Check your brains at the door for this column, all on junk-food reading. I’m talking staring-at-shiny-things appeal. That’s not to say these book aren’t enjoyable, but you wouldn’t want to be reading these at your coffeehouses, unless you like getting stared at from people who have INFINITE JEST on their shelves and think it’s absolutely brilliant. (It’s not.)

DEADLY DOUBLES by Nick Carter – When it comes to books big and stupid, none come larger or dumber then Nick Carter, Killmaster. I love these books no matter how ridiculous they get. There was a point where I was cranking through this series like a masturbator does tissue. I don’t remember much about them, except a few key moments that were so over-the-top, they fell into “you gotta be kidding me” territory.

In this 1978 novel, someone is setting up Nick Carter by killing off Arab sheiks who deal with oil. But this is after Nick finds an old Nazi who has rebuilt a new concentration camp to rent out to folks. After he finishes that opening mission, Nick wants a vacation to visit a lady friend who is dying from some rare blood disease. (Cue Louis Armstrong singing “We Have All the Time in the World.”)

In the middle – or I should say peak – of a typical Carter lovemaking moment, someone shoots the girl in the head. Next, Nick is tied up in some home in the Middle East with a half-naked Arab woman smacking him around and cutting him up. The cavalry arrive, and I’ve not even gotten to the main plot yet, which deals with Nick trying to find out who is killing the sheiks. How does he go about this? By going through extensive makeup to become a sheik himself, of course, with an Israeli female agent who is more endowed then Scarlett Johansson to portray his wife.

More action happens in a Nick Carter book than some spy author’s complete output. I make no excuses for my love of this kind of garbage. I know it’s totally off the charts – frowned upon by some, but not me. I’ll take Nick Carter any day over some long-winded gasbag … cough le Carré cough.

NINJA MASTER #5: BLACK MAGICIAN by Wade Barker – No tribute to totally mindless reads would be complete without one from this series. But here’s the shocker: This 1982 entry is totally tame. I’m talking no long-ass graphic passages about Brett’s love life – or, for that matter, anyone’s. Actually, there is a brief rape sequence, but compared to some of the other books in this series, it’s toned down in a big way. Maybe a different ghostwriter. Or just a really good editor.

This time out, a rival ninja in town takes revenge on some Japanese businessmen and their Japanese hookers. This book moves along at such a lightning pace, you feel as though things are being left unsolved. But what will make most readers laugh is that Brett works out a way to get help from the fuzz: He gets set up as an out-of-town cop who came in to help out with thee investigation. I mean, Brett is a freaking vigilante, but now he is helping the police?

Throughout the novel, we get flashbacks to Brett’s ninja training like usual, but this time, it focuses on another ninja as well: yes, the one Brett is trying to hunt down. There really is not much to the story; of course, Brett comes out the winner. It’s just totally shocking how tame and normal this outing was for the series. I really get the feeling this was not a originally supposed to be a NINJA MASTER installment, since all the others feature tons of killings and action. The only action at all happens in the last few pages, and that’s just a paragraph at best.

NINJA MASTER #8: ONLY THE GOOD DIE by Wade Barker – This 1983 one more than makes up for BLACK MAGICIAN’s disappointment. The story’s opening three chapters all detail the deaths of three women: a brutal rape after a boyfriend is shot, being pushed in front of a train, and a club burning down with no way out. Then we get the brutal killings of two gangs, with the first one done by some unnamed assassin who lays waste to a gang like he was a superhero, while the other gang is killed by a relative of one of the girls who got killed earlier.

This is when our hero Brett Wallace, Ninja Master comes in. The relative in question is one of Brett’s students who thought he could clean up this mess. Brett and his crew figure the gangs had nothing to deal with any of the deaths. It turns out it was hired muscle working with a nursery-rhyme motif: a butcher (a brutal killer), a baker (a total pyromaniac) and a candlestick maker (he blows things up really good). But as Brett goes through each of them, he still has no answer of who was paying them, until one of the guys figures it’s better to talk than die. Boy, is that guy clueless!

When Brett confronts the real culprits, it’s a rip-off of certain Charles Bronson films. Yeah, this is the Ninja Master I’ve come to expect: hardcore action that makes no sense whatsoever, and proudly proclaims itself dumb. Unless the author was trying to get some valid point across, in which case was he ever delusional! If you want a mindless action tale, grab this one. Be forewarned: You might buy it for the violence, but you might also get some gratuitously disturbing sexual passages.

Next time: Out of the trilogy, THE GODFATHER: PART III was the best one. –Bruce Grossman

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• HIDE AND GO DIE by Nick Carter
• MACAO by Nick Carter
• NINJA MASTER #1: VENGEANCE IS HIS by Wade Barker
• NINJA MASTER #3: BORDERLAND OF HELL by Wade Barker
• NINJA MASTER #4: MILLION-DOLLAR MASSACRE by Wade Barker
• THE OMEGA TERROR by Nick Carter
• STRIKE FORCE TERROR by Nick Carter