Here we are again in the never-ending pile of paperbacks, this time dealing with men who fight the good fight, all while above the law – be it a super-secret agency, a shadowy organization that our own government relies on or a man who takes the law into his own hands.

THE PROTECTOR #1: VENUS UNDERGROUND by Rich Rainey – From 1982, this first of a six-book series is a whole lot of setup with certain facts beaten over your head ad nauseum. Alex Dartanian is the head of a security service, but also doubles as the head of I.C.E. That’s “Inner Court Executions” for us simple folk, but don’t worry: It’s repeated over and over throughout.

When he is in that persona, he is known as The Protector – a total rip-off of Mack Bolan, and not even a good one at that. The basic plot deals with a sex-slavery ring that brings girls into it via drugging. But this little group of merrymakers makes one really bad mistake: kidnapping a woman who turns out to be the daughter of a senator.

You can guess how the plot goes from here, with Alex and his crew of happy-go-lucky death machines first infiltrating the ring, then setting up the slavers by laying waste to rival gangs involved in the sex trade. This book makes it sound like at every corner, there’s some rival gang with an agenda.

This is just mindless action, and not even good action. Then, at the end, we get some preachy content to balance out all the garbage that came before it.

THE DESTROYER #46: NEXT OF KIN by Molly Cochran – Even though the cover of this 1981 episode states Warren Murphy as the sole author, it’s actually the then-Mrs. Murphy who wrote it. There is no real agenda – just more of the continuation of the ever-more-prevalent bonds between Chiun and Remo.

We find Remo and Chiun on vacation on St. Maarten, with neither of them under the full belief that this is a true getaway that their boss Dr. Smith has sent them on, especially since Smith is under the idea that Remo killed a truckload of men discovered off the coast of the island. Smith’s brilliant idea is to have Chiun dispose of Remo once and for all, until Remo and Chiun discover the true culprit: a student of Sinanju referred to by the islanders as The Dutchman, but actually a former American named Jeremiah Purcell.

Purcell has amazing mental abilities, like making people sign over their empire before jumping off a ledge, using just a thought. Purcell was trained in Sinanju by an old enemy of our heroes: Chiun’s brother Nuihc. It was predestined that Purcell was going to meet these two once he hit 25, but they show up a year earlier than expected, ready to do battle.

Actually, it’s Chiun who is challenged to the fight, which upsets Remo. This would not be a great book for first-time readers of the series, since there is some backstory to these characters that will be missed. But this novel is totally packed with action, with the danger very real for Remo and Chiun, along with someone who is every inch of Remo’s equal.

THE PENETRATOR #31: OKLAHOMA FIREFIGHT by Lionel Derrick – For those who thought the only cool things to come out of Oklahoma were The Flaming Lips and BOOKGASM, I’m here to clear up that misconception with this 1979 entry in the long-running PENETRATOR series, even though it’s a very heavy-handed one. You can probably guess who the bad guys are just from the cover art: evil Arabs who control oil and want to stop the U.S. from pumping their own.

Mark Hardin and his supercomputer that monitors all the news have found out that a new group of Arabs called Al Jihad are trying to take over the U.S. production of oil. (I wonder if Derrick – is that a pun? – really had any idea what “jihad” meant when he wrote this book.) Hardin plans on protecting the company from the terrorists, especially since he’s friends with the owner Harry Grose. Mark tells him the real reason he came to aid was due to some Indian council who want to help out.

The action just starts from the word “go” in this one. It feels like in the first few chapters, Mark already has saved Grose’s daughter from the Arabs by brutally killing all the men who had the misfortune of guarding her. This is only a start of what else is to come, from Mark laying waste to an oil refinery, then playing dumb when Arabs show up, questioning why he is camping around there.

FIREFIGHT just builds upon this action to steamroll into another kidnapping, this time of Grose. Mark, of course, saves the day in a brutal gun-porn way that you expect from this type of books, but it feels a bit heavy-handed in some sections. At least it never hits the right-wing streak that populates the DESTROYER novels.

The epilogue lays the groundwork for the following installment. I’ve got a stack of these novels on my shelf and I’m just tempted to read them all, but it would feel like having a dinner made up of candy. It might be a nice idea, but you know it’s not really good for you.

Next time: What’s your real name? –Bruce Grossman

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF LIONEL DERRICK:
• THE PENETRATOR #6: TOKYO PURPLE by Lionel Derrick
• THE PENETRATOR #9: DODGE CITY BOMBERS by Lionel Derrick

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF WARREN MURPHY:
• THE BEST OF THE DESTROYER by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
• 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 DESTROYER #77: COIN OF THE REALM by Will Murray
• THE DESTROYER #78: BLUE SMOKE AND MIRRORS by Will Murray
• THE DESTROYER #104: ANGRY WHITE MAILMEN by Will Murray
• THE DESTROYER #145: DRAGON BONES by Tim Somheil
• GRANDMASTER by Warren Murphy
• THE NEW DESTROYER: CHOKE HOLD by Warren Murphy and James Mullaney
• THE NEW DESTROYER: GUARDIAN ANGEL by Warren Murphy and James Mullaney
• TRACE: GETTING UP WITH FLEAS by Warren Murphy