The Girl Factory #3

The Girl Factory #3: “The Man-Made Woman” by Robert Franklin Murphy. Wu Cho knows the secret of cloning, and Li’ Kahn wants the knowledge, for she is a clone herself, and the half-sister of Su Lin Kelly, and also trained at Shan Tal. In order to obtain the information, Wu Cho hires Li’ Kahn to capture Dham D’hab, the Holy Lama of a Tibetan village. But Su-Lin Kelly is determined to stop her, knowing that one of them must die. This was the final story in the series, and again had a neat plot, and good action. However, all the crazy sex came at distracting moments, and wasn’t necessary to the story. I still think this would have been a better series, if written straight, instead of aimed at young boys just reaching their puberty. As it was, the series is a fun read.

King's Mate

The Girl Factory #2: “King’s Mate” by Robert Franklin Murphy. Su Lin Kelly is asked to find a missing Russian biologist who appears to have been kidnapped upon arrival to the US. She discovers that he wasn’t kidnapped, instead disappeared on his own. He’s been invited to a chess tournament on the island of Caligua, where world champion chess players are gathering to play the ruler, Prince Komoroff. In each preliminary game against each other contestants who win collect one hundred thousand dollars until the last two standing faces off, and the final winner of the contest will win one million dollars. But Su Lin finds out those defeated players are summarily murdered, but everyone told they had left the island. Su Lin, Joe Zen and Mala are on the island and must rescue the Russian. Okay, this is the same plot as Bruce Lee’s “Enter The Dragon, but with chess instead of a karate tournament. Still it was a fun plot, and plenty of action, only disappointing in all the erotica and unnecessary sex that distracted from the plot. A shame, the books would have been better if played straight, but I guess the publisher was aiming at boys just entering puberty.  Cut twenty pages out, and you would really have a good book. As it is, it’s a fun read.

The Girl Factory

The Girl Factory #1: “The Girl Factory” by Robert Franklin Murphy. Su-Lin is quickly tossed into a strange case when one of her friends, an independent agent, is murdered. Leaving her two pictures of what at first appear to be the same girl, but turns out to be a cloning process; one is real, the other a clone. And now someone wants Su-Lin Kelly dead.

            The story starts out very similar to a Modesty Blaise adventure, but quickly turns into a Baroness adventure instead. There is lots of descriptive sex that has nothing to do with the story, and weakens the plot. She is as rich as Modesty and The Baroness, of course, but is supposed to be Chinese – or at least Eurasian. She has a Hawaiian maid, and two men, Zero and Joe Zen, also of Oriental background, I believe. Su-Lin was trained in the martial arts and the Kama Sutra in a Tibetan monastery, and equally expert in both. Yet, no one seems the least bit Asian. Marrying a rich spy, when he’s murdered she is left with money and his network of agents, and decides to follow in his footsteps. This was a fun read, and a good plot if you take out all the unnecessary sex and erotic scenes that distracts from the story.