Oil, that is … black gold, Texas tea. Now that everyone is probably still singing the rest of that theme song, onto this week’s column. Real simple, it’s about oil — the stuff that heats some homes and makes the car go vroom. It also gives me a chance to clear out a few more books from my never-dwindling pile.
THE OPEC OBJECTIVE by Michael Hammonds — What looks from all accounts to be some never-ran men’s adventure series actually is a pretty good 1981 thriller — not great, but enjoyable nonetheless. I went into it with low expectations. It starts out with a prisoner being held by some local sheriffs waiting for the FBI to come pick him up, only to have both the cops and prisoner being killed by men in suits. That definitely piqued my interest.
It then moves into a giant conspiracy story dealing with kidnapped Arab princes and secret organizations that plan on destroying OPEC for their own needs. The story mainly focuses on a former Air Force pilot named Jake McCabe, who receives a strange message from an old pal of his named Stark (sadly, no relation to Tony) from his Air Force days, saying to come to a hotel in San Francisco to meet up and that he has a job offer.
But as soon as he arrives, he is told to pick up Stark’s daughter, since there is trouble brewing. The reader is never told the exact trouble — it’s only hinted about that Stark was involved with something very bad and wants to make sure his daughter is safe. From here, it moves into chase mode for McCabe and Stark’s daughter, Kelly, since once they return to the hotel, her father has checked out and gone missing. While all this is going on, we are given glimpses into the bad guys’ plans as they kidnap an Arab prince, then lay waste to anyone who tries to stop them.
All of this comes together in the big climax involving a helicopter chase in Texas. Again, for what the book was, it was fun — better than expected, which, for this column, doesn’t take a lot. It actually comes off like a lightweight version of a Jack Higgins or Frederick Forsyth novel, just with a lower budget. Think of it as a B-movie version of the BOURNE films.
MICHAEL SHERIFF: THE SHIELD #2: ARABIAN ASSAULT by Preston MacAdam — It’s father-and-son bonding/spying time. That best sums up this 1985 entry into this totally forgotten series. Michael Sheriff works for a secretive organization called Management Information Services — MIS for short. It seems to be a sort of amalgam of Axe/CURE/whatever dept. Evan Tanner worked for.
The book opens with a bombing at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston during an exhibit of Jewish art that was stolen by the Nazis. Sheriff is called into action to investigate over in the Middle East, since there seems to be a tie-in with some terrorists named the Qatari. While this is going on, Sheriff’s college-bound son, Roger, has come to live with him in Boston and is being groomed to work for the same MIS organization. Sheriff is none too happy about this.
So the book switches between Sheriff’s adventures in the Middle East, where he is attacked by a whore who is actually some sort of Mossad agent, and Roger busy making time with a girl named Stasia, whose father is a higher-up in the Israeli government. But unbeknownst to Roger, he is actually working on his first assignment: being some sort of protection for her.
Sheriff’s storyline deals with gun running and the destruction of Israel. Of course, these two storylines converge in a way that ties it to the bombing of the museum. It seems as though MacAdam took the idea of the men’s adventure book and make it into a father/son affair, with both of our leads bedding down the women in graphic description, while the plot itself is just there, to be honest. It’s nothing new in the storytelling department, but passable enough to entertain the reader. Still, it’s easy enough to see why this series never really made a mark, since there were better books out there in the same genre.
DEATH MERCHANT #33: ALASKA CONSPIRACY by Joseph Rosenberger — This 1979 novel is my second attempt at trying to warm up to this long-running series went as expected: a frustrating mess of nonstop action and no character development whatsoever. Richard Camellion is the Death Merchant, a man so lacking in personality and presence, he can operate undetected. This time, he is sent to Alaska to investigate the strange goings-on in the pipeline: attacks and bombings that have been disrupting the operations up there.
First, he thought it might be environmental terrorists, but sadly, no, it’s just a secret group of rich Europeans trying to start shit. Literally as the book starts, Camellion is attacked, once he starts poking his nose around as an agent from the Federal Wildlife something or other. This book made me lose interest more than a few times, which is quite weird since it seems every other chapter features some huge gun battle that no one has to answer for. I mean, the man lays waste to some casino/bar operation and no one questions it.
But then, we find out the reasons of the attacks on the pipeline: that the U.S. would blame OPEC and then attack the Arabs so this group of Europeans known as the Council Six can swoop in and provide the oil for America. But most readers probably would have tossed the book aside by then, from some of the truly awful writing and gun-porn mentions.
How this series survived so long is the true mystery that should be looked into. It feels as though these books had to fill some sort of weird quota of gun mentions, location mentions and how many times Camellion comes off as a total prick. But thankfully, there are no mentions of how anyone can see Russia from their house. I know there are fans of this series, and some of the entries are supposed to be laugh riots with Rosenberger’s conspiracy rants, if you could point me to those, I’ll check them out, but as of now, no more DEATH MERCHANT for me!
Next time: State your name! —Bruce Grossman
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF JOSEPH ROSENBERGER:
• EATH MERCHANT #5: SATAN STRIKE by Joseph Rosenberger
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- BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS >> Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover
- BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS >> Field Trip
- BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS >> Let’s Put the X in Sex
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Several of the Death Merchants are loaded with theories about UFOs and ancient astronauts. Those may be the ones you’re thinking of. The 2 I can think of are Hell in Hindu Land and the Shamballah Strike. Blueprint Invisibility gets into the “Philadelphia Experiment”-a conspiracy theory about a WWII project that turned a Navy ship invisible and drove it’s crew mad. My WWII Navy father-in-law believes in the invisible ship legend. If Camellion was mouthing the beliefs of his creator during his frequent rants, Rosenberger’s ideas were really out there in foil hat territory.
I once tried to do a kill count for a Death Merchant book and found it impossible to keep up.
The Opec Objective sounds like a good read, I’ll have to look that one up. Although I’ve never read a Death Merchant, I do like the genre (guess that says something about my reading habits – ha).
I read a mention somewhere that Rosenberger wrote some “true” stories about UFO’s and such in some point of his writing career.
And yes, you’re utterly right about the Merchant books. They are awful.
Rosenberger is a lot of fun. His hero is so far over the top that this often reads like a – surely unintended – parody of the action-adventure genre. Like The Destroyer Camellion isn´t the usual “victim of fate” who strikes back; he is a true insane nihilist. In some regards this series was unique I don´t know what is more fascinating; that Pinnacle published it in the first place or that enough readers actually bought this that long.
i have a few Death Merchants, but so far i’ve only read Hell In Hindu Land. it was terrible but certainly not boring…what kept cracking me up was when Camellion’s name was written at a line break as Camel-lion. i kept thinking they where referring to some mythical beast.
Talking about these old series, whether terrible or not, are a lot of fun. For anyone interested in them, check out my Yahoo Groups at Action Sixties or email me at fadingshadows@juno.com and I’ll direct you to the Site. Although I’ve never read a Death Merchant, I’m sure there are many fans of the series. Just look at the followers of Nick Carter – Killmaster, and I suffered through several of those. I even have some Destroyer, Executioner, and Butcher on my shelves. So there’s no accounting for taste (lol).