The Smugglers #1

The Smugglers #1: “The Smugglers” by Paul Petersen (in collaboration with David Olyphant). Eric Saveman runs Shelter, a drug smuggling operation, and drives expensive automobiles, and has two gorgeous blondes living with him. Two giant corporations are keeping their eye on him and his father, Doc, though. Something happened years ago that involved his father in Africa with the men he worked with. Now someone wants Doc killed, and Eric working for them, but which corporation is the good guy, and which is the bad one? As a rule most men’s action novels are terrible, and I hate to hear the new groups call them pulp paperbacks, and the characters the new pulp anti-hero, etc. Pulps were never this bad. And I thought I had read the worst of the stuff until I read this one. The only way it got published is the writer’s name. The writing is poor, the dialogue is terrible, and the plot is screwy. It’s some of the worst stuff I’ve read, and I’ve read most men’s action novels. I think the series ran for seven issues, and if sales were good it was because of the covers, not the text.