BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS >> Biff Bang Pow

Starting off the new year with guns blazing, we have three books that promise action and suspense. Well, at least the covers do. Also, this is a bit of shelf-clearing since these are the only ones I own from the series, so it makes perfect sense to cover them all in one column. So let us continue down that path of cheap reading on even cheaper paper, and hope that 2009 has more treasure for me to uncover. AGENT 13: THE MIDNIGHT AVENGER #1: THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE by Flint Dille and David Marconi — Take a really good look at that cover, because that is the best part of this 1986 book. This is the first of a three-book series put out by that great publishing house TSR — you know, the folks who gave us DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, so you can safely assume they know quality and would only put out top-notch material. I really liked this book the first time I read it ... when it was under the character series of The Spider and The Shadow. This novel tries to capture the feel of 1930s pulps, but fails on such a massive level. So much is borrowed from those two series, such as a network of informants and a ring that our hero marks his enemies with. I won't even get into the Doc Savage thievery that goes on. I could not tell if this was a true tribute to those bygone heroes, or just creative bankruptcy. Well, since both authors are screenwriters, I'll stick with the latter. Agent 13 is a man we learn nothing about, except that he used to be part of a secretive organization bent on world domination — like there are any other kinds in these type of stories. The plot seems to be all over the place, with the main one dealing with a lightning gun being developed by the Army that this secret group wants for itself. But Agent 13 and his group of informants are there to stop it with guns and fists. You have Agent 13 taking a variety of disguises throughout the book; it seems he is some sort of clay-faced vigilante (like The Avenger). The book comes to a dramatic conclusion with Agent 13 going up against his old group of baddies onboard a ship, with it ending leaving readers to wonder if he survived. That would have been fine if on the last page, they hadn't announced the second adventure. Save yourself the headache and don't read this or either of its sequels. But if you want derivative writing that makes fanfic seems Pulitzer-worthy, help yourself. Just don't blame me when you're like, "Well, that was a total piece of crap." THE OMEGA ASSIGNMENT by David Lewis — This 1976 novel doesn't have the most promising cover ever, but like we just learned, don't jude a book by its cover. This one was all killer, no filler — we're talking kick-ass reading in a big way. Not only is the main character believable, but the whole setup is, too. This is not some superspy who can do just about anything, never getting hurt. Oh, no — Steve Savage is a more accurate type of spy in this genre of men of action, in that not only does he bleed, but he also gets knocked out by drugs, told by his own government that he can't do a thing about it and gets played for a fool for a bit. Sure, there are moments that should be taken with a little grain of salt, but nothing that will truly take the readers out of the action. The back cover gives a whole profile of Savage, explaining he works as a sort of free agent for the SIS. His cover is that of a photojournalist. This time, he is "hired" to investigate a sunken yacht that killed all its passengers. It's owned by some sort of megalomaniac who lives in a fortress-like retreat on Cyprus. It's believed he is running drugs, but in actuality, that is only one small part of this lunatics operation. It seems the yacht was some sort of whorehouse at sea, where all high-ranking public officials have been filmed in various degrees of coitus, and a psychotic woman is enlisted whose idea of interrogation involves slicing up her subjects to death. I can't stress enough how kick-ass this book was. I was literally just expecting some run-of-the-mill garbage, but it's definitely one of the better books of this genre I've come across. Imagine if Nick Carter were a little more realistic and actually had to answer for his actions. If anyone knows of other books in this series, please tell me how many more there are, since only one other book is mentioned in the pages. JEFFERSON BOONE: HANDYMAN #6: THE INHERITORS by Jon Messmann — Let's finish with book six of the JEFFERSON BOONE: HANDYMAN series — another from the prolific Mr. Messmann, author of THE REVENGER series. The 1975 novel starts off totally cool with an assassination attempt on Boone as he drives around Spain in his Ferrari. All the attempts are thwarted, but that does not mean people are not killed. It so happens an American Embassy worker was killed in all this action; the problem, of course, was the dead man was a friend of Boone's and could not have been cleaner, in that he had no ties to any secret type of work. Boone makes it his mission to track down the killers and exact justice. Now, as cool as things start off, my interest waned halfway through, since most of it deals with Boone either sleeping with two Spanish women who both have ties to a group called The Inheritors. One woman wants justice, but doesn't trust Boone, while the other uses her body to quell him down so they can still kill him. That's fine and good, but I could not keep straight who was who at certain points, since there is no development of any characters at all. It reads fine, but you feel as though you're catching some old movie on TV halfway through it all. Even with those missteps, the action more then makes up for all the confusion, with Boone coming off as your typical crack shot who seems to have some sort of Spidey sense, knowing that guards are hiding right around the corners. For the time it took me to read this, I can't complain, but I won't revisit the series anytime soon. Next time: Honoring the master. —Bruce Grossman Buy them at Amazon.