Monday, January 24, 2022

The Terminator #1: Mercenary Kill


The Terminator #1: Mercenary Kill, by John Quinn
September, 1982  Pinnacle Books

Here’s another latter-era Pinnacle offering, one that amounted to five volumes. It’s also another series Marty McKee hooked me up with some years ago, and I’m only just getting around to it. The Terminator is credited to John Quinn, but the copyright page outs Dennis Rodriguez as the real name of the author. Per Brad Mengel’s Serial Vigilantes Of Paperback Fiction, Rodriguez “was editor of pornographic magazines for Pendulum Press where he worked with Ed Wood Jr.” However, also per Brad, “While director Ed Wood Jr. also used the John Quinn pen name, there is no evidence that he wrote any of the books in this series.” And to be sure there is little in the way of Wood-esque weirdness in The Terminator, at least judging from this first volume, which sticks to a clear-eyed “realism” throughout. 

As I read Mercenary Kill I kept having flashbacks to another late-era Pinnacle offering: The Force. It’s been ten years since I read the first volume of that also short-lived series, and I haven’t read another volume since, but something about Mercenary Kill kept reminding me of it. Maybe it was the writing style, or the fact that the main protagonist of The Force was a cynical vet of the spy game, same as Rod Gavin, the main character in The Terminator. The Force was credited to “Jake Decker” and came out the same time as The Terminator, so maybe it too was the work of Dennis Rodriguez. Again per Brad Mengel in Serial Vigilantes, The Force was “the only credit for Jake Decker,” lending further impression that “Decker” was a pseudonym. Whatever the case, I did enjoy Mercenary Kill more than I enjoyed the first Force novel. 

Oh and just to address the series title – obviously this series came out before the Schwarzenegger movie. But in the world of this book, “Terminators” are a special section of the CIA, sort of like the “00” agents in the Secret Service in James Bond. Agents who are sent out on kill assignments. Per the deal it’s eight and done, and Gavin when we meet him is on his eighth assignment, after which he intends to retire. Curiously we’re not given a description of Gavin, so Gil Cohen’s cover will have to suffice. It is implied he is 34, though, and also a ‘Nam vet. Mercenary Kill is clearly an ‘80s offering because, unlike the majority of the men’s adventure novels of the ‘70s, it is focused on world-building and scene setting. In effect it comes off as a standalone novel, and doesn’t really even set up the potential for more action-heroing in future volumes. Gavin is not presented as an Executioner-esque crime or terrorism fighter, I mean to say, and his actions throughout Mercenary Kill are all made in the name of self-preservation, not to save anyone else. 

The novel opens on the action, though, with Gavin in Miami, where he takes out three commie agents. Here we see that Rodriguez will have a bit more of a “literary” vibe to his prose than the genre standard; again, another similarity with The Force. While the novel is not spectacularly gory, we do get memorable descriptions, like “pink spray” blowing out of a guy’s head when Gavin shoots him with his .45. It’s a cool and memorable description, but at the same time it gives the impression that Gavin’s just shot a cartoon character. Rodriguez maintains a crisp style throughout, with lines like “[Gavin] brought his blood pressure to boil with a couple quickly-smoked cigarettes.” Oh and as a random note, I found it interesting that “flight attendant” was used in the novel instead of “stewardess,” so it must’ve been the late ‘70s or very early ‘80s when that earlier term, so championed in trashy paperbacks of the day, had fallen out of favor. 

Another thing unusual about Mercenary Kill is that there are a slew of minor characters to keep track of. And Rodriguez keeps hopping around them with little introduction or setup, leaving the reader out of sorts. Things move a lot more smoothly when he just focuses on Gavin, though. Our hero, who is pretty taciturn and cipher-like, has carved out an off-the-grid life for himself in Colorado, living in a rented apartment with no phone. He’s so off the grid that he doesn’t use banks; when he goes on a job he takes a big envelope of money to one of his few friends to safeguard while he’s gone. Gavin’s also in love with Kendall, the owner of the bookstore across from his apartment. While she doesn’t factor into the novel much, Kendall is often on Gavin’s mind, which also gives the novel a different vibe from the average; Rod Gavin is one of the few men’s adventure heroes who is in love. Not that this stops him from having a little extracurricular fun on the job. 

One of the many supporting characters in the novel is Barnes, Gavin’s boss at the Agency. The two have an antoginistic relationship that really reminded me of the one Butler had with his CIA boss in the Butler series by Len Levinson. But again this series is more serious in tone, thus Barnes comes off as more nefarious than satiric. He questions Gavin’s lack of commitment to the Agency, telling him he is “not a believer.” Regardless he gives Gavin his latest – and final – mission: go to the country of Costa Bella in Central America and terminate a soldier named De Leon. In one of those many subplots we’ve seen De Leon get in trouble: he’s inadvertently massacred a car load of nuns, at the order of sadistic commanding officer Rojas. This has set off an international incident, with De Leon, clearly framed, thrown in a Costa Bellan jail. They’re all involved with the US to some extent, with De Leon being working undercover for a State Dept guy named Duffy. 

My assumption is Duffy will factor into future volumes of The Terminator, as he becomes Gavin’s main accomplice in Mecenary Kill. In this volume the two meet; Gavin’s been sent to kill De Leon, and Duffy heads to Costa Bella because he’s heard the CIA is getting involved. Meanwhile other agents are afoot, including one minor character who is run down in Costa Bella; Rodriguez’s description of this guy’s death is an example of the dark sort of humor that runs throughout the narrative: “…a painless impact that he actually thought was kind of funny.” What’s weird though is Rodriguez throws in the curveball, one that’s barely explored, that Gavin knows De Leon. The two attended some sort of training a decade before. Rodriguez does little too exploit this, and just has Gavin (rather easily) carry out his job, after which the main plot kicks in – Gavin realizes that he himself has been framed, as Rojas, the man Barnes told him to connect with down here, now chases after him for the murder of De Leon. 

Throughout Rodriguez sticks to more of a realistic vibe, save for a bit midway through where Gavin runs into a group of Costa Bella guerrillas. Of course, their leader is a sexy chick named Maria Angela, and of course she ends up going to bed with Gavin. Rodriguez leaves it off-page, but at least we know that our hero isn’t too devoted on his girlfriend in Colorado. Maria also hooks Gavin up with a gun: a P-38, which he uses for the rest of the novel. Judging from Cohen’s portrait of Gavin that runs on each volume of The Terminator, I’m assuming this P-38 will become his trademark gun. Hopefully Bucher doesn’t mind! Maria isn’t the only helper Quinn encounters; as mentioned Duffy also meets up with him, and after a shaky start the two develop a sort of friendship, with Duffy providing Gavin a place to stay once Gavin’s made it back into the country. (Curiously, Rodriguez leaves Gavin’s escape from Costa Bella off-page; one would think it would almost be a story in itself.) 

There is more of a modern hardboiled vibe to The Mercenary Kill than the cover of Rod Gavin blasting an AK-47 would have you believe. And in fact, he doesn’t even blast away with an AK-47 in the novel, or at least he doesn’t that I can recall. Instead of a slam-bang finale, we have something more befitting a Gold Medal paperback as Gavin traces Rojas and Barnes to California, where the two are involved in a heroin ring. Barnes has been using his CIA role to run drugs, his biggest deal coming through and etc. He of course was behind the frame of Gavin, as well as of De Leon; we’ve also learned almost casually that Barnes is gay and has a fondness for young men. Ah, the days when being gay was just another “villain attribute” in pulp fiction. Simpler times. 

I have repeatedly mentioned that Rodriguez goes for realism, but this is not to say we have a totally believable situation. The finale features Gavin locking himself in the trunk of Rojas’s car, fortifying himself with a couple sandwhiches and a bottle of J&B scotch. He drinks half the bottle as he waits for Rojas to drive into the remote area where the drug-dealing’s going down. By this point Gavin is a little buzzed; we’re told he “feels good” and “relaxed.” He gets out of the trunk, does a few stretches – and then proceeds to do some quick shooting with his P-38. I just thought it was funny our hero got drunk for the finale, but Rodriguez doesn’t imply that this might slow him down at all. That being said, one guy does get eaten by a dog here, though it happens off-page. 

As also mentioned Mercenary Kill comes off a lot like a standalone novel. By the end Gavin’s gotten his revenge and he’s headed back to Colorado to reconnect with his beloved Kendall. There’s no indication that he’ll return in a future volume to see any action; indeed, we get the impression he’s done with the action and killing business. This makes me wonder if, a la The Revenger and other series openers that came off like standalones, Rodriguez wrote Mercenary Kill as a self-contained story, and then either he or Pinnacle decided to farm it out into a series. Overall I enjoyed Mercenary Kill, and eventually will get to the next ones. And once again a big thanks to Marty for hooking me up with the series.

Thursday, January 20, 2022

Eraser


Eraser, by Robert Tine
June, 1996  Signet Books

I was always under the impression that Eraser was an unofficial sequel to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s earlier movie Commando (1985). And this was an immediate reaction; I saw Eraser in the theater on its opening night, with the Arnold-obsessed friend I mentioned in my Total Recall review. This guy was so obsessed that, every July 30th (ie Schwarzenegger’s birthday), he’d call people up and tell them, “Happy Arnold Day.” I think Eraser came out around this time, or maybe a little before – all I remember is I’d just graduated from college and was spending the summer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which is where I saw the movie. 

But it seemed clear that Eraser, which is likely considered a lesser movie in Schwarzenegger’s canon now, was at least somewhat of a tribute to Commando. It had the same sort of “comedy meets action” vibe, with Schwarzenegger playing a stone-cold badass who, despite his stone-cold badassery, had a gift for goofy one-liners. Also, Schwarzenegger played a “John” in both films: John Matrix in Commando and John Krueger in Eraser. Both films featured a black lead actress: Rae Dawn Chong in Commando and Vanessa Williams in Eraser. Schwarzenegger jumped out of an airplane in both films: before takeoff in Commando and before landing in Eraser. There was also a total callout to Commando in Eraser, with Schwarzenegger at one point wearing a jacket with “Let’s party!” written on it, this being one of his lines at the climax of Commando

What really set my friend and I to theorizing was that the end credits didn’t bill Schwarzenegger as having played “John Krueger;” instead, he was credited merely as “Eraser.” This gave the impression that Krueger wasn’t even the guy’s real name. And most importantly, “Eraser’s” job was creating new identities for people. It didn’t require a huge leap in deduction to figure that John Matrix could’ve changed his own name to John Krueger. Of course, all this is pointless, as the two films are clearly unrelated, but it was fun to think of Eraser as the Commando sequel we never got. But then, many years later I managed to get a copy of the never-produced Commando II script, dated February 1989 and written by Steven E. de Souza with revisions by Frank Darabont, and in it John Matrix goes up against a nefarious defense contractor…so similar to the plot of Eraser that I wondered if this was yet another connection between the two films. 

I recall at the time that I thought Eraser was fine, if fairly generic; it was clear even then that there was a huge difference between Schwarzenegger’s 80s films and his ‘90s films. His star power was still sufficient enough to make Eraser a hit, and it might’ve been his last non-franchise hit, I’m not sure. It was certainly better than the movies he made over the next few years, but I only saw it that one time in the theater. Then about a decade ago I got it on Blu Ray, and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Still thought it was a bit generic, though, with none of the violence of those ‘80s movies and more of an attempt at being a “real” movie, with James Caan and James Coburn in supporting roles. Also, you knew for sure it was the ‘90s because suddenly Schwarzenegger was pecking away on a computer keyboard. And using a handgun – notice that in the ‘80s the action stars used machine guns, but they reverted to handguns in the ‘90s. Just kinder, gentler times overall. 

Well anyway, this tie-in novel courtesy prolific novelization author Robert Tine hews very closely to the film itself. And despite being 233 pages it’s a quick read; you could probably read it in the time it would take to watch the movie itself. It’s got some seriously big print, and looks very much like the average Gold Eagle paperback of the day. Tine also drops in the occasional weaponry detail, which gives it even more of a Gold Eagle vibe. There are no major differences from the film – this isn’t a Rambo III type novelization, that’s for sure – or at least none that jumped out at me. About the most I noticed was a bit more backstory for Krueger, who reveals that he got into witness protection years ago because a woman he knew was raped and he pushed her to testify, and she ended up getting killed because no one protected her. But then, this dialog might be in the film too, I can’t remember. 

Tine’s novel somewhat aids my “Commando sequel” theory: Krueger is referred to as “Eraser” in the narrative, same as Schwarzenegger was in the credits. He’s only called “Krueger” once or twice, and his WITSEC colleague Robert Deguerin (James Caan) refers to him as “John.” But then Deguerin himself is referred to as “Samaritan” in the novel. They are all US Marshals, part of an “elite Shadow Operation” by the name of WITSEC, and these are their code names. It lends the story more of a comic book vibe than the film actually had. This is somewhat present in the opening action scene, which sees Eraser, masked head to toe in black like a ninja, taking out several mobsters as they’re about to torture-kill an informant named Johnny C. This was another part my Arnold-obsessed friend and I got a kick out of, as Schwarzenegger first appears while hiding behind an opened refrigerator door. My “eccentric” friend liked to do the exact same thing; he was fond of “sneak attacking” people, usually appearing out of the shadows to throw a kick at your head or whatever. Hiding behind an opened fridge door was one of his favorites, and there his friggin’ hero was doing the very same thing on the big screen! 

This opening eventually paves the way for the main plot, which has Eraser taking on a defense contractor which is planning to sell off its high-tech experimental weaponry to the highest bidder. Ultimately the Russian mafia is involved, but this isn’t really elaborated on. Eraser’s main enemies are his fellow agents, rogue ones from WITSEC and the CIA. One of the problems with Eraser is that Samaritan is played by James Caan, and thus the producers give him a bit more personality and memorable lines. This movie’s over 25 years old and I’m sure the majority of you have seen it, so no spoiler alert but Samaritan turns out to be the bad guy. The thing is, because the producers gave him a personality he lacks the batshit craziness of previous villains in Schwarzenegger films – like the guy in Commando, or even Richter in Total Recall. Guys you spend the entire movie waiting to see get killed. 

And honestly, if you have seen the movie, you’re not going to get much new stuff out of Tine’s tie-in, or perhaps we should refer to it as a Tine-in? No, that would be stupid. But really, the book is almost a straight take on what’s seen in the film, and for the most part Tine doesn’t even add much inner stuff for the characters, to give perspective or depth. This actually could’ve helped the book in a major way. For example, the plot concerns Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), an executive at defense contractor Cyrex, who wants to turn in evidence on some illegal and traitorous actions involving newly-developed rail gun technology. While Tine displays some of Lee’s concerns and fears early in the novel, in later action scenes he skips all that and just tells us what she’s doing. Like the big action scene in the zoo; it’s all Lee aiming guns and firing, or even later in the book bashing some guy in the head and escaping, and it all just happens, with no internal turmoil from Lee, someone entirely new to this world of violence, as she prepares herself to attack someone. 

Otherwise the action follows almost identically to the film. The airplane sequence also plays out the same, with Eraser drugged by Samaritan and then managing to jump out of the plane after he wakes up. I recall the part where he parachuted into the auto junkard – asking the kids “Where is this?” and the kids replying “Earth – welcome!” – got a big laugh in the theater, probably the biggest laugh of the movie. But then, Schwarzenegger’s one-liners suffered too in the ‘90s; his “You’re luggage!” to a CGI-rendered alligator he shoots at the zoo was lame even then. Actually Caan is the one who gets the most comedic lines, his Samaritan almost having a grand old time of it as he goes bad. Also the violence has been toned down; Tine’s novelization might be more violent than the film, with occasional mentions of heads being blown off. I also appreciated his description of how the rail guns worked, in particular the “eerie glow” of the “X-ray scope” on the guns. 

Toward the climax Eraser and Lee infiltrate the Cyrex HQ, a scene which plays as much on comedy as action, featuring as it does Johnny C feigning a heart attack in what could almost be a skit from a comedy movie. From there we get into the action, with Eraser again blasting away with a sidearm as Samaritan and the CIA goons try to hunt him down. But it’s so far removed from the action spectacles of the ‘80s, with those damn computers once again central to the action as Lee hurriedly types away on a keyboard. I seem to recall the Commando II script also featured John Matrix infiltrating the high-tech HQ of a defense contractor (it’s been several years since I read it); Frank Darabont, who revised that unproduced script, also did some uncredited rewrites on Eraser, so this entire sequence could be yet another tangent in the “unofficial Commando sequel” theory. 

One area in which Tine’s novelization veers from the movie is the ending. I remember reading a magazine article years and years ago where Vanessa Williams stated that she and Schwarzenegger had originally kissed at the end of Eraser, but this “romantic” ending was changed because it “didn’t work.” Tine actually has that ending here in the novel. We see Eraser and Lee at an airport, deciding on where to go. He returns her St. George necklace, which he took from her earlier in the book as part of her “identity erasing.” The idea being that he is now her protector. They kiss and that’s that. I can’t even remember how the actual movie ended right now. Maybe I should get the Blu Ray out and watch it again. Really though, Tine’s novelization just reinforced the idea that Eraser is a bit generic, like one level above a direct-to-video release. Which makes it all the more sad that it was one of Schwarzenegger’s better ‘90s movies!

Monday, January 17, 2022

Jefferson Boone, Handyman #3: Murder Today, Money Tomorrow


Jefferson Boone, Handyman #3: Murder Today, Money Tomorrow, by Jon Messmann
August, 1973  Pyramid Books

The third volume of Jefferson Boone, Handyman is a little better than the previous two, because Jon Messmann backs off on the “international terrorist” angle and delivers a mystery plot that’s more in-line with his cerebral protagonist. It was kind of hard to buy the whole Jefferson “Handyman” Boone concept in the earlier books; as I wrote, he just came off a bit too much like “James Bond meets Frasier Crane” to be believable. Messmann also slightly tones down on the introspective musings, which is a help, but he also turns way up on the casual misogyny. 

Again, I don’t virtue-signal lightly (or ever, really), but in this case there’s no other word for it but misogyny. Messmann is kind of a creep in how he typically treats his female characters, as has been noted in reviews of his other novels (as well as in the comments sections). And I’m not talking about how he objectifies them, how he always mentions their breasts – I mean I encourage stuff like that from my men’s adventure authors; these books should come straight from the male id. What I mean is how many of his male protagonists are just total assholes to women. Constantly putting them down, snipping at them, mocking them, etc. Murder Today, Money Tomorrow goes further in this regard than any previous Messmann novel I’ve read, with the ultimate effect that Boone (or “Jeff,” as Messmann most often refers to him in the narrative) comes off as a dick, and the “taming of the shrew” angle ultimately makes no sense in the context of the book. 

There’s no pickup from previous volumes, and in fact Messmann gives a bit more background on Jeff this time. Not too much, but in dialog Jeff relates how he decided to become an international “handyman” after the murder of his diplomat father. In fact we’re told his dad was “killed right in front” of Jeff. This volume overall really ties into Jeff’s past; when we meet him he’s waiting in the dark in rural Virginia for a childhood friend named Roger Van Court, an eccentric guy Jeff never really liked. Jeff’s dad and Roger’s mom were apparently having a bit of a fling when the two boys were kids, and Jeff would spend every Christmas at the Van Court estate. And we’re really in the upper-crust world of the filthy rich; this series has always traded on the jet-set world, and Murder Today, Money Tomorrow makes it clear that Jefferson Boone grew up in the lap of luxury. This of course makes his current role as a total bad-ass a bit hard to buy, but whatever. 

That bad-assery is displayed posthaste, though; first Boone is approached by a “truculent” young blonde with an “elfin” build who appears to be with Roger. Jeff immediately dislikes her, for reasons Messmann never really makes believable. She’s protective of Roger, clearly, but Jeff suspects her of foul play or somesuch. Roger does appear, but only momentarily, as some guys with guns show up and start blasting at him. In the pitch dark Jeff manages to turn the tables, killing off the thugs with his pistol. Here Messmann introduces a new gimmick to the series: Jeff drops a “little gold toolbox” onto one of the corpses. In other words, the calling card of the “Handyman.” Meanwhile, both Roger and the girl have fled. Jeff goes back to DC for some good lovin’ with a chick he’s been checking out at cocktail parties over the past few years; Messmann develops this curious subplot where the girl, Fran, she of the “full-bosomed, long-legged loveliness,” wants to be Jeff’s steady, but the relationship is broken off within a few pages, due to jealousy. Fran calls Jeff up next morning and discovers another girl on the line. This is Cassie, the “elfin blonde” who was with Roger the night before; she’s lost Roger as well, and will hang out with Jeff for the duration to find him again. 

The funny thing about Money Today, Murder Tomorrow is that the back cover makes it clear that Roger Van Court, a geologist, has made a discovery that could lead to a new form of power. However, Jefferson Boone spends the entire novel not knowing what it is Roger’s discovered, nor why so many people are trying to kill him. Even more ridiculously, Cassie herself has no idea what Roger was up to, even though she’s spent the past year as his companion. The two had an “understanding,” one that Messmann plays out as a lame mystery for almost the entire novel. But it’s clear that she and Roger were close, and a recurring bit is that Jeff is just unable to see Roger being with this cute blonde with an elfin build…however, when Cassie comes over to Jeff’s pad and takes off her coat, Jeff sees that “the little elf had magnificently high, full breasts.” 

Poor Cassie can’t catch a break from Jeff or Roger. She goes around the world with Jeff, who treats her like shit the entire time. Putting her down, mocking her, disparaging her relationship with Roger. He’s constantly on the attack, too; I lost count of the number of times Messmann used the dialog modifier “tossed off” when Jeff spoke to Cassie. But then Roger was a dick to her, too, a condescending one at that. She’s from backwoods Tennessee (or maybe it’s West Virginia; Messmann can’t seem to make up his mind), and Roger met her while on one of his research trips. He took a cotton to her, took her under his wing; it was a podunk town and everyone always took Cassie for granted until Roger Van Court came along. But, we learn, he tried to give her culture, giving her books to read, teaching her how to act in “polite society,” etc, etc. Now that’s “mansplaining” folks. And of course done without any apology; indeed, Jeff is quite pleased with the progress Roger made on the otherwise rednecked Cassie! 

But see that’s the thing. Nowhere does Cassie act like a dumb hick, or do anything stupid, or do anything that would make Jeff dislike her. And yet Jeff does dislike or at least distrust her, and goes out of his way to attack her at all times. It makes him seem like a total asshole, and what’s weird is that you get the impression that Messman doesn’t think he is an asshole. I mean we aren’t talking like an anti-hero sort of deal here. Jeff is the hero, no questions asked. So he takes Cassie under his own wing and they follow the vague leads on where Roger could be holed up, and why. Given this, Cassie has a greater part in the narrative than previous female characters. But it’s a strange relationship for sure, and Jeff’s attitude toward Cassie would certainly get him canceled in today’s “believe all women” world. 

It soon becomes clear that Roger is into something deep and is hiding for a reason. Jeff is constantly followed; even when going to pick Cassie up, driving back into Virginia, he’s tailed by some goons, managing to lose them in some salt flats. It gets to be annoying, though, because every time Jeff gets close to Roger, the guy will either run away or send an emissary in his place, to the extent that it almost takes on the tone of a Monty Python skit. Roger’s sought out Jeff, though, because Jeff’s “Handyman” status has become legedary, and also even as a kid Jefferson Boone was known for his fortitude. The action is infrequent, but always handled in a realistic matter when it happens, however as usual Messmann never dwells on the gory details. After encountering a few random thugs, Jeff deduces that Portugal had something to do with whatever Roger was into, so he and Cassie head there. 

The jet-setting Eurotrash stuff is pretty thick, here; as I mentioned before, Jefferson Boone, Handyman is more akin to the trash fiction bestsellers of the day, a la Burt Hirschfeld and the like. Messmann shows restraint, though, in that Jeff does not conjugate with the ultra-hot, ultra-stacked beauty Maria De Vasquez, whom he first sees getting into a fancy vintage car outside of a restaurant. Through various plot developments, Jeff has settled on Maria’s wealthy uncle as someone who might know what Roger was up to. De Vasquez seems to have walked out of a Bond novel, a man of such wealth that he retains his own retinue of enforcers and who has a garage filled with priceless vintage cars. Even here though the battle of wills with Cassie is played out; De Vasquez invites Jeff and Cassie to a party at his villa, and Jeff keeps imploring Cassie not to go, telling her she’ll be “out of her league” and “make a fool of herself” in front of all the jet-setting Euroscum. Seriously, the guy’s a dick. 

But the “Pygmallion” stuff is only reinforced when Cassie, wouldja believe, comes out of her room ready for the party…and it’s as if she’s become an entirely different woman. She has just one dress – bought for her by Roger, of course, for when he took her to socialite parties! – and she’s gotten her hair done, and she of course manages to hold her own at the party. Indeed she holds it so well that Jeff finds himself ignoring super-stacked Maria to keep checking on Cassie! Now all along Cassie’s been telling Jeff there was “more to the story” so far as her relationship with Roger went, and that night she finally tells Jeff it all: due to a “childhood incident,” Roger was no longer able to, uh, rise to the occasion, thus he and Cassie had a sort of “student-teacher” relationship and nothing more. And folks you better believe she’s ready for some good lovin’. She and Jeff go at it in a fairly explicit scene that for once doesn’t play out with the Hirschfeld-esque metaphors and analogies of previous such scenes. 

And meanwhile, Jeff still ponders this unfathomable case, this “increasingly multifaceted rigadoon with death.” Yes, that’s actually a line in the book. I don’t think even prime-era William Shatner could’ve delivered that with a straight face. (Orson Welles probably could’ve…and then he’d take a thoughtful puff on his ever-present cigar.) Finally, on page 147, Jeff learns that Roger was in-line to a breakthrough in “thermal energy.” This he learns from his State Dept. contact Charley Hopkins. And, of course, De Vasquez and his minions are out for it. This leads to a nice action scene where Cassie gets in on it; a country girl, she’s more than familiar with handling a rifle, and uses one to blast apart some thugs they chase while Jeff handles the car. As I say, she’s a likable character, making Jeff’s treatment of her seem even worse…though of course by this point they’ve been to bed a few times together, so at least he’s nicer to her. 

This proves to be the action highlight of the novel. As befitting the mystery thriller Murder Today, Money Tomorrow really is, the actual climax plays out more on a suspense vibe. Jeff and Cassie return to Roger’s home, where they learn exactly why thugs were constantly popping out of the woodwork to tail them. In other words there was a traitor in Roger’s life, and this character is dealt with in an entertaining – if predictable – finale. And it’s also worth noting that Jeff pitchforks a guy in this climactic sequence. It’s also interesting that Cassie knows her fling with Jeff has a limited lifespan; at novel’s end she wants one more roll in the hay, then she’s off to live her life. 

But man, there’s a lot of stuff I didn’t even cover here…like the bit where Jeff and Cassie go back to Cassie’s home town and run into some rednecks there. And other stuff on Jeff’s highfalutin childhood and jet-setting life in DC. As ever Messmann packs a lot of prose into the small, dense print of the book, clearly trying to write a “real” novel instead of the third installment of an action series. And I have to say, I think he succeeded this time. It won’t float everyone’s boat, but Murder Today, Money Tomorrow was pretty entertaining…if you can put aside the main character’s rampant misogyny, that is.

Thursday, January 13, 2022

The Right Stuff: Illustrated


The Right Stuff: Illustrated, by Tom Wolfe
No month stated, 2004  Black Dog & Leventhal

Many years ago I was obsessed with “New Journalism,” ie that genre of journalism that brought elements of fiction to nonfiction. Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was my introduction; I picked up a paperback edition of it in 1998 and read it at work, and really enjoyed it. From there I picked up more of Wolfe’s books, including his The New Journalism anthology of other writers. And of course Hunter Thompson’s Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas was another of my favorites; I even sought out obscure stuff like Joe Ezsterhas’s Nark, culled like Thompson’s book from the pages of Rolling Stone, but not nearly as frenetic. 

Well anyway, despite my obsession I still never picked up The Right Stuff, which arguably was Wolfe’s most famous piece of New Journalism. Hell, I’d never even seen the movie. I was certainly aware of both the book and the film, though, but neither captured my interest because I knew the story concerned the earliest days of the Space Race. In fact, I was under the impression that the majority of The Right Stuff wasn’t even about space, but about the fighter jocks who preceded the entire space program. I’ve always been interested in space subjects, but I preferred something later, at least the Gemini era, so I just never sought out The Right Stuff

This of course has turned out to be my mistake, as the book is just as great as its legend would have you believe. And also, while it does focus on the early years of the Space Race, The Right Stuff only slightly focuses on the fighter jocks of the ‘40s and ‘50s. I finally got around to watching the film before I read the book, and the film is misleading in this regard; the film puts a lot more focus on Chuck Yeager and the test pilot program than the book itself does. As it turns out, the test pilot material is only at the beginning of the book, after which we get into the meat of the story: the training and eventual missions of the Mercury Seven, ie the seven military pilots who were ultimately chosen to be the first Americans in space. Yeager disappears throughout the majority of this, only to return in a gripping final chapter. 

Speaking of Rolling Stone, The Right Stuff started as an assignment Wolfe wrote for the magazine, which was published as “Post-Orbital Remorse.” You’ll often read that this piece was transformed into The Right Stuff, but now that I’ve read both I can tell you that hardly any of “Post-Orbital Remorse” is in The Right Stuff. For one, that earlier piece is written in an entirely different tone, with Wolfe himself the audience of the “collective voice of the astronauts,” and many of the stories concern Apollo missions. None of this is in The Right Stuff; Wolfe does not appear, and there is no collective astronaut voice. In fact it is told very much like a novel, only one with the typically hyperkinetic Tom Wolfe narrative style. And also there is absolutely no foreshadowing to the Apollo era; it is almost a real-time documentation of the period in which it is set, namely the late 1950s through the early 1960s. 

It's kind of suprising that The Right Stuff was such a hit. Maybe it’s because the book isn’t like your typical dry piece of nonfiction. Wolfe has clearly done his research, and met with many of the astronauts and their wives, but his usual tendency for exaggeration is in place, and there are no footnotes or anything to provide further details. But then those dry nonfiction books don’t feature grand setpieces like Wolfe delivers throughout the novel, many of which are courtesy his own gifted imagination. Take for example the flight of Ham, a chimp who was trained rigorously to handle a sub-orbital flight before an actual human (Alan Shepard) was sent up. This entire sequence of Ham being sent up is gripping and hilarious – and it’s entirely from the perspective of Ham himself. His thoughts and feelings and fears, up to the laugh out loud moment at the end where he’s taken out to the press pool to be photographed and thinks these photographers are more humans who are going to strap him up and put him through more grueling tests (“Fuck this!”). It’s some incredbile writing for sure, but obviously there’s no way anyone could know what Ham was thinking during the mission; it’s all Wolfe’s imagination, and it’s a lot of fun. Just one wonderful sequence in a book chock full of them. 

It’s my understanding that most of the astronauts themselves appreciated The Right Stuff (though hardly any of them liked the movie), save for one thing: Wolfe’s character assassination of Virgil “Gus” Grissom. In a sequence that still sets the purists off, Wolfe has it that Grissom “screwed the pooch” upon the return from his own suborbital flight, accidentally hitting the escape button and ultimately losing his own capsule, which sunk in the ocean. Wolfe builds up several charges in his case: Grissom was loaded down with coins and such that he wanted to take on his ride and sell later, and also he likely stood up to take the survival knife mounted inside the capsule as another souvenier – and it was mounted right beside the escape switch. Grissom died in the Apollo 1 disaster of 1967, so wasn’t around to defend his case when this book was published years later. However even in his own day he was exonerated: fellow Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra did in fact hit the escape switch, and it hurt like hell, leaving a bruise on his hand. There was no such bruising on Grissom. Wolfe doesn’t mention any of this; reading the book you get the impression that Gus Grissom was a screwup. 

I thought about this for a while, and finally I think I figured out what was going on. There was a reason, I felt, that Wolfe was overlooking all this and making Gus Grissom look like a bad guy. And that reason, I’m sure, is that Wolfe himself just didn’t like Gus. In the book Wolfe skillfully paints a portrait of each of the astronauts, and Grissom’s isn’t very flattering: he’s never home, he’s always ditching his wife and kids (even when they’re just a few miles away), and he’s kind of slow-witted. Wolfe also develops the theme that there is a rivalry within the Mercury Seven: on the one side there’s Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, and Gordon Cooper, and on the other side there’s John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. The rivalry mostly begins over “cookies,” ie the groupies who would flock around the astronauts. While the other astronauts thought this was just a fun perk, Glenn and Carpenter were sort of against the idea. 

Now, a curious thing about The Right Stuff is that the tone in it is very pro-American, very much what one might today deem “reactionary.” This is very surprising, given that it’s courtesy a Rolling Stone contributor. It becomes clear that Wolfe himself is on the side of Glenn and Carpenter. This is most obviously demonstrated because he keeps referring to Carpenter as “Scott” in the narrative. Whereas the other astronauts are generally referred to by their last names – and Wolfe lacks consistency in this, which is kind of messy and should have been caught in the editing stage – Wolfe will usually just refer to Carpenter by his first name. This actually took me out of the narrative the first few times; I’d be reading about “Shepard” and “Glenn” and then I’d see “Scott,” and I’d have to pause and wonder, “Wait, which one was named Scott? Oh – Scott Carpenter! 

One of the people Wolfe talked to during his research was Rene Carpenter, Scott Carpenter’s wife; I know this because you hear a bit of their 1973 interview in the 2020 documentary The Real Right Stuff. Rene and Scott were divorced at the time of the interview, but I’m under the impression that Wolfe also talked to Scott Carpenter, and found himself liking the former couple. Thus, both Scott and Rene come off very well in The Right Stuff. Scott Carpenter in particular is presented as the “explorer of the new frontier” that none of the other Mercury astronauts were, using his mission to investigate and relate back on his findings, often ignoring his real objectives – even up to the point that he ran out of fuel and was nearly lost in the return to Earth. Due to this he so pissed off the higher ups at NASA that Scott Carpenter never went into space again. And, Wolfe implies, this “ban from space” was also courtesy the rival click of astronauts, who went out of their way to imply that Grissom’s mission, despite the loss of the friggin’ capsule, was a success and Carpenter’s was a failure. 

But Wolfe builds up the case that Scott Carpenter was actually a superior astronaut to Gus Grissom: his heart rate and blood pressure never skyrocketed, even during the shaky return to Earth. Meanwhile, Grissom’s was soaring in all the tense spots. But the Shepard-Grissom-Slayton-Schirra-Cooper click was against Carpenter and Glenn. They couldn’t do anything about Glenn, who’d driven them nuts with his goody-goody nature during training; his orbital flight made him a hero, second only to the President in the unofficial power structure. But Carpenter wasn’t as famous, and Wolfe makes it clear that he was the sacrificial lamb that made Grissom look good; while Carpenter was drummed out of the program, despite having all the “right stuff,” Grissom was allowed to stay on, despite losing his capsule and not displaying the right stuff (ie the racing heart rate and soaring blood pressure). All this of course might not be a reflection of reality; I’m just going into it all to offer an explanation on why Tom Wolfe made Gus Grissom look so bad in The Right Stuff. It’s because he liked Scott Carpenter, and resented that Carpenter suffered for a “failure” while Grissom didn’t. 

Regardless, this is a great book. It’s history made exciting. There are so many memorable moments, from the bizarre and hilarious training the pilots go through as part of the astronaut selection to the indidivual trips each takes into space. Alan Shepard, the first American in space, features in a bravura sequence where Wolfe, again in Shepard’s thoughts and feelings more so than “standard” nonfiction would dare to go, relates that it’s all sort of underwhelming…at least when compared to the training sequences! The John Glenn launch, orbit, and ensuing fanfare is also great, and the patriotism here, the love for the “single-combat warrior,” was so palpable that I felt myself almost getting as misty-eyed as the tough New York cops who wept openly during Glenn’s parade through the city. What’s interesting about the book is that it’s not hero-worship of the type Life doled out during the era itself…and yet it’s clear that Wolfe himself has immense respect for these men, and there’s none of the sting or satire he’d bring to previous subjects. Even Gus Grissom, all told, is presented in a fairly heroic lot, despite Wolfe’s clear intimation that he screwed the pooch. 

The story goes that Wolfe spent some years working on The Right Stuff; actually per an interview he did with Rolling Stone in 1980, Wolfe spent six years researching but only a few months writing, with more time taken to edit. His original goal was to cover the entire Space Race, from the era documented here in The Right Stuff all the way through the mid-‘70s Skylab missions. But, again so the story goes, by the time Wolfe finally finished The Right Stuff, his wife told him, “Congratulations, you’ve finished the book,” and Wolfe decided that he’d just let this be it and not spend more time on the rest of the program. You’d have to think, though, that at least at some point over the years Wolfe must’ve thought about returning to this topic. I mean The Right Stuff was published in 1979 and Wolfe died in 2018; that’s nearly 40 years in which he had the opportunity to revisit the subject and give us a sequel to The Right Stuff

Perhaps the book’s fame gave him pause; maybe he felt that whatever he wrote would always be considered in the shadow of The Right Stuff. Or maybe he just lost interest. Whatever the reason, it’s literature’s loss that Tom Wolfe never wrote the epic he originally envisioned. Who knows how great some multi-volume work might have been, with The Right Stuff merely the first installment. There are bits and pieces throughout that indicate Wolfe originally planned the book as just the first part of his chronicle; for example, the first lead character we meet is Pete Conrad, a test pilot with an awesome sense of humor who tries out for the program but ultimately isn’t chosen – no doubt due to that time he took his colostomy bag into the general’s office and complained about all the intrusive tests that were part of the selection process. Conrad then disappears from the book, only to appear again toward the very end, as one of the “New Nine” astronauts who have been chosen for the Gemini program. Conrad would’ve been a bigger character in ensuing volumes, as he commanded the Apollo 12 mission to the moon. None of this is even intimated in The Right Stuff, and it seems clear that it’s because Wolfe figured he’d document it in the next volume. 

Then there’s Alan Shepard, one of the main figures in The Right Stuff. We only learn toward the end that an ear issue takes him out of the program, but again there’s no intimation that within a few years he would return to the fold, and ultimately go to the moon himself. For that matter, Neil Armstrong is barely a presence in the book; first we have a random mention of a pilot seat at Edwards Air Force Base with “N. Amrstrong” on it, and then much later in the book he too is casually mentioned as one of the New Nine. And while Wolfe never states that Amrstrong will be the first on the moon, he does try to compare him unfavorably to Chuck Yeager. Personally I’d say Armstrong, with his war record and test pilot skills, had more of “the right stuff” than any of the other pilots in the book. But Wolfe details a sequence where Armstrong, who has a tendency to rely on data and thus represents “the new breed” of test pilot, comes off poorly compared to flying vet Yeager: Armstrong wants to do a trial run on a certain river bed, which per the reports should be dry enough to land on, but Yeager insists, through nothing more than his own experience, that the river bed won’t be dry enough. And sure enough he’s proven correct, with the two of them stuck in the mud. One can almost hear the goofy “wah-wah-waaaah” on the soundtrack. 

So then “Post-Orbital Remorse” is the sequel to The Right Stuff that we never got. It’s a heck of a lot shorter, and some of it is a retread of material mentioned in The Right Stuff, but it also features a lot of stuff on later Apollo missions, up to and even including Edgar Mitchell’s ESP experiments on Apollo 14. Mitchell isn’t even mentioned in The Right Stuff, yet in “Post-Orbital Remorse” we’re informed he has “the Rightest Stuff of all,” with a war and test pilot record that outdid anyone’s…despite which he turned out to be the most “unusual” of all the astronauts, performing ESP tests with collagues back on Earth. Mitchell isn’t in The Right Stuff, but given the focus on him in “Post-Orbital Remorse” one can only assume he would’ve had a bigger role in the sequel(s) Wolfe unfortunately never wrote. 

What’s curious is that “Post-Orbital Remorse” has never been reprinted. You’d think at least one of the innumerable editions of The Right Stuff would feature it as an appendix, but as far as I know none of them have. It hasn’t even appeared in a Wolfe anthology to my knowledge. But as I mentioned in the link above, you can actually download a PDF of the entire article here, and it’s highly recommended reading for anyone who enjoyed The Right Stuff. It covers some of the same Mercury Seven material (though not as elaborate or comprehensive), but it also dwells on the actual flights to the moon and the experiences the astronauts went through on the lunar surface and upon their return home. I’m of the opinion that Wolfe would’ve titled his sequel (or at least the Apollo volume, if he was indeed going to do a separate volume on Gemini) “Post-Orbital Remorse,” but that’s just my suspicion. Wolfe talked to several of the astronauts and other NASA people for his research, so who knows what other stories he had set aside for future volumes; given that Pete Conrad supplied him with so much of the early section of The Right Stuff, I can only imagine what other similarly-ribald stuff Conrad might’ve divulged about the Gemini and Apollo eras. 

Given the fame of The Right Stuff, I’ll end my usual overly-comprehensive rundown and focus instead on this particular edition. This summer I picked up Moonfire, a Taschen Books abridgement of Norman Mailer’s Of A Fire On The Moon that was, in typical Taschen style, stuffed to the gills with photography. I went on the hunt for something similar, and discovered this obscure “illustrated” edition of The Right Stuff. I say obscure because I could hardly find anything out about it; there are about a zillion reviews of The Right Stuff online, but none for this particular edition. I wanted something that would be a feast for the eyes as Moonfire had been, and thus finally decided to give The Right Stuff a read. Luckily this illustrated edition can be found relatively inexpensive online. 

In a nutshell, The Right Stuff: Illustrated is the reverse of Taschen’s Moonfire: the narrative is incredible but the photos are subpar. No disrespect to those at Black Dog & Leventhal who put this book together, but this illustrated edition is somewhat of a missed opportunity. Whreas Moonfire contains dazzling full-color photos, mostly taken from Life Magazine, The Right Stuff: Illustrated is mainly comrpised of black and white shots, hardly any of them displaying the artistic finesse of those Life shots. And for that matter, Life featured a ton of photos of the Mercury Seven astronauts and their training, the majority of them taken by gifted photographer Ralph Morse, and any number of them would’ve been perfect for this book. And yet, hardly any of them are here. Indeed, you will find better full-color photos of the Mercury Seven era in Moonfire, even though the Mercury Seven astronauts are not the focus of that book. On the other hand, the shots here do the job and provide photographic documentation of the people, places, and things discussed in the book. And also, at least the publishers didn’t put photos over two pages so that the spine would jack up the image, as Taschen did. 

So far as other production issues go with The Right Stuff: Illustrated, it’s worth mentioning that there are occasional typos in the book. Otherwise, the narrative is printed on double-columned pages; The Right Stuff is longer than I thought it would be, coming in at 304 pages of dense, double-columned print. I took my time reading the book; each morning I’d get up with my kid, give him his breakfast, and sit on the couch and read a few pages while he played. He’d come over and look at the book occasionally; he got a big kick out of the photo of Ham the astrochimp (below). That picture really cracked him up for some reason. I was sorry to see The Right Stuff come to an end, and wished someone out there had done a similar approach to the Gemini and/or Apollo eras, but it doesn’t look like anyone has. So in the end I decided on Andrew Chaikin’s well-regarded A Man On The Moon (1994) as my next Space Race book; it doesn’t appear to have the literary verve of The Right Stuff, but makes up for it by being a very comprehensive study of the Apollo missions. And, like Wolfe, Chaikin met with many (if not all) of the surviving Apollo astronauts as part of his research. 

Now, on to some photos – these are just random examples of what you’ll find in The Right Stuff: Illustrated. While the photos themselves are somewhat lacking, at least when compared to the ones in Moonfire, the book itself is one of the greatest things I’ve ever read.












Monday, January 10, 2022

The Adjusters #5: The Temple At Ilumquh


The Adjusters #5: The Temple At Ilumquh, by Jack Laflin
No month stated, 1970  Award Books

Someone at Award Books must’ve decided The Adjusters still had legs, as three years after the previous volume was published the series returned. Several changes are evident, though: for one, a real author is credited, whereas the previous four were credited to series protagonist Peter Winston himself, a la Award’s far more successful Nick Carter: Killmaster series. Also, the cover design has been changed. Most importantly, though, the entire premise has been changed, with The Temple At Ilumquh having almost nothing in common with the previous four volumes, other than Peter Winston himself. 

Jack Laflin is also new to the series, but in the mid-‘60s he wrote the five-volume Geoffrey Hiller spy series for Belmont. I have every volume but still haven’t read any of them yet. Overall his writing is good if a little too fussy. He’s one of those authors who likes his long sentences, which to me doesn’t much suit the genre, making what should be a tense sequence instead come off like a long list of “this happened and then this happened, and furthermore this also happened.” Also he changes the setup in a major way; The Temple At Iluquh has more in common with the Joaquin Hawks series than with The Adjusters, as in this one Peter Winston spends the entire novel in disguise as “Yusuf from Alexandria.” 

Laflin starts the novel in the middle of the action, with Winston already on the job in Yemen and several of his contacts murdered; there’s mention of a professional assassin named Hamid and a “joy girl” named T’Shura, but no setup on who any of them are. This cold opening only served to make me confused, particularly given how different everything was to what came before – I mean, Winston’s always been more of a James Bond type, going around the globe in a secret agent capacity. He’s never been embedded in a foreign country and trying to pass himself off as a local. Then we have the necessary flashback and learn that Winston was elected for an “experimental unit” at White and Whittle (the firm that employs Winston as “A-2”), one in which he’d receive heavy training in Arabic life, language, and religions, with the goal that he and fellow Adjusters could ultimately be dropped into the Middle East and pose as natives on a moment’s notice. 

So the Peter Winston we knew from previous books is gone; part of his training entailed letting his beard grow, and he spends the entire novel in robes and such. However he still carries his not-very-secret-agent .357 Magnum, which he uses in the occasional action scene…but Laflin’s over-fussy style tends to rob these scenes of much impact. We know Winston’s training lasted some months, and he was put back into normal duty before the call came in and he was shipped off to Yemen. The entire setup is ridiculous and has nothing in common with the previous books. It’s more of a desert yarn with Winston, posing as Yusuf throughout, meeting a ton of natives, adopting their various customs, and trying to figure out what nefarious Red China activity is going on here. 

The novel is prescient in how Laflin predicts the radical movements that would overtake the Middle East in the ‘70s. Winston’s been sent here due to word of a new jihad that’s about to be started, one that would shake up the pro-West mindset of the current leaders. Laflin doesn’t miss the opportunity to tell us a lot about local customs and Moslem beliefs, either. Winston gets in periodic gunfights and chases, as a lot of his contacts turn up dead and he tracks down the killers. We have here another sad indication of how much more vile our modern world is; the radical Moslems, despite hating the West and wanting to start a jihad and such, still aren’t suicidal nutjobs who are willing to strap bombs onto themselves (or their children); they’re more of a crafty and cunning lot, concerned about saving their own skins. 

Laflin adds a lot more sex to the series than previous volumes, and all of it’s courtesy T’Shura, the 18 or 19 year-old dancing girl who acts as another of Winston’s local contacts. It’s not super explicit, but Laflin does use words like “orgasm,” which is pretty unusual for the era – the sequences in these mainstream paperbacks would usually be a bit less blunt at the time. And boy do Winston and T’Shura go at it a whole bunch. She’s a “part-time joy girl” who has had a ton of men in her time, but relates to Winston that he’s the first to ever truly satisfy her. Of course he is! This means that she’s constantly wanting to hump him, but Laflin leaves most of it off-page after the initial act. In fact the novel even ends with T’Shura struggling to unzip Winston’s pants; she’s clumsy with zippers, given that all her previous clients wore robes and such. And also this is the only time in the novel that Winston’s in Western garb. 

Winston is initially sent to Yemen because two local contacts have been killed, and ultimately this leads to the uncovering of the Red China plot. It takes a while to get to this, though, and a lot of the first half of The Temple At Ilumquh concerns Winston ingratiating himself into the Yemen community as “Yusuf” and trying to find out who has murdered his colleagues. Laflin has done his research on the land and the customs and he wants you to know it. He treats Islam with a fair bit of respect, other than Winston’s grumbling over the “stupid custom” of not drinking alcohol. But man it’s like we’re suddenly reading an entirely new series, and one wonders why Award even published this as an Adjusters yarn. It could’ve just as easily been a standalone, or even the start of a completely different series. 

What makes it worse is that the cover promises an almost sci-fi sort of plot (“half-men, half-machines”). This however only refers to the radical Muslims Winston eventually encounters, who as mentioned are a lot less radical and violent than the ones of our modern era. They congregate around the titular Temple of Ilumquh, deep in the desert, which is a sort of headquarters for assassins. Ilumquh, we’re informed, was an ancient goddess. Chief among the assassins is Hamid, and Winston has a few run-ins with this guy, before finding out that his fellow Americans are somehow involved. Winston shadows a State rep and Hamid out into the desert, and this is how he finds out that the Chinese archeologists here, ostensibly for a dig, are really enemy soldiers and spies. 

The finale is a big action sequence, bigger than in any previous Adjusters yarn, and features Winston blasting away with his .357, a machine gun, and some grenades. He even gets in a few protracted kung-fu fights; Laflin explains that this is a form of “Chinese in-fighting.” Humorously, Winston gets the better of his martial opponents by resorting to old-fashioned “pugilism,” bashing away with his fists. He makes several kills, but it isn’t violent in the least, at least in that there’s no gore or anything. Winston also proves himself to be a bit of a subpar secret agent by getting captured twice here in the final quarter. But by novel’s end he’s having one last roll in the hay with T’Shura, who previous to this has begged Winston to take her with him back to America. However by novel’s end she seems to accept that she’ll never see Winston again. 

As it turns out, it didn’t matter, as Peter Winston never returned, and this was truly it for The Adjusters. Ultimately I found this series a bit too generic, despite the cool setup. Only the first volume, clearly by Paul Eiden, really kept me entertained throughout. The next three, which I’m assuming were all written by someone named Jim Bowser (Eiden’s hand is only evident in the first volume, at least), were more along the lines of tepid mystery novels, and I found them boring. But this fifth and final volume was by far my least favorite of the series, and I’m hoping it’s not an indication of what Laflin’s Geoffrey Hiller novels are like.

Thursday, January 6, 2022

Every Which Way But Loose


Every Which Way But Loose, by Jeremy Joe Kronsberg
January, 1979  Warner Books

Here’s another one to file under, “They did a novelization of that?” The Every Which Way But Loose tie-in is kind of special, though, in that it was written by Jeremy Joe Kronsberg, who not only wrote the script but also had a minor role in the film as a biker. Kronsberg also wrote the script for the 1980 sequel Any Which Way You Can, but didn’t write a novelization for it (and also didn’t appear in the movie). 

I’ve never seen Every Which Way But Loose, or if I did I was very young and don’t remember it. I was aware of it and the sequel, though. Actually, it’s the sequel I was probably more aware of, as I was 6 in 1980 but only 4 when Every Which Way But Loose came out in late 1978. I knew the name of the movie, though, and also that there was an orangutan in it. I grew up in West Virginia, and you can just imagine how popular these movies, with their country music-listening heroes and redneck shenanigans, were with us “poor, illiterate and strung out” West Virginians. I seem to recall these movies making a big impact at the time, and I probably just figured they were along the same lines as The Dukes Of Hazard, which I also wasn’t really into. 

Despite the rural vibe, the movie (and novel) takes place in Los Angeles, and Kronsberg brings the place to life, calling out specific spots and locations. But really it feels more like a smalltown than a big metropolis, particularly given that so many of the characters are redneck yokels. For one there’s hero Philo Beddoe (Clint Eastwood), a truck driver of sorts who listens to country music on a radio he’s taped to the dashboard. When he isn’t truck-driving he’s either working on cars at his place or getting in fights in country bars. He’s tall and described as being more brawny than Eastwood himself was (6’4” and 220 pounds); in fact, with the redneck vibe and muscular protagonist, I got the impression that Every Which Way But Loose was more suitable for Burt Reynolds. I had a hard time picturing Clint Eastwood in many of the scenes in this novel, but obviously audiences didn’t, as I’ve read that this was his highest-grossing film. 

But then, that could be just because the movie so tapped into the zeitgeist. Every Which Way But Loose, at least in the novel, is very ‘70s; not so much in the sleazy shag rug aspect, but in its loosey-goosey approach to “plotting” and its burned-out, mind-fried characters. I was well into the novel before I realized there really was no plot, and in fact what passes for one is cribbed from innumerable country songs: a guy keeps getting burned by his untrustworthy girlfriend, all while other problems pile up on him. The problems are a gang of bikers, a pair of sadistic cops, a hot-tempered old lady, his girl’s jilted ex-boyfriend, and a horny orangutan. Philo deals with all this stuff while trying to get his woman back – that’s pretty much the entire plot. 

Kronsberg treats his story on the level in this novelization, but it’s clear he’s intended it as a light comedy. Those sadistic cops, for example; while at one point they get some guns with the intent to take out Philo permanently, there’s never a moment where you are concerned for our rangy hero. And for that matter, Philo’s frequent – very frequent – fights, while almost apocalyptic at times, are never overly violent or have any repercussions. I mean the dude walks through the movie getting in a jillion fights without barely a dent, sort of like the average Bruce Le movie (that’s Le, not Lee, ie the star of the most bottom-of-the-barrel Bruceploitation flicks). But then the novel doesn’t become a slapstick farce, either, as despite the lack of tension things actually matter to the characters themselves. 

And Philo is a very ‘70s hero; he’s so comfortable in his zero-goal life that he’s achieved a sort of zen. He doesn’t even have his own place, living in the back yard of his toothless pal Orville and Ma, Orville’s grumbling mother who spends the entire novel trying to get a driver’s license. Then of course there’s Clyde, Philo’s orangutan, which he won in a fight. Philo fights for money, but really for “fun;” in a rare bit of backstory we learn that he could’ve gone a professional route, but prefers fighting for self-entertainment or such. There’s no bitter history or personal loss Philo’s hiding from, as there would be in one of today’s over-thought films; he’s just a guy who likes to listen to country music, drink beer, and get in fights. That all changes the night he sees singer Lynne Halsey-Taylor performing at a country club. 

It was only after I finished the novel that I realized Kronsberg was likely parodying the subject matter of most country songs, as Lynne is forever leaving Philo in the lurch and he’s always going after her. She is a very curious lead female character, as she has none of the expected qualities: she’s self-involved, she lies, she’ll drop Philo without a moment’s notice or even an explanation. But at least she’s pretty, and apparently this is why Philo becomes so hooked on her; plus he enjoys her singing. Ultimately we’ll learn that Lynne is from Colorado and has a goal to open her own bar, where she’ll of course be the featured entertainer, but she needs a few thousand dollars for the down payment. She’s always in search of this, while Philo is always in search of her. 

We get an idea that this won’t be your standard romance when Philo meets Lynne after he sees her singing, and they hit it off, and she invites him back to her place…and then informs him when they get there that she has a boyfriend, but Philo can come on in anyway. A stunned Philo backs off, and spends the next several pages pining over Lynne and trying to figure out how he can steal her from her boyfriend. Meanwhile he runs afoul of various people: first the Black Widows, a biker gang, and then a pair of cops who get in a bar fight with Philo. In both cases the other parties start it: first the Black Widows throw a cigar in Clyde’s face, and later the two cops are drunk and start hassling Philo. However they’re not in uniform, and the fact that they’re officers is only revealed later. 

In each case Philo is so superhuman that, again, there’s no tension. The “action scenes” are the only part of the novel that truly approach slapstick; for example, when the two bikers toss a cigar at Clyde, Philo rounds them up, beats the stuffing out of them, and jams them headfirst into a garbage can. Later on, when the cops finally track down Philo and grab their guns to wipe him out permanently, Kronsberg plays out the scene for laughs, with Philo about to land a big trout and more annoyed at the interruption than concerned about being shotgunned to death. And once again, his fate isn’t at all in doubt. No one’s killed in the novel, and in fact blood is rarely mentioned. It’s basically just a goofy comedy about a guy who enjoys fighting a lot, and doesn’t have any of the darker connotations that such a story would have today. 

Even the sexual material is inexplicit; when Lynn and Philo actually “do the deed,” it’s kept off-page. Kronsberg for that matter doesn’t much exploit his female characters, and overall the novel has a very PG mentality. It’s almost like a slightly more “mature” Dukes Of Hazzard, now that I think of it. Much of the narrative is taken up with Philo and Orville trading goofy banter, but there are also several sequences from the perspective of lesser characters, for example the Black Widows. In many ways the novel reminded me of Sylvester Stallone’s novelization of Paradise Alley, not in content but in tone. Both books are almost liked warped representations of reality in which street bullies grow up to be adults but keep acting the same. There are no real-world concerns and everything can be solved by an old-fashioned fight. 

Kronsberg opens things up with a multi-state journey in which Lynne abruptly takes off, Philo follows after her (Orville and Clyde coming along – and on the way they pick up a hippie-country chick named Echo, who takes to Orville), and meanwhile both the cops and the Black Widows follow after Philo. Even here the romance doesn’t pan out as you’d expect; there’s no emotional reunion between Philo and Lynne (she literally just drives by him as he’s walking along a road), and the untrustworthy babe again leaves Philo in the lurch. She’s a quite unlikable character and it’s hard to understand Philo’s obsession with her. 

We also get a nice climax in which Philo takes on the legendary bar fighter Tank Murdoch, whose legend is occasionally mentioned throughout the text, Kronsberg craftily setting up the novel’s climactic confrontation. This is the only part of the book where Philo shows much depth, as he realizes that, if he were to win, he’d be plagued with endless challenges, like Tank himself now is. Otherwise there’s no big wrap-up for Every Which Way But Loose. Overall the novel was pretty good, and I appreciated the downhome, easy-going way Kronsberg told his downhome, easy-going story, but truth be told the novelization didn’t have me raring to finally see the movie itself.

Monday, January 3, 2022

The Aquanauts #9: Evil Cargo


The Aquanauts #9: Evil Cargo, by Ken Stanton
No month stated, 1973  Manor Books

Manning Lee Stokes loved his in-jokery, and this ninth volume of The Aquanauts features his biggest in-joke yet, as Manning Lee Stokes himself guest-stars in Evil Cargo. Sort of. I knew something was up when the prologue featured a few quotes on the definition of “karma,” and one of the people quoted was Kermit Welles – a pseudonym Stokes used in the ‘50s and ‘60s. But as it turns out, Kermit Welles actually appears as a character in this Aquanauts yarn, and one can only wonder how much the character is based on Stokes himself. 

The novel occurs between September 1972 and January 1973. There are a few allusions to previous volumes, but the biggest development here on the home front is that crusty Admiral Coffin, boss of the Secret Underwater Service, suffers a heart attack and is taken out of commision for the duration of Evil Cargo. This happens early in the book, as Coffin is briefing Tiger Shark and Captain Tom Greene on “Code Coke,” their new SUS assignment: someone’s stolen a Yankee-class Soviet sub, and it’s being used to run heroin and coke into the US. Coffin has a heart attack before he can finish the briefing – we’ve been told since the beginning of the series that he’s way past retirement age – and control of SUS falls on Greene’s shoulders. He will prove to be a pretty weak-ass boss, and luckily Coffin’s back in action by novel’s end. Given the lack of much continuity in the series, I wonder if Coffin’s heart trouble will even be mentioned in the next two volumes. 

As usual though Coffin, Greene, and Tiger Shark himself almost come off like supporting characters. As I’ve said in just about every Aquanauts review I’ve written, this series has more in common with the standalone crime paperbacks Lyle Kenyon Engel “produced” in the ‘70s, with the “underwater commando” stuff almost an afterthought. This is especially prevalent in Evil Cargo, which doesn’t even bother with the Cold War intrigue at all; it’s really just a crime novel, with the main characters a pair of Mafia creeps who come up with the “drug run via sub” plan. Actually, Kermit Welles is the character who comes up with the idea, but more on that anon. 

The entire novel is almost a prefigure of Stokes’s later Corporate Hooker, Inc., which was in fact one of those standalone BCI paperbacks. It’s got the same setup, with a scheme involving waterborne Mafia nefariousness and a twisted love triangle. Here it’s Dom Caprio, hulking and hirsute New York mob boss, who in a brief opening chapter meets meek Harvard student Harvey Fletcher in 1962. Dom hires Fletcher, we’ll learn, to be his accountant, but Fletcher ultimately doesn’t factor much into the novel; his subplot has him coping with the fact that he’s gay and going to a tough “leather” guy for kicks. After this opening we flash to 1972, and learn that Dom, now a successful mobster, is “banging” Harvey’s wife Anita for kicks – and it was interesting to see that “banging” was being used for sex in 1973. 

This is certainly the sleaziest Aquanauts yet. Dom and Anita get right down to it in full-bore detail, in a crazed matter almost equaling The Nursery. There are some back door shenanigans, you see…that is, after Anita literally measures Dom’s 9 inches with a ruler, and then implores him, “Please, honey, fuck me in the ass!” Stokes was in his early sixties when he wrote this novel – as is Kermit Welles, we’ll learn – so it was great to see he’d only gotten more sordidly kinky with age. But then it’s all even more in-jokery, as we’ll learn that Dom himself is an “inveterate reader of paperbacks,” going through “three a day” at times; he especially likes ones with “plenty of gore and sex,” and judges their quality by how big of a hard-on they give him! 

After this escapade Dom heads back to Manhattan but takes a wrong route and ends up in a “hick town” near Montrose, New York (or perhaps it is Monstrose – Stokes isn’t clear), and, stopping in a bar, meets once-famous author Kermit Welles. Manning Lee Stokes himself lived in Montrose, or near it (according to his Wikipedia page he died in Peekskill, New York, which is just a few miles from Montrose), so it’s clear that he based Kermit Welles somewhat on himself. Further evidence: Dom’s favorite Welles novel is the one where “the lady got her head sliced off by the Jap sword.” Yes, friends, this is The Lady Lost Her Head, the title referenced by Welles himself. In the real world, The Lady Lost Her Head was published under Stokes’s own name, so it’s curious he referenced this book in Evil Cargo and not one of his actual “Kermit Welles” novels. 

But the Kermit Welles of the novel is more successful than the real-world Manning Lee Stokes; we learn that Welles’s The Lady Lost Her Head was made into a movie fifteen years ago, but Hollywood “butchered” it. That was then, though; now Welles is basically a lush, spending most of his time and money in a dingy bar here in this “hick town” in upstate New York. He makes his living off residuals or foreign reprints of his old books, and when Dom meets him Welles is in the process of begging the bartender to accept his check. It’s a down and out caricature of Stokes for sure, or at least I assume so, perhaps along the lines of the self-caricature William Shatner played in Free Enterprise. One must wonder if the description of Kermit Welles matches the description of Manning Lee Stokes:


Unfortunately Welles isn’t in Evil Cargo nearly enough; he pretty much steals the novel as is. He speaks in a sort of highfalutin tone, trying his best not to correct Dom’s poor grammar. He’s also a bit of a coward, but this is understandable given that Dom’s a brawny mobster who has an army of thugs at his disposal. The crux of Welles’s storyline involves Dom coming up with the bizarre idea of hiring Welles to write a novel – for ten thousand dollars – with Dom intending to use the manuscript to come up with schemes for his underworld empire(!). And of course Welles is to tell no one of this, not even the woman he’s “shacked up with.” Stokes’s biggest misgiving is that he doesn’t properly explain Dom’s scenario, and even worse we don’t get to read any of Welles’s manuscript. This would’ve been opportunity for even more metatextual in-jokery, but all we learn is that it concerns a submarine…run, apparently, by a bunch of horny women! 

Given that the novel is told out of sequence, we already know at the start that Dom got this “impossible idea” off the ground (or under the sea, I should say), managing to use some underworld contacts to steal a Soviet sub in Cuba. Welles pretty much disappears from the narrative at this point, and not to spoil anything but he’s still alive at novel’s end; Dom upholds his offer and gives Welles the ten thousand. Welles then ditches the woman he’s been living off of, moves back to Manhattan, and the last we see of him he’s planning to start writing again. “Early sixties wasn’t old, not for a writer.” The same age as Stokes at this time, so one wonders again how much of Kermit Welles here is a reflection of the real-life Manning Lee Stokes; we already know from Will Murray’s 1982 article on Nick Carter: Killmaster that Stokes was “industrious but hard-drinking,” so certainly there’s a bit of truth to Welles’s tendency to be a lush. We also get the tidbit that he doesn’t write as well drunk as he used to! 

And that is reflected in Evil Cargo itself. Because believe it or not the “heroin sub” is kept almost entirely off-page, and Stokes spends more time on the twisted Dom-Anita-Harvey love triangle. There’s a lot of kinky stuff here, all very sleazy ‘70s. For example Dom practically begs Anita to “go down” on him, but she refuses…then one night he sneaks into her place and discovers her giving some other jerk an enthusiastic bj. And meanwhile as mentioned we get some stuff with Harvey visiting his gay acquaintances. In fact, Stokes writes all the sex material for his one-off characters; poor Tiger Shark is celibate this time. We do however get the casual TMI mention that Greene, as ever pining for his wife Evelyn, has had a “wet dream” about her! 

Tiger Shark? I almost forgot about him…even though he’s ostensibly the star of the show. The funny thing is, despite the focus on lurid love triangles and lush pulp writers, Evil Cargo actually contains the best underwater action scene yet in The Aquanauts. Certainly the most brutal. Tiger Shark is sent into Cuban territorial waters to spy on the stolen sub, which the SUS has already tracked down…but at this point Greene’s in charge, and the weak-ass gives Tiger the order to swim over to the sub, pound out a message in SOS on the hull, and tell them they’re all under arrest!! Tiger chafes at this stupid idea, just wanting to blow the damn sub up, regardless of the loss of life – and he’s certain this is how Admiral Coffin would’ve played it. But he’s a Navy man and he follows orders. 

As expected it goes poorly, and for once Tiger Shark is caught unawares. Four frogmen come out of the sub and surprise attack him, leading to a very tense sequence that just keeps going. Stokes, despite his padding, really knows how to ramp up action scenes and take his protagonists through the ringer, and he does so here. In fact Tiger’s so outmatched that he kicks off his gear and races for the surface, 240 feet up, knowing it will be certain death due to the bends. But at least he’ll have a chance, unlike down here. There follows a crazy survival setup where Tiger staggers around a small Cuban isle, finds someone who will help him (in exchange for future payment), and jury rigs his own decompression chamber, using an old car and an air hose. It’s crazy stuff and very tense, but again Stokes pulls this weird gimmick as he always does and, next time we see Tiger, it’s some time later and he’s safely back at SUS HQ. In other words, Stokes completely cuts out the escape sequence itself. 

But then, another tidbit: “Welles had always been good at that – everything first draft and six weeks to do a book.” No doubt more real-world insight into Manning Lee Stokes’s writing method, not to mention possibly explaining why there are often so many missed opportunities in his books. Oh, and not content to sort of feature himself in the book, Stokes also finds the opportunity to slyly reference his own name; we get an off-hand mention of the law firm Birnbaum, Fenster, Stokes, and Engel. Double in-jokery at that; “Engel” of course a reference to Lyle Kenyon Engel. If you can’t tell, I would’ve enjoyed an entire book about Kermit Welles…it could’ve been a more serious take on The Last Buffoon. But as mentioned Welles isn’t in the novel nearly enough, and by book’s end we learn he’s in Federal protection – he himself is innocent so far as Dom’s plans go, as all Welles was hired to do was write a book, with no idea of Dom’s grander plot. And, naturally, it’s a Federal agent named Frank Manning who informs the SUS of Welles’s innocence in the plot! 

The out-of-sequence narrative takes away a lot of the tension of the book, and also Harvey Fletcher isn’t properly focused on, so that his face-off with Dom at novel’s end could’ve been more powerful than it is. Speaking of which, Captain Greene’s foul-up with nearly getting Tiger Shark killed isn’t properly focused on; by the time Admiral Coffin’s back in charge, it’s understood that Greene should have just ordered the damn sub blown, but his plan was “understandable” given that he’s not nearly as cold-blooded as Coffin is. Or something. The helluva it is, Tiger’s finally ordered to torpedo the sub to hell at novel’s end…well, sort of. First, for undisclosed reasons (possibly to pad more pages), he’s ordered to tail the sub in his KRAB submersible, back to the sub’s secret base near Iceland. This is a cool scene at least, with the action taking place on a stormy sea. But at the same time it’s just more padding, as the entire plan for tailing the sub to its base is pointless – and quickly disposed of. 

Stokes scores points by working the title into the novel; we’re told that the sub is carrying an “evil cargo.” Would’ve been cooler if this was the title of Welles’s manuscript for Dom, but as mentioned we don’t get much detail at all about the manuscript. The concept alone though is really out-there; I mean a mobster hiring a pulp novelist to write an entire novel for him, so that the mobster can mine the manuscript for ideas! And Dom wants a full novel, not an outline, as Welles suggests. But what is such a wild concept isn’t properly exploited…I thought Stokes would go all the way with it, and have a fictional underwater service as the good guys in Welles’s manuscript, and etc, but I guess he didn’t want to play it too on the nose. As it is, Evil Cargo is entertaining for the peek at Manning Lee Stokes himself. And also the battle between Tiger and the rival frogmen is the best action scene yet in the novel, or at least one of the best. 

Two more volumes were to follow, and judging from the titles and back cover synopses they get into more of a sci-fi realm, with sea monsters and mermaids(!). Stokes was clearly invested in the series, so I’ll be sorry to see The Aquanauts come to an end.