Come Die With Me

Mark Hood #1: “Come Die With Me” by James Dark (James MacDonnell). Herr Gauss, a wanna be Hitler, steals three boats with tritium torpedoes, clean nuclear bombs; has the power but no radiation. Intertrust agent, Mark Hood is sent to Nassau to stop the mad man from destroying the world. This is the first in the Mark Hood series, and so far one of the best I’ve read. Gauss has plans of blackmailing the world while bringing the Nazis back to power. Hood is up against a variety of tough opponents, and a couple very sexy women. There’s quite a bit of karate in this one.

The Bamboo Bomb

Mark Hood #2: “The Bamboo Bomb” by James Dark (James E. MacDonnell). Rumors of an atomic bomb force Intertrust to send Mark Hood to the Malay Archipelago in the Java Seas, where the bomb might be detonated. He sets himself up in Singapore as a no good bum who might be willing to kill for money. He’s approached by someone who does want a person assassinated, then he’s taken to Krakatoa by the powers behind the bomb to witness the detonation and asked to let the world know, but Mark has orders to destroy the bomb if it exist; if it doesn’t he is supposed to prove to the world they don’t have the bomb. Either way, he could end up dead. It’s a good story, but too many minor characters get him where he’s going, and then are forgotten. Plus, a master of karate, he’s up against a man considered a professor in the martial art. We expect a big fight between Mark and the deadly foe, but the finish is a let down. Still, it’s a fun read.

Curt Stone #3

Curt Stone #3: “The Frogman Assassination” by Jack Seward. A Japanese ex CIC agent has gone over to the Chinese, and attempts to assassinate the Japanese Emperor; instead he kills the Japanese Prime Minister. Colonel Gilbert of CIC wants Stone to find the killer, nicknamed Pork, and kill him. It isn’t an easy task, as Pork was a shrewd agent, and knew how to avoid capture. However, he had a couple Achilles heels, one being good whiskey, the other blonde white girls. Stone puts his network of contacts on the lookout in the bar districts, using a couple blondes as bait. This was another good story, a little better than the first two, but Curt Stone is not as tough as our other Tokyo private eye, Burns Bannion. Maybe he should have hired Bannion to do the job. A fun read, regardless.

The Cave of The Chinese Skeletons

Curt Stone #1: “The Cave of The Chinese Skeletons” by Jack Seward. The Army CIC has information that somewhere in the mountains of Japan is a cave containing gold, silver, paintings, and other treasure secreted by the Japanese at the end of the war. Army Counter Intelligence Corpse is aware that the Chinese intelligence is also looking for it. The Japanese officer who hid the treasure was tortured and killed by the Chinese, but CIC doesn’t believe they forced the location from the officer before he died. They put one of their agents on the case, and hire Curt Stone to investigate for them, offering a piece of the bounty when he brings it in. It’s a pretty good story, but again not as much action and fun as the Burns Bannion series. It’s still a fun read, but Stone should have been tougher.

Curt Stone #2 The Eurasian Virgins

Stone #2: “The Eurasian Virgins” by Jack Seward. An American heiress, who wants him to find her brother’s out-of-wedlock daughter, contacts Curt Stone. Gail Owen wasn’t aware of the child until her parents died. The girl, Rose Hasegawa, is now 16, and has been taken by a Japanese gang working the flesh market for young virgins. Stone puts his Far East Investigations to work on the case, and he personally looks for the girl. A good story, but the author tries to teach the reader the Japanese language and culture, often including the English interpretation after the Japanese dialogue, slowing the pace of the story drastically. This would be okay if the reader was learning Japanese, but isn’t a good idea for a fiction novel. Unfortunately, there is very little action in this novel. Published during the same period as Earl Norman’s Burns Bannion, it lacked the fun and karate action that Bannion brought the reader. Still, it is a good plot.

Jungle She

Jungle She by Dan Cushman. Frisco Dougherty is back. This time the beautiful half-cast wife of a huge and powerful Dutchman named Van Hoog, who has escaped from his plantation, wants Dougherty to enter his Borneo estate and discover the secret of his fortune.  But things go awry, as usual, and Dougherty becomes a prisoner of Van Hoog, and is betrayed by his Chinese connection, the Wash’eng. Cushman uses the same formula in all his jungle adventures, just changing a few names, and altering the plot. But his dialogue is some of the best I’ve ever read, and his characters come to life. Although the immensely strong Hoog (this character appears in every novel, just a different name) beats Dougherty several times in the story, the final fight scene on a rope bridge high above a jungle river is straight out of the Saturday Matinee serials. And in each novel, at some point, some one will be reading a pulp, or a comic book, or a paperback mystery novel. These jungle adventures by Cushman are a lot of fun.