Dirty Harry #12: The Dealer of Death by
Dane Hartman (unknown). James William Gallant was arrested and sent to prison
by Inspector Callahan, where he spent six and a half years before escaping.
Now, his ambition is to cause Dirty Harry problems before killing him. Setting
up his own death to make everyone think his dead, he won’t be suspected in
crimes now. He steals Callahan’s famous gun and kills several people known to
hate Dirty Harry, which eventually leads to Callahan’s suspension from the
force. Gallant also ties up with an end-of-the-world survival group made up of
paramilitary men with a hideout in the woods. This was actually a pretty good
entry in the series, even though not by Ric Meyers. Well worth reading.
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Thursday, December 29, 2016
Saturday, November 12, 2016
The Power Barons
Hawk #3: The Power
Barons by Dan Streib. Mike Hawk receives a call while relaxing in Acapulco. An
engineer in a nuclear power plant found out that Mike holds a high position in
the company, and they are fighting a possible meltdown. Hawk wasn’t aware that
he held any interest in the power plant, and it turns out he doesn’t. His CIA
buddy had released the information to the engineer so Hawk would be brought in.
Hawk jets to the location in time to help make the right decision to stop the
meltdown. An environmentalist group is on hand protesting the power plant.
Someone wants a lot of deaths, it seems. Naturally, a beautiful girl is leading
the protestors, and she may have something to do with the incident. Returning
to Acapulco he decides to do some scuba diving and sees a naked girl also in
the water. Yep, it’s the same girl who was at the protest at the US power plant.
Before he can catch her two scuba divers try to kill them, and Hawk kills one
and saves the girl while the other man, injured, escapes. Taking her to the
boat, they make love all night, and then she deserts him for another boat. Then
more men try to frame him for the assassination of the US Vice President who is
also in Mexico to make a speech, but Hawk escapes the frame and kills one of
the men. Now, whoever wants him dead (and the reader knows from the start who
the mastermind is), his boat is attacked and blown up killing his men. He and
his CIA pal are running around dodging bullets and escaping traps, until Hawk
learns that an oil tanker is heading for a port in a storm, and the girl is
waiting with more protesters, so he has the CIA buddy grab him another jet,
then a helicopter to set him on the doomed tanker, where he is again almost
killed. Well, it sounds like a lot of action, and really it is. However, the
story doesn’t hold your interest. Mike Hawk was a newspaperman until situations
put him in charge of super funds, which is now in a company called Crusader,
making him The Crusader. The mastermind is super rich; he just wants power now.
The way he plans on getting it is through energy and position. But since Hawk
messes up some of his plans, he decides he needs the challenge and keeps after
the ex-newspaperman. It could have been a pretty good story, but the writing
just fails to keep the reader (me, in this case) interested in all that is
going on. Really, it should have been a quick read, but took me three days to
read.
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Scorpio
Scorpio by Mike Roote (Leonore Fleischer): A movie
novelization. Scorpio (Jean Laurier) has been contracted to kill his partner,
Cross, by CIA Chief, McLeod. But Cross feels the heat, and knows it’s time to
disappear. He sets up his exit, leaving his wife to follow when time is right.
His Russian friend, Zharkov, hides him in Vienna, but it doesn’t take the CIA
long to trail him. Plus, Russia wants Cross to come over to their side. Soon,
there are too many trails to Cross, and Scorpio knows his every move. The story
was terribly slow, but the characters kept the story interesting, even if there
wasn’t a lot of action. Nor did I find any of the characters worth rooting for.
Plus, there were deeper mysteries behind why the CIA wanted Cross eliminated.
The story ends with an unexpected twist, though the reader by now is probably
not interested. It was a fast and easy ready, however, and I like books that
are quick reads.
Monday, October 17, 2016
Secret Mission Angola
Secret Mission #9: “Angola”
by Don Smith. His CIA contact asks Phil Sherman to try and find a black rebel
leader in Africa and promise him money and support to back his fight for
control of Angola. The only one who may know his whereabouts is an ex prisoner
now living in Lisbon, so Sherman starts there. The first half of the book takes
place in Lisbon, as Sherman is framed for murder and must hide out from both
the police and those men who set him up. Here he meets two women, Meia Gomes
and Carlotta, who provide the romantic interest while he’s trying to stay
alive. When he leaves Lisbon for Angola in the second half of the book, Meia
goes with him, but is kidnapped by the opposition when they arrive. Now Sherman
must seek the aid of Manuel Arrabida, the rebel leader to help him get her
back. He recruits the help of an ex Green Beret training the rebels at an old
Fort. Finally reaching the rebel camp he speaks with Arrabida and is introduced
to the rebel’s beautiful sister, Senguela, a vicious jungle fighter. She takes
Sherman under her wings to protect him, and the rest of the story revolves
around her instead of Meia. I do believe Phil Sherman is better with women than
James Bond. Although the first half of the book is very busy, the story really
takes off when we move into Angola. Most stories are well written, and the
author is well versed in world politics and geography, some of the stories do
come across as a bit better than others. This is one of them, and was a fun read.
Sherman is merely a CIA asset, not an agent, but willingly takes on dangerous
assignments that could result in his death.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
The Mexico Kill
Dirty Harry #4: “The Mexico Kill” by Dane Hartman
(unknown author). In order for the author to make the story work, he has Harry
make a false arrest on a drug kingpin, which gets him suspended from the force.
This is just in time for Harold Keepnews, an extremely rich person, to hire
Harry to oversee a crew on a small luxury cruiser sailing to Mexico to get
revenge on pirates who captured his previous cruiser and killed all on board.
Naturally, Harry is given a crew not much better than the pirates he’s going
after, plus every move he makes seems to be known in advance. Could Harold be
setting Harry up, or is it his gorgeous wife, Windy working against him? Well,
the plot wasn’t too bad, but the carry-through wasn’t very good. Almost as if
this was intended as something besides a Dirty Harry in the beginning, but
rejected, and turned into this odd entry. In reality it might have worked
better as another men’s action novel series. I don’t think it worked well for
Dirty Harry. Truth be told, the only stories in this series I seem to like are
the ones written by Ric Meyers.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Cobra Trap
Modesty Blaise #13: “Cobra
Trap” by Peter O’Donnell. This final novel actually contains five novelettes:
BELLMAN, THE DARK ANGELS, OLD ALEX, THE GIRL WITH THE BLACK BALLOON, and COBRA
TRAP.
BELLMAN begins shortly after Modesty has taken over The
Network and recruited Garvin. Modesty goes after Bellman, the man behind a drug
ring responsible for many drug addiction cases with children. She can’t make
the man fight her, so she’ll have a chance to kill him, so she frames him and
sends him to prison. Once out he only wants revenge on Modesty and Garvin. This
is a play on THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, as Bellman captures them and leaves them
without weapons on a small island, stalked by three killers: Charlie
Brightstar, a Choctaw Indian; Van Rutte, a black African mercenary; and
Crichton, a big game hunter. But Modesty and Garvin make their own weapons and
turn the tables on the hunters.
THE DARK ANGELS is a three-man team of assassins, highly
trained in acrobatics. They are hired by a group of powerful British rich who
want foreign investors out of English business. When a foreign company starts a
building construction on British soil it’s time to kill the head honcho.
Tarrant is wise to the situation, but doesn’t know who is behind the killers.
Instead of asking Modesty and Willie to look into it, he tricks them by pulling
a gimmick on Modesty to make her think it’s her idea. In the meantime, The Dark
Angels are willing – and even anxious – to kill them and collect their pay.
OLD ALEX: Modesty is on a walk-about in the Pyrenees when a
sniper shoots her with a dart. She awakes in a cave, the entrance blocked by a
big boulder, where she cannot escape, and is left die. But an old farmer finds
her while out looking for logs with his ox. He takes her to his farm to meet all
the family. There is a mystery about Old Alex: he speaks French, but throws
about English words now and then, as if he wasn’t always a French farmer.
Matilda the old lady that has been with him since he was found fifty years ago
shows Modesty a uniform he had been wearing when they found him. He was an
British flying officer, shot down in WWII, but he can only remember from the
time the family here had found him, his past a complete blank. Modesty uncovers
the truth, and discovers that The Salamander Four had placed a contract on her;
the sniper had left her for dead. There is a lot going on in this story,
several stories are unraveling at the same time, and strangely they are all
connected. The Salamander Four are destroyed in this story.
THE GIRL WITH THE BLACK BALOON: A group of men are
kidnapping important men and holding them for ransom. When they kidnap an
important British gentleman, Tarrant is able to get a man inside their group
but his body is returned horribly mutilated. He was a friend of Modesty Blaise,
and when she learns of the death, she decides to tackle the case with Willie
Garvin. The girl with the black balloon is an innocent bystander who
accidentally blows their cover, but since she has a hot air balloon with a
basket, they ask her for help in getting above the castle where the kidnappers
are holding their captive. But things go wrong when the captive doesn’t want to
cooperate.
COBRA TRAP. It’s now over 8 years since Tarrant’s death, and
four years since their last serious action. Modesty is 52 years old and
beginning to show her age, and they’re both slowing down. Modesty has been
acting strangely also, showing more motherly love to Willie, as if holding a
deep secret. Steve and Dinah, also older, with two children, are away in Montelara,
Central America, when a rebel force attacks the government. Willie is with
them, and along with the government officials and a trainload of children, hope
to evade the Cobra Army. Willie contacts Modesty about the situation, and she
tells him she’s coming to help. The tracks are blown up before the train can
reach the border, and Willie must take tracks from behind them to replace the
damaged ones in front, which is going to take a lot of time, and the Cobra Army
is heading for them. Modesty arrives in a small plane; bails out, letting the
plane crash into a pass delaying the army, giving her and Willie time to set up
a fire zone to delay them until the train can get away. Here Modesty tells him
she has a tumor in her brain, and is dying, and this is her way out, and she
will hold the fire zone while he returns to the train to help Steve and Dinah.
It’s the way she prefers to die, instead of suffering longer with the tumor.
Willie agrees, but when she dies from a gunshot would, and his ankle is damaged
by a heavy rock, he sets plastic explosives and moves out, blowing a ton of
dirt over her body for a grave, then moves out with the Cobras following close
behind. He is picked off by a sniper in the end. Steve and Dinah successfully
escape in the train.
The author killed Modesty and Willie to insure no one else
would ever write stories featuring them, so I can understand his reasoning, but
that didn’t make it any easier to finally read of their deaths. Still, he
waited until they were middle age and slowing down, even allowing Modesty a
reason for dying. Of course, Willie could not have lived with her gone, so both
had to die. There were only 13 novels, two of which were short story
collections. The series was based on a popular comic book series by the author.
The stories are all topnotch, and I highly recommend the book, but only after
all the others have been read first.
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