Posts tagged with "Books"
Saturday, 30. September 2006, 03:27:29
Books, Death Merchant, Assassin
In Death Merchant #56 Afghanistan Crashout, Joseph Rosenberger puts a footnote on page 80 that Camellion has written three books on unarmed combat, two are not avaialble to the public but the third has been published by Paladin Press.
Naturally curious I emailed
Paladin Pressabout this work and got no reply. So inter-library loan to the rescue, but the only copy was in the Australian Federal police library - so I probably have a file as a person of interest now, but such is the dedication I have that I will accept having a file to read this work.
This book is actually written by the Death Merchant himself just as he appears in the books complete with references to the Cosmic Lord of Death. The book is an overview of assassination throughout history. Part of me imagined Chuin reading this book nodding his head at some of the points Camellion had made (such as that assassination is an art, and need not be violent) and throwing to the book in disgust that Sinanju doesn't rate a mention although Hashashins, Ninja and Thugee are all mentioned and that Camellion proposes the use of guns and bombs.
Camellion also disects a number of American assassinations such as the Kennedy Brothers and Martin Luther King suggesting a large Cuban conspiracy linking all three. Then there are examinations of other assassinations such as Leon Trotsky, Archduke Frans Ferdinand and Che Gueverra from around the world. Camellion points out that the notion of a deranged loner as an assassin is largely an American construct with assassinations being considered for a political purpose by a group being the form seen around the world.
There is little practical information in this work, which might be considered a good thing in light of what happened with
Hitmanthis might be for the best.
This is an interesting sidelight on the Death Merchant series.
Sunday, 16. July 2006, 05:11:11
Aggressors, Hunter, Books
It's been a year since John Yard and Moses Ngala took down Maurice Lavelle in the first book in this series. This time Moses meets an old friend whose brother has been killed by an ex-Nazi. This Nazi has been hired by the US Army to teach combat techniques.
The Ex-Nazi Rohmer is hardline racist and for that reason he killed Moses' friend's brother, simply because he was a "nee-grew" as they refered him in the story.
Once again Yard and Ngala hunt down the most dangerous prey of all. Once they start investigating they find that Rohmer is far worse than they thought and that he had left the US Army for the Syrian Army (so he can kill lots of jews that way). Yard and Ngala follow him and join the Syrian Army.
After a failed attempt to take down Rohmer, Yard and Ngala are taken prisoner.
Will they escape? Will they wipe Rohmer out?
Of course they will.
I've said this before but The Hunter is a persoanl favorite series and my appreciation for Ralph Hayes grows with each book. I've reviewed all of my Agent for Cominsec and The Hunter book, I'll have to get out Hayes' Stoner series and read them.
Sunday, 2. July 2006, 09:27:51
Novel, Destroyer, Books, Aggressors
The second last Destroyer novel from Gold Eagle and the second last from Tim Somheil. Warren Murphy and Jim Mulhaney are due any time to announce the new publisher.
Somheil gets away from the Sa Man Song plotline he's been on lately and the book is better for it. This time Remo and Chuin tackle The Hurricane, Harry Kilgore. Kilgore is an engineer who has built a super wind cannon, based on teleportation principles (which we've seen used in the Destoyer in the past).
The Hurricane is out to prove how good he really is after the academic community tried to steal credit for his invention, so The Hurricane tackles the biggest and baddest he can find, a Columbian drug lord.
Remo and Chuin try to thwart The Hurricane several times but find themselves powerless against The Hurricane's air cannons. The Hurricane even ruins one of Chuin's robes in the process, aside from killing thousands of innocent people. (Guess what is considered the worse offense in the eyes of Chuin?)
Eventually our heroes are able to defeat Kilgore and what Chuin does isn't pretty.
In a subplot Mark Howard and Harold Smith track down a government official who has gained knowledge of CURE.
Perhaps if Somheil was allowed a few more books and stayed away from the calamari, he could churn out some really good Destroyers. If I can't have more Destroyers, I'd like to see him develop his own series, Somheil has a cool pulpy sensibility which could suit perhaps new adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.
Saturday, 1. July 2006, 13:13:56
Aggressors, Books, Hunter
Oh yeah this is the stuff. The Hunter is John Yard a former Green Beret who served in Viet Nam, retired when his great uncle died and left him a large inheritance.
Yard became a hunter in Africa leading safaris of rich tourists to hunt animals. The story open with Yard on a hunting trip and his client has lung shot a lion. Yard follows the lion into a thorn patch and kills it becaus he knows that wounded lions are dangerous and need to be killed.
When he returns to camp he hears gun shots and discovers his friend Moses Ngala, a private eye in a gun battle with poachers. It appears the poachers might be working for Maurice Lavelle. (altough nothing comes of this information) Yard helps capture the poachers
Returning to camp, Yard receives a letter from his old army buddy Joe Algar. Joe is a broken man, his first child was affected by the drug Moricidin, and had no brain, scaly skin and claws. Joe's wife drowned the baby and jumped out of their 10th storey appartment.
Yard immediately flies out to his friend and discovers that Moricidin was developed by Maurice Pharmaceuticals owned by Maurice Lavelle. It appears that Lavelle knew about the side effects and bribed a FDA offical to let it on the market, just to make a quick buck. With the drug banned in Europe and America, Lavelle is now planning on peddling his drug in Asia and Africa.
Yard decides that Lavelle is like a wounded lion to dangerous to let live peddling his death drugs and along with Ngala they hunt down and kill the multimillionare.
Oh this is good stuff, if you can get hold of this series.
Friday, 30. June 2006, 12:46:03
Novels, Killmaster, Books
This is the earliest of the Nick Carter Killmasters I own. In it Nicholas J. Huntington Carter poses as a special ambassador. The cover promised me Casablanca, full of spies, but Nick spends most of his time in Nyanga, a new African country which is blaming America for a spate of terrorist bombings, a view supported by the Russians in the country.
Carter investigates and discovers that it is actually a Red Chinese plot to take over the country. After bedding two ladies and killing several bad guys Carter is able to stop the Chinese plot to forment revolution in Nyanga.
Throughout this mission Carter is followed by a greenfaced man with google eyes named Laszlo, I imagine that he looks like Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) from CASABLANCA. Carter follows Laszlo to Casablanca for the final chapter of the book where he takes out Ten Wong, the Chinese master mind behind the plot with his own deadly garden.
Aside from the disappointment that so little of the book was set in Casablanca, it's nice to see the Killmaster in action.
Friday, 23. June 2006, 17:15:54
Aggressors, Novel, Books, Butler
Butler is a former CIA agent who was fired from the CIA for being to critical of the agency, he now works for The Bancroft Institute as a an agent.
The Bancroft Institute is considered by the world at large as one of the great scientific enclaves but in reality it fights against military/industrial complex machinations of Hydra.
In this book, Butler discovers that Hydra was behind the assassination of JFK, and that Hydra is out to kill the President again. Butler infiltrates the assassins and stops the attempt after discovering that his old boss in the CIA is behind the plot.
Eventually Butler makes his way to the current power behind Hydra - Swami Coomiswamicurry. The Swami has been using his power to try and take over the world. Butler puts a stop to the Swami but realised that it's only a matter of time before Hydra reorganises and he's back fighting them.
One oddity about Butler is his relationships with women - he has great sex with them but they all seem to treat him with distain claiming that he forced them. In this book, Cora Calloway goads Butler into taking her, forcing him at gunpoint to finish the deed. But she then denies it.
Butler is a nice change of pace for this type of series.
Tuesday, 20. June 2006, 11:34:03
Aggressors, crossovers, Books, Novel
...
Okay you may have noticed in two of my recent posts I reviewed DEATH MERCHANT #24 The Kronos Plot and PENETRATOR #19 Panama Power Play, both of which feature the heroes saving the Panama Canal from a Cuban backed plot and both novels were published in 1977.
What are the odds that Fidel ordered 2 seperate plots on the Panama Canal in the 1970s? Not very likey, so it seems that both The Death Merchant and The Penetrator helped stop this Panama plot but neither was aware that the other was involved.
Consider that the Death Merchant battled Panamanian Communist rebels and never encountered Cuban troops, the Penetrator battled Cuban troops but not Panamanian Communist rebels and in both books it was acknowledged that the rebels were working the Cubans.
I wonder if Richard Camellion and Mark Hardin ever discovered that they both worked on the same case?
Sunday, 11. June 2006, 06:17:42
Aggressors, Books, Novels, Death Merchant
In this book we see Richard Camellion uncover and prevent a Cuban backed attempt to destroy the Panama Canal.
The story opens with Camellion taking down a DGI safehouse in Miami and from there the action rarely lets up, moving to Panama with Camellion employing his mastery of disguise to infiltrate a banana plantation run by a sympathiser to the rebels who will be attacking the Panama Canal.
Based on the information gained in that raid, Camellion leads a half dozen Black Berets to attack the Rebels, who will attack the canal when the bombs detonate to destroy the locks that allow the Canal to operate. The team is lead to the location of the bombs that will destroy the canal. They also mention another team of 120 who will attack at the same time. Whilst not explicitly stated I suspect that these are Cuban troops to suppliment the Panamanian rebels that Camellion has now stopped.
This lead to the final battle to stop the detonation. Will The Death Merchant stop the Cuban plot to destroy the Panama Canal?
C'mon of course he does.
Wednesday, 31. May 2006, 10:29:53
Agent for COMINSEC, Aggressors, Books
In this the final book of the Agent for COMINSEC book Ralph Hayes changes the formula a little. Taggart, the lone wolf is forced to team up with another COMINSEC agent. COMINSEC comes under attack from the reformed Disciples of Hell, which COMINSEC thought it destroyed 2 years before (not the liberators as the cover proclaims.
The COMINSEC agent responsible for destroying the original Disciples, Shimura from Japan, is teamed with Taggart on this adventure. It is revelealed that there are five agents, one would assume that there is one from each of the member countries.
Taggart reveals that his grandfather was a full blooded Commanche.
Taggart and Shimura tackle the Disciples of Hell tracking them back to their headquarters and removing the new heads of this cult. Double the excitement and double the violence as the Agents for COMINSEC tackle the organisation that is torturing and killing the couriers that supply COMINSEC with the information it needs to keep operating.
Tuesday, 30. May 2006, 20:34:50
Agent for COMINSEC, Aggressors, Books, Novels
In this adventure, Taggart discovers a conspiracy to replace the President of the United States with an impostor. Why? Unlike the movie DAVE, which uses the same idea, a cabal of arms dealers calling themselves Alpha Four is behind the plot to stir up trouble between the United States and Russia and China.
For most of the book Taggart has to try and prove that the man in the Oval Office isn't the man elected by the people. Of course Alpha Four isn't about to let Taggart just waltz in and find this out, so Taggart has to kill several henchmen, even managing to get a few of the members of Alpha Four themselves.
Eventually Taggart discovers that the President is an impostor *spoilers ahead* and assassinates him.
I'm rather enjoying the Taggart books. Each conspiracy is different and delivers the thrills.
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