s announcing she’s heading down to Dallas one November day, you can see where it’s going.

Here we have a bit more action, as Brockman surprises a group of Cubans in a Dallas hotel with a blazing Colt .45, and then quickly deduces from their radio chatter that they have more men in Dealy Plaza. Getting down there as quickly as possible, given the crush of spectators, Brockman arrives just in time to spot Julio and others toting rifles on the infamous grassy knoll – but when Brockman tries to get help, he discovers this is all much bigger than he suspected.

And actually that’s another problem I have with Operation: Perfidia; the JFK angle is introduced too late, and it’s a bit unbelievable, given how many people Len has involved in it. There’s no way so many people could keep quiet about it, with Brockman the only one who knows the truth – and, of course, suffering for it. For we learn it was his knowledge of who really killed Kennedy that got Brockman set up on that phony breaking and entering rap; that is, after he’d been drugged and brainwashed for a while by his Agency “friends,” Miralia included.

Brockman at least gets revenge, and Len pulls an interesting trick by having Brockman gain vengeance before we learn what exactly happened to him – it’s only after he’s dispensed justice that we get the long flashback to what happened in ’63. But again, his victory is a bit hollow, as despite the fact that Brockman’s life was torn apart eight years ago, the guy is presented as such a bland cipher that you feel little empathy for him, and there’s no vicarious thrill when he gains vengeance.

I enjoyed Operation: Perfidia, but I didn’t love it like many of the other Levinson novels I’ve read. While Len’s writing is strong and fluid, taking you from scene to scene with ease, there was just something off about it, like a sort of sterile feeling. Again, though, this is likely do to Brockman, who himself is pretty sterile. On the plus side, Operation: Perfidia is one of Len’s novels that’s available as an ebook, so be sure to check it out. (The original paperback by the way is deceptively slim – it comes in at 174 pages, but it has eyestrain-inducing small print.)

Len recently sent me his thoughts on the novel, and his comments on the manuscript’s original ending are very interesting:

I wrote Operation: Perfidia circa 1974 and haven’t read it since delivering the ms to Warner. I also never read the paperback published in 1975, assuming it was identical to my ms except for minor editorial fixes to grammar, punctuation and syntax. 

I don’t want to give away the plot because it was supposed to be a psychological thriller. But I will say that it partially concerned the Kennedy Assassination. 

Those of you not alive then probably cannot appreciate the impact of the Kennedy Assassination on America. Some commentators have called it America’s loss of innocence. 

I was working at my desk at Paramount Pictures at 1501 Broadway in NYC when the news broke. Everyone was in a state of shock. At first it wasn’t clear whether JFK was alive or dead. Then the death knell was sounded. The President had been assassinated. 

I couldn’t deal with it. Like many Americans, I believed the Camelot myth. Our beautiful world had been shattered by seemingly demonic forces. 

I went home to my pad on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village and didn’t go out all weekend. My eyes were glued to the television set as horrific events unfolded. I even watched live as Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and shot the cringing Lee Harvey Oswald. 

In days to come, conspiracy theorists went into high gear. Everyone was blaming everyone else. Few believed the Warren Commission Report. It seemed as if the foundations of America were being shaken. 

I read the Warren Commission Report and many other books and articles on the Kennedy Assassination, many of which contradicted each other. Gradually a theory formed in my mind amidst all the other concerns and hassles swirling around my life at the time. 

I quit PR and became a novelist in 1971. Soon I was writing pulp fiction for a small, not very prestigious publisher named Belmont-Tower that didn’t pay very well. I wanted to elevate myself to a prestigious publisher and make more money. In order to accomplish that great goal, I’d need to write a great novel. What should I write about? 

As I looked the market over, I felt most attracted by the kinds of novels written by John Le Carre, mainly because character development was an important part of his novels. He wasn’t simple-minded like some of the spy writers of that era. 

So I decided to write a John Le Carre-type spy novel that touched on the Kennedy Assassination. I called it Betrayed. The leading man was based loosely on me as a CIA agent. The leading lady was based on my first wife. The plot was based on my assassination theory at the time, which I no longer believe, but was credible and many still believe something like it. 

My then agent Elaine Markson submitted Betrayed to various publishers. An editor at Warner Paperback Library really liked it. I went to his office and he praised it to high heavens. I thought I was on my way to the bestseller list. 

Warner changed the title to Operation: Perfidia. For the first time, I could use whatever name I wanted as author. After much cogitation I decided not to use my real name. The novel was controversial and I thought someone might try to kill me, so decided on my first name and middle name, Leonard Jordan. 

When I received my author’s copies, I was appalled by the cover. It showed a guy holding an automatic rifle of strange manufacture, his trigger hand awkwardly bent. The painting of this guy was amateurish. Obviously Warner didn’t spend much on the cover because evidently the Warner brass didn’t like this book. Naturally it didn’t sell very well, so I returned to Belmont-Tower with my tail between my legs. 

I thought I should read Operation: Perfidia for this article. Having not read it for around 40 years, when I cracked my desk copy open, it read as if written by someone else. I don’t want to sound immodest, but I thought it pretty good. As I read, the story came back to me. I couldn’t wait for the ending, because I remembered it as very powerful and unexpected. 

As the plot was building to my fabulous power ending - SUDDENLY THE STORY CAME TO A SCREECHING HALT! I wondered if the pages has fallen out. It didn’t look that way. Evidently somebody at Warner had chopped off my great ending and written some new tag lines. At first I couldn’t imagine why. It wasn’t a long book to begin with. But publishers often do whatever they want with writers like me who have no clout. 

Then I thought that perhaps Warner might have seen the novel as possible first of a possible series, and wanted to keep the protagonist viable as opposed to the dark end I wrote for him. Whatever happened, the weak cover and new non-ending really torpedoed any chances the novel might’ve had in the market place. 

So that’s the backstory for Operation: Perfidia. It’s now available as an e-book and not selling well despite an intriguing cover. If I had any brains, I wouldn’t confess my true feelings about the truncated ending, because doubtlessly this confession will hurt e-book sales. But you shall tell the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Besides, there are lots of other Len Levinson e-books available with intact endings.

Shark Fighter

Shark Fighter, by Nicholas Brady
No date stated (1976), Belmont-Tower Books

One of Len Levinson's more elusive novels, Shark Fighter was published under the pseudonym “Nicholas Brady,” which was a house name at Belmont-Tower (who couldn’t even be bothered to put a publication year on the book). According to Len, BT editor Peter McCurtin came up with the concept, of a man fighting sharks for cash, and Len ran with it. 

As Justin Marriott mentioned in his article “Labyrinth” in Paperback Fanatic #27, Shark Fighter is so scarce that Abebooks.com usually doesn’t even have any copies listed. So safe to say, it’s a hard novel to find; I was lucky to find my own copy online at a nice price, after random searching over the years. There’s also no e-book edition, at least not yet. This puts me in a strange position, as I’m about to rave about Shark Fighter -- I loved it, and it was one of my favorite novels yet by Len.

To be sure, this novel has absolutely no pretensions. It’s just a straight-up pulp tale about an ex-Navy frogman named Sam Taggart who accepts an offer to fight two sharks on live television for two million dollars. But man, the novel’s a lot of fun, and this lack of pretense just adds to the charm. Taggart is part of the reason; like most every other Levinson protagonist, Taggart is a no-nonsense guy who is focused on two primary things: women and money. Having served his time in ‘Nam, he now enjoys life as a self-described “beach bum” on the fictional Caribbean island of Makura, where he hunts sharks for a living.

Len capably captures the beach-read aesthetic of trash fiction. I almost wished I could book my next vacation in the Republic of Makura, which we are informed lies midway between Cuba and the Bahamas and measures 80 miles long and 20 miles wide. Here Taggart lives basically an idyllic life as he voyages around on his motorboat, smokes copious amounts of island-grown “ganja,” and bangs whatever female he can talk into bed. He’s chosen to make his living in this dangerous profession, hunting sharks and selling them to the chefs of the island’s many five-star hotels. Taggart doesn’t even make much on the deal, and acknowledges to himself that he basically has a death wish. He just likes to risk his life killing sharks.

There’s a fair bit of shark fighting in the opening pages, as we see Taggart on a regular work day, putting on his Scuba gear and taking on various sharks with a speargun that’s equipped with explosive-tipped spears. Once he’s sold the dead sharks to his various hotel contacts, he gets to his other primary pursuit: chasing tail. Taggart sets a precedent for a Levinson protagonist who scores with the most ladies, racking up an impressive eight women over the course of this slim novel. And he only has to pay for a few of them.

First there’s Susan, a “mulatto showgirl” Taggart basically uses whenever he’s feeling randy; Taggart is soon warned by the Police Chief of Makura to stay away from her, as a high-ranking official is courting her. Susan doesn’t factor into the novel much, and at first I thought the main female protagonist would be Pamela Thompson, a young blonde vacationing from America who repeatedly throws herself at Taggart, who keeps brushing her off for being too young. But then Pamela too is dropped from the narrative; given the frequency of her appearances in the first half of the novel I thought she was going to return at some point, but it never happened.

It turns out gradually that Taggart’s top girl is Alison Dandridge, a dropdead gorgeous brunette who has often been featured modeling in Vogue magazine. Taggart sees her one night and falls into instant lust. This entails several scenes of Taggart putting the moves on Allison, who is a self-proclaimed “whore” who will only sleep with men who have money. Hence she has no interest in beach bum Taggart, despite being attracted to him. Allison is vacationing here with Bob Jones, a rotund and balding entrepreneur who has millions of dollars, and who eventually makes possible the novel’s main event.

The first half of Shark Fighter hopscotches around various plots. First there’s the already-mentioned deal with Pamela, after which Len moves on by introducing Hector and Maria Ramirez, a married couple who turn out to be Cuban gangsters. Hector approaches Taggart with a job: a few thousand dollars for Taggart to venture into a shark-infested part of the ocean to retreive a certain box which was lost in a shipwreck. Taggart instantly deduces that this box contains pure heroin, and thus ups his payment.

This entire sequence is pretty bloodthirsty, with the trio going out on Taggart’s boat, locating the box, and instantly being attacked by Mafia goons who come after them on faster boats. A fierce firefight ensues, with Taggart gearing up and taking on the mobsters underwater, knifing them and shooting at their boats with his explosive-tipped spears. What with the mobster villains and the tropical setting, it all comes off like Len’s earlier Sharpshooter installment Night Of The Assassins. But unlike Johnny Rock, Taggart has no particular relish for “tasting Mafia blood,” and tries to get away from the bloody scene without being discovered.

Taggart is an interesting character to say the least; he’s all id, and throughout the novel he barges from one confrontation to the next, all while pondering “how often it is so difficult to be a human being.” He escapes going to Makura’s notorious prisons by giving the heroin-addicted Police Chief the box, but immediately thereafter runs afoul of the cops again by instigating a barfight, Taggart storming away from his latest spurning by Alison and asking a trio of American women if they’d like to have an orgy! Taggart celebrates his freedom from jail (again granted by the complacent Police Chief) by going to a posh cathouse and ordering three women for the night – “one white, one black, and one Oriental.”

Beach bum Taggart has money to blow, now, thanks to Bob Jones, who has approached Taggart with his own offer – for Taggart to fight a shark on live television, for one million dollars. Taggart in his usual manner tells Jones to make it two sharks for two million. Jones gives Taggart a few hundred thousand for downpayment, and Taggart as mentioned spends it on the three hookers, though it must be said that Len doesn’t get too explicit in the ensuing orgy. In fact the sex scenes, while frequent, are rarely graphic in Shark Fighter, at least when compared to some of Len’s other novels, like The Bar Studs or Where The Action Is. 

The anything-goes spirit of the first half of the novel gradually leaves once Taggart’s on his way to becoming rich. The biggest change is Alison, who not-so-coincidentally is suddenly interested in him, even coming over to his newly-appointed hotel room in the Regency and offering herself to him. She claims she’s in love and that it has nothing to do with the fact that Taggart’s now famous and will soon be rich (that is, if he survives). Taggart doesn’t believe her – not that this stops him from screwing her. Eventually she even leaves Bob Jones, moving in with Taggart and thoroughly messing up his head; Len works in a “doomed lovers” storyline between Taggart and Alison, sometimes to the detriment of the novel’s forward momentum.

But as Taggart finds himself granting more and more interviews (set up by PR man Len Robinson, surely Len’s reference to himself and his earlier PR days as seen in his later novel Hype!), he becomes more and more famous – and disaffected. The novel, despite being an obvious cash-in on Belmont-Tower’s part on Jaws (which Len slyly references twice in the novel), almost comes off like Rocky, with Taggart downward spiralling as the big date gets closer and closer. Getting drunk and high every day and skipping his rigorous workout schedules, Taggart instead takes to fighting with Alison, calling her a whore and tramp and insisting that she’s only with him because she wants his two million dollars.

In fact, as the pages grow more thin the reader wonders when in fact this Great Shark Fight is even going to happen. And even in the home stretch, Len focuses more on Taggart’s internal plight with a drunken blowout that sees him going once again to a whorehouse – where he’s abducted by a group of communist terrorists. Instead of being a plot divergence, Len uses this as a means to get Taggart more involved in his fate; whereas before he could care less if he lived or died, now he will give his two million dollars to the People’s Freedom Party of Makura, to help them escape the tyranny of corrupt President Bomack.

Finally the big day arrives, and Taggart like a regular Rocky Balboa has gotten in fighting shape at the last moment – and just like Rocky it’s only after he’s reconnected with his number one lady. After various melodramatic breakdowns and spats, Alison and Taggart make amends before Taggart gets in the pool to fight the sharks; but I do love how Len eases up on the sap by having Alison offer Taggart a few snorts of coke! The actual shark fighting event only lasts a few pages, with Taggart armed with various spears and his trusty bayonet going up against two tiger sharks.

Len rightly understands how anticlimatic this is, given that Taggart makes his living, you know, fighting sharks, so he ups the ante by having the Police Chief set two more tiger sharks into the pool. Due to his informants the Chief knows that Taggart, upon winning, plans to make an anti-President Bomack speech to the reporters of the world who are here covering this international event, and thus this speech must be prevented. Once Taggart has easily dispensed of the first two sharks, the Chief’s people “accidentally” let loose two more sharks into the pool.

So the finale sees a greatly-outnumbered Taggart desperately fighting for his life. The sharks have been starved for a week, Taggart has smeared blood on his body to attract them, and he’s down to just a few weapons. Spoiler Warning (and I’m only giving it away because the novel’s so damn scarce): Taggart lives, but not after suffering heavy damage, including the loss of his left eye. However, Alison really is there for him, and claims she’s going to stay with him “forever,” even though he has given away his two million dollars as promised. The end.

Len fills the novel with those topical ‘70s details I enjoy so much, with people sitting on shag carpets while smoking high-grade dope and listing to reggae music on quadraphonic stereo systems. Taggart himself has a fondness for getting ripped on that native ganja and listening to Pink Floyd records, which I thought was pretty cool. Beyond that though the novel just brims with that ‘70s feel I have always been so enamored with, from the fashions of the jet-set to the liberal attitudes toward sex and drugs.

And as mentioned Len really captures the whole beach-read feel. Part of the novel’s thrust is that Taggart’s life falls apart when he comes into money; he’s much happier in the more plot-free early half of the novel, and Len brings to life the whole tropical feel, with Taggart living on his boat, fishing for fresh seafood, and eating roasted lobster and coconuts by the fire in a lagoon. Taggart loses all of this once he accepts Bob Jones’s offer, and thus is separated from his idyllic “beach bum” life, moving into the posh and opulent Regency Hotel. Soon after, everything pretty much goes to hell, with Taggart separated from the sea, his boat, and his freedom.

I don’t know, maybe Shark Fighter is like the trash fiction equivalent of The Old Man And The Sea. Or maybe not. At any rate, I enjoyed the hell out of it, and regret that it’s not more easily available – though with some persistence you should be able to turn up an eventual copy.

Len recently sent me his thoughts on Shark Fighter:

When Joe Kenney asked me in e-mail to write something about Shark Fighter, to accompany his review - my mind went blank. I wrote Shark Fighter nearly 40 years ago, hadn’t read it since, and didn’t remember anything at all about it. 

In order to comply with Joe’s request, I needed to dive deeply into the memory hole. Gradually certain details came to mind. It all began back in the early 1970s, when I received a phone call from Peter McCurtin, my editor at Belmont-Tower, inviting me to his office for discussion of a novel he wanted me to write. After I arrived, he described the novel’s basic premise: a guy agrees to fight a shark on closed circuit TV for a million bucks. To my best recollection, the cover art already had been completed.

For context, this was during the great Jaws craze, when the media was full of articles and commentary on the movie and on shark lore. So Shark Fighter essentially was an effort to tap into that mass media fascination.

I never saw the Jaws movie because evidently it was a waterlogged horror story, and I don’t like horror stories. Their principal goal is to scare me, and I’m scared enough as it is.

I felt qualified to write an underwater shark story because I’d done some snorkeling in South Florida during the year and a half I lived there, and also dived several times with regulator and tank strapped to my back. So the undersea world was familiar and enjoyable for me. I’d also watched many undersea TV programs by Jacques-Yves Cousteau. I even read his book The Silent World. So all things considered, I felt enthusiastic about writing Shark Fighter.

I still have the contract in my files, signed April 13, 1976. The stipulated delivery date was May 31, 1976. I was supposed to get paid $500.00 upon execution of the contract, and $500.00 upon acceptance of the manuscript, plus a royalty schedule but don’t remember any royalties paid.

I departed Peter’s office and dived into writing Shark Fighter. Now, after passage of so many years, I don’t remember anything about how it was written, and at first didn’t even remember the plot and characters. The only reasonable response was to sit down and actually read it.

To my astonishment, I couldn’t believe it was so interesting. It read as if written by someone else. I couldn’t put it down. All my various obsessions and preoccupations of that era are in the novel. I’d often fantasized about living on a boat in the Caribbean, and one of my highest career goals was to become a full-time beachcomber. Naturally I’d always wanted a beautiful Vogue-type model to fall madly in love with me. 

Shark Fighter evidently was wish fulfillment expressed in the form of a novel. While reading, I couldn’t help noticing how smoothly and quickly the plot moved along. A reader cannot guess what will happen next, perhaps because the author didn’t know either. The characters all have numerous neurotic compulsions and seem believable. The island of Makura apparently was partially based on Haiti under the dictator Papa Doc Duvalier, partially on the Dominican Republic under the dictator Rafael Trujillo, and partially on a trip I once took to Nassau in the Bahamas. Shark Fighter even has a fairly happy ending, unlike many of my novels.

As usual, a few typographical errors either were overlooked or inserted by the Belmont-Tower copy editor. The big shark fight at the end has a sentence that doesn’t know left from right, which is a bit confusing. Some sentences contain too many words. Perhaps the Belmont-Tower copy editor inserted them out of concern for grammatical correctness over swift narration, or maybe the culprit was me.

Perhaps I’m prejudiced, but Shark Fighter doesn’t come across as simple-minded trashy fiction. It’s more of an adventure melodrama with echoes of Joseph Conrad. What a great movie it would make. I’m very proud of this novel, and grateful to Joe for bringing it to my attention. Perhaps I really wasn’t the lowdown hack that everybody including me thought I was. Unfortunately, Shark Fighter isn’t yet available as an ebook.