A Talent for Killing

Combine Donald Westlake's Parker, Max Allan Collins's Quarry, and Robert Ludlum's Bourne, and you have a pretty good approximation of Ralph Dennis's Kane.

A Talent for Killing, published in 2019, is a bit disjointed because it's really two books in one, combined and edited by Lee Goldberg decades later from the original manuscripts. The first story, originally published as Deadman's Game in 1976, tells the origin of John Kane, how he became an assassin for the CIA, had his memory wiped out by a suicide bombing in Vietnam, then was given a new identity and placed under surveillance by the Agency to ensure that no inconvenient memories come back to him. Though he has no memory of his assassin past, Kane naturally gravitates toward the same line of work and soon becomes a freelance hitman. The main plot involves Kane taking a contract to whack the killer of a rich man's son, which requires him to infiltrate the local mob and gain their confidence, while avoiding getting taken out by a renegade faction of his own Agency that has decided he is too much of a liability.

The second story was much better, as Kane has to do some detective work to find out who framed a dying man ten years ago for a hideous sexual murder of a child, track him down, infiltrate the military-industrial compound where he works and bring him to justice. This story was never published; it was supposed to have been the second book in a series but it was cancelled. Which is a shame, because Kane is a great character. He has the stoic, hardman personality of Parker, the efficient hitman skills of Quarry and the amnesia and Agency/'Nam backstory of Jason Bourne. I particularly liked how the Agency surveillance angle brought a 1970s paranoia and conspiracy vibe to the stories that you don't find in more conventional crime series like Parker and Quarry.

A Talent for Killing is not brilliant writing, and the two-part story doesn't always flow well, but it's an interesting and entertaining read for fans of 1970s-era hardboiled crime and spy fiction. Get a copy here.

Seven Days to a Killing

During the Cold War, Great Britain very much played second fiddle to the USA as a geopolitical power, but in the world of spy-fiction they reigned supreme. From the pulpy adventures of Ian Fleming's Bond to the tense action of Elleston Trevor's Quiller to the cerebral dramas of LeCarre and Deighton, the Brits set the standards for the genre. In addition to such well-remembered authors, there were many more who wrote quality spy-fi that are largely forgotten today—men like James Mitchell, Gavin Lyall, Ted Allbeury, Oliver Jacks (Kenneth Royce), Robert Charles, Desmond Cory, Christopher Nicole (Andrew York), Alan Williams, and the writer I'll be reviewing today: Clive Egleton.

Like most of the authors just mentioned, Egleton served in World War II, and this experience gave his writing a realistic edge that few peacetime writers can match.  No doubt it was this shared wartime background, along with the high English literary standard and cultural affinity for spycraft, that produced a golden age of British espionage fiction in the post-war era. Egleton actually served in the army for thirty years, until retiring to become a full-time writer in  the mid-1970s. His debut novel, published in 1973 and titled Seven Days to a Killing, was made into a movie called The Black Windmill starring Michael Caine the following year. The movie trailer looked interesting enough that I decided to track down the novel and give it a read.

As the story opens, a man named Andrew McKee, dressed in a paratrooper uniform, confronts two boys who are playing at an abandoned military airfield. Using a ruse, the boys are quickly knocked out, bound, gagged, put in crates and taken away in a Land Rover with military precision. A little later, as two of his hired heavies are driving away with their payments, McKee calmly presses a button on a radio transmitter, detonating a bomb in their vehicle and blowing them to smithereens. It's a chilling and well-done opening sequence that lets us know what kind of ruthlessly efficient villains we'll be dealing with.

One of the boys is soon released, but the other, named David, who is the son of an MI6 officer named John Tarrant, is held in captivity at a farmhouse. The kidnapper, who goes by the name "Drabble", calls Tarrant with a simple demand: deliver 500,000 pounds worth of uncut diamonds in two days time, or his son will come to harm. Tarrant must deliver them himself to an address in Paris according to Drabble's instructions. To show that he means business, he plays a recording of Tarrant's screaming son being tortured.

Drabble's demands bring in an intelligence officer named Cedric Harper, whose title is "Director of Subversive Warfare". Harper is highly suspicious by nature, and he wants to know why a man with Tarrant's modest resources would be the target of such a high-priced kidnapping plot. Tarrant seems to be an upstanding officer with a clean record, but is he somehow involved in the plot? Is it just a criminal extortion scheme, or is the KGB or other enemy agency involved? Harper agrees to provide the diamonds for delivery, but in return he puts Tarrant under close surveillance and a background investigation in hopes of finding out the answers.

What follows is part crime/espionage procedural, part race against time, and part the psychological struggles of Tarrant, his estranged wife, Harper and the kidnappers. The narrative got a little confusing at times, as so many characters were introduced that it became difficult to keep track of them, and the procedural parts of the story dragged a bit. But the final stretch of the book made up for all that, as the diamonds are en route for delivery, the kidnappers prepare to make their exchange and getaway, Harper prepares a team for a raid, and Tarrant desperately races to find his son, not trusting Harper to have his best interests at heart. The suspenseful and violent climax was absolutely riveting, one of the best I can remember in an espionage thriller.

The writing style and plotting of Seven Days brought to mind the classic work of Frederick Forsyth, particularly The Day of the Jackal. It has that sophisticated, sinister edge and realistic detail about espionage procedures that he and other British spy-fi greats excel at. The detailed backstories of the kidnappers, their operations and motivations, were quite plausible and very well done. This is apparently the first of a four book series featuring the cynical counter-intelligence man Cedric Harper. Based on the quality of this book, I will definitely be checking out further installments of the series and other novels by Clive Egleton. Highly recommended.

Get a copy of Seven Days to a Killing here.

Colorado Kill-Zone

Don Pendleton's Executioner series is without a doubt the most popular and influential men's adventure series of all-time, with hundreds of titles and spin-off books published and hundreds of millions of copies sold since it launched in 1969. Pendleton created a cultural phenomenon when he dreamed up the "dark knight" named Mack Bolan—a one-man army, holy warrior and vigilante fighting endless battles against the forces of organized crime and terror that took the lives of his family.

I've read several Executioners from the early "New War" period in the 1980s, after Bolan had shifted his focus from fighting the mafia to fighting international terrorists and the KGB with the backing of a "black" US government agency, but I'd never actually read any of the original 38 installments authored by Don Pendleton until I picked up a battered copy of Colorado Kill-Zone (Executioner #25, 1976) from a small-town store recently to see what all the fuss was about. I guess I'd assumed that stories about Bolan hunting mafia goons across the USA would be boring and repetitive compared to him hopping around the globe fighting terrorists and enemy agents, so I never tried the early books. Based on the quality of Kill-Zone, I think it's safe to say that this was a bad assumption.

As the book begins, Mack is rolling down a remote road in the Rockies in his "war-wagon", gearing up to do battle with an enemy he can't see but knows in his gut is very close. The battle is soon joined, and to Bolan's shock and dismay, this enemy is using military equipment, tactics and discipline, much unlike the mafia thugs he's used to dealing with. Mack manages to surprise them with the war-wagon's awesome firepower, destroying some and driving the rest away; he wins this round but knows a larger battle is soon to come. Investigating the wreckage and doing some scouting around, he soon discovers that there is a secret base nearby that houses hundreds of what appear to be US military personnel, all focused on trapping Bolan in a Colorado "kill-zone". Further detective work, with assistance from his old friend from the Justice Department, Hal Brognola, and high-ranking mafia informant Leo Turrin, uncovers the identity of the enemy paramilitary's leader and the existence of a conspiracy to take out someone very, very big.

More exciting action soon follows, as Bolan pulls off one of his trademark deceptions to evade the net the enemy forces have drawn around him and makes his way through a snow storm to a deserted ski lodge where the enemy leader supposedly wishes to meet him. There he meets the nordic beauty Giselda, whose brother has been taken hostage by the paramilitary, and together they make a narrow escape by snowmobile and skis but are unable to get off the mountain.

At this point Bolan, realizing that he's trapped on the mountain, surrounded by the paramilitary force, gets philosophical while deciding on the best course of action. He again opts for the strategem of deception from inside the enemy net, impersonating troopers and officers, discovering their radio codes, gathering intel about their larger plot, and sabotaging their operations from within. The enemy objective is revealed to be something worthy of a James Bond novel, the paramilitary commander makes Bolan an impressive offer, and the story moves a little too quickly and smoothly to a satisfying conclusion.

I don't know how typical Kill-Zone is of the Pendleton Executioners, but it was a much bigger plot than I expected, more like something from the New War and Stony Man era where Bolan routinely defeated super-villains and saved America. I certainly enjoyed the book; I liked how Bolan relied on deception and detective work as much as sheer firepower, which made it more realistic. The conclusion felt a bit rushed and inconclusive though, almost like it was the first act of a larger story arc.

There is something brilliantly unhinged about Pendleton's Bolan, the way he fearlessly and obsessively pursues his one-man war, creates his own stateside reality every bit as lethal as his days in 'Nam, obeys his warrior's "gut" like it's a mystical superpower, and justifies his endless spree of murder and terrorism in the name of personal vengeance and protecting society. I love Bolan's high energy and focus on his mission; it reminds me of another favorite fictional character, the super tough armed robber Parker, who is just as obsessive about his own personal war to enrich himself and take revenge upon anyone who crosses him.

Another attractive thing about the early Executioners is the beautiful cover art of Gil Cohen. Here the cover scene is one of the most exciting moments of Kill-Zone, as Mack is skiing away from a squad of snowmobile Bolan-hunters, weapons strapped to his parka, one pursuer being obliterated while another grenade is about to be hurled at the others, the beautiful Giselda by his side. You don't see covers like that any more, in these days of dull, generic, lifeless, photographic cover art that looks like it has been generated by an algorithm.

There is just something addictive and wildly entertaining about these books. Partly I think it's the 1970s setting, when there was a kind of freedom, adventure, creativity and cynicism in paperback fiction that you don't really see today. But more so I think it's the compelling character of Mack Bolan and the genius of Pendleton's world-building and story-telling. The upshot for me is that I will probably have to collect and read the entire run of 38 Pendleton books (and probably many more), just as I have done with other favorite series such as Parker and Quiller. Stay tuned for more reviews of this all-time classic men's adventure series.

Get a copy of Colorado Kill-Zone here.

Dark Deeds

Dark Deeds is an obscure 1982 thriller that I picked up on a whim because it ticked three of my favorite shadow-fiction boxes. It: 1) was published in the early 1980s; 2) features an assassin main character; 3) has mind control as a key plot element. The author, Ken Welsh, doesn't appear to have published much else so the book must not have been too successful--which is unfortunate, because it's a rather interesting and entertaining read.

The story's initial protagonist is a mysterious young man with flowing blonde hair known only as Hailey. He's an assassin who travels around the globe doing wet-work for an even more mysterious and sinister individual known as Zeller. We're introduced to Hailey as he arrives in Malaga to arrange an arms deal for his boss. After arranging the delivery, he calmly disposes of the go-between--in the process making it clear that he is: 1) an emotionless, psychopathic killer; 2) a schizophrenic who struggles to suppress a second personality; and 3) slavishly dedicated to obeying Zeller's orders.

Hailey's next task is to find a fast boat which he and a fellow Zeller operative can hijack in international waters and use to complete the arms transaction. They find a nice yacht in possession of a rich kid name Quinn, who is sailing the Mediterranean with his girlfriend and a tough captain named Teal. The subsequent hijacking results in the death of Quinn's girlfriend, but he and Teal miraculously survive. Having lost their beloved woman and ship, and realizing that no government is particularly interested in solving a crime committed in international waters, both men vow to track down the pirates themselves and administer rough justice.

As the story unfolds, we learn more about Zeller: he's a very rich arms dealer who lives aboard a black yacht called Shadow so he is perpetually in international waters and out of reach of normal law enforcement. We also learn more about Hailey, how he receives periodic hypnotic brainwashing aboard Zeller's ship to keep his other personality at bay and his assassin personality focused and effective.

The drama gets much more epic when Quinn is put in contact with a man named Sanderson--mercenary extraordinaire and veteran of a dozen wars in the world's worst conflict zones. It seems that Sanderson has an old score to settle with Zeller and a detailed plan to do so, but it will require a paramilitary force and lots of money, which Quinn is able rustle up. Sanderson also has a beautiful young daughter named Lena who soon becomes Quinn's new love interest. What follows is an exciting build-up to the climactic confrontation at sea between Sanderson's army and Zeller's well-guarded little armada of yachts. Things are complicated by Hailey's unravelling psyche, Quinn and Lena's relationship, the increasing senility of Zeller, and the mad ambition of Zeller's right-hand man, Tristan.

The action was very good, but the most interesting aspect of this story for me was the mind control angle. Tristan, a genius psychiatrist who survived a concentration camp with Zeller, has developed a technique that combines sensory deprivation tanks with hypnosis to create reliable programmed assassins and terrorists. And he has a big vision, worthy of any supervillain, to use these programmed "psychotrons" to spread chaos in order to grow the Zeller arms business and expand its power. He plans to start in Italy:

Initially I shall build a group of twenty. After psychotronization they will be the deadliest force of urban guerrillas in the world. I shall set them loose in Italian cities to recruit and control terrorist cells. The most susceptible recruit in each cell will, in turn, be reconstructed and he will be sent forth to create his own cell. Within a year I estimate I can have one hundred cells operating throughout six or eight major Italian cities ... When each group is fully armed and correctly motivated by its psychotronized leader--half of the groups motivated toward the far left, the other half toward the far right--I shall launch them against each other. ... Now, also, I shall be seeking to enlist military men, civil servants, extremist politicians, et cetera. They will be programmed to cause further trouble within the rank and file of their fellows ... No matter whether left or right gains control I should have representatives among them, albeit on the first rungs of the ladder of power. This could come to pass within five years. I should have my first psychotrons at cabinet level in government and at board level in defence within ten years. I shall, in effect, be a controlling member of the Italian government. The business possibilities in the arms trade at this point are staggering.

Dark Deeds was a surprisingly enjoyable read, given its total obscurity. It combines the action and fast pace of a Jack Higgins novel with the intriguing ideas of a Len Deighton novel (e.g. The Ipcress File). Highly recommended.

Get a copy of Dark Deeds here. It can be read for free here.

The Ninja

If there's one book I should absolutely love, it's The Ninja by Eric van Lustbader, published in 1980. It was written during my favorite era for thrillers (late 1970s to early 1980s), and features many of my favorite story elements: ninjas, assassins, eastern mysticism, old vendettas and international intrigue. A New York Times bestseller, the novel was one of the early catalysts (along with the films The Octagon and Enter the Ninja) for the "ninja boom" of the 1980s. Though inexplicably never made into a movie (as discussed in this excellent post), it was the first popular portrayal of ninjas in Western literature (with the exception of Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, which featured them briefly).

The story concerns the trials and tribulations of Nicholas Linnear, son of an American diplomat and a Chinese mother who grew up in post-war Japan. Linnear was trained in martial arts from a young age, his excellence culminating in him becoming the first non-Japanese allowed to train in the most deadly and secret martial art of all: ninjutsu. But after his parents are killed, the mystically-inclined young warrior moves to the alien world of the USA and has to learn the mysterious ways of the West.

As the story opens, Linnear has quit his job as a successful graphic designer living in New York City, feeling burned out and longing to return to the land of his youth. He meets a beautiful rich girl named Justine who arouses his passion and gives him a new focus, but her relationship to her ruthless billionaire industrialist father, Raphael Tomkin, will soon draw him into a deadly web of intrigue. When a co-worker is found murdered in a mysterious manner, poisoned by a weapon that Linnear is able to identify as a ninja shuriken, Linnear's inner shadow warrior begins to awaken. As more people close to Linnear and Tomkin are killed in exotic and brutal fashion, and it becomes clear that both are at the center of a deadly vendetta, Linnear must call upon all his ninja training to survive.

The plot gets increasingly complex from here, as more characters are introduced  and a backstory involving World War II-era Japanese industrialists, corrupt American officials and a grand conspiracy of industrial espionage and revenge plays out on the streets of New York and the corridors of power in the USA and Japan. We meet the evil ninja Saigo responsible for the killings, and the NYC detective Lew Croaker tasked with investigating them--a tough, cynical bastard who isn't afraid to bend the law to do what's right.

This novel features one of the earliest examples of a trope that would become a cliche: Linnear's boyhood rival in the ninja dojo, Saigo, resentful of the half-breed gaijin, grows up to be a sinister "black ninja" and Linnear's deadly arch-enemy. For me Saigo was the clear star of the story. Though an extremely twisted individual, whose vices include pedophilia, sadism, murder, drug use and hypnotic mind control, he has that relentless, amoral, unstoppable quality that makes characters like Parker or the Terminator so compelling. The climactic finale sets the tone for many classic 1980s ninja films, as Saigo hunts his prey up a skyscraper and the two ninjas meet high above the city to settle their score once and for all.

As awesome as all this sounds, I have to admit that the book's execution was somewhat lacking. The main problem is that van Lustbader's writing is excessive: there's too much descriptive detail, too much literary pretension, too many unlikable characters, too many subplots, too much gratuitous sex, too much soap opera melodrama and too much unconvincing mysticism. What should have been a riveting thriller was too often a pretentious slog. If he had stripped out the excess, cutting off at least 100 pages and making this a much tighter story, he might have produced a classic.

If you want to read a thriller with similar elements by a much better writer that doesn't take itself too seriously, try Shibumi by Trevanian. Or, for a stripped-down, pulpier version of the same basic story, try Ninja Master #5: Black Magician, by Wade Barker.

As it is, I still enjoyed The Ninja for the ninja violence, mysticism, intrigue, and dark, Nietzschean sensibility, but I can't give it my highest rating. Recommended for fans of the genre.

Get a copy of The Ninja here.

Night Boat to Paris

The 1950s were well before my time, but it must have been a golden age for readers of paperback spy, crime and adventure fiction. That decade had so many elements that make for exciting stories: the Cold War at its most intense, the CIA and KGB waging unfettered shadow wars across the globe, the American empire rising, the British empire falling, the Mafia's invisible empire at its peak, and thousands of veterans of World War II and Korea still young and looking for action. It's not surprising that the decade introduced so many genre greats, like Jack Higgins, Alistair MacLean, Ian Fleming, Donald Westlake, Dan J. Marlowe and Lionel White. A more obscure author who got his start in the '50s was Richard Jessup; I recently picked up his 1956 novel Night Boat to Paris in a lot of vintage spy paperbacks and gave it a quick read.

The novel's protagonist is Duncan Reece, an ex-World War II British Intelligence operative who fell out of favor with the class-oriented Establishment after the war and turned to criminal work. He is approached by his old intel chief, who considers Reece the perfect man for a very sensitive mission. It seems that an ex-Nazi engineer has developed a nuclear satellite technology for the Reds, but the microfilmed blueprints have wound up in the possession of a wealthy Spaniard and a purchase has been arranged at a charity bazaar at his French villa later that month. Several intelligence agencies, most notably the Reds, are in hot pursuit of the film and are expected to be closely watching the villa. Reece's mission is to stage a robbery at the bazaar, taking the party-goers' valuables as well as the microfilm in order to fool the Reds into thinking it wasn't enemy action. Reece agrees to the job for the very tidy sum in 1956 dollars of one hundred thousand, plus half the loot, an import-export license and his Scotland Yard file and fingerprint records.

Reece's first task is to travel to France and assemble a crew for the heist. He enlists an old associate and all-around shady operator named Tookie, a desperate German gunman named Otto, a French muscle-man named Saumur, and two American mafiosi operating out of Marseilles named Gino and Marcus. There is considerable intrigue leading up to the main event, as Reece is pursued by mysterious assailants in black suits, and he suspects that one of his own men is an informant for the Reds. Several enemy operatives are killed, and there's some interesting introspection from Reece about why he is doing this that speaks to the inner plight of the shadow warrior:

You're a different man, Reece, from when you first started thinking for yourself. A man who has no principles, ascribing to no morality, who has perhaps had the morality knocked out of you. You're a killer; a procurer and thief; a man who has great wit and wisdom when it comes to saving your own neck and feathering your nest. You see that the world is mad and are playing along with it.

Can such a man slip into the comfortable rut of a middle-class merchant?

Another question.

And no answer for it.

Finally the crew gets to the locale of the op and sets themselves up in a farmhouse, where they begin training for their commando-style raid on the villa. From here on out it's a riveting thriller, as the crew, clad in identical black coveralls, berets, face paint and bandanas, assault the party with a rope ladder, grappling hook and Tommy guns, get the loot and the microfilm and try to make their escape. They get to the border and desperately try to find away across, while more men in black show up and they are forced to take drastic action in a mountain village. Conveniently, a village girl unhappy about her arranged marriage joins the crew and leads them on a secret route across the mountains. This finale is a bit less believable than the rest of the story, but it races to a suitably noir ending as the traitor is revealed and Reece makes a run for it into the shadows.

This is just the kind of novel I like: an old-school, hard-boiled adventure that combines espionage, a heist, desperate criminals and ruthless shadow operators. There's plenty of action and intrigue, but with a more sophisticated style than you get in a typical men's adventure novel. All in all, this was an excellent little thriller, and a glimpse back to a time when spy stories could be told in 158 pages instead of 400+, without all the bloated writing, technological gimmickry and over-the-top action that would plague the genre in later decades. I will certainly be reading more novels from this era, and can recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the early hardboiled spy work of authors like Donald Hamilton, Jack Higgins, Dan Marlowe and Edward Aarons.

Get a copy of Night Boat to Paris here.

The Great Train Hijack

I had little information to go on when I picked up The Great Train Hijack (originally titled The Gravy Train), published in 1971 by Whit Masterson. All I knew was that it featured a prison break, a train hijacking and a heist, and that sounded good enough for me to give it a read.

The novel's antagonist is Anthony Heaston, the brilliant ex-leader of a Special Forces unit called "Heaston's Hellions" that raised a lot of hell in the early days of the Vietnam War. Once a promising young colonel, Heaston was blamed for the murder of a South Vietnamese leader and relegated to a Pentagon basement, his career ruined. Bitter at the president and the military establishment for not backing him up, Heaston resigned and turned to outlaw mercenary work around the globe. But eventually he was captured leading revolutionaries in Columbia and sentenced to prison for life.

As the novel opens, Heaston pulls off a clever escape from the Columbian prison using a bold deception and outside help from some of his men. Soon he's back in the USA, and ex-president and Heaston nemesis Carson wants to know where he is and what he's up to. Carson puts Jake Duffy, a brilliant young agent for the FBI's Special Assignment Division on the job. Duffy is a hip, long-haired, rebellious new type of G-man--very much like an FBI version of CIA man Ronald Malcolm from Six Days of the Condor.

Duffy tracks Heaston to a ranch in southern California, where he and some of his old Hellions are training to hijack a train using an old coal-powered model that was previously part of a Western movie production. Duffy, ever the bold and creative agent, gets himself into the ranch using a cover as a representative of a movie production company interested in making a film on the property. He meets Heaston, with whom he has a surprising rapport, as well as his brutal henchman Branko, with whom he shares a girlfriend. He also uncovers the group's connections to a shadowy billionaire who is apparently funding them, and learns about a priceless art collection being shipped across the country. He also meets a beautiful but rather icy art museum director and Women's Libber named Leslie, and they strike up a hip early '70s relationship. Meanwhile Heaston and his men get wise to Duffy's deception and make moves of their own to deceive him.

Following some clever investigative work where Duffy oversteps his authority to learn more about the heisters' plans and some minor romance between Duffy and two of the female characters, the novel rolls to its climax aboard trains in the desert Southwest. There's a surprise twist toward the end as Duffy realizes what Heaston's crew are really after, and his entire operation to entrap them falls apart. Duffy, acting independently of the Bureau, decides to make a desperate last-minute gambit to try to resolve the situation that could cost him his career and his life.

I was expecting a story centered on Heaston and his heist crew, like a Parker or Drake novel, but as it turns out it's more of a detective story about Duffy's efforts to figure out what Heaston's crew is up to and stop them. This isn't necessarily bad, it's just not the type of novel I prefer, being inclined toward the point of view of the shadow operators more than the lawmen. I would have liked this novel a lot if "Mad Anthony" Heaston had been the focus of the narrative rather than Duffy, because for me he was a much more compelling character. My other criticism is that there wasn't a lot of action or intensity. Duffy carries out his investigation a little too flippantly; there's never a sense of real physical danger, and the violent crew does little actual violence. While this is a well-told tale with an intriguing plot, Masterson doesn't have the Jack Higgins flair for suspense and action that could have turned this detective story into a real thriller. If you like trains, heists and crime procedurals you'll probably enjoy it, but otherwise it's not that exceptional and I can see why this novel is now obscure.

Get a copy of The Great Train Hijack here.

Operation Fireball

Dan J. Marlowe is one of the giants of hard-boiled crime fiction; his 1962 novel, The Name of the Game is Death, is an all-time classic of the genre, as riveting as Donald Westlake's debut Parker novel, The Hunter, published the same year. In that novel Marlowe introduced the sharpshooting heistman known by the alias "Earl Drake", and Drake's lover and partner in crime, a fiery six-foot redhead named Hazel.  Drake returned in a 1969 sequel called One Endless Hour, written with input from a convicted bank robber named Al Nussbaum who was impressed with Marlowe's work. That novel tells how Drake got his face reconstructed after the hellish climax of Name of the Game--hence the series subtitle "The man with nobody's face".

Marlowe published a third Drake novel in 1969 called Operation Fireball, which began Drake's transition from an independent hard-boiled criminal like Parker to a government-affiliated adventurer-spy more like the Jack Higgins protagonist Sean Dillon. As the novel opens, Drake is reuniting with Hazel, who he hasn't seen since he got a new face early in the previous novel. There's some drama at her ranch with some nasty local kids who are abusing Hazel's father, but Drake punishes them rather violently and has to make a quick exit.

Back in San Diego, bored and looking for action, Drake is contacted by a criminal associate named Slater and a six foot four ex-navy Viking of a man named Karl Erikson, who tell Drake an exciting story. Apparently two million dollars sent by the U.S. government to the Batista regime in the last days before Castro's revolution is still at large. The cash was hijacked by Cuban gangsters, and Slater, who was in on the heist, is the only man who knows where it is. Erikson is assembling a crew to go get the money and he invites Drake to be on the team. But the mission is a formidable one: to infiltrate paranoid, revolutionary Cuba, find the cash, and get off the island without getting killed or thrown into Castro's prisons. Drake accepts, on the condition that Hazel is included on the team.

The novel builds slowly as the crew gathers in a hotel in Key West and prepares for the mission. Gear and weapons are purchased, boats are test-driven, shortwave radios are assembled and plans are made with Erikson's military precision. Meanwhile, the lecherous Latin boat captain Chico Wilson is making aggressive overtures toward Hazel and Slater is being a reckless drunk, scheming to cross the rest of the team. But Erikson is a commanding presence and he manages to keep the motley crew in line.

In the final third of the novel the narrative finally kicks into overdrive, as Drake's crew sails to Cuba posing as navy men aboard a U.S. destroyer, Slater finds himself in the brig, and they have to free Slater, get off the heavily guarded Guantanomo Bay base and into Cuban territory. This is where Marlowe really excels: fast, tense action, with flawed, desperate, violent men letting nothing stop them from making a big score. For me he's right up there with Donald Westlake in this regard, and the international intrigue only adds to the excitement. Because Cuba in the 1960s was a very tense place, controlled by fanatical revolutionaries, its population highly paranoid following the failed CIA-sponsored "Bay of Pigs" invasion in 1961 and on the look-out for foreign saboteurs. Marlowe does a great job of capturing the war-time feel of the mission, as the men have to move deep behind enemy lines to Havana and the location of the hidden cash. Once there, Drake takes the lead, using his talents as a thief to break into the facility and get to the loot. There's a tense climactic scene as they try get off the island, their radio broken and unable to signal to their boatman to be picked up. Then there's a final twist at the end, as Drake learns who Erikson really is and he doesn't get what he bargained for from the mission.

After a slow opening, with a little too much time devoted to the setup of the mission, this book was riveting stuff. I questioned sometimes how four Americans, particularly a six foot four Viking, could move through paranoid Cuba without more problems, but Marlowe makes it fairly believable. While not an instant classic like The Name of the Game is Death, this was a great read. If you like the Parker series and the work of Jack Higgins, you should love this. I look forward to reading further installments of the Drake series.

Get a copy of Operation Fireball here.

The Sour Lemon Score

The Sour Lemon Score is the twelfth entry in the legendary Parker crime fiction series, published in 1969. Like the phenomenal series opener, The Hunter, this isn't really a heist novel, but a story about Parker trying to track down and get revenge on the man who double-crossed him, nearly killed him and took his money.

As the story opens, Parker and three accomplices are about to execute a heist of a cash delivery at a bank. This was a great scene; the clever use of radio-controlled explosives, smoke grenades, deception and professional violence made it the kind of well-planned commando-theft operation that makes Parker novels so fun to read.

Equally fun are the inevitable f*k-ups and double-crosses that turn a smooth heist job into a twisted, violent novel-length adventure. In this case, the cross comes courtesy of the twitchy, sketchy driver George Uhl, who decides to try to take the whole pie by eliminating the other heisters just as they're about to divvy it up. Unfortunately for him, Parker gets away, and the rest of the novel is basically a detective story from the point of view of a ruthless, sociopathic criminal. Because Parker is a detective from hell, who will beat, threaten, rob, vandalize, deceive or kill anyone he damn well pleases until he gets what he wants: his loot, and George Uhl's head.

Donald Westlake (writing as Richard Stark), author of over a hundred mystery and crime novels, excels at tight plotting and detailed, realistic procedurals. We are taken step-by-step through Parker's investigation as he relentlessly pursues Uhl's associates across the eastern seaboard, always seemingly one step behind Uhl. His task is complicated when a psychopathic associate of Uhl named Matthew Rosenstein gets involved in the chase, and soon the three very dangerous men are converging on the quiet suburban family home of a high school fan-boy of Uhl's who gets far more excitement than he bargained for. The conclusion was slightly out of character for Parker, but it did leave loose ends that would be tied up in the 20th entry in the series, Firebreak, when some of these characters return to bother Parker 30 years later.

Another thing that makes Westlake such a great writer is his gift for creating incredibly well-drawn, memorable characters. The old-fashioned granny who sells Parker black market guns, the whiny single urban female who can't say no to her abusive ex-boyfriend, the brutal, sadistic Rosenstein and his foppish gay partner Brock, the square family man Saugherty who fantasizes about running with the bad boys, the slimy, psychopathic George Uhl--this short novel has an amazing array of characters who are damaged and dangerous in totally believable ways.

After the relatively weak previous entry in the series, The Black Ice Score, The Sour Lemon Score is a return to form for author Westlake, and a return to the brutal, unstoppable force that is Parker when someone has screwed him over.  Highly recommended for fans of hard-boiled crime fiction or just plain great story-telling.

Get a copy of The Sour Lemon Score here.

XYY Man

Combine cat burglary and espionage and you get the "black bag op"--anything from a "mission impossible"- or ninja-style building infiltration to a Watergate Hotel B & E job. Any story that incorporates black bag ops in a believable way is going on my to-read list.

The XYY Man, published in 1970 by Kenneth Royce, is such a story. It's the first of a series of eight novels about William "Spider" Scott, a skilled "creeper" (cat burglar) and occasional British government operative. The novel was adapted as a 3-part British TV series pilot in 1976 and returned for 10 more episodes in 1977.

The story starts slowly as we're introduced to the protagonist, a second-story man who has just been released from his third stay in prison and is determined to go straight. We also meet his devoted girlfriend Maggie and his square cop brother Dick, whose influence is the only thing keeping Spider from going back to his old life of crime. Meanwhile, a nasty copper named Bulman with a personal grudge is harassing Spider, accusing him of another burglary and preventing his brother from advancing in the force.

Things look bleak for Spider when a man named Fairfax approaches him out of the blue and makes him an offer he can't refuse: Bulman will be called off, Dick will be given a promotion, and Spider will receive 15000 pounds to set himself up with a legitimate business and a new life with Maggie. All Spider has to do is steal some documents from a safe in the Chinese Legation in London—which turns out to be the most secure, unfriendly building Spider has ever seen. And if he's caught, his sponsors will deny all involvement and Spider will have to face the music like a common criminal.

Spider initially refuses, considering it a mission impossible and not wanting to spend his best remaining years in a tough prison, or six feet under if the Chinese get him. But after casing the building carefully, the sheer challenge of it gets his juices flowing and he decides to give it a go. It's the same old story we see time and time again with Shadow-oppers: the safe, square, daytime life just can't compete with the buzz of breaking the law, living on the edge and operating in the shadows.

The story kicks into gear as Spider goes ahead with the op, breaking into the Legation building from an adjoining rooftop, creeping past alarms and into the safe room. But things go sideways when he discovers the shocking information the documents contain, and the next thing we know Spider is a fugitive—from British intelligence, the police, the Chinese, Maggie, Dick and soon, the CIA and the KGB. Spider has to evade them all and figure out what to do when you have nowhere to go and you're the most wanted man in London, if not the world. In other words, it's a Shadow operator's worst nightmare, but a shadow-fiction reader's dream scenario.

I liked the first-person, real-time perspective this novel gives you of the creeper Scott as he tries to complete his mission, evade his pursuers and extricate himself from an epic international clusterf*k on the streets of London. We get an up-close look at some of the tricks of his trade, the quick wits required and the intensity of being a most-wanted fugitive on the run. There were some twists at the end that I found a little confusing and the story wrapped up a bit too quickly, but otherwise it was a gripping story.

My only other criticism is that the writing was a bit awkward and difficult to follow at times, particularly for an American reading in 2021. It reminded me of an early Jack Higgins novel, with its unpolished style and street-level view of British Shadow operatives of a bygone era. But the plot was compelling, the action exciting but never over the top, and the main character Spider the kind of protagonist the shadow-fiction fan has to root for. I enjoyed The XXY Man and will be reviewing other installments of the Spider Scott series in the near future. Recommended for fans of old-school crime, spy and adventure fiction.

Thai Horse

After enjoying Chameleon, I decided to try another thriller by William Diehl: Thai Horse, published in 1987.

The novel concerns the trials and tribulations of Christian Hatcher, an ultra-lethal shadow operative who has been doing dirty deeds for a deep black military outfit called the "Shadow Brigade" since the Vietnam War. Hatcher's Brigade director is a devious man named Sloan, who was responsible for Hatcher getting locked up in a brutal Central American prison for the past three years. Sloan has evidence that an old Annapolis buddy of Hatcher's named Cody—who was allegedly killed when his plane was shot down in 'Nam back in '73—is still alive and may be involved in organized crime in Southeast Asia. Cody is the son of a revered four-star general with terminal cancer who wishes to see his son one last time. To avoid any embarrassing publicity, the job is given to the Shadow Brigade, and Sloan promptly gets Hatcher released from prison and offers him the mission.

(As a side note, I liked Hatcher's description of Sloan:

A hundred years ago, thought Hatcher, Sloan would have been hawking elixirs from the back of a wagon or selling shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. Now he sold dirty tricks with fictions of adventure and patriotism, seducing wide-eyed young men and women into the shadow wars, to become assassins, saboteurs, gunrunners, second-story men, safe crackers, even mercenaries, all for the glory of flag and country. Hatcher had met Sloan in the time of his innocence and had bought the lie.

Let's face it, it's shady recruiters like Sloan who make the shadow-fiction world go round!)

Hatcher gets on the case, and soon lands in Hong Kong, an old haunt where he once infiltrated the criminal underworld as a Shadow Brigade operative. He makes contact with an old American friend named "China" Cohen, a likeable scoundrel who is now the "white Tsu Fi"—the legendary boss of a Hong Kong triad. It turns out that the leaders of the most powerful triad have good personal reasons to want Hatcher dead, and he soon finds himself the target of a big-time hit. This leads to a scene reminiscent of the assault on Tony Montana's estate in the classic 1983 film Scarface, as black-turtlenecked, submachine gun-toting hitmen storm Cohen's walled compound.

Following a lead that a Dutch smugger may have information about Cody, Hatcher, Cohen and an old Asian flame named Daphne head upriver into outlaw territory ruled by the notoriously brutal gangster Sam-Sam Sam. Here the movie that came to mind was Apocalypse Now!, as the crew encounters colorful, violent characters of various races and nationalities on the river, Hatcher finds his target and things go sideways in an explosively bloody way.

The intrigue gets ever more complex as people near Hatcher are knocked off, Sloan continues to be devious, drug lords prepare a massive shipment, a terrorist attack hits Paris, the rival triad leader hunts Hatcher, Hatcher hunts Cody, a group of colorful expatriate Vietnam vets gets involved, and it all somehow revolves around the meaning of the mysterious term "Thai Horse". Is it Cody? Someone else? An organization? An operation? A drug? Or just an old Thai legend? All is revealed in the last 60 or 70 pages, as Hatcher solves the mysteries of Cody and the Thai Horse, his beef with the triad comes to an ultra-violent climax, and various personal scores are settled in brutal ways.

Like Chameleon, Thai Horse is reminiscent of  Eric Van Lustbader's work from that era, and both authors were clearly influenced by thriller mega-seller Robert Ludlum. Like them, Diehl gets a little melodramatic, wordy and implausible at times, but he knows how to keep the pages turning and construct a complex but entertaining yarn. If you like shadow warfare with an Asian flavor, deadly assassins, international conspiracies, war-time backstories, strong characters, brutal violence, stylish romance, a dash of explicit sex and just enough realism to make the story plausible without becoming dull, you should enjoy this novel.

Get a copy of Thai Horse here.

Black Ice Score

Black Ice Score, published in 1968 by Donald Westlake (writing as Richard Stark), is the eleventh entry in the incomparable Parker series about an ultra-tough but likeable heist-man.

This time the target of Parker's heist is $700k worth of diamonds smuggled into New York by the corrupt leader of a small African nation called Dhaba. The diamonds are being kept on the top floor of a museum where the leader's brutal brothers-in-law have taken residence and guard them 24/7. A diplomat from Dhaba wishes to steal the diamonds back on behalf of his countrymen, so he finds the best man in the business and hires him as a consultant. Parker's task is to devise a plan to get into the building, past the guards and grab the diamonds. His job is complicated by a group of white colonials allied with a black general from Dhaba, who have learned about the diamonds and want them to fund their own takeover of the country. They are trying to strong-arm Parker into telling them where the diamonds are, going so far as to kidnap his steady girlfriend Claire and forcing him to cooperate. There's also a joker in the pack in the form of a shifty, unpredictable character named Hoskins who has a bad habit of annoying Parker and appearing at inopportune times (Westlake loves these characters).

This is an atypical entry in the series in several respects. For one, Parker is not doing the job himself, but is only acting as a paid consultant for amateurs. He plans the heist and trains the Africans, but doesn't participate directly in the theft. This is obviously a let down for Parker fans, sort of like going to an Elvis concert and being told that an impersonator is going to perform instead—though the author does a pretty good job of making the amateurs' point of view interesting. The international political angle is also unusual for this series, which is normally apolitical and focused entirely on the all-American business of taking down big scores. In the spy-crazy 1960s it seemed that every thief and thug was getting a piece of the geopolitical action. Third, Parker seems strangely charitable and caring at times compared to his brutal sociopathic persona earlier in the series. Apparently his long-term relationship with Claire is softening him and making him a bit less Terminator-like than before.

There were some interesting moments in this story for students of shadow operations. The planning of the heist, the social engineering used to case the building, and the tools and tactics employed were reminiscent of the antics of real-world master jewel thief William Mason that I discussed in this review. This is the most ninja-like op in the series so far: the use of deception to gain entry to a stronghold, crossing from rooftop to rooftop, roping down an elevator shaft, using gas bombs to incapacitate guards, dressing all in black, surprise attacks, are all classic ninja tactics, handled with Westlake's trademark realism.

The short novel moves quickly to a climax as the theft gets very bloody, bodies pile up, and Parker makes his re-appearance just in time. Hoskins is still a joker, the colonialists still hold the trump card Claire, and Parker has to bluff and go all-in to win with the hand he's dealt. While risking his neck to save a woman wasn't the old Parker's style, this slightly kinder, gentler Parker does just that to try to save Claire from the clutches of the enemy.

This was definitely a lesser entry in the series, but still entertaining and worth the few hours spent reading it if you like heist novels and appreciate quality writing. Westlake is the genre's master and Parker its greatest character, so even a sub-par installment is a cut above most other novels of its kind.

Get a copy of The Black Ice Score here.

The Violent Enemy

Whenever I'm in the mood for a quick, entertaining men's adventure story involving shadow warfare, my go-to author is Jack Higgins; he never disappoints. The Violent Enemy, published in 1966 (originally titled A Candle for the Dead), is no exception. Featuring two of my favorite plot elements--a prison break and a heist--and a backstory about the Irish Republican Army, the novel sounded right up my alley.

Protagonist Sean Rogan is similar to several other Higgins protagonists (most notably Liam Devlin of The Eagle Has Landed): an ultra-tough, dangerous Irish shadow warrior who led special operations in World War II and in the guerrilla war against British rule in Ireland. He has spent twelve of the last twenty years incarcerated, and is now doing hard labor in a maximum security prison in England.

Rogan is denied early release as the novel begins, which sets up a plot element that Higgins used in several other early novels (Hell is Too Crowded, Dark Side of the Street, Hell is Always Today): a prison break. During his latest stay, escape artist Rogan has figured out a complicated route out of the prison that involves cutting through wire cages, climbing up beams, crawling through ventilation ducts and roping down walls. But the real challenge is figuring out how to get through the desolate moors that surround the prison and find a safe haven, a clean identity and transportation away from the scene. When all of that is offered by a former top IRA man on the outside, who apparently wants Rogan out real bad but doesn't say why, Rogan can't refuse.

Rogan executes the jailbreak and soon finds himself back with his old IRA boss, named O'More, who has a job that calls for Rogan's special talents. O'More wants Rogan to rob an armored car as it is delivering a large sum of cash to a train at a stop in a small village. He has assembled a crew which, as per usual in a Higgins novel, includes some rather nasty and treacherous characters and an attractive young woman who quickly becomes Rogan's romantic interest. This leads to personal dramas and betrayals that threaten to derail the plot, but Rogan is a true alpha warrior and he asserts his authority on the unruly gang. 

As Rogan and his crew are planning and executing the heist, a parallel police investigation is going on, led by a Scotland Yard detective who Rogan rescued from the Germans back in '43. The detective doesn't consider Rogan a real criminal, but a political prisoner, and since the troubles that landed Rogan in prison are no longer hot, let's just say that he's not a very motivated pursuer. The story moves quickly to a satisfying climax in the usual Higgins style, with the heisters on the run from the coppers, double-crossers on the run from both, and one or two twists along the way.

This was a fast-paced, entertaining read, with no wasted verbiage, simple but compelling characters and action that never goes over the top -- all very typical of Higgins's early work. This is basically a prison break, heist and getaway novel, much like the novel Breakout that I reviewed here. I was a little disappointed by the lack of IRA-style shadow warfare, but overall I have no complaints.

Get a copy of The Violent Enemy here.

Flashpoint

Flashpoint is yet another obscure thriller from the 1970s remembered only because it was made into a film--a 1984 adaptation starring Kris Kristoffersen which, I vaguely recall, was quite good.

This novel is intriguing in the way it connects two fronts of the Shadow War that are usually distinct: the Border War and the Assassin War. The protagonists, Logan and Ernie, are two good ol' boy Texas border patrolmen who enjoy nothing better than patrolling the very desolate "section 7" of the U.S.-Mexico border in their jeeps, tracking down illegals across the desert and taking them back to Mexico. They don't do this out of any spite toward the illegals, but simply for the challenge, solitude and outdoor adventure the job affords them. Both men are military veterans with experience operating in dangerous territory--Ernie in Korea and Logan as a Green Beret in 'Nam--and patrolling the Mexican border is a good peacetime test of their skills. Author La Fountaine does a good job of fleshing out their backgrounds and motivating their behavior; while they may be obnoxious "bubbas" at times who like to get drunk and visit Mexican whorehouses in their spare time, they are full of life and love adventure in a way you can't help but respect.

As the story opens, the patrolmen learn that a new high tech border security system is going to be implemented in their region, which would turn these border cowboys into glorified desk jockeys, watching for beeping lights on computer screens instead of riding out under the sun looking for "Indians" to apprehend. This puts them in a depressed and desperate state of mind, but that soon changes when Logan, taking a shortcut through an untravelled desert wash, discovers a crashed jeep buried deep in the sand. Digging it out, he finds a skeleton and a box full of cash--$850,000 in small, sequentially numbered bills. At this point the novel becomes a detective story, as Logan and Ernie try to discover the identity of the driver, the source of the cash, and whether it is safe to spend it without alerting authorities.

Things soon become even more confusing--and deadly--as shadowy forces and corrupt players converge on the patrolmen's turf. People connected to the cash are being killed off, and the patrolmen feel the noose tightening around them. Should they take the money and run for the border, or play it cool and deny everything? Who exactly is looking for the money, and why? Who can they trust? What was a jeep doing loaded with cash in the south Texas desert, who was the mysterious driver, and why is someone willing to kill anyone who knows anything about them? Everything is answered in the final pages, as the narrative gets increasingly dark, violent and desperate and a sinister conspiracy is revealed. While some of the plot developments seemed a little far-fetched, I think the shock ending was appropriate and should come as no surprise to veteran Shadow Warriors. 

Flashpoint is one of those cynical, paranoid, pessimistic stories that could only have been written in the 1970s--a period I love because I think it dealt more realistically with the nature of society and humanity than what came before or after. It was a unique era, in the wake of the 1960s, when Americans were free to be simultaneously politically incorrect, sexually liberated, and very cynical of the powers that be. Logan expresses the spirit of the times well when, after Ernie denies that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy, responds:

"Ernie," Logan cried in anger, "how can you say that after all the shit that's come out about Watergate and the CIA and the FBI and the assassination plots over the world? How can you still say that?"

Everything that happens subsequently in the story only vindicates Logan's cynicism. If you enjoy novels like Six Days of the Condor and films like Parallax View, where ordinary people are caught up in the machinations of sinister forces that go right to the top of the power structure--which is revealed to be hopelessly corrupt--you should add Flashpoint to your reading list. This book is a good reminder that the Shadow War is not just a war on the ground between spies, criminals and covert operators, but a war of the mind against the vast apparatus of lies and illusions that daytime society runs on.

While I wouldn't call La Fountaine a great writer, and some of the plot twists were a little implausible, overall he's spun a very compelling tale here that kept me turning the pages until the end. If you like good old adventure thrillers with a heavy dose of 1970s paranoia and political intrigue, you should enjoy this as much as I did.

Get a copy of Flashpoint here.

Wilderness

After reading many novels about professional assassins targeting civilians, it was fun to read a thriller where the tables are turned: amateurs target a professional killer for death. That's the plot of Wilderness, published in 1979 by mystery writer Robert B. Parker (creator of the Spenser: For Hire series).

The book hooks the reader from the first page, as protagonist Aaron Newman witnesses an execution-style murder of a woman while out jogging on the railroad tracks. He notifies the police, and learns to his horror that the killer is a well-known gangster and murderous psychopath named Adolph Karl. Karl soon lets Newman know in the strongest possible terms that he shouldn't testify about the murder, by having his thugs tie up his wife, sexually abuse her and threaten further retaliation. Newman decides that rather cowering in fear or allowing a killer to walk free, his only honorable option is to go on the offensive and kill Karl himself. He recruits his neighbor, a big, tough Korean War vet named Chris, and they start stalking Karl and his gang. 

It was funny reading how these amateurs plan and execute their hit. Some of Newman's tactics were ridiculous, like posing as a deaf beggar and walking right into Karl's office to reconnoiter his defenses. Since Karl had immediately fingered Newman as the rat despite the police report being confidential, why would Newman not assume that Karl knew what he looked like? Also, targeting his entire gang seems a little ambitious for amateurs; wouldn't they at least consider going into a witness protection program?

This is really a story about the relationship between the emotionally needy Newman and his rather cold and domineering wife, and how Newman feels the need to prove his manhood by standing up to Karl. I didn't like either character that much, but Parker paints a believable picture of their personal drama and dysfunction. The only likeable characters were a sexually charged hitman and wife sent to take out Newman; they would have been right at home in a Quentin Tarantino film.

The novel really gets exciting about halfway through, when Newman, his wife and Chris decide to hunt down Karl and his gang while they're on a hunting trip to a lake in the Maine wilderness. It becomes a tense tale of wilderness survival, manhunting and sudden death that was gripping all the way to the end.

Overall, I enjoyed Wilderness; it was a fast-moving, fairly believable tale of how ordinary people might become ruthless killers if put in a horrific enough situation. And that's why I enjoy shadow-fiction so much: because it lets us imagine how we might be if we ever fully embraced our shadow selves.

Get a copy of Wilderness here.

Hijack

I'm fascinated by shadow ops that involve hijacking—skyjacking, train robberies, piracy, etc.—so when I ran across the 1969 novel Hijack by Lionel White I was immediately intrigued. The first thing I noticed was the striking cover: the image of a giant upraised pistol next  to the single word "HIJACK" emblazoned in red, with a jet airliner and a couple in erotic embrace in the foreground, is a minor masterpiece of paperback cover design. On the strength of the cover alone I might have bought the book; knowing that the author was Lionel White, one of the old masters of crime noir fiction known particularly for his heist stories—which have been called precursors to the brilliant Parker novels by Donald Westlake—I simply had to have it.

Does the story live up to the cover? Almost. As you can probably guess, it involves the hijacking of an airliner, sparked by the steamy encounter between a beautiful, money-hungry ex-stewardess called "Sis" and an ex-Air Force pilot recently returned from Vietnam nicknamed "Dude". Sis has inside information that a particular route transports millions of dollars in small bills in its cargo hold every month, and she uses her considerable charms to convince Dude to help her get it. So Dude assembles a team and plans an audacious air-heist.

Along the way we learn the backstory of the hijackers, most of whom were 'Nam buddies of the rogue pilot Dude. We also learn more about several of the  VIP passengers; it turns out (rather unrealistically) that on board the ill-fated flight are a French movie star, a top American scientist, a Russian defector, his CIA escort, the airline's majority stockholder and a famous preacher. In standard crime noir fashion, at some point everything goes sideways, as the all-too-flawed characters turn a carefully laid plan into a clusterf*k of foul-ups, betrayals and desperation moves. There's some brutal violence, loose sex, nasty rape and heavy drinking as the various players crack under pressure and revert to their primal instincts. The offbeat ending is slightly anti-climactic and felt a bit rushed, but it's probably as good as any for this offbeat tale.

I'm a little surprised Hollywood never made a film out of this novel. Several of Lionel White's earlier works were made into movies, but maybe by 1969 the 64 year-old author was no longer a hot property. Or maybe a story about skyjackers—in an era when revolutionaries, terrorists, criminals and crazies were hijacking airplanes with alarming frequency—hit too close to home. Apparently Quentin Tarantino is a big White fan; this would make a great Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction-style noir thriller. No matter, though; classic crime paperbacks like this one are an art form of their own and deserve to be read and enjoyed on their own terms. The biggest crime is that this book is so obscure and difficult to find; if you can track it down for a reasonable price (I paid $10), I would advise picking it up. Hijack is recommended for fans of classic crime noir and heist thrillers.

Breakout

Breakout is the 21st book of the "Parker" series, by Donald Westlake (writing as Richard Stark). If you've never read any Parker novels, I recommend that you start with the first one, The Hunter, and proceed from there. Few books capture the intensity and drama of criminal shadow ops as realistically as these. Parker is a professional thief, but he's no non-violent cat burglar, stealthily infiltrating buildings, cracking safes and getting away cleanly with the loot. He threatens, pistol-whips, beats, binds, gags, and occasionally kills to complete his missions, but always with an almost robotic level of efficiency and cool.

Parker novels are what you might call "criminal procedurals"—they give detailed, realistic accounts of the planning and execution of Parker's heists and associated criminal activity. We learn about the minutia of getaway routes, entrances and exits, guards, escape vehicles, etc. Parker prefers low-tech, direct means to assault his targets, never relying on gadgetry when good old guns, threats and surprise are so much more reliable. But as in real life, nothing ever goes according to plan; much of the fun of these stories is finding out how Parker improvises when an op goes badly wrong or someone crosses him.

Breakout offers a new twist on the Parker formula: this time he has to break out of a facility instead of in—the facility in question being a prison, where he finds himself for the first time since the series began. Parker, being a guy who doesn't take well to involuntary confinement, and being linked to the murder of a prison guard decades ago, immediately starts angling to escape. Recruiting two other inmates and with help from outside, he makes a harrowing but highly believable escape. And that's just part one of this tale. The crew, now free and short of cash, decides to take on a heist that one of them had previously scoped out: breaking into a former armory loaded with jewelry that is as impregnable as the prison they just got out of. The ensuing break-in is as gripping as the break-out; author Stark describes both in such photographic detail that you could swear he has done them himself! There are further escapes, evasions, murders, police procedural work, hostage-taking, and a climactic manhunt for Parker the fugitive. The ending is particularly well done.

After reading five early Parker novels from the 1960s, it's a bit jarring to read about him operating in a 21st century world of cell phones, internet and security cameras. But as always, Parker adapts to his circumstances and relies on the tried-and-true methods of his trade, so it doesn't really affect the narrative. Forty years after the first novel, Westlake is still the master of hard-boiled crime fiction, and Parker is still the master of hard-boiled crime. "Breakout" is a top-notch addition to the best crime series ever written. Highly recommended.

Buy a copy of Breakout here.