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.