SOBs #8: Eye Of The Fire

SOBs #8: Eye Of The Fire, by Jack Hild

September, 1985  Gold Eagle Books

Not sure why I took so long to get back to SOBs. Eye Of The Fire is another strong entry that again proves that this series was the unsung jewel of the Gold Eagle line; as I’ve mentioned before, I got a copy of SOBs with every Gold Eagle shipment, and would place each volume side-by-side on my bookshelf, but I never read a single one of them. 

I think I tried to, though, and the cover of Eye Of The Fire (by Ron Lesser?) is so familiar that I’m certain I had it as a kid; I also seem to recall trying to read it and giving it up after a chapter or two. Likely at the time SOBs seemed too slow-going for me, and I probably just wanted the more action-focused stuff typical of the Gold Eagle imprint. Reading the books now, as an “adult,” I appreciate the series a lot more than I ever could have as a kid; the small group of writers who handled the series clearly were working together to retain a sense of continuity and vibe, and there’s a focus on characterization that isn’t as evident in the other Gold Eagle publications. 

This volume was handled by Robin Hardy, who I believe wrote the majority of the books in the series. Hardy also wrote the previous volume, but there’s not much pickup in this one; indeed, it mostly picks up from #6: Red Hammer Down, if only in how we finally get pickup on what’s going on with Billy Two. As we’ll recall, in that earlier volume the American Indian Sobs member was captured and mentally tortured and whatnot, and he’s been out of the series since then; now he’s back, and he’s in full-on “Billy from Predator” mode. 

It seems very suspicious how similar the two Billys are; one almost wonders if the movie character was inspired by Billy Two. Just as Billy became increasingly spaced-out and “Indian” as Predator progressed, up to putting on warpaint, so too is Billy in SOBs; he spends the majority of Eye Of The Fire in facepaint with feathers in his hair, and is prone to talking to visions or hallucinations. 

In short, Billy Two is by far the most interesting character in the series, and the most entertaining, to the extent that “series protagonist” Nile Barrabas is sort of lost in the shuffle. Occasionally Hardy will give us scenes from Barrabas’s perspective, and we learn he’s a no-nonsense, taciturn leader of men and whatnot…but he’s just not very memorable. Same goes for most of the other Sobs, but at least the series authors strive to make them somewhat identifiable: Nanos is the ladies man, Beck is the computer guy, and Claude is the, uh…well, he’s “the black one.” 

The back cover will tell you that the plot of Eye Of The Fire concerns the Sobs rescuing “Colonel D” from a Cuban prison, and while that’s sort of true, it takes a goodly portion of the narrative to get there. Rather, the main thrust of this 222 page installment is the Sobs trying to track down young Tony Lopez, 17 year-old brother of former Sob Hector Lopez, who was killed in action in #4: Show No Mercy. 

Tony takes up a goodly portion of the narrative; he’s run away from home now that he’s a “man,” determined to look up these bad-ass mercenaries his big brother hung out with. Instead Tony nearly gets blown away by Nanos and the others when he sneaks into the temporary Sobs headquarters in Tampa, then later he’s kidnapped by this right-wing group calling itself X Command, which reports to the senator who has been a recurring character in the series – a never-named senator who has a grudge with the Sobs and is constantly plotting to get them killed on a mission. We are reminded how this guy was crippled in the fourth volume (another Hardy installment), but we still don’t know why he hates the Sobs so much…or maybe we were told but I forgot. 

The Colonel D stuff only comes and goes sporadically, but basically he’s a sadist known for training death squads in Latin America. Now the Cubans have him and are interrogating him, and Walker Jessup – the fixer for the Sobs – wants Barrabas and team to slip into Cuba and exterminate Colonel D, to keep his mouth shut. “I’m not an executioner,” Barrabas angrily states, making one wonder if Robin Green were slyly taking a dig at Gold Eagle’s most popular series. 

It seems that the schtick with SOBs is that each volume goes for the slow build; Barrabas and team in their normal life as they prepare for the mission, with the mission itself taking up the final quarter. That is certainly true here, with action sporadic in the first three-thirds of the book; perhaps a reason why I was never able to get into the series as an action junkie kid in the ‘80s. 

But when Billy Two enters the narrative, the game changes big time. First we have a great psychedelic bit where he’s meditating nude in the desert, and approached by the ghost of Hector Lopez, who tells Billy that the team needs him. So Billy, still naked, walks off. When he shows up later he’s in full-on “mystical Indian badass” mode, making profound, spaced-out statements before killing guys with his bare hands. There’s a great part where he dives into the ocean and takes on a pair of frogmen. 

The cover art is not a lie, as this is very much a scuba-based mission for the Sobs. Colonel D is in an old fortress, and the only way the team can get in is by swimming underwater for a mile and then infiltrating from the ground up. This is a tensely done sequence that reminded me of a similar sequence in the never-published The Baroness #10. Robin Hardy ups the ante with not only the Cubans after the Sobs, but X Command as well; the busy plotting has these right-wingers using Barrabas to do the heavy lifting of freeing Colonel D, so that they can take Colonel D from Barrabas. 

When the action does go down, it is competently handled if not super gory. Also, there’s hardly any of the excessive gun-detailing Gold Eagle books could get mired in. That said, Robin Hardy has an annoying tendency to deliver clunky writing in the action scenes, often resorting to stuff like “Ka-blamm!” and also relying hugely on single-line paragraphs. I know this is to make things seem punchy and tense, but when you have several single-line paragraphs per page, the effect is a little squandered. 

Overall, though, Eye Of The Fire keeps moving for the majority of its 222 pages, though the stuff with teen psycho “The Kid” is a bit much. Hardy uses this in the finale as the opportunity for Barrabas to exposit on how he’s no hero, but he’s no killer, but all of this seems a bit too “deep” for a men’s adventure series. But then, stuff like this is what separates SOBs from the Gold Eagle line; as stated, there is more care to the characterization and the narrative structure. The highlight is Billy Two – if the series had been published in the ‘70s, he would have been the main (and perhaps only) protagonist – and if anything I look forward to seeing how the other SOBs writers handle him. 

I’ll let you all know if I win that 1986 Jeep they’re running the sweepstakes for on the cover. I just mailed in my entry!

Stakeout Squad: Miami Heat (Stakeout Squad #2)

Stakeout Squad: Miami Heat, by D. A. Hodgman

June, 1995

The second volume of Stakeout Squad is about the same as the first, heavy on the firearms detail and cop-world vibe, but bogged down by a flabby storytelling structure and totally lacking the pulp charm the plot would’ve had in a men’s adventure novel of two decades before. Because in this one, friends, the Stakeout Squad goes up against – Satanists! But sadly as it turns out, these aren’t the fun pulpy Satanists you’d want, filled with hotshit socialite babes looking for some devil-worshipping kicks…instead, they are a freakish lot who get off on mutilating and murdering children. 

So already we see that damned “realism” is again invading our men’s adventure in the 1990s, aka The Decade That Killed Men’s Adventure. Author D.A. Hodgman, aka Dorothy Ayoob, is once again damned determined to buzzkill any pulp thrills, despite having a Satanic cult as the villains. She’s also already lost the plot of the series itself; the setup of Stakeout Squad is that the squad of cops, uh, stakes out places that are getting frequently robbed. But this volume the’re turned into security guards, their task to protect the families of preachers and anti-cult academics from the vile clutches of the Satanists. Only the very beginning of the novel, where super-hot Melinda Hoffritz, aka the Smurfette of the Stakeout Squad, takes out a pair of would-be ATM robbers, retains the vibe of the first volume. 

Ayoob shamelessly rides the Satanic panic bandwagon of the day, her book likely inspired by Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil…which also inspired Night Kill and the Psycho Squad series. Actually I just realized this book’s from 1995 (even though it seems more ‘80s), so the Satanic Panic fad was over already. It’s curious though that Ayoob already drops the series template with this second volume. When one thinks of a series grounded in realism (perhaps a bit too grounded) and concerned with a squad of cops who stake out high-crime areas, the last thing one would think of would be Satanist villains. But Ayoob does work in the mandatory Gold Eagle gun-p0rn, as these Satanists turn out to be heavily armed, their various firearms and assault weapons dutifully namedropped for us. Ayoob slightly reigns in on the overbearing gun detail of the first volume, but not much. 

However she doesn’t reign in on the awkward storytelling structure that hampered Line Of Fire. Here too forward momentum is constantly stalled by egregious flashbacks to this or that incident one of the cop protagonists previously experienced in the line of duty, or flashbacks to guns they once carried. I kid you not. There’s a part toward the end where the tension has finally ramped up, and oblivious to her own narrative Ayoob goes off on a tangent in which one of the main cops flashes back to a gun he used to carry…for like pages and pages. And plus this guy isn’t even on the scene with the Stakeout Squad members who are about to get in a firefight! I mean Miami Heat just comes off like someone who wants to write about guns and ammo and the life of a cop, but doesn’t know how to deliver it in the form of a gripping novel. 

Another curious thing is that the cover for this volume and the first volume shows white cops, however Stakeout Squad is more concerned with the black characters. There are three main figures in the group who are black, and Ayoob spends a lot of the narrative with each of them; one of them, Tom West, is a new member who grew up in the projects, giving Ayoob ample opportunity to waste thirty pages on backstory about his days as a child gang member. Presumably the blond dude on the cover is Bob Carmody, who only gradually emerges as the protagonist, or at least the protagonist who sees the most action in the finale…same as the previous volume. Not sure who the black-haired guy is supposed to be. Otherwise the other “main” character is, again, Melinda Hoffritz, who features with Carmody in the finale. And also again Ayoob dangles the idea that these two are attracted to each other, but Hoffritz constantly gives Carmody the brush-off, not wanting to get involved with a fellow cop. Remember folks, it’s Gold Eage…no sleazy tomfoolery here. 

Well anyway, we already know we’re in for a grim ride when the plot proper opens with a 12-year-old girl and her aunt getting in a fender bender with a man…who turns out to be a Satanist who has orchestrated the wreck so he can abduct the girl and murder her in horrendous fashion (off-page, at least). Later on we will see the autopsy of the poor girl and learn all the nightmarish stuff that was done to her, most of it of a sexual nature. As I’ve said before, there’s fun pulp and there’s no-fun pulp, and Miami Heat is certainly the latter. However, Ayoob’s intent here is to make the reader hate these Satanists – the reader and the Stakeout Squad both. For when they hear of these atrocities being performed – the 12-year-old is just one of a few child victims of the cult – they are all-in for taking down the satanists, even if it’s outside their normal purview. 

The cult, led by a Manson-type named Lawrence Franklin, has set its sights on religious figureheads and academics who have spoken out against Satanism. In particular, on the children of those figureheads. Stakeout Squad acts as bodyguards for the families. So in a way I guess it sticks to the series setup, with the caveat that the Squad is staking out homes, not frequently-robbed businesses. This leads to unexpected places – like stout Squad member Frank Cross getting laid. This is courtesy Dr. Jessica Wollman, one of those anti-cult academics, a brunette described as “a knockout…with a body you’d expect to see on a Penthouse cover.” Wollman, who delivers to the Squad an unmerciful fifteen-page expository info-dump on Satanism, later throws herself at Cross for some off-page lovin’, and the fool almost gets wasted when the cult attacks. A recurring series subplot is that another Squad member, Dan Harrington, is a coward, and that is proved out here with Harrington hiding while Cross is nearly killed – and, as with the previous book, none of the cops are the wiser to Harrington’s cowardice. 

Things finally pick up in the final quarter, which sees Bob Carmody and Melinda Hoffritz go undercover as Satanists. Ayoob only slightly delivers on the sleaze angle a similar plot would’ve received in a men’s adventure novel of the 1970s; the two must go “skyclad,” aka nude, and we are informed that “Melinda Hoffritz ha(s) breasts like few other women.” Indeed, to the point that her jugs make even the female Satanists gasp. Oh and I forgot – we’re also told none of the cultists are attractive, men or women. Again, it’s the buzzkilling “realism” of the ‘90s in full effect. And on that same note, Carmody and Hoffritz spend the entirety of the finale naked…and Carmody realizes at the end that he hasn’t even looked at Melinda’s hot bod this whole time! I mean so much for exploitative stuff like notes of Melinda’s “heaving, full breasts” as she runs around in the firefight, or other egregious mentions of her nude splendor. Such material has well and fully been gutted from the genre at this point in time. 

The gun stuff hasn’t been gutted, though; true to Gold Eagle form, the Satanists have taken over an old farmhouse in the woods…and it’s stuffed to the gills with assault weapons, of course. But it’s not full-on auto hellfire action, with Carmody and Hoffritz appropriating an M-14 and an M-16 and blasting away at the cultists, Carmody eventually setting off a fire with drums of gasoline. Ayoob doesn’t play up the violence much at all. In fact, she doesn’t play up much of anything at all; there is a sterile, drained feeling to Miami Heat, which again just brings to mind the vibe of the entire men’s adventure genre in 1995. 

Interestingly, the final page of the book contains an ad for The Color Of Blood, which is announced as “the final volume of Stakeout Squad.” So it would appear that this series was conceived as a limited one from the start.

Gold Eagle sunglasses, 1986

Yes, friends, that epitome of rugged masculinity in the photo above is none other than the 11-year-old me, in August of 1986 (according to the date on the back of the photo). The can of Slice in the background is just the icing on the ‘80s cake. 

I just discovered this photo in the Glorious Trash archives and thought I’d post it, because the sunglasses I’m wearing happen to be the sunglasses you received when you joined the Gold Eagle reader service. I have no idea what happened to mine or even how long they lasted; I remember them being pretty flimsy, and also I think they folded in half to be stored in a faux-leather pouch. 

This was the height of my Gold Eagle obsession – as the photo was taken I was probably daydreaming about the latest volume of Phoenix Force.

SOBs #7: River Of Flesh

SOBs #7: River Of Flesh, by Jack Hild

July, 1985  Gold Eagle

The seventh SOBs is by Robin Hardy, who previously wrote #4: Show No Mercy. In my review of that one I opined that Robin Hardy might have been…a woman! However all I needed to do was check the damn copyright page, which credits “Robin Hardy for his contribution to this work.” (Italics mine.) I obviously don’t know anything about Hardy, but his prose style seemed somewhat similar to me this time…so either I was flashing back to his style on the fourth volume or he’s ghostwritten something else I’ve read and reviewed on here. 

Now I know you all are wondering – what about Billy Two? As we recall, the previous volume featured Billy, who had been captured in the climax of #5: Gulag War, fighting his way to freedom. Billy is seldom mentioned in River of Flesh, and there’s absolutely no indication he went through anything horrific in the past few volumes. The implication is clear that Robin Hardy was not the writer of those volumes, and likely was writing his own installment concurrently. I get the impression that the stable of SOBs authors had a few characters that were “theirs,” if you know what I mean, and thus I’m guessing that Billy Two was “owned” by  Alan Philipson. 

As for Robin Hardy, his character is Geoff Bishop, a mercenary pilot who last appeared in, wouldja believe, the fourth volume, which as mentioned was also by Hardy. And hey not only that, but Bishop is also banging the sole female Soldier of Barrabas, Lee Hatton. In fact we meet Bishop just after he’s gotten out of bed with Lee; true to Gold Eagle form, it’s not like there’s actually any sex in the novel. Same goes for Barrabas, who has a steady girlfriend named Erika, based out of Amsterdam. In the ‘80s, men’s adventure heroes rarely would meet some exotic floozy while on a mission, as they would have in the ‘70s…but the authors would be sure to inform us the heroes had a steady girlfriend “back some,” so we wouldn’t think they were gay or anything. 

This one opens with a 17-page prologue set during the Vietnam War, with Barrabas determined to kill a “Cambodian murderer” named Kon. A warlord known for massacring entire villages, Kon has been an enternal thorn in Barrabas’s side, and Barrabas goes out with some Special Forces guys to punch his ticket. But it turns out to be an ambush and in the melee a fellow soldier named Scott is taken captive; Barrabas is certain he will be tortured to death, same as the other American captives Kon has taken prisoner. 

Now, all these years later, Barrabas will finally get his chance to settle the score. He’s called in by Jessup, the obese Fed who acts as the contact for the Soldiers of Barrabas, and briefed on the apparent presence of chemical agents in the jungles of Cambodia. The Feds want Barrabas and team to go in and find out what is behind this chemical nefariousness. Little does Barrabas know it is his old nemesis Kon, who now rules his own village in Cambodia, an army of Khmer Rogue under his command. But Hardy gussies up the simple plot by making the reader sympathize with Kon, at least in some regard; despite his sadism and penchant for massacring countless innocents, Kon has populated his village with those who were victims of Agent Orange. Vietnamese, Cambodians, even Americans, all of whom have suffered in some fashion (cancer, deformities, etc) from the chemical agent used by the US during the war. 

Even Kon’s little daughter suffers from a horrific facial deformity; we are informed that the children born to those who came into contact with Agent Orange also suffer from defects. So this makes the reader at least sympathize somewhat with Kon. However as mentioned he’s sadistic, and crazy to boot. And hell, even his little daughter shares his sadism, gleefully laughing as her daddy kills off entire villages of innocents while testing out his new chemical warfare. For Kon’s plan is to strike back at the US – he has put his people to work to develop a chemical agent even more devastating than Agent Orange, and he plans to pollute the waters of an American city with it. 

Barrabas is unaware of any of this, however, and for the most part River Of Flesh is more of a suspense thriller than an action onslaught. This seems to be the schtick of SOBs; each volume even follows the same setup, with Barrabas briefed on the mission, then putting his team together, training them, and then the volume climaxes with the actual mission being carried out. We even have the recurring motif of the “core” SOBs going about their normal lives before receiving the call to assemble; Liam O’Toole, the warrior-poet, will be getting into some humorous situation (this time responding to a “swinger’s magazine ad” and about to have sex with a suprisingly-hotstuff woman), and Nanos, the muscular lunkheaded one, will be getting drunk, or getting over being drunk. 

Hardy introduces what promises to be a developing subplot here with the guys, apropos of nothing, trying to knock Nanos out of his latest stupor by telling him to think of Lee Hatton – and how attractive she is. While we readers are reminded each volume that Lee Hatton is one smokin’ hot babe, apparently the actual members of the team have never actually noticed it! They think of her as just “one of the guys” and such. But after this errant comment Nanos becomes hooked on Lee, making insinuating comments to her throughout the rest of the novel. Meanwhile, Lee and Bishop are keeping their relationship secret, thus Hardy introduces the potential for a love triangle: Nanos now has the burnin’ yearnin’ for Lee, but Lee is developing feelings for Bishop. 

Speaking of feelings, Barrabas’s girlfriend Erika has a bigger role in River Of Flesh. Hardy must have been hard-pressed to fill these particular 200+ pages, as a lot of the book’s narrative concerns Erika trying to buy artifacts from mythical Angkor Wat. In fact Hardy baldly ties the two plot threads together; Barrabas gives Erika a kiss goodbye in Amsterdam and heads to Thailand for his latest mission…and runs into Erika at the hotel, as she too has come here to acquire those artifacts. Her contact is a sleazy Frenchman named Raul, who knows how to slip over the border into Cambodia. Raul also happens to be working for the warlord Kon. Only gradually does all this come out into the open, with lots of scenes of Barrabs dithering with Raul for information. 

Action is scant. There’s a part where Erika and Raul are attacked by commandos in black masks, but this turns out to be a Mission: Impossible-type ruse. In fact it occurs to me that SOBs is essentially a men’s adventure version of Mission: Impossible. I mean hell it actually just occurred to me as I was typing this sentence – Nile Barrabas even has white hair, same as the IMF team’s Jim Phelps! The difference though is that the plot builds to climactic action instead of a carefully-staged con. The finale of River Of Flesh isn’t too focused on action, though; there’s more character drama than typical of the genre, with the revelation that a core of American prisoners from ‘Nam live in Kon’s village…and might not want to leave. 

That said, there is some cool stuff, like the SOBs appropriating some of Kon’s vintage American muscle cars and augmenting them with weapons – like an M-60 affixed to the roof. But we aren’t talking a super violent thrill ride here: “gore lines were drawn across his chest” and such is about the extent of the violent carnage Hardy delivers. I also wasn’t fond of the finale. Barrabas has been determined to kill Kon for decades, but Hardy has our white-haired hero held captive by Kon’s gun while another SOB sneaks up behind the Cambodian warlord…and shoots him in the back. But at least the story ends with someone getting eaten by lions…even though this too happens off-page. 

Overall River Of Flesh was passable, however there was a bit more characterization than typical for the genre. Mostly I just wanted to find out what happened to Billy Two, after the crazy previous volume. Hopefully he will return in the next installment.

Live Large bumper sticker

From the Glorious Trash archives comes this vintage 1988 Gold Eagle bumper sticker, sporting the “Live Large” slogan the publisher used for Mack Bolan. This bumper sticker was included with the February 1988 letter I received from Gold Eagle – the one which led to another letter, from Phoenix Force author Gar Wilson. 

I thought some of you might appreciate seeing this; I meant to include it with the upload of the letter itself I posted a few years ago. Otherwise there’s no getting around that this is a filler post – things have gotten busy lately so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to finally put up this photo of the bumper sticker…which is still in pristine condition, having been stored in that envelope for the past 34 years. 

 Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Ebay… Just kidding.

Hostile Fire (Super Able Team #2)

Hostile Fire, by Dick Stivers

August, 1990  Gold Eagle Books

It’s not mentioned anywhere in or on the book, but apparently this was the second and final volume of a sub-series titled Super Able Team. So sort of like there was a “SuperBolan” series of extra-long Executioner novels, Gold Eagle also attempted the same thing for Able Team. But clearly it didn’t resonate, because it only lasted two volumes; there was also a “Super” Phoenix Force series that lasted four volumes. According to the copyright page, Hostile Fire was written by an author named Ken Rose, who also wrote some of the latter Able Team novels. He does his best to fill up the book’s unwieldy 346 page count. 

I discovered this one several years ago via the reviews on mackbolan.com, in particular comments around a gun Able Team used in the climax which “seemed more like the chainsaw from [the video game] Doom.” Not to mention “a crazy woman” who served as the villainess and who “likes to torture people.” So I picked up Hostile Fire, as well as the first Super Able Team, Mean Streets, which was also written by Ken Rose. I haven’t read that one yet, but no concerns because as ever there’s zero continuity. In fact, the members of Able Team aren’t even introduced or described…save for an errant mention that “Politician” Balancales has a moustache. So now finally I know that Balancales is the moustached one, “Gadgets” Schwarz is the gray-haired one, and Carl “Ironman” Lyons is the burly blond-haired one – and also Lyons is the one who usually acts as the protagonist in most Able Team novels. 

But not here; in Hostile Fire, Balancales is given the majority of the limelight, with Lyons’s part much reduced from the other Able Team novels I’ve read. As for Gadgets, he’s basically a supporting character, only contributing a few lines, though he does get to wield that unusual gun in the climax – a “handheld minigun” straight out of Predator. Technically it’s referred to as a “7.62 electric Gatling gun,” and it’s a dual-barrelled contraption complete with a power-source backpack. But curiously Rose does not much exploit the gore when it’s put to use; indeed, the novel is relatively bloodless, especially when compared to the earlier Able Team masterpiece Army Of Devils (still to this day possibly the best men’s adventure novel I’ve ever read). Another thing missing is the customary banter and rapport of the Team; in Rose’s hands, the three men almost have an antagonistic relationship, often snapping at each other. 

This could just be in this particular novel, though, because one of the themes is that Balancales goes through a sort of PTSD and starts reliving Vietnam, much to the chagrin of his comrades. Not that PTSD is ever mentioned; so far as Lyons and Gadgets go, Balancales has just “lost it,” what with his frequent declarations that Nam never ended and Charlie’s still lurking out there in the shadows and whatnot. For this reader, though, Balancales got to be pretty damn annoying, and I missed Lyons as the main protagonist. But then Balancales’s sentiments turn out to be true, as Hostile Fire ultimately concerns an army of VC setting up shop in the US, running out of Southern California and with an actual base in Oregon. In many ways the story is similar to the plot of The Hard Corps #1. 

With one difference: Hostile Fire is not an action onslaught. Ken Rose seems to be at pains to right a “standard” sort of novel, and there are only a few action setpieces. A lot of the novel has Able Team, with the help of local cop named Vong, investigating the situation and trying to figure out what’s going down. However, the final quarter-plus of the novel is comprised of a big action scene, as Able Team and a group of vets storm that VC base in Oregon. Other than that, there are just a few action scenes here and there, and none of them are of the page-filling variety. They are kind of unintentionally humorous, though, as Able Team will often break out “modified” weapons that they’ve brought along, and it gives the impression that they’re just overgrown kids trying out new toys. “Hey, let’s go check out that VC activity in California – the perfect opportunity to use my new modified M-16!” 

As a quick recap, Able Team is an “extralegal” squad working out of Stony Man. There’s not much setup here, and as mentioned no introduction nor description of the three characters. Rose doesn’t even do much to bring them to life, save for Balancales. The way it works is that Stony Man operates at the behest of the government, but separately from other agencies; there is the healthy disrespect of the CIA that is typical of a Gold Eagle publication. And, like many other Gold Eagle publications, the CIA ultimately turns out to have a hand in the shenanigans: namely, they are using a former Vietnamese general named Trang to ship heroin into California, the money being used to finance anti-communist struggles around the globe. But Trang has also brought along a ton of former VC soldiers, among them the “White Bitch,” a female commander known for torturing captives. 

When I read about this female villain in the mackbolan.com reviews, my gutter imagination was instantly piqued: I could only imagine some hotstuff Asian temptress in thigh-high boots stringing up the Able Team guys and having her way with them. But folks, not only is this a novel from 1990 but it’s also a Gold Eagle novel, so all my pulpy dreams were dashed. I mean if this setup had happened a few decades before in a Nick Carter: Killmaster novel, then sure. Here the “White Bitch,” whose name is Phom-do, is barely even described, let alone exploited. About all we get is that she wears a white uniform and has an “angular” face. There’s absolutely none of the exploitation one would expect, and per usual it’s all handled relatively “realistically,” with Phom-do just a sadist with a proclivity for torture, and nothing more. Hell, she doesn’t even get her hands on the Able Team guys. 

Action as mentioned isn’t as overwhelming as I expected it would be. More importantly though, the few action scenes have more the vibe of military fiction. Rose really rams home the “Vietnam never ended” motif, with Able Team venturing into humid Orange County environs and Balancales having flashbacks to ‘Nam. At one point they’re even attacked by VC with mortar. And yes, they are VC, complete with black pajamas and everything. The finale too has a military fiction vibe; it isn’t so much Lyons or Balancales or Gadgets gunning down the enemy in glory splendor as it is various fire teams going off to engage the VC. What I mean to say is the action lacks the personal touch you’d expect of action novels and instead concerns various “soldiers” going off into the fray – and these are literally soldiers. In one of the novel’s more interesting subplots, Able Team puts together an army of veterans who were tortured by Phom-do decades ago. 

But it all just lacks the pulpy touch I thought it would have. It’s 1990, it’s Gold Eagle, so all the pulp has been carefully erased. “Realism” is the key here, despite the fact that we have an army of Viet Cong operating on US soil, complete with a tunnel network. The only thing that has not been erased on the pulp spectrum is the racial angle: the phrase “Gook Town” is used repeatedly in the text, but it’s the local Asians who use it so that’s okay. Seriously though, the phrase recurs throughout the book, referring to the section of Orange County with a heavy Vietnamese presence; here too Rose plays out his “Nam never ended” theme, with Able Team walking around parts of “Gook Town” with street vendors hawking bowls of noodles and rock music blasting on cheap radios. That said, this must be the only men’s adventure novel that mentions Fine Young Cannibals and Milli Vanilli(!).

I always appreciate unintentional prescience in old novels – stray dialog or narrative that seems to predict our miserable modern world. Thus I was amused by this comment, by a CIA agent who is working on the heroin pipeline scheme: 

This seems particularly relevant today. (And let’s not forget about Europe!) Yep, the “Reds” sure have cut off our oil supply… 

Otherwise the writing is fine; Rose has a skill for moving the plot and doling out just enough personality for his one-off characters. Unfortunately the Able team guys come off like ciphers, especially Gadgets. Balancales gets too much narrative space, which is unfortunate because he really got on my nerves. And also the female villain could’ve been a lot more exploited, but at least she’s delivered a fitting comeuppance. At the very least Hostile Fire made me want to read Ken Rose’s other Super Able Team, 1989’s Mean Streets.

Stakeout Squad: Line Of Fire (Stakeout Squad #1)

Stakeout Squad: Line Of Fire, by D.A. Hodgman

February, 1995  Gold Eagle Books

This short-lived Gold Eagle series from the mid-1990s only amounted to three volumes, and about ten years ago I picked up the last one in a used bookstore. I kept meaning to read it, but eventually decided I should check out the other two installments first. And, judging from Line Of Fire, Stakeout Squad might be a series that has a bit of continuity. 

First of all, a big thanks to Paul Bishop for the outing of “D.A. Hogdman:” when I got that last volume years ago there was zero info available on who Hodgman really was. But thanks to Paul, who credits “reader Phil Wong,” we now know it was an author named Dorothy Ayoob. So yes, a rare instance of a woman writing a men’s adventure series. However Ayoob is in no way comparable to the only other female men’s adventure writer I’ve yet read, Marilyn Granbeck, of Blood and The Peacemaker. In fact there was absolutely no giveaway I could detect in Line Of Fire that the author was female; there’s only one major female character in the book, and she isn’t focused on as much as the male characters. What I mean to say is, there’s none of the wussification of Granbeck’s “action novels.” 

But then, there’s hardly any personality at all in Line of Fire. There’s absolutely no spark, and the novel could almost have been written by a robot. A robot programmed to love guns. Like, really love guns. I mean we all know how Gold Eagle books go for overbearing gun-p0rn. Line Of Fire takes the excessive gun-detailing of the average Gold Eagle publication and uses that as a starting point. I swear to Zod, folks, this book is flat-out obsessed with guns and firearms and ammunition and holsters and Kevlar, to the extent that I was almost in a daze. 

Paul’s blog post notes that Dorothy Ayoob was the wife of Massad Ayoob, who had “a regular column in American Handgunner magazine.” Phil Wong apparently noticed the similarity between this column and the work of “D.A. Hodgman” (who also wrote another three-volume series for Gold Eagle, Code Zero), and he asked Massad Ayoob himself if he was Hodgman. Wong certainly was barking up the right tree, as it turned out Massad acted as the technical supervisor for Dorothy’s writing. This then explains the nitty-gritty obsessive detail about guns throughout Line Of Fire. I mean even simple stuff that would be rendered as “he holstered his gun” in an average book is detailed pedantically here, noting how the gun is “on-saftied” before being stored in a specific holster – there’s even more brand-naming than in the average installment of The Survivalist. 

Well anyway, I’ve been on a cop novel kick lately so figured I’d finally check out this series. I was a bit put aback by the length, though: each volume comes in at 330 or so pages. And also note how the volume numbers have been dropped from the covers. My assumption is Gold Eagle was trying to branch away from the men’s adventure series that had been their stock in trade for the past decade-plus and wanted to market this series as “real books.” Whatever the behind-the-scenes reason, Line Of Fire was the first volume, Miami Heat the second, and The Color Of Blood the third. 

I think continuity might be more pronounced than the average Gold Eagle series because only one author worked on Stakeout Squad, and also this first volume introduces the characters and the setup. Now one thing I can say about Dorothy Ayoob is that she’s one of the most “on-theme” authors I’ve ever read. The book details the formation of a Stakeout Squad in Miami, its first big assignment to take down a violent gang of bank robbers, and Ayoob sticks to this theme throughout the book; there are hardly any attempts at bringing any added dimensions to any of the characters or the settings…and even the frequent flashback material sticks to how these characters became cops (or criminals). This is what I meant about the narrative not having any spark. The dialog is for the most part wholly expository, with characters even talking about guns, or why they became cops…I mean the theme is central throughout, with no one coming off remotely like a real person with varied interests. 

And there are a lot of flashbacks. Indeed, the novel would be a lot shorter if you took out the obsessive gun detail and the frequent flashbacks. It’s a bit hard-going because forward momentum is nil. And given that the novel is populated with several characters, this means that we get flashbacks for each of them – not to mention the various criminals. It’s a weird way to tell a story and very much at odds with the average men’s adventure novel. However Ayoob’s writing isn’t bad, and one can certainly tell that she met with several cops who gave her a lot of insight. I mean the novel definitely succeeds in showing how tough it is to be a cop, with little in the way of gratitude from the public or politicians. 

Given the 1995 publication date, the political correctness which ultimately led to our modern miserable age of identity politics is present. This is mostly in the form of the commander of Stakeout Squad, Lt. Ken Bartlett, a black man who, per his long flashback sequence, never liked being a cop, and indeed looks down on guns. We’re told how he used identity politics to climb his way up the ladder, not to mention the occasional publicity bit. But all the while he avoided real cop work, and looked down on the people he was supposedly protecting. There’s even a part where he introduces “sensitivity training” for the white cops. I mean the novel is very prescient in this. 

But this bit also demonstrates the lack of spark in Ayoob’s narrative. Now Bartlett hates being a cop, and he thinks the Stakeout Squad is a bad idea, and he’s against cops carrying guns and all that. All this we are told basically as soon as the character is introduced, via long-winded flashback. So the potential is there that this character will be a thorn in the side of the Stakeout Squad, maybe their nemesis who constantly tries to disband them. We even learn he’s a “liberal Democrat” whose wife – a black lady who also uses identity politics to climb the legal ladder – nags at him for “thinking” he’s a cop. But folks by the time the flashback sequence ends, Bartlett has decided “You know what, maybe I’ll start wearing a gun and be a real cop for once!” I mean the entire promise is just gutted before the flashback has even come to a close…and from then out Bartlett, who only minimally appears in the narrative, is just your basic commander. 

Another bit of prescience is the focus on “officers of color,” as the saying would go today. The Stakeout Squad itself is the brainchild of John Kearn, recently-appointed Police Commissioner, a black man who started off as a cop in New York decades ago. There’s a lot of material on the real-world Stakeout Squad that operated in New York in the ‘60s. In particular we learn how the original New York force was disbanded due to claims of racism, given that all their victims were black. (The fact that black criminals were committing all the crimes was irrelevant, of course.) The novel really takes on a dry, nonfiction-esque tone for these “history lesson” portions, not helped by the expository dialog. In fact “dry” really sums up Line Of Fire, despite which the novel has several action scenes. It’s just all relayed without the spark one gets from typical men’s adventure. In other words, it is as humorless and devoid of fun as the average Gold Eagle publication – it’s just too serious for its own good. 

But Ayoob seems to be committed to the project. She populates the novel with several characters, meaning that there isn’t one the reader can hold on to. The main character of the novel, and perhaps the series, seems to be a young blond-haired cop named Bob Carmody…who, wouldja believe, happens to be a firearms instructor. I mean folks I am not exaggerating when I say that the vast majority of the narrative is concerned with guns, guns, and more guns. Firing them, wearing them, reminiscing about guns used in the past, the types of ammo for them, just on and on. Well anyway, Carmody is a helluva shot and has become the instructor for the newly-formed Stakeout Squad, but he personally has never shot a suspect and secretly wonders if he’d be able to. Spoiler alert: as expected, Carmody gets his chance to do this very thing – but Ayoob doesn’t even follow through on the dramatic thrust of it. In fact Carmody features in the Hollywood-esque finale, using his sharpshooting skills in memorable fashion, but the entire scene is played without any drama. 

Another character who somewhat surfaces from the pack is the sole female on the Squad, Melinda Hoffritz, a hotstuff and stacked “blond” who joined up due to sexual harrassment from her former chief. And yes that’s “blond;” we’re in the ‘90s now, so oldschool “blonde” for females is considered sexist. I still use the term, though; in fact I think it’s kind of brilliant in differentiating between the sexes…not that I actually know the difference between the sexes, of course. I mean I’m not a biologist! Well anyway it seems like Carmody and Melinda might become an item someday…or at least they would be if this series had been written a decade before (and by a man, dammit!)…but that’s just my suspicion. They work together in Line Of Fire and even share the climactic showdown. 

There are other characters besides, like a cop who panicked on the job and caused his partner to get killed, but due to various misunderstandings was given a medal for “bravery;” another cop who has a wife and kid back home; a cop with a big chip on his shoulder; and others besides. Guess what: the members of the Stakeout Squad are introduced at target practice! I mean it’s very impressive how Ayoob sticks with the “guns” theme. But the thing is, the characters come and go, so it’s not like your typical men’s adventure series where you have the same group of characters to root for. In that matter the villain of the piece gets more narrative space: John Blaisdell, the head honcho of the Shotgun Gang. 

In a plot reminiscent of the first episode of Police Woman, the Shotgun Gang is hitting banks in Miami. Oh I forgot to mention: Stakeout Squad is set in Miami, which I found interesting because one can’t help but think of Miami Vice, given that this series is also focused on cops. But Ayoob never acknowledges that show, nor even really brings the setting to life. Other than mentions of the heat or the Metro-Dade police force, the novel could just as easily take place anywhere else. Well anyway the Shotgun Gang is hitting banks, and there’s a cool Tarantino-esque gimmick where Blaisdell has given each member of his gang a codename that’s based on the shotgun he uses: ie Moss, Savage, etc. This I thought was the most clever way Ayoob worked the gun obsession into the narrative. 

So like that Police Woman episode, the Stakeout Squad ultimately goes undercover, posing as tellers in banks they think might be hit next, with backup forces prowling nearby in case a hit happens. The Shotgun Gang is especially brutal; we meet them in an opening where they hit an armored truck, killing everyone, and later on they gun down women and children in various hits. But the Stakeout Squad gets off on shaky footing when a pair of preteens, inspired by the Shotgun Gang, try to hit a bank with plastic guns (well, one of them sneaks in a real gun), and the undercover Squad members gun them down. The ensuing public and media backlash is enough to almost kill the Stakeout Squad before it has even gotten started. 

There are several action scenes, with the Squad going up against some of the Shotgun Gang, but these scenes too are written without much spark. I mean there’s nothing the reader feels vicariously as the two forces go against one another, as Ayoob is more focused on the shooting posture the cops assume as they engage in their firefights. Or how they obsess over their new Glock .45s, which are more powerful than the 9mm Glocks they used to use. I mean incidental stuff like this is the focus of Line Of Fire, not the drama or action stuff, so you can see how someone might have thought the novel was written by a columnist for a firearms magazine. 

Ayoob strives for realism throughout. There are no extended action scenes, and for the most part they are over and done with fairly quick. There’s also not much gore, other than a part where the cops view some of the victims of those shotguns. There isn’t much police work, either, but then that’s not the Stakeout Squad’s role. They aren’t detectives figuring out who is pulling the hits; they’re a tactical squad who stakes out banks, ready to shoot down any would-be robbers. The break in the case comes due to happenstance, when one of the robbers, thinking he’s about to die, starts giving the details on where the Gang hides out. This sequence has a memorable bit where the father of a severely-injured child slips past the cops and puts a gun to the bastard’s head. And speaking of which, true to Gold Eagle norm there are many chapters detailing the subplots of various one-off characters. 

Despite the bulky length of 320 pages, Line Of Fire was a pretty quick read. Of course it was even more quick given that I skimmed a lot of the gun details. Ayoob does a good job of bringing the reader into the formation of the Stakeout Squad, but as the novel progresses this setup is lost and it’s more concerned with one-off characters getting into various gunfights. In other words the center is somewhat lost. Even Blaisdell sufers; he starts the novel calm and collected, and there’s a cool idea that he had “the best education” in prison, where lifers gave him the in-and-outs of various schemes and heists. But as we near the climax Blaisdell becomes more of a nutjob with little control of himself. And yet for that matter the novel never goes fully batshit crazy, which would have greatly helped matters. “Tepid” is the best word I could use to describe it; competently written, but just missing something. 

So if the other two volumes are the same there’s little mystery why Stakeout Squad failed to connect with readers. Regardless I’m a slow learner, so even though I found this one tepid I’m still looking forward to the next volume, Miami Heat, which features the Squad up against…a Satanic cult! 

As for Dorothy Ayoob, judging from this obituary she “passed away peacefully in her sleep” in April of 2021. Given that Massad Ayoob (who is still alive) is not mentioned in the obituary, I’m assuming the two must have been divorced. And I also assume this is the same Dorothy Ayoob, given that she lived in New Hampshire, which is where Massad Ayoob apparently lives.

SOBs #5: Gulag War

SOBs #5: Gulag War, by Jack Hild

March, 1985  Gold Eagle

Alan Philipson turns in a fast-moving installment of SOBs that’s basically the setup for the next volume. It would probably be best to read these two novels back to back, but I read that fifth installment years ago so my memories of it are few. I do remember feeling like I was missing out on a large part of the story, but at the time it was the only volume of the series I had. (I later got the entire series for a pittance…like ten bucks or something.) And no wonder I felt like I was missing out on a large part of the story, because this fifth volume has all the material I was missing out on. In reality the two volumes really just tell one long story. 

What I found even more interesting is that Philipson is at pains to spoof the genre this time. There are a few mockings of The Executioner throughout the book. First, redheaded Liam O’Toole, the warrior poet of the group, has a meeting with a publisher in New York. O’Toole thinks it’s because they want to print some of his poetry, but in reality it’s so the publisher can introduce him to the author of the “adventure for men” series The Obliterator. In his designer military boots and with his artificial tough guy appearance, author Malcolm Strangways is intended as a spoof, but surely not of Don Pendleton. I got more the impression of someone like Mark Roberts. O’Toole makes fun of one of the novels – pointing out an incorrect firearm detail on the cover and also mocking some of the narrative. He ridicules the entire action-adventure genre – and the people who write it – and leaves, turning the publisher down cold. And later in the novel, another character jokes that he learned about something “from a paperback.” Anyway, I found this genre-spoofing kind of interesting, as it’s very out of line with the average Gold Eagle publication. 

But then, SOBs itself is unusual so far as Gold Eagle goes. As I mentioned before, it’s too bad I didn’t read the series as a kid, even though I dutifully collected it (which was easy, as I’d get a copy every other month as part of the Gold Eagle Reader Service). I’m not sure I would have appreciated it, as the series is more carefully constructed than most, with more of a focus on characterization and world-building. And as mentioned there’s also a subtle underlay of satire. But then, none of the characters here have the memorable spark of the guys in Able Team or Phoenix Force; indeed, it’s kind of hard to tell the SOBs apart, and also there seems to be a new guy every volume. This obviously gives the series a bit more suspense than those other Gold Eagle series, as it means the characters are more expendable than the recurring heroes of those other Gold Eagle series. 

Another thing I get about SOBs is that each novel mostly seems to be setup. While there is occasional action, for the most part these books are more about establishing the situation, assembling the team for this particular mission, and then carrying out the mission in the final quarter. So there’s a bit more plotting than the genre average. I also get a bit of a ‘70s vibe from the books, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just because there seems to be a general rebellious vibe to the series, and it’s likely the subtle genre spoofing that’s making me get the impression. Or perhaps I’m just imagining things. There’s also a bit more continuity than the typical Gold Eagle books of the era; there’s this senator who has a grudge against the SOBs, particularly after being paralyzed below the waist after the climactic events of the previous volume. Indeed it is he who tasks SOBs handler Wakler Jessup with this latest mission, which is practically suicidal. 

And speaking of plotting, Gulag War is so complexly plotted that I couldn’t really fathom what the setup was. Basically it’s a two-pronged mission in which the SOBs are supposed to venture into Siberia and spring an imprisoned Russian scientist, Leonov, from a gulag. But at the same time another group of SOBs will sell a bogus tank mainframe to GRU representatives, trying to use the GRU-KGB rivalry to get themselves into Russia. If I understand it all correctly, the SOBs plan to fool the GRU into thinking they are getting this newfangled tank mainframe gadget, and in exchange the GRU will give the SOBs safe passage to Siberia. Or something! But the gist of it is that head SOB Nile Barrabas plans to swindle the GRU and escape them in Siberia, free Leonov from the gulag, and escape to safety. 

Central to this plan is a “bush pilot” with the memorable name Chank Dayo; he is the newest SOB, and has gotten the gig from Billy Two, the American Indian SOB who stars in the next volume. Dayo is an Eskimo, and also has a pet bear. I can’t even remember much about him from the next volume, but Philipson again doles out some subtle genre spoofery with Dayo telling Billy Two that he, Dayo, is certain he’s going to die on this mission. This to me seems like Philipson perhaps making fun of how all the new guys die. Otherwise Dayo doesn’t contribute much to the tale, and indeed the entire premise of his intro is rendered moot when the SOBs do get to Siberia…and the one plane available is of a type Dayo has no familiarity with. So they have to kidnap a Soviet pilot and have him give Dayo some on-the-job training. 

As with previous volumes, a good portion of the opening half is devoted to setting up the various characters and getting us into their everyday lives. There’s also time-wasting stuff about Leonov’s miserable lot in the Siberian gulag. As ever the book is too long; it seems that a gimmick with SOBs is that the books were around 220 pages long, which is a bit longer than the average and again is a measure of how they were more devoted to plot than action. We also get stuff on the peripheral figures in the world of the SOBs, ie the guys who don’t even go on the missions, like obese Walker Jessup and the Dutch siblings who are part of Barrabas’s life – the Dutch guy who runs the rock club in Amsterdam and the Dutch guy’s sister who is in love with Barrabas. (Obviously I failed to note their names.) I recall both playing a part in the ensuing volume. 

The first real action scene is tied in with the belabored plot; in Rio, SOBs Claude and Nanos set up the trade with the GRU, and then get in a running gunfight with State Department agents. Nanos has to reconcile with the fact that he’ll be killing American agents, but this is settled for him when they start shooting at him. One hallmark SOBs shares with the overall Gold Eagle line is a healthy disrespect for the American intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA, which is consistently portrayed as a nefarious shadow agency in most all Gold Eagle novels. But I found this negative portrayal of the State Department interesting from a modern-day perspective. Otherwise this is it for Claude and Nanos in the novel; they hand over the mainframe and get in a long fight with State Dept. agents, and meanwhile a separate faction of SOBs take on the second half of the mission. 

This portion takes up the majority of the narrative. The team who handles this greater-risk assignment is Barrabas himself, super-hot brunette Dr. Lee Hatton, Liam O’Toole, Billy Two, Chank Dayo, and Nate Beck (the computer guy). Again it’s more on the suspense tip as they fly to Moscow, and then with a GRU escort they head on to Siberia. Here we meet Baladin, the sadistic GRU boss who factors prominently in the next volume, given that he’s out for revenge for what happens to him here. Actually the reader would have no idea Baladin even survives this volume; last we see of him, Lee Hatton has literally ripped Baladin’s balls off (even stuffing them in his pocket!) and has left him for dead. This leads to yet another Executioner piss-take, when Lee sneers to Baladin, “Stay hard, guy.” I seem to recall “Stay hard” was a Bolan maxim (despite the juvenile way I’ve always interpreted the phrase), and in fact it might have even been on a bumper sticker Gold Eagle included as part of the Reader Service. (Or maybe it was “Live large?”) 

At any rate, the SOBs are pretty ruthless here. Lee deals with Baladin so cruelly because he not only gave her a thorough (and off-page) body cavity search, but also because he tried to force himself on her – something he boasts of doing to many other women. Lee’s emasculation is not only revenge for herself but for the other women Baladin hurt. However her attack sets off a veritable massacre of the other GRU; the SOBs kill several of them in their sleep, slitting throats and shooting them dead. “Killing commies with commie bullets,” as Billy Two puts it. The GRU murdered, our heroes commandeer the sole plane here and take it to the gulag, where they intend to save Leonov. We get a bit of a Rambo II prefigure when they end up rescuring even more emaciated, half-dead prisoners. 

As readers of the series know, Billy Two is pretty much the star of the next volume, which details his escape from the Soviets. Interestingly the SOBs think Billy is dead; he’s separated in the action to free Leonov, and the group sees him hit the ground while being shot at. Dr. Lee even gives her expert opinion that Billy’s dead – though she can only see his “corpse” off in the distance. Readers learn though at novel’s end that Billy has survived, the prisoner of Russians who intend to drug him. Also, Barrabas realizes the entire mission was a waste, as Leonov has been rendered a nutcase, spouting nothing but gibberish on TV. 

Another new gimmick added to the series is a running gag on how much of an “s.o.b.” author Jack Hild is himself. Gulag War closes with two facetious “letters from readers” on the fictitious Hild…fake letters from fake readers about the fake author, which is about as postmodern as this imprint ever got:

The Executioner Series Style Guide

In my review of Men's Adventure Quarterly #3 last week I mentioned the issue had inspired me to upload an Executioner curio I picked up some years ago, thanks to a cool guy I used to be in regular contact with named Mike Madonna.  Mike kindly shared with me this style guide for The Executioner that Gold Eagle put together in the early 1980s, when the imprint began publishing the series.  I have been meaning to share this out for several years now, and the newest MAQ inspired me to finally do it.

This 38-page document features an intro by Don Pendleton himself, and then goes on to give potential Gold Eagle ghostwriters the ins and outs of handling the series.  It would appear that the guide was not used for very long; per his comments in A Study Of Action-Adventure Fiction, Pendleton grew quite frustrated with how Gold Eagle ultimately veered away from his suggestions for the character and the series.

Also, I thought it would be fitting to post this now, given that the final Executioner novel was published this past December, courtesy long-time series author Michael Newton (who per a comment Brian Drake left in my recent The Hunter #1 review passed away recently).

Head to this Mega link to download the Executioner Series Style Guide and let me know what you think!

Dagger #1: The Centaur Conspiracy

Dagger #1: The Centaur Conspiracy, by Carl Stevens

September, 1983  Gold Eagle

This was the start of the short-lived Dagger series. How short-lived? There was only one more volume. This isn’t an indication that the series is bad; I think it’s just more of an indication that it was courtesy the wrong imprint. For “Carl Stevens” is none other than Raymond Obstfeld, and his series has more in common with John D. MacDonald than Don Pendleton; judging from this first volume, Dagger would’ve been more at home with Dell or Pocket instead of from the publishers of Phoenix Force, as it has little in common with the action-focused titles Gold Eagle was known for. 

At 221 pages, The Centaur Conspiracy is already a little different from the rest of the Gold Eagle line; there’s a lot more backstory than the typical series book, with Obstfeld carefully world-building. There’s also more of a focus on characterization, and there’s much more focus on snappy dialog. But one thing missing is the gun-detail typical of the standard Gold Eagle fare. Hero Christian “Dagger” Daguerre doesn’t even carry his own gun, and his kill count is a fraction of other series protagonists in this imprint. For that matter, many of the action scenes in The Centaur Conspiracy seem forced, as if grafted on to appease the publisher’s demands. This is not to say they aren’t thrilling or well-written, though, it’s just that they could easily be cut and the story wouldn’t suffer from the loss. 

Daguerre then is different than the genre norm; he’s not a vet or a former cop or anything. He’s a journalist, one who has an extensive background in combat reporting. Daguerre’s father was a hardcore military type and raised his son to be the next in line, only to be stunned when young Daguerre announced he wanted to be a reporter. But as mentioned Daguerre’s specialty is combat reporting, to the extent that he’s had extensive Special Forces training, firearms and hand-to-hand training, and has even seen a lot of action in the line of journalism. There’s a lot of backstory peppered into the narrative, one of the stories being how Daguerre saved a bunch of soldiers all by himself during some heavy fighting in ‘Nam. One mystery I had is that the back cover specifies Daguerre’s “youth,” but we’re informed he was reporting in ‘Nam over a decade ago. I assume we’re to understand he’s in his early 30s or somesuch, but Gold Eagle calling out Daguerre’s “youth” on the back cover copy seems an indication they were trying to separate him from the standard “older Vietnam vet” of the genre. 

Daguerre’s backstory isn’t just limited to war reportage, though; there’s also his time with Hearst-esque “Captain” Hannibal Kyd, a newspaper baron who gave Daguerre his first big job many years ago and became like a father figure to him. Kyd eventually factors into this first installment, entailing long backflash sequences in which we learn that his duplicitous nature caused a rift between the two men: Kyd sent a pair of reporters on an investigation case back in the late ‘70s, not telling them the mob was involved, and they ended up being executed. While all this stuff is well written, it doesn’t have much to do with the story at hand, and again is another indication that Dagger isn’t at the right publishing house. An even bigger backstory has it that Daguerre was engaged to a young woman named Cara, but over a year ago she was gunned down on the streets of Rome when a pair of terrorists were trying to kidnap someone. This too elicits a long flashback sequence. But it now occurs to me that this is a common element in Obstfeld’s series novels; even his post-holocaust The Warlord often suffers from too much backstory digression.  

But Cara’s death was a year ago, and we learn of the events in gradual backstory. When we meet Daguerre he’s parasailing in Mazatlan, on assignment in this tourist spot in Mexico to do an easy job on the vacation industry. Only he sees one of the guys on the boat below whip out a knife and start sawing at the rope he’s connected to. This is our immediate indication that Obstfeld will, as ever, be delivering a fast-paced thriller with the vibe of an action movie; Daguerre’s even spouting quips in the face of danger like your average Hollywood hero of the day. Daguerre manages to manuever himself so that he plunges harmlessly into the ocean, but later he’s attacked by the same guy in his hotel room. We get another indication here that this isn’t going to be your average Gold Eagle novel: Daguerre doesn’t have a weapon, and must use his wits and his skills to kill his opponent in vicious hand-to-hand combat, strangling him with a tie. In fact there’s a proto-MacGyver vibe to the novel, with Daguerre often creating makeshift weapons. This too harkens to The Warlord, particularly given the focus on bladed weaponry; Obstfeld is certainly not one for the gun-detailing you get in the average Gold Eagle publication. 

Another Obstfeld mainstay is a vivacious female character – as with the other main female characters in the Obstfeld novels I’ve read, Alexandra Kidd (daughter of Hannibal) is a spunky heroine who has sparkling dialog and a gift for acidic rejoinders…and of course the genre-mandatory hot bod. Her intro is memorable, coming on to Daguerre in the hotel lobby and talking about a cigarette burn on her foot. But Daguerre quickly learns that she’s the daughter of his former mentor; last time he saw her she was a teenager, and now she’s a hotstuff babe in her mid 20s and looking to break into the news game on her own. A running gag has it that she secretly stays appraised of her father’s activities thanks to a well-placed “contact” (aka her mother), thus she found out that Hannibal Kyd was coming down to Mazatlan to look for Daguerre. Alexandra, sensing a big story, came down here on her own to find out what the scoop is and to exploit it; she doesn’t believe Daguerre’s insistence that he’s merely here to cover a simple vacation story. 

Hannibal Kyd turns out to be the reason that guy tried to kill Daguerre; Kyd wants to investigate a mysterious travel agency that operates out of Mazatlan, one Kyd believes is involved in something nefarious, and he started spreading the word around town that famous investigative journalist Christian Daguerre was down here to research the place! Thus the frequent attempts on Daguerre’s life. Kyd is not aware that his daughter is down here, though, and things take a turn for the personal when the bad guys manage to abduct her. This leads to one of those MacGyver moments when Daguerre, who still doesn’t even have a friggin’ gun, goes into a toy store and buys some supplies, along with a chemistry set, and makes himself a pitcher of homemade tear gas. This is used to save Alexandra in a thrilling sequence which once again sees Daguerre using bladed weapons to kill his enemies, as well as delivering more action movie-esque quips. 

Eventually Daguerre learns the “travel agency” is up to something real nefarious; long story short, it’s a front for a PLO terrorist organization run by a sadistic dude nicknamed Centaur (due to a scar on his forehead), and the “conspiracy” of the title has to do with Centaur’s plan to smuggle terrorists across the border via the travel agency so as to carry out a major terrorist strike on the US. The terrorists, male and female, pose as simple “Mexican” laborers, hired by wealthy Americans who use the travel agency via word of mouth. In an entertaining sequence Daguerre and Alexandra (who of course have done the deed by this point, though the sex scene is pretty PG – but the fact there’s even one in a Gold Eagle novel is surprising enough) pose as a married couple and visit the agency, looking for a new maid. 

They cross the border and then pull off in the desert to inspect their “new maid,” who has been hidden by the travel agency in a secret compartment behind the trunk. It’s a young woman who claims to be from a desolate region of Mexico, hence her bad Mexican accent (Daguerre being fluent in many languages). Of course it’s all a ruse and she’s really a Palestenian terrorist. Daguerre ties her to the ground and interrogates her with a tarantula, but it’s up to Alexandra to save the day when the terrorist chick gets free, as expected. Centaur meanwhile appears sporadically in the novel, usually domineering over his cowed underlings; Centaur, whose name is really Nasil, is infamous for biting the tongues out of his victims…and feeding them to the “elite” members of his commando squad. Unfortunately his towering nature is a bit subdued in a climax that would be more at home in a Travis McGee novel. 

With much setup Daguerre ventures to Los Angeles, where Centaur now is situated, and goes about posing as a windsurfer. At length he gets on a boat inside which Centaur has stashed several wealthy American victims; Centaur’s somewhat anticlimactic plot centers around kidnapping wealthy Americans and blowing them all up. So Daguerre gets on the boat, starts to free some of the people, and is surprised by Centaur, who shows up, knocks Daguerre out…and leaves! It’s all very ridiculous as Daguerre stumbles back to consciousness and gives chase, eventually ending up on Centaur’s own boat and getting in a prolonged fight with him. Even the villain’s comeuppance seems more out of a summer blockbuster film than the typical Gold Eagle staple; it’s courtesy some spinning boat propellers. 

The Centaur Conspiracy ends with Daguerre and Alexandra forming a “team.” No idea if she appears in the second (and final!) volume, which judging from the cover takes place in Japan. Overall this one was pretty entertaining, if a bit overlong – a lot of the backstory was somewhat excessive and could’ve been shortened. But Obstfeld’s attempt at melding standard Gold Eagle men’s adventure with something along the lines of John D. MacDonald is to be commended; it’s easy to see, though, why the series didn’t last. 

Finally, I love how the back cover of The Centaur Conspiracy features a blurb from none other than “Dick Stivers” – yep, a nonexistent author. This almost leads to one of those philosophical ponderings: if a nonexistent author blurbs a book, does that mean the book itself doesn’t exist? Better yet is the page of reader comments at the very end of the book, with quotes from readers across the country on how great Gold Eagle is; all their names are given as initials, but an asterisk informs us that “full names are available upon request.” Like in case the FBI wants to investigate the legitimacy of these claims or something.

The Executioner #68: Prairie Fire

The Executioner #68: Prairie Fire, by Michael Newton
August, 1984  Gold Eagle Books

Certainly one of Newton’s best efforts, and possibly one of the best Mack Bolan stories ever by any writer, including the redoubtable Don Pendleton himself. -- William H. Young, A Study Of Action-Adventure Fiction 

I picked up this early Michael Newton installment of The Executioner several years ago, based off Young’s glowing review, and I have to say he was pretty accurate. This really is “a very special installment” of the series, throttling way back on the usual action overload and focusing more on suspense – with an appropriately action-packed climax. Also, being so early in the Gold Eagle years, the “Pendletonisms” are in full force, so it seems there must’ve been some sort of editorial mandate to make the books actually read like the work of creator Don Pendleton.

And Newton succeeds, though he could be accused a little of overkill, almost to the point of parody; you could start a drinking game over how many narrative sentences include the random “right” or “yeah” or even “damn right.” You know, those periodic affirmative asides Pendleton would sprinkle into his original Executioners. But also like Pendleton, Newton strives to give us a human hero – one who would be increasingly hard to believe in as the series would continue running on and on and on – with Bolan’s constant regret over not living a normal life, how there’s only “one logical end” to his war, etc. But in Prairie Fire it works, because Mack “The Executioner” Bolan does not have his usual accoutrements to rely on, being hunted by armed foes in the cornfields of Kansas, and he must use his cunning and craft to turn the tables.

First though we have a prologue in which we learn that Bolan is once again on his own, without “official sanction,” just as he’d been back during the Pendleton run. Stony Man, the compound he was working out of from the earliest Gold Eagle installments, has been destroyed, and April, Bolan’s girlfriend, has been killed. I’ve never actually read a novel with April in it so I have no idea what the character was like. I also assume this one’s a sequel to the Stony Man Doctrine standalone, which was written by G.H. Frost; I have that one, but have never read it. Actually it might be a sequel to Day Of Mourning, by Stephen Mertz – I’m really not up on Gold Eagle lore, as when I got into the various series books it was later in the ‘80s, long after these early installments.

Newton doen’t waste much time with this, though, other than Bolan’s occasional rumination that he no longer has “sanction” (the word is repeated enough times that I assume it must’ve specified in the final Pendleton installments, which I believe lay the groundwork for the Gold Eagle run). Instead, we meet “the runner” as he desperately tries to evade his former captors, running through the cornfields. It is of course Bolan, but in this first chapter Newton just refers to him as “the runner.” He’s in a bad way, too; shot and bleeding, his hands cuffed. We’ll learn he was here due to some plot by an “offshore” enemy (likely those friggin’ Soviets) who plotted to sabotage a microchip-processing plant. This entire subplot is a MaGuffin, just setup for the meat of the book, which is Bolan defending himself and a few countryfolk against an invading army of mercenaries.

Bolan’s pursuers are a team of mercs headed by The Cowboy, a veteran mercenary in a cowboy hat and mirrored shades, his look and persona modelled after the Westerns he watched as a kid. We get the occasional cutover scene to him, marshalling his troops and providing strategy, but unfortunately the character sort of fell flat for me. He is treated a little too realistically and needed to be more outlandish. But then, it’s the ‘80s now, not to mention a Gold Eagle book, so the colorful pulpy elements of the ‘70s have been gutted. More damningly, he doesn’t do much to invoke the reader’s hate; we meet Bolan after he’s already escaped the Cowboy’s men, and the villain himself doesn’t even confront our hero until the final pages, a moment Gil Cohen depicts for his memorable cover.

It’s certainly an unusual installment, and for the most part plays like a standalone novel, or even more of a standard thriller – I could easily see this plot being used for a Jack Reacher novel. This is particularly true of the one-off characters who come to Bolan’s aid in his desperate escape from the Cowboy and his hunters. Bolan comes upon a farm and collapses in the barn, only to be discovered by a young lady – and an old man bearing a shotgun. The young lady is named Toni, and the old man is Jason, her father-in-law and a WWII vet. There’s also Jason’s wife Emma here on the farm. Eventually we’ll learn that Toni’s husband, a cop, was killed in the line of duty, and she’s been staying with his parents ever since – Newton develops a tragic, mournful subplot for Toni, but doesn’t overplay it.

First though Bolan’s too busy trying to convince Jason not to blow his head off. The old vet wants to take Bolan to the sheriff in town, but it’s too late already and for some reason the truck won’t start. And also the phone’s not working. Bolan suspects the hunters have tracked him down and have cut off any means of escape. But really this is the only stumbling part of Prairie Fire. We know from the few cutaway sequences to the Cowboy that he has indeed tracked down Bolan to the farm, but he’s holding his men back, ensuring there aren’t a bunch of gun-brandishing farmers in there, etc. But clearly the action is held off in an effort to build up the suspense…and also to fill up a novel.

Instead, the focus becomes more on the tension in the house as Jason slowly begins to realize that this handcuffed, bleeding stranger might not be a dangerous criminal. And meanwhile Toni’s already fallen for his rugged masculinity, believing in his innocence from the get-go. Bolan isn’t one to plead, though; in fact he encourages Jason to get him to the local Sheriff, as he knows his presence here in the barn puts everyone in jeopardy. When Jason discovers a block of C4 in the truck next morning (the villains kindly allowing Bolan to have a full night’s sleep), he realizes Bolan’s story is legit. The handcuffs are snapped off, Bolan’s allowed a shower (of course Toni manages to “accidentally” barge in on him), given a nice country breakfast, and then it’s down to the serious business of planning for defense against a group of heavily-armed mercenaries. Meanwhile all Bolan has is a block of C4, some old blasting caps, Jason’s .22 rifle, and other household odds and ends.

It’s like Maguyver as Bolan starts jury-rigging weapons; a particularly cool one is the set of “homemade grenades” which are composed of roofing nails jammed into cans, with a squib of C4 and a blasting cap on them. There isn’t much ammo for the .22, so Bolan basically ensures it still shoots. He also reinforces the doors and windows of the house and sets various traps. And, more importantly, finds a little time to get cozy with Toni. Nothing too explicit, but at least you know what’s happening – and definitely a surprise in the otherwise sex-free Gold Eagle world. Bolan, in “role camo” as a farmer in straw hat and overalls, goes out to the barn to check on things, pretending to just be a random farmhand for all the mercs he assumes are out there spying on the place. Then Toni follows along without telling him and basically throws herself on him in the barn. Newton again plays it more on the emotional tip, with both Bolan and Toni, who have each suffered great losses, finding temporary solace in one another.

The novel’s sole action scene begins on page 132 and runs for the rest of the book. The Cowboy’s men make their assault on the farm at night, their submachine guns outfitted with silencers. Bolan has fortified the farmhouse as best he can, and there’s more carnage and gore than I thought there’d be, with the Cowboy’s mercs getting fried by electrified wire on screen doors and their faces blown off by homemade grenades. Bolan dishes out some death with the .22 rifle, but appropriates whatever dropped subguns he can. Even here he can’t catch a break, with many of the guns he picks up already being low on ammo. Jason and his wife don’t get much spotlight, other than Jason’s brief flashback to fighting the Japanese as a Marine in the war, but Toni gets to chop some dude with a butcher knife.

It has the vibe of Night Of The Living Dead mixed with Assault On Precinct 13, and more importantly it seems like something that could’ve come out of one of the Pendleton installments. Bolan is presented as human in the battle scene, despite taking out a goodly amount of heavily-armed mercs with nothing more than household items. As mentioned the cover moment comes into play in the finale, with the Cowboy getting hold of Toni and putting his stainless .44 to her head. But Toni’s no shrieking victim and gets a good grab of a delicate part of the Cowboy’s anatomy, which leads to a brutal hand-to-hand confrontation between Bolan and the villain. We of course know who the victor will be, but it’s nicely done because Bolan’s so spent and enraged from the past couple days that he ends up sort of “double-killing” the Cowboy.

Overall this was an enjoyable volume of the series, well-written by Newton and with a fine sense of tension and suspense. Also there was good characterization throughout. Again, would’ve made for a fine standalone thriller, but I suspect the average Gold Eagle reader would expect more action.