The three authors appearing in this week’s column are fairly well-known in this world of pulp paperbacks I cover … but not for the books discussed today. They’re readily associated for franchise series, but as we learn, they did write other books, too.

A KILLER FOR A SONG by John Gardner – The main reason I’m reading this 1975 book? Just look at the cover! Okay, now let’s all put our tounges back in our mouths.

Long beore Gardner took over writing James Bond 007 adventures, he wrote what many people consider a piss-take of the genre. I totally agree with that sentiment, as the hero of KILLER is no real super-spy, but more like a scared-shitless clerk who stumbled his way into being a spy.

Boysie Oakes is more concerned with the women he might have slept with than the mission at hand. (This is the final book in the series, mind you; I have an earlier installment that is a more blatant rip on spies, but this one has the cooler cover – trust me.) Said mission involves people who’ve put a hit on Boysie and his superior, and they have to find out who and why. It all stems back to a botched mission in Mexico, where you see the cowardice of Boysie, who hires someone else to do his killing.

Nick Carter and Sam Durrell he is not; Boysie comes off as a smug asshole, to be blunt. Gardner goes through the motions with this story, giving longtime readers a nice little shock of character treachery. But, for me, it was more ho-hum. Just think: After he got done with these books, he really got to show his writing talent on those Bond books my father read all through my youth.

THE GUNS OF TERRA 10 by Don Pendleton – Pendleton is best known for his Mack Bolan character and various spin-offs. Who knew he also wrote a little sci-fi? I, for one, wish I still didn’t.

This 1970 novel is a jumbled mess. I’m talking wacky jargon just to make it sound futuristic. I could not for the life of me follow anything that was going on. It felt like Pendleton watched a bunch of the original STAR TREK episodes, took some of the ideas and put them in a blender.

TERRA 10 deals with an uprising of mutants and aliens on some type of earth-like planet. Hey, you know, I read THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS – a much better subject on this type of story. Pendleton spends more time discussing characters’ height than he does writing a clear story. But that’s not the only Heinlein book he rips off, also tackling STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.

It really pains me to slam the guy who came up with such a great character like the Executioner, but he should have kept to men on vendettas than venture into aliens and planets. Avoid this disaster.

TRACE: GETTING UP WITH FLEAS by Warren Murphy – What happens when a character you and your partner have been writing for years gets made into a awful film? If you’re Warren Murphy, you can take potshots at the moviemaking process with your other character, Devlin Tracy.

From reading this nice little mystery from 1987, it seems Murphy had some issues with the men behind REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS. There are definite nods to that experience, with a British director primarily known for his work on some spy series. Then there is a coked-up producer, a screenwriter starved for attention and the phoniness of a throaty actress aiming for a bigger part.

This story is the seventh in Murphy’s Trace series, of which I never heard of until I found this. Trace is a hard-drinking, hard-living PI like Mike Hammer, except it’s Trace’s girl who figures out the case before he does. He is hired to babysit a self-destructive star as he shoots a movie in upstate New York. Then, slowly, attempts are made on his life, but it’s not until someone turns up dead that the local sheriff is called in.

No one is going to confuse this stuff with Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett or even Mickey Spillane, but it has its moments that make it highly enjoyable – enough to make it worth my time and effort to look out for the other books in the series.

Next time, we’re going to fly like an eagle – a Gold Eagle, to be precise. –Bruce Grossman

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE DESTROYER #14: JUDGMENT DAY by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
• THE DESTROYER #22: BRAIN DRAIN by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
• THE DESTROYER #48: PROFIT MOTIVE by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
• THE DESTROYER #49: SKIN DEEP by Warren Murphy
• THE EXECUTIONER #6: ASSAULT ON SOHO by Don Pendleton
• GRANDMASTER by Warren Murphy