The Adjusters #5: The Temple At Ilumquh

The Adjusters #5: The Temple At Ilumquh, by Jack Laflin

No month stated, 1970  Award Books

Someone at Award Books must’ve decided The Adjusters still had legs, as three years after the previous volume was published the series returned. Several changes are evident, though: for one, a real author is credited, whereas the previous four were credited to series protagonist Peter Winston himself, a la Award’s far more successful Nick Carter: Killmaster series. Also, the cover design has been changed. Most importantly, though, the entire premise has been changed, with The Temple At Ilumquh having almost nothing in common with the previous four volumes, other than Peter Winston himself. 

Jack Laflin is also new to the series, but in the mid-‘60s he wrote the five-volume Geoffrey Hiller spy series for Belmont. I have every volume but still haven’t read any of them yet. Overall his writing is good if a little too fussy. He’s one of those authors who likes his long sentences, which to me doesn’t much suit the genre, making what should be a tense sequence instead come off like a long list of “this happened and then this happened, and furthermore this also happened.” Also he changes the setup in a major way; The Temple At Iluquh has more in common with the Joaquin Hawks series than with The Adjusters, as in this one Peter Winston spends the entire novel in disguise as “Yusuf from Alexandria.” 

Laflin starts the novel in the middle of the action, with Winston already on the job in Yemen and several of his contacts murdered; there’s mention of a professional assassin named Hamid and a “joy girl” named T’Shura, but no setup on who any of them are. This cold opening only served to make me confused, particularly given how different everything was to what came before – I mean, Winston’s always been more of a James Bond type, going around the globe in a secret agent capacity. He’s never been embedded in a foreign country and trying to pass himself off as a local. Then we have the necessary flashback and learn that Winston was elected for an “experimental unit” at White and Whittle (the firm that employs Winston as “A-2”), one in which he’d receive heavy training in Arabic life, language, and religions, with the goal that he and fellow Adjusters could ultimately be dropped into the Middle East and pose as natives on a moment’s notice. 

So the Peter Winston we knew from previous books is gone; part of his training entailed letting his beard grow, and he spends the entire novel in robes and such. However he still carries his not-very-secret-agent .357 Magnum, which he uses in the occasional action scene…but Laflin’s over-fussy style tends to rob these scenes of much impact. We know Winston’s training lasted some months, and he was put back into normal duty before the call came in and he was shipped off to Yemen. The entire setup is ridiculous and has nothing in common with the previous books. It’s more of a desert yarn with Winston, posing as Yusuf throughout, meeting a ton of natives, adopting their various customs, and trying to figure out what nefarious Red China activity is going on here. 

The novel is prescient in how Laflin predicts the radical movements that would overtake the Middle East in the ‘70s. Winston’s been sent here due to word of a new jihad that’s about to be started, one that would shake up the pro-West mindset of the current leaders. Laflin doesn’t miss the opportunity to tell us a lot about local customs and Moslem beliefs, either. Winston gets in periodic gunfights and chases, as a lot of his contacts turn up dead and he tracks down the killers. We have here another sad indication of how much more vile our modern world is; the radical Moslems, despite hating the West and wanting to start a jihad and such, still aren’t suicidal nutjobs who are willing to strap bombs onto themselves (or their children); they’re more of a crafty and cunning lot, concerned about saving their own skins. 

Laflin adds a lot more sex to the series than previous volumes, and all of it’s courtesy T’Shura, the 18 or 19 year-old dancing girl who acts as another of Winston’s local contacts. It’s not super explicit, but Laflin does use words like “orgasm,” which is pretty unusual for the era – the sequences in these mainstream paperbacks would usually be a bit less blunt at the time. And boy do Winston and T’Shura go at it a whole bunch. She’s a “part-time joy girl” who has had a ton of men in her time, but relates to Winston that he’s the first to ever truly satisfy her. Of course he is! This means that she’s constantly wanting to hump him, but Laflin leaves most of it off-page after the initial act. In fact the novel even ends with T’Shura struggling to unzip Winston’s pants; she’s clumsy with zippers, given that all her previous clients wore robes and such. And also this is the only time in the novel that Winston’s in Western garb. 

Winston is initially sent to Yemen because two local contacts have been killed, and ultimately this leads to the uncovering of the Red China plot. It takes a while to get to this, though, and a lot of the first half of The Temple At Ilumquh concerns Winston ingratiating himself into the Yemen community as “Yusuf” and trying to find out who has murdered his colleagues. Laflin has done his research on the land and the customs and he wants you to know it. He treats Islam with a fair bit of respect, other than Winston’s grumbling over the “stupid custom” of not drinking alcohol. But man it’s like we’re suddenly reading an entirely new series, and one wonders why Award even published this as an Adjusters yarn. It could’ve just as easily been a standalone, or even the start of a completely different series. 

What makes it worse is that the cover promises an almost sci-fi sort of plot (“half-men, half-machines”). This however only refers to the radical Muslims Winston eventually encounters, who as mentioned are a lot less radical and violent than the ones of our modern era. They congregate around the titular Temple of Ilumquh, deep in the desert, which is a sort of headquarters for assassins. Ilumquh, we’re informed, was an ancient goddess. Chief among the assassins is Hamid, and Winston has a few run-ins with this guy, before finding out that his fellow Americans are somehow involved. Winston shadows a State rep and Hamid out into the desert, and this is how he finds out that the Chinese archeologists here, ostensibly for a dig, are really enemy soldiers and spies. 

The finale is a big action sequence, bigger than in any previous Adjusters yarn, and features Winston blasting away with his .357, a machine gun, and some grenades. He even gets in a few protracted kung-fu fights; Laflin explains that this is a form of “Chinese in-fighting.” Humorously, Winston gets the better of his martial opponents by resorting to old-fashioned “pugilism,” bashing away with his fists. He makes several kills, but it isn’t violent in the least, at least in that there’s no gore or anything. Winston also proves himself to be a bit of a subpar secret agent by getting captured twice here in the final quarter. But by novel’s end he’s having one last roll in the hay with T’Shura, who previous to this has begged Winston to take her with him back to America. However by novel’s end she seems to accept that she’ll never see Winston again. 

As it turns out, it didn’t matter, as Peter Winston never returned, and this was truly it for The Adjusters. Ultimately I found this series a bit too generic, despite the cool setup. Only the first volume, clearly by Paul Eiden, really kept me entertained throughout. The next three, which I’m assuming were all written by someone named Jim Bowser (Eiden’s hand is only evident in the first volume, at least), were more along the lines of tepid mystery novels, and I found them boring. But this fifth and final volume was by far my least favorite of the series, and I’m hoping it’s not an indication of what Laflin’s Geoffrey Hiller novels are like.

The Adjusters #4: The Glass Cipher

The Adjusters #4: The Glass Cipher, by Peter Winston

No month stated, 1967  Award Books

The penultimate The Adjusters seems to again be courtesy the same author who wrote volume 2 and volume 3 – aparently Jim Bowser. The Glass Cipher is certainly not the work of Paul Eiden, who wrote the first volume…and I guess that’s the only volume of the series he wrote, given that the next volume was credited to Jack Laflin. The vibe in this one is the same as the previous two, even often referring back to their events; tellingly, the events of the first volume only get a passing mention. 

One change is that hero Peter Winston is less of a prick this time. It’s still the same character, but the assholic attitude is almost entirely wiped away. Perhaps there’s a lesson here, as he gets laid a whole bunch in The Glass Cipher. I mean a whole bunch. The dude will just be lying in his hotel room, feigning sleep, and some hot babe in a miniskirt will barge in, pretend she’s in the wrong room, and then just snuggle up in bed with him! But as with those previous book, the sexual material is for the most part kept off page, and the ample charms of the female characters are only slightly exploited. Violence is pretty much nil; as with the previous two books, this one is almost like a mystery with occasional fistfights, and although Peter carries around his .357 with its “hair trigger,” he seldom uses it. 

Bowser again brings gadgets to the fore; this time around Peter uses a typewriter with “vauum seal” locks that locks steadfastly to furniture, and Peter can rappel down buildings from it. He’s also got cufflinks that work as mirrors, and a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see what’s going on behind him. All of it courtesy Joe Sergeant, the Q-ripoff gadgets guy who appeared in the previous two Bowser books. And again here there’s no mystery, as in Eiden’s volume, that Edgar Whittle, billionaire owner of EWW Enterprises, is A-1 (to Peter’s A-2), leader of a secret espionage force that uses the company’s global pursuits as cover. All of which is to say that this one is of a piece with the previous two, making Eiden’s initial book seem to be from another series entirely. 

This volume is also along the lines of the previous two in that it’s overly dense for such an otherwise short book, coming in at just over 160 pages but seeming much longer. This is mostly because Peter (as Bowser refers to him) doesn’t do much but ponder his latest assignment, snoop around, and get laid by sundry women who appear out of nowhere and then vanish again. I mean, this sounds like my own average day at work, and I demand escapism in my swinging ‘60s spy-fy. In that regard this series is way down the rung from similar series of the day like Mark Hood. While I enjoyed Eiden’s first volume, despite the similar slow-boil plot, Bowser’s haven’t really enthralled me very much. But I’d have to say that The Glass Cipher was a little more entertaining than the previous two he wrote, if only because Peter Winston himself is a little less annoying. 

The titular glass cipher is a small cylinder of glass Peter gets hold of in the opening pages; it’s been smuggled out of China by a scientist who fears for his life. Designed by this guy’s boss, the glass is composed of tiny fibers which distort anything you place the glass over. So basically you can write a secret message, put the glass cipher over it, take a photo through the glass…and then you’d need the glass to decode the message. Or something like that. Eventually this isn’t enough of a Maguffin for Bowser, who also introduces something about a “missile coating” this same Chinese scientist is developing, which would render a missile impervious to any anti-missile initiatives, or somesuch – as always in any Cold War thriller, the goal is to have the most bestest missile technology for when WWIII occurs. What I find interesting is that in these ‘60s yarns the fear of nuclear war is seldom mentioned, as it would be in such a yarn from the ‘70s or ’80s. The goal is more so having the best weapon of mass destruction, not necessarily from preventing such a weapon from being created. 

Peter gets the glass, and is told that another courier will be contacting him with a photo which will contain this missile coating formula – once the glass is placed over the photo, that is. Peter’s been contacted because the scientist is friends with Edgar Whittle. But after Peter gets the glass he basically just goofs off for a while – checks out Joe Sergeant’s latest gadgets (which he’ll of course eventually use on the case), goes to the gun range, and of course gets lucky a whole bunch up in his penthouse pad. We get our first indication how egregious this sort of thing will be when, after visiting the gun range, Peter just happens to save some poor young girl in a miniskirt from a would-be “molester;” Peter takes her back up to his place for some off-page shenanigans, already suspecting she’s a “shill.” I forgot to mention – she’s a “cage girl” at the “Go-Go-Gone Discotheque.” Peter’s right, and she’s been paid off to lure him out, and she won’t be the first female character who tries to detain our studly hero. 

However the main female character is really Lady Joanna Halliday, a jet-setting man-eater Peter meets soon thereafter. He’s sent to London, given that a mysterious female voice has called the EWW office, saying that “the message” will be arriving there. Peter’s sent to a gala affair at Lord and Lady Halliday’s…and is immediately ambushed by hotstuff Joanna, who pushes him to the side and begins humping and grinding him. Literally seconds after they’ve met! While they’re getting hot and heavy a silent shot is taken at them – a bizarre bit Bowser doesn’t really even get back to for quite a while. Again the adult stuff is firmly off-page, but Peter and Joanna become quite an item, with her serving in the capacity of “main girl” for the majority of the narrative, even though it eventually develops that she might be involved with the Chinese. 

But so much of the novel is comprised of Peter sitting around in his hotel room and pondering the case. As mentioned he gets randomly lucky here, too, with one ridiculous part seeing a stray woman come in, claim she’s lost, and immediately climb in bed with him! Of course she’s another “shill,” but of course Peter gets lucky again. Eventually the action moves to the countryside, the last quarter all playing out in Joanna’s castle, where Peter tries to figure out what’s going on – whenever he can get out of Joanna’s grasp. There’s a delegation of Chinese here (or “Red Chinese” as they’re mostly referred to…when I was very young that phrase was still in use, and I thought Chinese people were literally red, true story). Among them is Chew, who appears to be the expected “Evil Oriental” type, before Bowser pulls an unexpected reversal in the last pages. There’s also Shan Lee, hotstuff young babe who happens to be the niece of the scientist who created the missile coating formula, and who of course immediately starts throwing looks Peter’s way. I kept misreading her name as “Stan Lee,” which gave an entirely different mental image to the sex scenes between her and Peter. 

Actually Shan Lee is probably the recipient of the most explicit material in the book, in particular stuff about her “little girl breasts.” Meanwhile Joanna’s out of the picture, moved on to another male conquest, but that’s okay because Peter’s learned she’s a heroin addict. In the last quarter there’s a lame mystery presented that Joanna might be behind the plot, and Peter spends a lot of time snooping around or pretending to go to bed so he can find out what’s going on. The last few pages feature the only real action in the book – and it’s spectacularly tame. I mean it’s not until like the last 4 pages that Peter even kills anyone, and it’s bloodless stuff like, “one shoot put the guard out of commission.” I mean I demand blood and guts with my escapist spy fiction! 

The ending is also sort of interesting; on the plane ride home, Peter’s informed that the Dispatcher has an “urgent” assignment for him, and the novel ends with Peter wondering when he’ll ever get to rest. As it turned out he’d get about two years, as the fifth and final volume didn’t appear until 1969. So clearly the Dispatcher’s assignment wasn’t all that urgent. So this was it for Bowser’s tenure on the series…here’s hoping Jack Laflin brings a bit more spice into the series for the final volume.

The Adjusters #3: Doomsday Vendetta

The Adjusters #3: Doomsday Vendetta, by Peter Winston
No month stated, 1968  Award Books

My assumption is this third Adjusters was written by whoever did the second volume, which I’m guessing was Jim Bowser, who, in addition to Paul Eiden and Jack Laflin, was one of the three writers on this short-lived series. I don’t think it was Eiden, who clearly did the first volume, given internal evidence. Eiden’s style doesn’t seem as apparent in Doomsday Vendetta, the “Adjusters” setup follows that of the previous book, and the female characters are only mildly exploited.

However the similarities to The ABC Affair are strong; “hero” Peter Winston is pretty much a sexist asshole, even more so than the genre norm, and one gets the impression the author watched the Connery Bond films, took notes, but forgot to temper his hero’s assholic, arrogant nature with any charm. I’m repeating myself because I wrote the same thing in my review of the previous volume. Well anyway the complaint holds true for this one. But if anything it’s more overboard. Winston, who has a “special kind of viritily” which makes him have to shave twice a day, is such a babe magnet that he merely has to look at a woman and she’s his. But like with the previous book, his frequent scores are off-page.

With no setup from previous books, we meet Peter (as he’s referred to for the most part) as he’s just arrived in Tangier – and promptly being propositioned by the sexy young babe who acts as the White Whittle rep here. Like last time there’s a huge underground network of “A” operatives for the company, which is known around the world as a construction and etc type of outfit, but also dabbles in a little “adjusting” for liberty and justice. So this girl, Pat, knows that Peter is a specialist from the company, but apparently has no idea he’s an undercover agent sort of dude. Anyway she’s too busy telling him she’s going to jump his bones as soon as possible.

Peter is here because Pat’s boss, the main White Whittle rep in Morocco and another of those undercover “A” agents, has been murdered. Our hero will stay here in Morocco for the duration of the novel; this is the first installment that doesn’t give us a scene at the company HQ in New York. While checking out the office Peter’s shot at by some unseen assailant, and ends up chasing him through the bazaar, toting his Magnum revolver. This will prove to be one of the few action scenes in the novel; like last time, much too much narrative is given over to Peter sitting around.

The action scene out of the way, the author gets to the sex posthaste; this volume I guess you could say gets a bit more raunchy than the last one, mostly courtesy goofball lines like, “They fused together and [Peter] gave her the caveman type of love she begged for.” As mentioned Peter’s a bit of a dick, so to speak, so he makes sure Pat understands this is a casual sex sort of thing and he’ll be free to screw any other woman he pleases, and also don’t expect him to stick around ‘cause he’s an important Adjuster and all. I mean this sort of thing should be understood, it just comes off as assholic when the dude bluntly tells it to the lady’s face.

And right on cue Peter comes upon another lady, Kristina, sexy blonde who is part of an all-female magic act. No exaggeration, Peter will spend the rest of the novel banging her. That’s pretty much the extent of what he does in the novel. Honestly it’s like a pseudo-sleaze paperback with Morocco travelogue replacing the actual hardcore material. The murdered Adjuster uttered a phrase to the attending doctor, his last words: “Newk she wrote.” Peter at length deduces the “she” is Kristina, blonde American beauty who had a thing going with the murdered Adjuster – or was it another girl in her magic act? Peter also deduces – quite ridiculously – that the dying Adjuster was struggling to say “new king,” which just came out as “newk,” likely referring to the new king of Morocco, who is pro-American and in danger from the native radicals for it.

If nothing else this allows the author to pad pages as Peter investigates this line of reasoning, even though it should be clear as friggin’ day that “newk” means “nuke.” Peter won’t figure it out until near the end of the book – which by the way is again deceptively slim. This is a very slow-going book. Gradually Peter will hit on the fact that Kristina and her magic group are up to something nefarious. And meanwhile Kristina’s throwing herself on him with abandon, which leads to more of that Peter Winston “charm” in action: Kristina rakes his back rather sharply before the expected sexual tomfoolery, for which Peter slaps her “hard” in the face, telling her, “Don’t you ever, ever do that again, you hot little bitch!” Of course, this only makes Kristina all the more eager for some of that good Adjuster lovin’.

And as mentioned this is pretty much the extent of Peter’s “work” for the majority of the novel…he dates Kristina, going around Morocco with her group, sleeping with her every night. Along the way he also finds the time to get cozy with Toni, the other hot blonde in the magic group; she’s initially frosty, but that rugged Peter Winston virility soon thaws her out for some more largely-undescribed sex. There’s also some lame mystery here that Toni might’ve been the “blonde” seen with the murdered Adjuster in his final days; she wears a wig during the shows, because Kristina demands she get the star treatment as the only blonde in the group. 

Action is even more sporadic than previously. There’s a part where Peter contacts another local Adjuster – like last time they’re all over the pace – and they pose as air conditioner repairmen or something and end up getting in a shootout and then briefly caught. Peter frees himself with a gadget watch that has a blade in it. We see some of the same gadgets Peter used last time, like the noise blaster thing that deafens opponents. His trip down south here only confirms that Kristina’s involved in some bad stuff – printing anti-American propaganda for the native radicals – but our boy continues to sit on his hands, biding his time.

Later on some dude attacks him and Peter tosses him off a cliff, killing him…and in one of those arbitrary pulp developments it turns out not to be a spy or anything, but Toni’s abusive husband! After showing Peter the proper appreciation, she begins spying on her magic group for him. It just sort of goes on and on. Peter even has the time to head back to Tangier and “reconnect” with Pat. That’s how leisurely-paced this installment is. Not until the homestretch does the author realize he’s writing an action yarn, and suddenly gives us the book this should’ve been all along. Peter deduces that the “newk she wrote” was actually “nuke ship Rota,” ie a nuclear submarine heading into the Morroccan port of Rota.

Now, way too briefly due to the dwindling pages, we have Peter scuba diving and setting bombs, then getting in a gunfight with Kristina’s group. Crazy shit here that’s barely explored due to all the page-padding that came before, like the revelation that one of the “women” is really a dude in drag! Per pulp standards, though, Peter himself doesn’t shoot any of the women, with them either hit by friendly fire or being inadvertently blown up in the explosives Peter set.

And that’s all she wrote for this third installment of The Adjusters, which was marginally better than the previous volume, but still not that great. Man, I know they can’t all be winners, but I’ve been reading some blasé books lately. Well, I still love them all, even the ones that suck – I’d still rather read Doomsday Vendetta than whatever crap Oprah’s peddling.

The ABC Affair (aka The Adjusters #2)

The ABC Affair, by Peter Winston
No month stated, 1967  Award Books

Hawks’s Author’s Pseudonyms credits this second Adjusters volume to Paul Eiden, but I’m pretty sure it’s not actually by him. This doesn’t appear to be the same author who wrote the first volume; whereas that one was clearly by Eiden, The ABC Affair suffers from pedestrian writing, a naïve protagonist who displays none of the alpha male virility of Eiden’s take on the character, and most importantly the author of this book ignores/is unaware of things stated in that previous volume.

Reportedly The Adjusters was the work of three authors: Paul Eiden, Jim Bowser, and Jack Laflin, who published the fifth and final volume of the series under his own name. I’m unfamiliar with Bowser but I’m wondering if, instead of volumes three and four, as Hawk’s has it, he actually wrote volumes two and four, trading off with Paul Eiden. For I’m 99% sure that The ABC Affair is not the work of Eiden – if it is, he must’ve written it damn fast and damn drunk. Most tellingly, that “widely-separated breasts” line Eiden uses in each of his books does not appear in this novel, so what more proof do we need?

So if I’m correct, then The ABC Affair was actually written by Jim Bowser, and if so, I’ve gotta say I’m not impressed with his work. He possesses a clunky style along the lines of Dan Streib, Ralph Hayes, and Paul Hofrichter. He also turns in a pretty tepid story, one that doesn’t take advantage of the series concept and could just be a novelization of some random TV detective show. The Adjusters as we’ll recall is the secret wing of the Edgar White Whittle corporation, referred to annoyingly as “EWW” throughout. The author of this book has a lot more Adjusters than Eiden did; in this book, there appear to be Adjusters all over the globe, their numerical designations all A-something.

Hero Peter Winston is A-2, and this time there isn’t any vagueness about Edgar Whittle’s involvement with the Adjusters wing; he’s the top boss who gives the orders. Winston still mostly reports to Vandervelle, the Dispatcher. Not appearing but mentioned this time is another Adjuster, Tucker Priest, and I’m pretty certain it was “Tinker Priest” last time – perhaps another indication of different authorship. At any rate, while Priest served as a Q-type last time, this time that function is handled by an Adjuster named Joe Sergeant.

The plot is pretty low-key. The titular “ABC” refers to the first names of the leaders of Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil, who will be attending a Western Hemisphere Conference in Chicago. A guy named Christopher Donne, who poses as a messenger of peace but really finances left-leaning revolutions and riots around the world, has abducted these three men to prevent their appearance at the conference, so as to ruin the whole affair, which would suit his plans for sowing leftist chaos in South America.

The novel is written in such a mundane, almost juvenile tone that Donne is constantly referred to as “Christopher” in the narrative. For that matter, the violence is bloodless, and the sex is strictly off-page. But “Christopher” has apparently captured these three South American leaders, and Vandervelle tasks Peter with freeing them – this after our hero has been jumped by several of Donne’s men in the opening pages. Peter uses his karate skills and a sonic noise maker hidden in his wallet to free himself, then successfully bullies the attractive young woman who “rescues” him into some sex.

Endlessly throughout the book Peter wonders what’s going on, what might happen, what did happen, and so on. We get our first taste of this as Peter questions the true motives of this young lady, Dori Ballinger, for pages and pages. She’s been hired by Donne, but might be innocent of any evil intentions. Or might not be. But she’s supposed to keep Peter distracted in bed – and Peter’s determined she’s going to do her job fully, second-thoughts or not. He basically insists she sleep with him, though as mentioned our author keeps it off page.

Another indication that this is a different author than the first one is when Vandervelle gives Peter his assignment, noting that Donne’s hot young wife, Princess Toria, is here in New York. “I’ve never met a real princess,” Peter says – but meanwhile he not only met but had sex with a princess in Assignment To Bahrein. Oh well. Anyway Princess Toria, despite much buildup, is only in a page or two of the book; rather, the author (and Peter) focuses on her assistant, Cheri Collins, whom Peter thinks is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen (he thinks the same thing of another woman later in the book, by the way).

Cheri is the second somewhat-reluctant woman Peter hassles into sex; she wants to escape Donne, whom she refers to as a monster, and Peter begs her to come to Chicago with him to help root out the sadist. He promises her he won’t touch her, even though they’ll be sharing a motel room bed, etc. It appears this author watched a couple of the Connery James Bond movies and kept the playful sexual hassling of Connery’s 007 but failed to capture the “playful” part. Peter comes off more like a desperate-to-get-laid fifteen year old. But Cheri ends up loving it and stays with Peter for the duration, though the author doesn’t do much with her; in fact, this is the first such book I’ve read in which the female character actually realizes she’s “useless” and begins to sulk! 

Action is sporadic. Peter and Cheri drive to Chicago in Peter’s Ferrari, and they’re chased by a private plane; Peter succeeds in shooting it down but his own car is destroyed. In Chicago, Peter answers a call from the elusive Donne…and accepts his offer to come over to Donne’s hotel. This entire scene is so absurd I couldn’t believe it. Donne and his henchman get the drop on Peter, who bullshits them into letting him play “a form of Russian roulette” for the slim chance of escape. 

Putting one bullet in a .357’s chamber, Peter tells them the idea is he’ll spin the chamber, pull the trigger, and if he makes it five times out of six he can go. Donne is a sadist so he’s into it, but he insists Peter won’t leave here alive, no matter what. And then Peter goes and spins the gun and puts it to his head and pulls the trigger! Five times!! I thought he might’ve had some ulterior motive here, like a gadget hidden in the handle of the gun or somesuch (Peter uses a lot of gadgets in this one, by the way), but nope – his “plan” is exactly as promised. He hopes to literally dodge the bullet!

As mentioned, Peter Winston is pretty naïve this time around. Even Donne refers to him as a “hopeless amateur.” Even though Peter manages to escape and knocks Donne out, he leaves the supervillain alone, so that Donne too makes his own escape. Instead Peter grills a few of Donne’s henchmen, who wait back in his hotel room with a captive Cheri Collins; Peter turns the tables on them and interrogates them with a cigarette pack-sized recorder Joe Sergeant has made for him, splicing the words into a message he uses to fake out yet more of Donne’s men.

The final quarter takes place in DC, where it develops “the ABC men” are being held in a society house. Donne has ingratiated himself with the gullible movers and shakers in the jet-setting society of wealthy peace-proclaimers, chief among them uber-babe Monica Macdougal – yet another woman Peter thinks is “the most beautiful” he’s ever seen. Cheri, still with Peter, can read the signs, and knows that Peter’s moved on, and thus is desperate to prove her worth to him.

Peter scores with his third and final woman; this would be Monica, while the two are hiding in the locked-off second floor of her mother’s house. From here we proceed directly into our “action” finale, in which it develops that the ABC guys, who’ve been off-page the entire book (and stay that way), are really decoys – the real ones are safely with Edgar White Whittle. Peter leads a team of Adjusters in gas masks on an attack on the society house in which the decoys are kept, and then turns the house upside down trying to find a now-captive Cheri, Donne, and Wallach, Donne’s henchman. 

As a final slap to the face, the author doesn’t even deliver the villains their comeuppance, with Peter arresting Donne and Wallach on the final page, leaving their fates to the courts. What the hell?? But as I say Peter Winston seems to be an entirely different dude this time around, as he’s courtesy an entirely different writer...at least that’s what I think. Here’s hoping the next volume is indeed by Paul Eiden, or at least a better writer.  Love the blatant nude ass on the cover, though!

Assignment To Bahrein (aka The Adjusters #1)

Assignment To Bahrein, by Peter Winston
No month stated, 1967  Award Books

Even though it has all the makings of another Lyle Kenyon Engel production, The Adjusters was actually the sole work of Award Books, and clearly they were trying to duplicate the success they’d enjoyed with an Engel production: namely, the Nick Carter: Killmaster series, which is even referenced on the cover of this first volume. And like the Nick Carter books, Award credited this series to its protagonist, Peter Winston.

The Adjusters ran for five volumes, and a big thanks to Juri, who figured out a few years ago who wrote each book. Paul Eiden wrote this first volume as well as the second one, and Jim Boswer wrote volumes three and four. After this the series went on a brief hiatus, returning in 1969 for the final volume, The Temple At Ilumquh, which featured a different cover design than the first four and was credited to the author who wrote it, Jack Laflin. My guess is the series failed to catch a readership, which is too bad, as if this first volume’s any indication The Adjusters has a lot of potential, and is better than another would-be Killmaster from Award: Hot Line.

Assignment To Bahrein opens with a prologue that takes place eight years before the series proper. Peter Winston (or “Peter,” as Eiden refers to him throughout, just like Nick Carter was “Nick” in the early books) is a 21 year-old dude with a love for violence and action. Out of work, he happens to be on a subway when some leather-clad punks attempt to rob an old man at knifepoint. Peter beats the shit out of them, getting hurt in the process. While recuperating in the hospital, he’s approached by a lovely young woman with sad gray eyes who offers him a job at White, Whittle, Limited, a global and famous firm that’s mostly involved in engineering contracts.

Flashforward to eight years later, and Peter, 29 now, is agent A-2 for the secret arm of White & Whittle’s Adjustments Division. Reporting to A-1 (by all acounts old Whittle himself, though this is never confirmed – and Peter’s only met the dude a few times), Peter Winston is now a global troubleshooter who earns a couple hundred thousand a year and has a millon or so in his bank account. He is a total ‘60s alpha male-type protagonist, driving a Ferrari Superfast and living in a swank Manhattan penthouse with all the bachelor pad trimmings. He’s over six feet tall, with a rangy, muscular build and described as not necessarily handsome but attractive to women because they can see the danger in his eyes. So in other words we can once again only envision ubiquitious paperback cover model Steve Holland in the role.

At first I thought Eiden’s writing here was a bit more focused than in later novels, like say John Eagle Expeditor #11. But make no mistake it’s Eiden for sure, with shall we say a leisurely approach to the plotting. Yet for all that, I really enjoy this guy’s style! Like many of these other pulp authors he has a knack for bringing characters to life and making you enjoy reading about them…despite the fact that hardly anything happens! I find it strange that Eiden never broke out into Burt Hirschfeld-style potboilers, as his style is very much in that vein and you think he’d breathe easier if he could get rid of the “action” requirements and just write about the beautiful people doing their thing.

The Adjusters are a group of secret agent-types who handle jobs A-1 himself has come up with, going around the globe and posing as engineering managers for White and Whittle. In brief backstory we learn that there were three A2s before Peter; the first died in action, the second died as well (I think; I forget), and the third “simply disappeared,” to quote Principal Skinner. Now Peter has risen to the top rank of A-2, getting his jobs from Vandervelde, the Dispatcher; then there’s A-3, the interesting Tinker Priest, an older dude who has learned a few hundred languages and serves as Peter’s Q. Eiden sets up a cool vibe in the White and Whittle offices in New York, not to mention Peter’s playboy lifestyle in his swanky penthouse (which has mood-music lights that can be adjusted by a dial on his bed’s headboard).

Peter’s current assignment has him going to the fictional island kingdom of Bahrein, located on the Persian Gulf and run by a Shah who is very forward minded (those were the days…). The country is quite westernized and content, but A-1’s concerned about some strange a-doings courtesy Prince Marko, the Shah’s brother, who was “practically Commie” as a youth and now has been moving funds around, ostensibly to fund a dam but perhaps in reality for some nefarious, communist purpose. Peter is to pose as an engineering inspector (White and Whittle holding the dam contract) while really figuring out what’s going on.

Peter’s main choice of weapon is a .357 Magnum that he’s a helluva shot with, and he also has a slide ruler that can be transformed into an 18” sword. Overall he’s less good-humored than the Killmaster and comes off as more aggressively macho, almost like Manning Lee Stokes’s version of Nick Carter but a bit more arrogant. But then, when gorgeous swinging ‘60s chicks are falling at your feet like they do for Peter Winston, you have every right to be a little arrogant. Indeed we meet Peter just as he’s boffed a hot TV weather girl who threw herself at him – and to note, Eiden’s frequent sex scenes are not very explicit, but he is very heavy on the anatomical details, particularly when it comes to breastesses. This is fortuitious, as every woman in the novel is busty.

The Shah has Peter flown over on his private jet, and here we get a taste of Eiden’s leisurely plotting, as the flight just goes on and on. But it sure is groovy, as Peter’s private room has an astrodome that allows him to sleep in starlight and the sexy Arabic stews are dressed like Barbara Eden, and plus there’s super-sexy hostess Mara, a Hawaiian-Japanese gal who serves as secretary for Prince Marko’s wife and doesn’t seem to mind Peter’s sexual advances at all. I did though have bad flashbacks to the endless chess games in John Eagle Expeditor #7 during a sequence where Peter engages Marko flunky Gholam in an endless game of blackjack, but at least the scene caps off with (fade to black) sex between Peter and Mara, who jumps on Peter’s bed, twists her nude body into a pretzel, and informs Peter that she used to be an acrobat.

Further evidencing Eiden’s steamy potboiler predilections, the Bahrein material is even more Hirschfeld-esque, or better yet a prefigure of Harold Robbins’s The Pirate. For one there’s wily Prince Marko, who treats Peter cordially but clearly hides ulterior motives, and also there’s Princess Ayesha, dropdead gorgeous drunk of the Shah’s wife – by the first night she’s already skinny dipping and making blatant advances to Peter. Then there’s Chahnaz, anoter dropdead Bahreinian beauty, one who flew over with Peter (treating him frostily throughout) and who is rumored to be the Shah’s next wife, whether she likes it or not; she was well on her way to Hollywood stardom before she got the call, and no one refuses the Shah.

It’s all very soapy as Ayesha comes on to Peter, then backs off when it gets hot and heavy – and Peter circumvents modern sentiment by practically demanding the gal give it to him, even trying to get her drunk the morning after she dissed him and forcing himself on her. But nothing ever comes of it, the girl reduced to crying fits, and Peter starts to suspect something’s up. Especially when he’s shot at on the streets of Bahrein, saved by his new best bud, muscular Chinese-American Hank Lee, an expat who runs a business here and who carries a gun. Later Peter’s knocked out at the Shah’s villa, and he suspects Prince Marko and flunky Gholam, mostly because he’s certain they’re afraid he’s about to uncover the purpose behind those mysterious funds.

Peter is most interested in Chahnaz, the only gal who doesn’t give him much play, of course. But his alpha machoness gradually melts her frosty nature, to the extent that she soon helps him and indeed even learns he’s a secret agent. Chahnaz is being forced to marry the Shah even though she hates Prince Marko, thus her willingness to assist Peter. Eiden succeeds in making the three main female characters more than just busty ciphers. He builds a nice budding chemistry between Peter and Chahnaz, for example, particularly given the open hostilities.

The final fifty or so pages ramp up the action. Having broken into Marko’s high-rise office with rappelling gear and stealing some documents, Peter gets Chahnaz to translate the paperwork. Turns out Marko is indeed a Commie and is building a missile silo for the Red Chinese. Here the gadgetry of the Killmaster series comes into play: Peter requests delivery from the Adjusters office of the X-42, a one-man helicopter, and also a Rocket Belt(!). First though we have some aerial action as Peter and another Whittle employee are shot out of the sky in their private plane by Marko-loyal members of the Bahrein air force.

Peter further gains Chahnaz’s assistance – not to mention her interest – by lying low in her place while he waits for the material to be delivered. Here Peter treats the girl with utter macho mystique, lying around and drinking beer while she goes out and buys him food and cooks for him, putting the poor girl down the whole time and never once lifting a finger to help her. Chahnaz comments on his sexist behavior throughout, making fun of it, but she serves him nonetheless. Despite which she still doesn’t sleep with him, even mocking him for assuming she would, and Eiden continues to elaborate on the chemistry between the two, having fun with it.

As typical with Eiden, the climax unfortunately fizzles out. Peter is confronted with a “surprise” traitor (spoiler: It’s Hank Lee, but you probably already figured that out as soon as the guy was introduced), and then he hooks up the ol’ Rocket Belt and flies back and forth to Marko’s refinery in the desert, planting explosives. This takes him two hours. Afterwards he hops on his mini-helicopter and flies off into the night amid the explosion, passes over Marko and the air force dude who shot him down. Peter takes out his .357, about to lower the helicopter and blow ‘em away – and then figures he probably shouldn’t!! Indeed we learn that the two were killed off-page, by Marko’s wife no less, who we find out lost her son in the refinery explosion. Meaning our hero killed an innocent kid, but that’s brushed under the carpet.

After one more quick lay with Mara, who has disappeared for 50 or so pages – and we learn that she’s a “slut” who will do anything for money and even set Peter up for that knockout at Marko’s villa – Peter hops aboard the company plane for the US, having smuggled aboard a secret passenger, one’s he’s going to get to boffing posthaste: None other than Chahnaz, you won’t be shocked to discover.

Another of those deceptively slim paperbacks, Assignment To Bahrein only runs 160 pages but it’s got some super-small and super-dense print. This is not a quick read by a long shot. And while it could’ve used a little more action and forward momentum, it did still have enough of that vintage pulp feel as to be enjoyable – enough so at least that I look forward to reading the rest of the series.