Review: "Homicide: Saigon" by Stephen Mertz

Homicide: Saigon
by Stephen Mertz
Wolfpack Publishing, 2021

 

Homicide: Saigon, by action maestro Stephen Mertz, is as fast as a bullet and as much fun as a summer afternoon. It is 1970. The United States’ war in Vietnam is near its height and more unpopular than ever. As a public relations gimmick, the Army brass embeds journalists with select “in-country” units hoping for positive publicity. Maj. Cord McGavin is a hot-shot U.S. Army CID investigator stationed in Saigon. Cord is unhappy with the idea of a photojournalist following him around. He is even more so when he discovers the photographer is his wife, Kelly. An assignment Kelly had to go undercover to get and it could threaten McGavin’s career.
     But McGavin’s career worries disappear when he is confronted with a drug trafficking operation that began as street rumors and then escalated into a dockside firefight. On one side are a handful of American servicemen and on the other side is an ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) cop and McGavin. The ARVN cop doesn’t trust any of his American counterparts, including McGavin, because the drug ring appears to have deep roots within the U.S. Army. McGavin’s instincts tell him something big is going down, but Kelly’s presence is disturbing in two ways: she’s beautiful; and she’s in danger every second she spends in Vietnam.
     Homicide: Saigon is a sharply plotted and laconic action thriller with a rich setting and just enough characterization to make it interesting. It is less police procedural, or mystery, than it is an arrow-straight action tale. McGavin is a big and tough hero without many visible flaws—other than the distracting presence of Kelly—with a knight errant-like passion for justice. A step above most of it’s competitors, Homicide: Saigon, will appeal to anyone who enjoys those old-school masculine thrillers so popular in the 1970s and 1980s.

Check out Homicide: Saigon at Amazon in paperback here and in Kindle here.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: ZOMBIES OVER LONDON by Stephen Mertz

I have always wanted to hear Sherlock Holmes say—

“Zombies.” and “The undead.”

—but I didn’t know it until I read those words in Stephen Mertz’s Sherlock Holmes: Zombies Over London. It features, as the title suggests, Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless detective Sherlock Holmes. It is, as are the bulk of Conan Doyle’s original stories, narrated by Dr. John Watson and the narration is close to perfect – the cadence, noun and verb selection, characterization, and setting very much capture the feel and time of the original stories.

It opens with a punch. Holmes and Watson are inflight aboard the futuristic military dirigible Blackhawk, approaching Castle Moriarty to rescue Watson’s wife, Mary Morstan, from the clutches of Professor Moriarty. Moriarty kidnapped Mary as a form of extortion to keep Holmes and Watson from investigating his most recent criminal endeavor. An enterprise Holmes knows nothing about, except Moriarty’s plan to auction off its results, whatever it is, to the highest bidder. The two men jump from the dirigible, a “flight enabler” – very much like a hang glider – strapped to their backs, landing safely on the roof of the castle. Once on the castle they notice a group of empty-eyed workers loading wagons in a precise, rigid manner; to Watson’s confusion, and incredulity, Holmes labels the workers as zombies. And Moriarty, always the master criminal, has more than zombies in his plans.

Sherlock Holmes: Zombies Over London is a hybrid adventure and detective novel. Its mystery is genuinely interesting. It features more than one nicely turned sub-plot, which effectively adds texture and confusion to the primary mystery without cheating. Its cast is unique and includes H. G. Wells and a teenage Albert Einstein. There are several scenes that display Mr. Mertz’s keen ability to develop action in a sparse, believable manner without losing the voice and tone of a Sherlock Holmes story. It is an impressive display of storytelling. It captures the essence of Conan Doyle’s stories while being wholly original, and it is a showcase of Mr. Mertz’s range as both storyteller and writer. And, it is damn fun.

A TALENT FOR KILLING by Ralph Dennis (Coming Soon)

This is good news. Brash Books is bringing out a brand new Ralph Dennis novel with an intriguing history. A Talent for Killing is two novels combined into a single narrative. The first novel, Deadman’s Game, features Kane, a retired and memory impaired Agency assassin:

But the expert killer in Kane rose up again, and now he was working the private side of the street—killer for hire.

Deadman’s Game was published as a standalone novel by Berkley Medallion in 1976, but it was intended as a series by Ralph Dennis and his editor at Berkley. As explained in A Talent for Killing, “the editor who championed the book left [Berkley], leaving Deadman’s Game without a champion in-house and without the editorial support for a robust marketing campaign.” And Berkley’s new editor rejected Dennis’ second Kane novel outright.

Brash Books’ release of A Talent for Killing combines Deadman’s Game with Dennis’ never before published sequel, Kane #2, into a single, wonderful thriller. This new book, along with Brash’s recent releases of Dennis’ Hardman novels and The War Heist (originally published as MacTaggart’s War), is a welcome addition to Ralph Dennis’ canon, and—far too late—corrects the error of New York publishing’s shutout of Dennis in the late-1970s.

The only bad thing? The value of my copy of Deadman’s Game is going to plummet. And, A Talent for Killing, isn’t scheduled for release until September. Although, you can pre-order it now.

MIA HUNTER: L.A. GANG WAR by Stephen Mertz

A three-man strike force accustomed to rescuing prisoners of war in the jungles of Vietnam is stateside on a rogue mission in Los Angeles. Mark Stone, known as the MIA Hunter, is asked by an old war buddy, now a deputy chief with LAPD, to help rescue Rick Chavez from a Colombian drug cartel. Chavez is a Pulitzer award winning journalist who has been writing a series of hard and insightful articles about the drug trade in L. A. The articles have enough detail that the LAPD and the drug gangs—Crips, Bloods and their Colombian suppliers—want to know where his information is coming from.

When Stone and his team arrive on scene, Chavez is being held prisoner in a palatial home in San Clemente; a few doors down from Richard Nixon's house. It takes the team only a few minutes, several hundred rounds of 9mm lead slung by MAC 10s, some smart one liners, and a close call or three, to pull Chavez out of the house. But this is the beginning for the MIA team because as the team is exfiltrating from the firefight, Stone sees a familiar face. A face that belongs to a man who tried to kill Mark Stone in Vietnam.

MIA Hunter: L. A. Gang War—the thirteenth entry in the series—is an entertaining example of the men’s adventure mania of the 1980s. Originally published in 1990 (an honorary member of the 1980s), it is a time capsule of the era, capturing society’s anxiety with an escalating war on drugs, violent street gangs spreading the poison and in the process claiming entire neighborhoods, all in the shadow of America's defeat in Vietnam. It is non-stop action, accented with betrayal, revenge, and the MIA team’s seeming endless supply of bravado and super hero combat skills. There is also a touch of humor, if you look closely, and even a big idea or two. L. A. Gang War is a top-notch example of both the series and the genre.

McGRAVE by Lee Goldberg

McGrave is a stylish, action-packed, and downright fun novella written by Lee Goldberg. The Afterword explains it “began as a television pilot” and the plotting, pacing and vivid cinematic prose give it an episodic television feel. A good thing in this case.

John McGrave is an LAPD detective whose knack for destruction has yielded the nifty nickname, “Tidal Wave.” After foiling the attempted robbery of a 3,000 year-old chamber pot, McGrave is fired from the force. His termination is for a culmination of events, but the final straw is a soon to be filed $20-million lawsuit by one of L.A.’s wealthiest residents. Without a job, or even any prospects for a job, McGrave takes the first flight to Berlin trailing the only would-be toilet robber to escape L.A.

McGrave is a sterling action yarn, at a perfect length, with a nicely rendered Berlin setting. The dialogue is witty, the characters fit nicely and play well together. John McGave is something like Lethal Weapons’ Detective Riggs (Mel Gibson) searching for, and finding, his Detective Murtaugh (Danny Glover) in a very unexpected locale mixed with a classic 1980s Stephen J. Cannell television series.

MIA HUNTER: L. A. GANG WAR by Stephen Mertz (Jack Buchanan)

A three-man strike force accustomed to rescuing prisoners of war in the jungles of Vietnam is stateside on a rogue mission in Los Angeles. Mark Stone, known as the MIA Hunter, is asked by an old war buddy, now a deputy chief with LAPD, to help rescue Rick Chavez from a Colombian drug cartel. Chavez is a Pulitzer award winning journalist who has been writing a series of hard and insightful articles about the drug trade in L. A. The articles have enough detail that the LAPD and the drug gangs—Crips, Bloods and their Colombian suppliers—want to know where his information is coming from.

When Stone and his team arrive on scene, Chavez is being held prisoner in a palatial home in San Clemente; a few doors down from Richard Nixon's house. It takes the team only a few minutes, several hundred rounds of 9mm lead slung by MAC 10s, some smart one liners, and a close call or three, to pull Chavez out of the house. But this is the beginning for the MIA team because as the team is exfiltrating from the firefight, Stone sees a familiar face. A face that belongs to a man who tried to kill Mark Stone in Vietnam.

MIA Hunter: L. A. Gang War—the thirteenth entry in the series—is an entertaining example of the men’s adventure mania of the 1980s. Originally published in 1990 (an honorary member of the 1980s), it is a time capsule of the era, capturing society’s anxiety with an escalating war on drugs, violent street gangs spreading the poison and in the process claiming entire neighborhoods, all in the shadow of America's defeat in Vietnam. It is non-stop action, accented with betrayal, revenge, and the MIA team’s seeming endless supply of bravado and super hero combat skills. There is also a touch of humor, if you look closely, and even a big idea or two. L. A. Gang War is a top-notch example of both the series and the genre.          

THE KING OF HORROR & OTHER STORIES by Stephen Mertz

I’ve been knowingly reading the work of Stephen Mertz for nearly a decade; unknowingly since I was a teenager—all the way back in the late-1980s and early-1990s—devouring men’s adventure series novels like The Executioner and M. I. A. Hunter. He wrote some of the better non-Don Pendleton titles of the former, and created, writing many of the books, in the latter. In recent years he has broken away from series work and produced several high quality novels in a variety of genres—The Korean Intercept, Dragon Games, The Castro Directive, Fade to Tomorrow, Hank & Muddy, and others.

Mr. Mertz is primarily a novelist, but his career began with the sale of his short story, “The Busy Corpse,” in 1975 to the short-lived The Executioner Mystery Magazine. In the forty years since, and including that first sale, he has published “a mere twelve stories”—his words, not mine—and each is included in his collection, The King of Horror & Other Stories. The stories are as varied as his novels. There is an action story, “Fragged,” three featuring a P. I. named O’Dair, and an old-school pulp adventure yarn, “The Lizard Men of Blood River,” which is aptly dedicated to Lester Dent.

The best story in the collection, and they are all very good, is the title story, “The King of Horror.” In the Afterword Mr. Mertz describes it as “[a] cautionary tale for writers.” It features one Rigby Balbo, an aging writer angry at his irrelevance. Rig believes he is blacklisted by the industry and his fellow writers intentionally ignore the influence of his early work. But he has a plan to get even. A plan that turns blackly ironic for him, and darkly satisfying for the reader. I reviewed this story back in 2009.

“The Basics of Murder” is a straight P. I. story. O’Dair—no first name—is on vacation visiting an old friend who made the Army a career after Vietnam. O’Dair’s leisure time is cut short when an officer is killed on the firing range, and his friend asks him to look into it. What he finds is something altogether unexpected for both O’Dair and the reader.   

The Afterword is worth the price of admission alone. It details Mr. Mertz’s thoughts on each of the stories, and illuminates a little of the personal Stephen Mertz. A few of my favorites:

“The King of Horror” was written as “an open letter to” Michael Avallone; a popular writer of the paperback era, and close personal friend of Mr. Mertz, whose markets were gone and who felt some bitterness about it.

Stephen Mertz worked as a touring musician for seven years playing “the beer bar circuit.”  He played the harp—“blues lingo for amplified harmonica”—and vocals.

The King of Horror & Other Stories is pure entertainment. It showcases the work of an underappreciated writer whose talent and excitement is present in each tale. The style is quietly smooth, and the plotting is sharp and surprising. Mr. Mertz may not be a prolific writer of short stories, but what he does write is damn good.

HUNT AT THE WELL OF ETERNITY by James Reasoner

In 2009 Hard Case Crime introduced an adventure series featuring explorer, millionaire, and all around good guy Gabriel Hunt. There were six novels published before HCC’s partner, Dorchester Publishing, made its slow and painful fall into oblivion in 2011. The novels were published as by Gabriel Hunt, and the actual author was identified on the title page; each novel was written by a different writer.

HCC’s new publishing partner, Titan Books, is reissuing all of the Gabriel Hunt novels starting with the first title, Hunt at the Well of Eternity. This time around the writer’s name is on the front cover (James Reasoner, in this case), but the story is all Gabriel Hunt. Hunt is something of a playboy adventurer. He is sponsored by The Hunt Foundation—a family thing—to travel around the world in search of really cool stuff (think Indiana Jones with more punch).

Hunt at the Well of Eternity opens in New York City at a gala event in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gabriel and his brother Michael—the more scholarly and less adventurous of the two—are approached by a beautiful woman delivering a package to Michael. Before she can make the drop, she is interrupted by a group of armed men disguised as waiters. Gabriel fights off the men, but not before the package is broken and the woman is kidnapped. This is the opening salvo, which sets Hunt on a mission to find out who the woman is, and why she was kidnapped.

Hunt at the Well of Eternity is pure pulp adventure. The story is fast and exciting. The prose is simple (delightfully so) and straight forward. Hunt is a larger than life character who carries an old Colt .45 Peacemaker with walnut grips, and two fists made for thumping. The plot is linear and supercharged. There aren’t many surprises, but the action is brisk, and the story is a riot. It is pure adventure, and overwhelming fun.  

DRAGON GAMES by Stephen Mertz



2008. Beijing, China. The world has descended on China for one of the most spectacular public relations campaigns in modern history.  The Summer Olympics mark China’s celebration, and notice to the world, that it has arrived as a major world power, and it is of the utmost importance nothing go wrong.  A small group of private foreign security agents are hired to help protect the influx of both Western athletes and tourists.

The novel begins with the opening ceremonies in the behemoth stadium coined “the bird’s nest” with an unexpected and very violent operation involving both the private security firm and Chinese Special Forces.  A group of what the Chinese believe to be terrorists are captured in the delivery access area of the stadium.  It is a quick and violent operation that isn’t noticed by anyone, including the media, but leads the protagonist, Tag McCall, into a dark and dangerous mission that will cost him more than he can fathom.

Dragon Games is a throwback in the thriller racket.  It is more adventure and less bombast.  The writing is tight and literate, and the plot is streamlined into an action packed story that is more believable, and therefore more suspenseful, than the common variety 21st Century thriller.

The prose is strong and shifts from a rich and almost poetic cadence to a stark and pounding hardboiled style that is reminiscent of the suspense novels of the 1970s and 80s.  It is, however, not a rehash of anything old or new.  The story is original and the style is all Stephen Mertz.  It is a modern adventure novel that it is better than most in its category.

The characters, particularly the hero, are built around the story, but they have a certain reality that gives them a flesh and blood feel.  They have families, love, hate, hope and even dreams.  Their back stories are sprinkled throughout the novel with a sparseness that allows the reader to relate to the characters without slowing the pace of the plot.

Dragon Games is the best of Stephen Mertz’s novels.  The narrative is strong, the characters are vivid and bold, and the story is exotic, enticing, and damn fun.  There are brief touches of understated humor mixed with ratcheting tension and action, and richly detailed and interesting descriptions of Beijing, the Olympics and the Chinese people. Mr Mertz has written a novel that is worthy of the first tier of suspense and action novels.

THE CASTRO DIRECTIVE by Stephen Mertz

Stephen Mertz is an unheralded, and much undervalued, writer of action and suspense novels.  He has steadily put together an impressive body of work since the late 1970s.  He was one of the original writers of the post-Don Pendleton, The Executioner series, and he created a few of his own successful men’s adventure series in the 1980s, including M. I. A. Hunter and Cody’s War.  But the meat of his work is what he has produced over the last decade starting with Night Wind, and including the excellent novels The Korean Intercept, Dragon Games, and Hank & Muddy.

I read his most recent novel The Castro Directive in close to a single sitting.  It is a straight action thriller with a dollop of intrigue, and a touch of betrayal.  The year is 1961.  The CIA sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba is in its final phase and a high level leak is passing information about the invasion to the Castro government.  When a CIA man is killed on a deserted Cuban beach the Kennedy administration brings in a troubleshooter named Michael “Graveyard” Morgan.  Graveyard is a Green Beret sergeant stationed in Vietnam as an advisor, and he is a man who gets the job done.

Morgan’s job is to find the mole.  It takes him from the streets of Miami to Nicaragua to Cuba, and back again.  There is an interesting sub plot involving Graveyard’s daughter and wife, and the cast of characters includes President Kennedy.  The JFK described is long on intelligence, but short on marital fidelity.  One of my favorite presidential scenes has Kennedy reading a James Bond novel poolside. 

The Castro Directive’s plot is straight forward, but with a few well timed and satisfying surprises.  The prose is stark and, in places, quite vivid— 

“The only sound for the past ten minutes had been the lapping of gentle swells against the low, black-painted hull.  The V-20 speedboat rode the swells one hundred yards offshore.  Sleek, sixty-three-feet in length, the launch bore no name or markings.”   

Graveyard is an action hero from the old school.  He is tough, single minded, and willing to do, and risk, anything to get the job done.  The added element of his family, which Mr Mertz ties into the story admirably, adds a little meat to the bone and makes the story more interesting.  The real charm of The Castro Directive is the setting—1960’s South Florida, especially—and the straight forward action, which is a specialty of Mr Mertz. 

The Castro Directive may be Stephen Mertz’s best novel to date—and each is seemingly better than the last—but even if it isn’t his best, it is damn enjoyable anyway.

A Feast of John Lange, Err...Michael Crichton

The best news in publishing, at least at my house, is Hard Case Crime is reissuing the eight novels Michael Crichton published between 1966 and 1972 as by John Lange.  The John Lange novels are superior adventure thrillers strong on plot and action, generally (but not always) set in exotic locations with everyman protagonists.  The majority of the titles have been out of print for decades and cost a small fortune on the secondary market, which is why I’ve read most instead of all. 

I spent the better part of my youth (and a good deal of my adulthood) trolling bookstores with a single goal: FIND A JOHN LANGE TITLE!  And I found most of them (and a bunch of Oliver Lange), but wow a few were elusive, which is about to change because all eight are going to be issued in fashionable trade paperbacks with terrific artwork by Hard Case.  The only problem; will I be able to stop looking for them?

The following is a listing of the John Lange titles in chronological order.  I included the cover art for both the new Hard Case Crime edition, and any other covers I know of (because I love old paperback cover art).

Odds On.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1966.  This is Crichton’s first published novel, and it is one of the titles I haven’t read.  The cover art is by Glen Orbik.      

   

Scratch One.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1967.  Scratch One is one of the weaker John Lange titles.  The cover art is by Glen Orbik.

 

Easy Go.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1968.  It was reissued by Bantam with the title The Last Tomb.  This is one of the better John Lange titles.  The cover art is by Glen Orbik.  Read the Gravetapping review.

 

Zero Cool.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1969.  This title was reissued by HCC in 2008 as a mass market paperback with cover art by Gregory Manchess.  The cover art will not change, but the book size will be increased to trade paperback.  Read the Gravetapping review.

 

The Venom Business.  Originally published as a hardcover in 1969 by World Publishing Company.  This is another of the titles I have yet to read.  The cover art is by Gregory Manchess.

 

Drug of Choice.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet.  Yet another title I haven’t read.  This was also issued under the title Overkill.  The cover art is by Gregory Manchess.

 

Grave Descend.  Originally published as a paperback original by Signet in 1970.  This title was short listed for the best paperback original Edgar Award.  This title was resissued by HCC in 2006 as a mass market paperback with cover art by Gregory Manchess.  The cover is the same, but the size changes to a trade paperback.

Binary.  Originally published as a hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf in 1972.  This title was translated into a television movie directed by Michael Crichton in 1972 titled “Pursuit”.  The novel is the best of the John Lange titles, but the film was somewhat disappointing.  The cover art is by Glen Orbik.  Read the Gravetapping review.

THE REMOVERS by Donald Hamilton

The Removers is the third novel to feature cold war spy, or more accurate, enforcer Matt Helm.  He is less spy and more enforcer because he acts as a counter intelligence wet work operative rather than an intelligence gatherer; or as Helm’s boss explains:

“If you were working for a criminal organization, you’d be enforcers.  Since you’re working for a sovereign nation, you can call yourselves… well, removers is a very good word.”

Matt Helm receives a cryptic note from his ex-wife seeking help.  She left Helm, and took their two small children with her, when his violent past found him.  She lives with her new husband on a ranch outside Reno, Nevada where a local hood is making subtle threats to Helm’s children.  Helm’s boss gives him permission to head west, but asks him to make contact with another agent working a case against a Soviet agent called Martel.

Not surprising, Helm’s personal business and the Soviet operation are one and the same.  The agent working the case is inexperienced and in short order Helm finds only he is standing between Martel, the safety of his children, and the Soviet plot. 

The Removers is a smooth and exciting novel.  There aren’t many surprises, mainly because similar plots have been rolling over and over since it was published fifty years ago, but its execution is pitch perfect.  It is constructed from the ground up—the early action and plotting is interesting enough to keep the reader fully invested, while still leaving room enough for additional tension, action, and suspense without becoming overblown, unbelievable, and tedious.

The characters also contribute to the success of the novel.  There are the expected characters, whose only role is to fulfill the plot, but there are also the unexpected.  There is the flash bang daughter of the hood who is something close to a Helm ally, his ex-wife who is both less and more than expected; less because Helm wants her to behave as an operative, and more because she really is a decent woman. 

The element which differentiates The Removers, and all of the Matt Helm novels, is the protagonist.  He is something other than.  Meaning he is an uneasy categorization; he isn’t sympathetic, and while he constantly plays the angles and never fully risks himself for another, he is far from amoral.  Which is something he would rather you didn’t know.  Although you should know this title, and all the other Matt Helm novels, are pretty damn terrific.

Titan Books is republishing the Matt Helm novels as attractive mass market paperbacks.  To date the first six novels in the series are back in print and two more are scheduled.  I hope there is enough success to get all 27 of the titles back in print because they represent the best the genre has to offer, now and then.

TESTAMENT by David Morrell

I have been reading the work of David Morrell since I was a teenager.  The first novel I read was Brotherhood of the Rose and then I quickly read its two succeeding, loosely related novels, The Fraternity of the Stone and The League of Night and Fog.  It is a trilogy that is related by theme rather than character, although one character does appear in two of the three novels.  If you haven’t read them, you should.

The point?  Other than David Morrell is a terrific writer?  I recently reread Mr. Morrell’s second novel, Testament, and really had a good time.  It is a suspense novel with a stark and brutal plot and even better writing.  It is similar to First Blood in that both are essentially chase novels.  The difference between the two are the characters—John Rambo is a major league tough guy with not much to lose, and Reuben Bourne (the protagonist in Testament) is a family man with everything to lose.

The novel opens with Bourne and his family—his wife, his young daughter and his infant son—enjoying the morning meal, but everything is about to fall apart.  He is a writer and several months earlier he wrote an unflattering article about a Militia leader.  When it was published the subject of the article threatened Bourne and his family, but Bourne didn’t think much about it until the final morning with his family; a morning that left Bourne a shattered, scared and a nearly broken man.

Testament opens with a flash.  The opening line reads:

“It was the last morning the four of them would ever be together: the man and his wife, his daughter and his son.”

And it never lets up.  The chase begins in Bourne’s house, but it quickly moves to a small cabin in a rural town.  Then it moves into the wilderness where Bourne is drawn to his limit.  It is written in a starkly realistic style.  The action is quick, hard and believable.  There is a scene in a ghost town—a town that isn’t marked on any maps, a town that is nearly intact, the buildings upright, whiskey still on shelves, glasses and plates set at tables and blankets and beds—where a battle ensues between Bourne and his pursuers that is as well written and suspenseful as anything I have read.

I came across Testament late.  I read it for the first time in 2005, but it has become my favorite of David Morrell’s novels for the simple reason that it terrifies me.  The situation is frightening—a man against real, solid bogeymen who also must battle the harsh reality of winter in a wilderness without provisions.  It is something of a mix between Jack London and Geoffrey Household; particularly Household's Rogue Male.  It is reminiscent of these older tales, but it also still fresh and invigorating nearly forty years after its first publication.

This review, in slightly different form, first went live at Dark City Underground on July 29, 2010. 

VIETNAM: GROUND ZERO: THE FALL OF CAMP A-555 by Eric Helm

Mack Gerber is a captain in the US Army Green Berets in wartime Vietnam. He is also the commanding officer of Special Forces Camp A-555 near the Plain of Reeds. The year is 1965 and the novel opens with a general officer ordering Gerber to take his entire force into the field near the Cambodian border on a search and rescue mission.

A VIP was in a transport plane that crashed in the jungle. Gerber is uneasy about the orders, but he can’t find a contradicting order from within his chain of command so he takes his men—the Americans and most of the Tai strikers on the mission. The only problem is he left the wrong group at the base. When he returns he discovers the A-555 has been overran by the Viet Cong. The rest of the novel is Gerber’s attempts at retaking his base without getting the hostages—a general officer and a reporter—killed in the process.

I enjoyed these novels as a teenager and I have to admit that they haven’t held-up as well as I would like, but these books aren't bad. The action is well crafted and the men are also fleshed out fairly well in a men’s adventure sort of way.

The prose is smooth and easy to read. It is very much like the style made popular by Tom Clancy; at moments just a little more gritty and interesting. The plotlines are formulaic, but within the confines of the action and plot the authors do an excellent job of creating the visual and emotional elements of the war experience. The bravado and fear and male interaction are solidly developed and help lift the majority of these novels from the usual to something just a little better.

The Fall of Camp A-555 is the fourth title in the series and it fits perfectly with what the authors intended the series to be: quick, loads of action, and entertaining. The heroes are larger than life, but muted and balanced by the well-developed setting. The landscape and climate of Vietnam is well rendered and while the Vietnamese people are not developed beyond cardboard this title, and its place within the series, is an interesting and entertaining novel.

My favorite feature of these novels is the glossary at the back. It is a limited dictionary of slang used in Vietnam. The majority of the terms are seldom used in the novels, but the words and phrases are interesting. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the glossary, but still I like it. A few examples:

CO CONG: Female Vietcong solder

FIIGMO: F*ck It, I've Got My Orders. Pronounced fig-mo.

GO-TO-HELL RAG: Towel or any large cloth worn around the neck by grunts to absorb perspiration, clean their weapons and dry their hands.

LEGS: Derogatory term for regular infantry soldiers used by Airborne qualified troops. Also known as grunts.

The Vietnam: Ground Zero series consists of 27 novels. The first was published in 1986 and the final book was published in 1990; There were also four “super” Vietnam: Ground Zero titles published between 1988 and 1990. Gold Eagle published the series.

Eric Helm is a pseudonym for two writers: Kevin Randle and Robert Cornett. I’ve read—where and when is a mystery to me—that the name Eric Helm is a tribute to Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm series. Matt Helm’s code name was Eric, and the two obviously share the same last name.

Kevin Randle is a familiar name in the late-night radio arena and ufology. He is the co-writer, with Donald Schmitt, of the best-selling books The UFO Crash at Roswell and The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell. He is also a prolific fiction writer; he has written in several genres including action and science fiction. 

COPP ON FIRE by Don Pendleton

The work of Don Pendleton has probably had has much impact on the modern thriller—specifically comic books and action-adventure novels—as any writer of his generation. His The Executioner novels created the modern action story and spawned a myriad of copycats and wannabes; none of them nearly as good. He wrote these novels with a taut, hardboiled style that created a violent, vivid and gritty world where vigilantes were civilizations final option—in a sense it was an update of the hardboiled detective and Western stories from the pulp era, but with a modern sentiment of Vietnam-era cynicism and distrust. The character is archetypal and represents, in many forms, hope and redemption.

Pendleton wrote the first 38 novels—one or two of these early novels were written by Jim Peterson—in the still-running series and continued a close relationship with its direction well into the 1980s. He went on to write two private-eye series; Ashton Ford and Joe Copp. The Ford novels are meta-physical in nature and lack the hard-hitting power of Pendleton’s other work, but the Copp novels are special. They are a throwback to the hardboiled work of Mickey Spillane, but with a late-1980s Southern California mentality.

I recently read the second novel in the series, Copp on Fire, for the first time in something close to twenty years—it was published in 1988—and really had a good time with it. Joe Copp is a sentimental and cynical tough guy, not mention humorous as hell at times. He is a former police officer who went private to choose the cases he works—“I work for the work, and the luxury of picking my own.” He doesn’t do divorce cases, chase ambulances, insurance investigations, or skiptracing. He likes criminal cases and not much else.

The novel opens with Copp worried about his next paycheck. He’s alone in his “no-town” strip-mall office in the San Gabriel Valley when the unlikely appearance of a limousine catches his attention. It rolls across the tarmac of the gas station at the corner and glides into the parking stall in front of Copp’s office. Inside is a physically handicapped man named Albert Moore and he has a proposition.

He wants Copp to take photographs—at predetermined times—of the entrance to a business he owns. He tells Copp his employees are stealing from him and he needs to know the comings and goings. Copp is uneasy about the set-up, but the envelope with $1,000 stuffed inside clinches the deal. Unfortunately everything turns inside-out when the building is bombed and Copp is listed as the suspect, and to make matters worse, bodies start to pile-up and every cop in the valley is hot for him.

Copp on Fire is hard, fast and lean. The prose is taut and sparse, and the story is pitch-perfect—it is a Hollywood tale that includes more than a few illusions, exotic characters, sunny locations, betrayals and even a few surprises. It is told in Joe Copp’s terse voice, and hard and cynical attitude. It is loaded with tough guy one-liners and brutal, monochromatic philosophy. A few of my favorites, that also work to illuminate the story and the character of Joe Copp, are:

“Death is unlovely, sure, but life is sometimes even more so. And I have known crimes against the spirit far more terrible in their total effect than any trespass upon mere flesh.”

“I never met a man I didn't like, until he takes a whack at me. Then I love the bastard, after I whack him back, for reminding me that life ought to be lovelier than it usually is.”

“No, I don’t have a Ph.D. in psychology and I’ve never sat on a philosopher’s stone, but I’ve cruised these streets and I’ve dealt first hand with most every variety of misery. Dan’t talk theory of plumbing to a guy who’s down there with his hands in it. And don’t talk social theory to a cop who lives the reality the profs write about.”

“I’m bad Joe Copp and I’m burning all over with the need to take it back to those sonsofbitches.

“F*ck sanctuary, I wanted blood.”

Copp on Fire is the follow-up to Copp for Hire and it is better than the first. Don Pendleton easily overcomes the few weaknesses of the first—the verbal posturing, over-talking the action—and really hits his stride. The prose is sharp, the dialogue crisp, and Copp is perfect as societies outcast-crusader. It is a modern hardboiled novel that will appeal to anyone who enjoys the genre or a swiftly told action thriller.

There are a total of six novels that feature Joe Copp. The titles, in order of publication date, are: Copp for Hire, Copp on Fire, Copp in Deep, Copp in the Dark, Copp on Ice, and Copp in Shock.

I reviewed the first Joe Copp novel in January 2007—click Here to be magically transported.

RIVER OF DEATH by Alistair MacLean

I'm fond of a quote I read somewhere years ago: I keep the story moving so quickly the reader doesn't have time to slow down and realize how poor the writing is. It is attributed--at least in my memory--to novelist Alistair MacLean and while I don't agree that his writing is poor, I definitely agree that his stories are thrilling, wild, and extremely fast.

Mr. MacLean was a mega-bestseller in the Sixties and Seventies and was one of the first writers whose work really connected with me. He wrote sleek little thrillers that were long on action, loaded with dialogue, and populated with hard men that had a certain British sophistication that read just right. And none of the characters in his stories was exactly what they seemed; the bad guy was often not revealed until the final pages and it was usually a bit of a surprise.

I try to read a novel or two of MacLean's work each year, but I've fallen behind the last few. So a few nights back I decided to make amends and pulled one of his later titles off the bookshelf and devoured it in a few sittings. The title: River of Death.

River of Death is classic MacLean--two brutal and tough men playing a game that will end in the destruction of one and a mean victory for the other. It is populated with the usual: the wealthy businessman who is as comfortable in the shadows as he is in the boardroom; the mysterious stranger who is more than anyone estimates; and the strong but fragile woman who could bring down the house.

It takes place in the deep jungles of Brazil and has a few twists, a heap of action, a mysterious lost city, Nazi gold, murder, genocide, and nearly everything else you can think of. And it does it all in 215 pages--and that's in mass market!

River of Death is a great piece of escapist fiction. It took my mind off taxes, accounting, leaky windows, and everything else that keeps me awake at night. It enthralled me for a few hours with exhilarating action, suspense, and style. It is one of the last novels Alistair MacLean wrote--it's a common thought that his later work is inferior to his early stuff and I absolutely agree. It isn't nearly on the level of Where Eagles Dare, H.M.S. Ulysses, or The Guns of Navarone, but even with the lack of depth--characterization, sharper and more clever plotting, richer settings, and tighter prose--his earlier work had, River of Death is still pretty damn good. And it made me want to get all those other old MacLean titles down for another peruse.

A NOTE: River of Death was made into a mediocre film in 1989 starring Michael Dudikoff, Donald Pleasance, and Roberth Vaughn. It was directed by Steve Carver. I rented this one as a teenager, and I really don't remember much about it except disappointment. But who knows, maybe it's better than my memory.