On Hazardous Duty (Peter Ward #1)

On Hazardous Duty, by David St. John

October, 1965  Signet Books

Yet another in the tide of secret agent series paperbacks that tried to jump on the James Bond bandgwagon in the ‘60s, Peter Ward is most notable because it was actually written by a spy: none other than E. Howard Hunt, who would go on to infamy for his role in the Watergate scandal. However this was not known in the ‘60s, when the series was first published; Peter Ward was credited to the pseudonym David St. John. Signet, trying to make a buck out of Hunt’s infamy in the ‘70s, reprinted some of the books with new covers, crediting Hunt with the slugline “convicted Watergate co-conspirator.”* 

The series ran from 1965 to 1971, going through a few publishers. The later ones were also notable in that they received hardcover editions prior to the paperbacks. Years ago when I was on a ‘60s spy-pulp kick I collected the majority of the Peter Ward books, and started on one of them, One Of Our Spies Is Missing (ie the sixth volume in the series), before I’d gotten this first volume. But friends I found the book so boring I couldn’t even finish it. Despite this I came across the earlier volumes for a pittance a few years later and decided for the hell of it to get them anyway. 

In fact, the series made such little impression on me that a little over four years ago I reviewed the fifth volume…and forgot all about it! But judging from the date I posted the review, my son was only two months old at the time, and honestly I don’t have much recollection of anything from then. Reading the review, which I don’t even recall writing, it’s clear to me that the Peter Ward series overall is likely a slow-going affair, as this first volume is just as sluggish as the fifth one. About the most positive thing I can say about On Hazardous Duty is that it’s at least better than the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, but that ain’t saying much. 

But then, Peter Ward is cut from the same cloth as Fleming’s initial take on Bond: he’s an overly stuffy sort in his 30s who seems more into brand names than going out into danger. He’s a total blueblood, living in his estate in Virginia where he likes to ride horses and smoke a pipe in his lushly-appointed den. Hunt’s presentation is likely realistic; his CIA is made up of fellow bluebloods who approach international espionage as if it were a game. Perhaps this was true of the CIA at the time, in particular the right-wing sentiments; the “Sovs,” as Peter Ward refers to Soviets throughout, are the bad guys, and the goal of the agency is to halt the progress of communism. One wonders what some of these guys would’ve made of current CIA agents! 

The opening is one of the highlights of the novel, and one of the few action scenes. We meet “Peter,” as Hunt refers to him, on the job: pulling a job behind the Iron Curtain. The entire bit is suspiciously similar to the Watergate affair, with Peter and his team looking to break into an office late at night to take some photos of various documents. Peter Ward is not an action-prone secret agent by any means. In fact, his specialty is “agent handling.” He sends off his two underlings to do the dirty work while he sits in the control room, sipping drinks. Tension inserts itself when a guard suspects something, and here’s one of the few times where Peter does anything – he slips across the street and shoots the guard with a knockout dart, courtesy his “gas gun.” 

Speaking of which, Peter’s spy gear is reminiscent of the gadgets featured in the later John Eagle Expeditor series, to the point that I wondered if series producer Lyle Kenyon Engel had been inspired by this book. This isn’t outside the realm of possibility, as Engel was an avid reader and often took inspiration from other books. Just like John Eagle, Peter mostly uses a dart gun. And later in the book he even slips into an outfit similar to Eagle’s gadget-stuffed “plastic suit:” 

This sequence occurs late in the book, by the way, and is the other highlight of On Hazardous Duty, with the caveat that in this later scene Peter doesn’t shoot anyone. In fact, the only person he shoots in the entire novel is the guard in this opening sequence, and he only knocks the guy out. Overall the novel is a bloodless affair, very tame on the violence…and all the sex is off page. In fact the stuffy, blueblood vibe of Peter Ward extends to the novel itself. But I can’t say I hated the novel, as Hunt certainly has a gift for writing fast-moving prose, even if nothing’s exactly happening. I also enjoyed the insider’s peek at the CIA and the typical attitude of the agents of this era. I approached the novel with this mindset, not expecting anything major given how boring I’d found that later volume, so I wasn’t unduly disappointed by the sluggish pace. 

Peter’s main mission this time is pretty involved; a Russian scientist plans to defect, and Peter is to meet him at the Montreal airport and smuggle him away from his KBG handlers. Somehow this entails Peter flying over to Europe and then to Ireland to set up his cover; part of Peter Ward’s schtick is his mastery of disguise. But again it just makes me wonder how much money the CIA was wasting on airfare, as he needlessly flew all over the place in The Venus Probe as well. To make things worse, the scientist flakes out at the airport and is hauled away by KGB goons. The smuggling operation is a failure; in other words, this entire quarter of the novel has been for nothing. Not to be deterred, Peter sets his sight on some other Russian scientist and decides he’ll try to get him to defect! It’s pretty sad that even though it’s only the first volume, the author’s already having trouble coming up with a single plot to fill the entire book.  

So Peter heads over to Paris, where the novel spends the rest of the duration. I forgot to mention, but Peter has a sort-of girlfriend here in Paris, Valerie, a “mannequin” who apparently is an old flame. Also, Peter still carries a torch for his dead wife, Su-Lin, who was killed some years ago in a bombing meant to kill Peter himself. But it’s nothing to get excited about, as Hunt’s just as reserved in the sex material as he is in the action. For instance, early in the book Peter gets lucky with some socialite near his Virginia estate, and Hunt leaves the shenanigans as, “[they] very slowly began to make love.” The same goes for Valerie later in the book, as well as Nicole, a fellow “mannequin,” which I presume must mean a model. Peter scores frequently with them both, but always off-page. 

Nicole is dating the Russian Peter plans to defect, Belkov, and Peter uses her to get into the Russian’s confidence. It’s all very tepid and slow-going, and eventually winds up in a vinyard outside Paris where Belkov has gotten involved with some local commie factions who plan some nefarious activities. Peter discovers their cache of weapons on the estate grounds when he suits up in the blacksuit in the excerpt above, but as mentioned it doesn’t lead to any action. Peter Ward, in this novel at least, is much more of a “stick in the shadows” type, and not much for direct confrontation. Even the finale seems like something out of a Mystery novel, with lots of exposition from Peter and the assembled villains – and Peter doesn’t even kill the main bad guy. 

I would conclude with “here’s hoping the next volume is better,” but I’ve already read some of the later volumes, and I know they aren’t. But I’ll keep reading Peter Ward anyway, mostly because at this point I just enjoy the topical mid-‘60s details. Hunt does a good job at this, and peppers the narrative with brand-naming that would please Fleming, a la, “Peter laid a stereo tape on his Grundig recorder.” 

*Signet only published the first six volumes of Peter Ward, and I assume it was a low seller for them. I have some of these early ‘70s reprints, and they still say “first printing” on the copyright page, with a 1965 date. So then I’m assuming the books sold in such low quantities that Signet had plenty of unsold stock on hand and didn’t need to do up another print run; they just whipped up some new covers and put them on the original printings.

The Venus Probe (Peter Ward #5)

The Venus Probe, by David St. John
October, 1966  Signet Books

Yet another spy paperback series Signet published in the ‘60s, Peter Ward was special because “David St. John” was in reality future “Watergate conspirator” (as he was proclaimed on the ‘70s reprints) E. Howard Hunt. A prolific pulp author going back to the hardboiled era, Hunt supposedly was tasked by the CIA to come up with an American James Bond…I read this somewhere, though to tell the truth it sounds like baloney. The simple truth was probably more along the lines that Hunt wanted to capitalize on the spy boom created by Fleming’s famous creation.

Anyway, there appears to be some legal requirement that all reviewers must state that St. John was really Hunt, so now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, on to the series itself. The Peter Ward series ran for nine volumes, the first six published by Signet, the seventh by Dell (and that one, The Mongol Mask, also got a hardcover edition), and the last two were published by Fawcett Crest. The series ran from 1964 to 1971, and for the most part appears to have strived for realism throughout – to the point of boredom, unfortunately.

For while he is a gifted wordspinner, Hunt suffers from some of the most belabored, ponderous plotting and storytelling I’ve yet encountered. Simply put, it takes forever for anything to happen in The Venus Probe. This is the sort of book that would even make Manning Lee Stokes grumble to himself, “Good Lord, man, get on with it!” The other year I started in on the sixth volume of the series, One Of Our Agents Is Missing, only to give it up after nearly falling to sleep with each attempted reading. Luckily, this early volume is slightly better, and benefits from a couple elements lifted from Fleming. 

Hero Peter Ward is a pipe-smoking, horse-riding CIA veteran in his thirties who studied law at Harvard. He is a widower, his occasionally-referenced wife a Chinese lady who was killed at some point in the past. Ward’s only relative is a sister, whom he brings along to a CIA banquet at the opening of The Venus Probe, in which Ward is the man of the hour and his prior (top secret) assignment is discussed openly(!). He’s a stuffy upper-crust type who lacks any of the charisma of James Bond or Nick Carter, and likely is an indication of a real-life CIA agent of the time. The dude doesn’t even pack a signature weapon, and goes about the globe without even a gun.

One similarity between Hunt and Fleming is that Hunt too had an Intelligence background, thus he injects a lot of “behind the scenes” stuff into the novel. He also gives a lot of detail on foreign agencies; the book is stuffed with footnotes, even more than the average installment of Death Merchant. To Hunt’s credit, he does all this mostly via showing instead of telling. But whereas Fleming used his factual roots to (gradually) get a bit far out, Hunt is instead fine with keeping it all for the most part grounded in reality – even when, as is the case with this particular volume, the climax takes place in an underwater installation which has been built in preparation for an eventual space probe to the planet Venus.

Ward reports to Avery Thorne, Deputy Director of the CIA, a guy who uses “vis-à-vis” in everyday conversation. Thorne is one of the more patient spy agency bosses in history, basically sending Peter (as Hunt refers to his protagonist) around the globe on nothing more than a hunch. I mean, this dude racks up some serious frequent flyer miles. It all starts the night of that award dinner; staying over at the palatial house of his fellow CIA friend “Pip,” the CIA’s sciences chief, Peter is almost drugged by an assailant, who after a brief scuffle himself dies while trying to escape in a car.

Thorne pieces it together that the assailant mistook Peter for Pip, and perhaps Pip, with his scientific acumen, was the planned latest abductee of whoever has been kidnapping noted scientists over the past several months. Thorne has it that the missing seven scientists, all of whom have been announced as dead, could make up a potential “lunar team” that might advance the Soviet drive to get to the moon before the US – for Thorne is certain “the Sovs” are behind the apparent “deaths” of the seven men.

Peter’s eager to helm the project and is sent over to a sort of proto-X-Files department, headed by a eccentric coot named Milo Dunster. His group tracks weird info, like UFO sightings and whatnot, and is a sadly-unexploited element of The Venus Probe. For the most part Peter will sit in the cluttered office of Dunster’s team, read paperwork, and then drive somewhere for dinner. Peter Ward does a lot of sitting around, by the way. He also has an apparent-steady girlfriend, a nightclub singer with whom he enjoys two (off-page) sex scenes with over the course of the novel.

In the course of investigating the missing scientists, Peter goes to Paris, where he watches a topless dancer in a Caribbean-themed nightclub in a sequence that seems very reminiscent of Live And Let Die. This is Monique, ex-wife of one of the scientists; she dances with an “asexual mulatto” as part of her act. Peter romances her (no sex, though) over the course of a few days, then breaks into her apartment one night (shades of Watergate!) and rifles through her “dead” husband’s paperwork, where he conveniently finds like a paystub from the man’s secret Commie backers. Later Monique comes in and has a three-way with that “asexual mulatto” and another gal while Peter hides in an alcove and listens!

Back at Dunster’s, Peter is informed of a “sea monster” spotted in the seas of Micronesia, one that spouts flame and has been wreaking havoc on the natives. Having apparently read Doctor No, Peter immediately realizes it’s likely a hydrofoil with machine gun and flame-thrower, a la the marsh buggy in Fleming’s novel. But forget about that – off Peter goes to Buenos Aires to chase another lead. It’s suddenly Jack London as Peter mounts a hike into the snow-swept mountains with a local guide who claims that his charge, one of the missing scientists who supposedly died in the hike, didn’t die after all; he was kidnapped by Russians who paid the guide to keep his mouth shut. But the guide has a sickly wife and will tell Peter all about it for more cash. 

Meanwhile Peter has another no-sex romance, with a British national babe who lives here as a travel agent. Indeed she gradually falls in love with him, and saves his ass when Peter is almost killed by an unseen sniper out in the mountains. This is the closest we get to an action scene, well into the novel; Peter’s even armed with something called a “Mendoza automatic,” which he purchased before the trip…and he doesn’t even fire it! Instead he himself is shot in the leg and crawls for his Land Rover and passes out, only to awaken in the hospital. Not to worry, though, as off Peter goes next to St. Thomas, to recuperate for a week in the sun.

One wonders how the CIA stayed afloat in Hunt’s (fictional?) world, as Thorne next sends the recovered Peter to Berne, Switzerland, to investigate a “coy whore” who tangled with another of the missing scientists. Peter actually gets in a fight here, having walked into a honey trap – back to the girl’s place for sex, where two dudes attack him. Peter hits one guy with an ice hammer and gets away; later he discovers the “coy whore” herself has been murdered. Off Peter goes again, this time to Micronesia, to finally look into that “sea monster” business brought up so many pages ago (we’re now past page 100 of a 176-page novel with some super small and dense print).

Posing as a marine biologist, Peter navigates the ocean in a ketch with a few natives, acting as bait for the hydrofoil. It attacks them – and Hunt gets rid of it in a few paragraphs as Peter whips out a bazooka and destroys it. Rather than investigate further…Peter flies back to DC. This after he’s enjoyed the sexual talents (off-page) of the island chieftan’s daughter, a “laughing, full-breasted maiden,” that is. Thorne figures Peter should investigate the area in which the hydrofoil operated, so has him test out the Snark, the Agency’s new one-man submarine, which is actually a two-man submarine; many pages are devoted to Peter and an Agency pal piloting the thing around Florida, only for the friend to get injured and not able to take part in the actual mission(!).

In the final thirty or so pages, The Venus Probe gets fairly interesting. In his one-man submarine Peter searches the floorbed of the ocean, eventually encountering a massive underwater structure. His sub is caught in a net and he’s hauled in. It’s a Russian place, and of course the captured scientists are all here. Peter continues to pose as a marine biologist, and the KGB man in charge of the installation, Borsulov, eventually buys his story. In fact Borsulov even puts in a call to Moscow to have Peter be made a member of the team of scientists the Sovs have put together.

For it isn’t a lunar team after all – the Russians want to exceed the US-USSR space race, and go to Venus itself. Peter finds that the captured scientists are split into two parties: those who rebel against the Russians and the “progressives” who are liberals and have willingly joined the Commies. Eventually Peter manages to recruit one of them, a former Army man who fights against the Russians, into an escape plot. Peter then waltzes into Borsulov’s place…and announces he’s a CIA agent and that it’s against the law for Borsulov to hold him here against his will!?

The action finale is more humorous than thrilling, mostly because Peter Ward himself doesn’t do anything more than tie up a few guards. Meanwhile it’s that army vet scientist who does all the heavy lifting (off-page, at that!). Peter does shoot one guard in the thigh – and then another scientist, a proclaimed pacivist, shoots the guy in the chest…and then blows the smoke off the barrel of his pistol! Meanwhile that vet takes out three guards and Borsulov, who humorously enough has a self-destruct button for the entire underwater installation on his desk!

Peter and all the scientists desperately escape in scuba gear, trying to swim up from a great depth before the installation blows up. Oh and Peter’s gone around to warn everyone, hoping that the sexy KGB babe down here – provided as sexual release for the men (Peter turns her offers down, too) – somehow manages to escape. Doubtful, though, given that all of the scientists except one actually die in the escape. Personally I’d say Peter has failed in his mission, but I’m sure he’ll get another award dinner.

And that’s that. Peter, once again on a hospital bed, wonders if he’ll head back to Micronesia for more chieftan-daughter sex, or maybe to Buenos Aires, to hook up with that travel agent babe he promised he’d see again. As mentioned I started the sixth volume the other year, and I can tell you neither of these things happen in One Of Our Agents Is Missing.

But then, not much of anything appears to happen in the Peter Ward books at all. Even the seventh volume, The Mongol Mask, sounds to be a bore, despite the cover promise of “atomic sex” and other thrills – just check out Jure’s review.