Charles Hood #1: “Hammerhead” by James Mayo. Hood’s
cover is an art dealer with many other talents. He works for a British
intelligence group known as the Circle. Hood had dealt with Espiritu Lobar
before in his capacity as art dealer, and when the Circle believes the man is
running a spy organization, they send Hood to meet with him on the pretense of
selling more art. Lobar has the nickname Hammerhead because of his similarity
to sharks by the same name, and if Hood isn’t careful, he could be eaten. Lobar is after much more than just spying
this time. He has a man working for him that is a genius mimic, who can imitate
anyone, and Lobar has his eye on the British Ambassador, Sir Richard Calvert.
The story moved slowly but when there was action, it was fast, and good. There
just wasn’t enough of it. Over all it was too slow, and that was a negative. The
curious tone of this, seeing as it was a men’s action novel in the spy genre,
was the lack of sex. There were some sexy scenes, but no sex. Usually our hero
is jumping into bed every chapter, if not every few pages, but not so with
Charles Hood. In fact, at one point a beautiful girl slips him an erotic pill,
more commonly known as Spanish fly, but he walks out on her. In another case a
woman takes him to her room to seduce him, but again, he begs off and leaves
her in a state. Now I’m one who believes sex in books slows the pace down, so I
don’t mind the lack of sex in a story, but I think this may be why the books
never truly caught on with spy fans.
