Gilbert M. Stack's Blog, page 7

Mystery of the Phantom Heist by Franklin W. Dixon

Hardy Boys Adventures 2 Mystery of the Phantom Heist by Franklin W. Dixon

Some of the old gang from the original series is back in this second book in the Hardy Boys Adventures. Chet returns as the overweight best friend. Also, Tony and Chet’s sister, Iola, make appearances, although Iola is no longer Joe’s girlfriend. I think that the girlfriends were “dropped” in this series so that Frank and Joe can angst over girls who appear in the story—something that couldn’t happen if they were “going steady”.

 

The author tries very hard to make the plot for this adventure something that could realistically involve a couple of high school boy detectives. Someone is playing pranks around Bayport like dropping eggs into the book return at the library and the pranks are becoming an increasing nuisance for the city. The culprits hide their faces with bandanas and call themselves the Scare Devils. And it turns out that the Scare Devils don’t like Frank and Joe trying to figure out who they are. (In fact, it was super easy to figure out who they are. They post their videos online and their leader is not very secretive, but the police are contradictorily interested in ending the pranks and not interested in considering that the son of one of the most influential men in town could be behind them.)

 

While all of this is happening, a sweet sixteen party is about to be thrown for the richest girl in town and Frank, Joe, and Chet are not invited. This gives the author the chance to play the rich kid versus everyone else card. The rich kids go to Bayport Academy and are snobs. Everyone else goes to Bayport High. It starts out looking a little two dimensional, but that picture improves as the book develops.

 

The climax of the tale is nicely put together as Frank and Joe figure out the connection between the party and the Scare Devils and hurry to avert catastrophe one step ahead of the police.

 

Honor Bound 3 Secret Honor by W.E.B. Griffin

Honor Bound 3 Secret Honor by W.E.B. Griffin

The third volume in Griffin’s excellent series about spies operating in Argentina during World War II focuses more fully on the Nazi efforts in this regard. At the end of the last book, two high ranking Nazi officials were assassinated in Argentina. The main storyline of this novel is the Nazi effort to find out how the Argentines (or possibly, the Americans) discovered that the German officers would be where they were (they were on a secret mission) when they were killed. Quite naturally, among those who are under suspicion is Peter, the German fighter pilot (but secret anti-Nazi) who has become an important source of information (and friend) of the series’ primary hero, Clete. When Peter is called back to Germany to be questioned, there is serious reason to fear that he will be executed, either because they find evidence against him or need a scapegoat.

 

The second major storyline is Clete’s wedding which has to happen with unseemly speed because his fiancé is pregnant. Her father is furious with Clete (whom he didn’t like from the beginning and now hates because he took his daughter’s virginity) and doesn’t seem particularly mollified by the fact that Clete has inherited one of the largest fortunes in Argentina. For his part, Clete despises his father-in-law for keeping mistresses.

 

But the most interesting storyline involves Juan Peron, who is Clete’s godfather. The reader knows that Peron will eventually lead all of Argentina. He is a German sympathizer and he is attracted to very young girls. Clete despises him but absolutely everyone is encouraging him to become friends with him. His superior in the OSS actually gives Clete an order to befriend the man. Clete already knew the spy work was serious business, but he is beginning to learn that it involves every part of his life.

 

Clete makes what, in my opinion, is a very serious mistake in this novel when he tells his new bride all about his espionage work. Not only is he not keeping secrets, in doing so he is increasing the danger to his men, his missions, and to his bride. This is in stark contrast to his efforts to stop an agent sent by his OSS superiors to learn the identity of Clete’s most valuable contact. (In doing so, they prove that Clete is right to keep the man’s identity secret as they obviously are willing to expose his existence in their efforts to find out who he is.)

 

This is another strong novel with a surprise ending.

 

Trace by Warren Murphy

Trace by Warren Murphy

The first book in the Trace series is really the fifth book in the Digger series. When Murphy changed publishers, they made him change all the names in the books, so Digger becomes Trace, Koko becomes Chico, etc. The atmosphere of the novels remains the same, so if you enjoyed Digger, you will definitely enjoy Trace.

 

The plot of this novel is a little bit difficult. Trace’s insurance company is about to pay out on a policy in which the deceased recently changed the beneficiary from his family to his doctor. The family is talking to lawyers and the insurance company wants to make certain everything is on the up and up—and while Trace is out there his boss wants him to check on a friend in the same hospital and make certain he isn’t about to die as well.

 

That’s where things get interesting because things are not good with the friend—but what exactly is wrong is not easy to tell. Throw in a séance or two, a couple of lawyers, an irate business partner, and a patient who seems to be in fear and you have a good mystery.

 

While all of this is unfolding, Chico is secretly exploring a job opportunity which would move her to the other side of the country from Trace. Chico and Trace’s strange and dysfunctional friendship/relationship is one of the most interesting parts of the novel. They don’t appear to want to get married. They aren’t particularly faithful to each other. And yet, both are also very jealous of each other.

 

All of this winds together into a very interesting mystery.

 

Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger by KC Grifant

Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger by KC Grifant

Melinda West operates with her lover, Lance, in a wild west that is overrun by various sorts of monsters and sorcery. The east is no better, and the south is dominated by evil railroad corporations who appear to pretty much enslave everyone. The plot of the book involves the soul of a friend of Melinda and Lance being stolen and their efforts to get it back. The action is pretty good and the story moves along at a decent pace. My primary complaint is that Melinda, a woman of action if there ever was one, chooses to talk again and again when encountering the woman who is taking her friend’s soul (and Lance’s soul later in the story) to an evil sorcerer with the result being that the villain continually gets away. If this had happened only once, it would have been unfortunate. But that it happened repeatedly seriously irritated me. I did not understand why Melinda did not simply put a bullet in Eloise and move on. Even if she didn’t want to kill her—and Eloise is as much a monster as any creature in the book—she could have wounded her or crippled her and put an end to her ability to escape. The only reason I can come up with for her not doing this is it would have made the story much shorter. Of course, the opposite should have been true. Having stopped Eloise, the big bad sorcerer would have had to come in person to claim the souls he needed for his nefarious scheme. It wouldn’t even have been a very different story, but it certainly would have been more believable.

 

So, to sum up. There’s a lot of good action here, but I didn’t feel as if the characters acted in character, and that damaged the overall effectiveness of the tale.

 

The Black Company 1.5 Port of Shadows by Glen Cook

The Black Company 1.5 Port of Shadows by Glen Cook

It is with great sadness that I admit that I really didn’t like this book. I love the series, especially the original three books and The Silver Spike. This novel should have been a great addition, coming at a time in the storyline that saw the Black Company at the top of their game, but the sad truth is that it never really held my attention. The tale is broken up into three narratives two of which revolve tightly around the Lady and her sisters growing up in the world of the Dominator. Unsurprisingly the Dominator’s world is a bleak one filled with violence, rape, and other nastiness that is casually sprinkled throughout the stories as the reader tries to glean some context for the evolution of the Lady and Soulcatcher into two fearsomely powerful despots. The stories are confusing and probably don’t hold together under strict scrutiny. (I’m not positive they don’t because I didn’t enjoy the book enough to give it that strict scrutiny.)

 

The final storyline follows the Black Company in the modern day and it is disjointed and confusing and frankly not a lot of fun. I’m rereading the series now, and I remember that I wasn’t thrilled with all of the original books, but I don’t remember being this disappointed in any of the others.

 

 

The Destroyer 67 Look into My Eyes by Warren Murphy

The Destroyer 67 Look into My Eyes by Warren Murphy

Murphy has been building for several books toward Remo’s “transition” into a full master of Sinanju. Chiun has been complaining for several books that Remo is physically ready but needs rest to allow the transition to take place. And, of course, there is never any time for rest because each novel involves a nation-threatening crisis. This time, however, things break down, and Remo and Chiun essentially quit just as a Russian super-hypnotist escapes from Russia and becomes a major problem for the U.S. and CURE.

 

This could have been a very mediocre book despite Chiun and Smith being “caught” by the hypnotist who forces them to switch sides. What makes it special is the core of the transition in which, over several chapters, Remo has a fantastic conversation with the Great Wang—the man who discovered the sun source and created Sinanju several thousand years ago. (Before Wang, Sinanju was just a house that produced a lot of competent assassins—they weren’t the supermen that created the martial arts that they become.) Wang is a phenomenal character who appears (despite being dead) to be more sane and balanced than either Chiun or Remo. He sees through their peculiarities and understands that they are very similar despite appearing to be polar opposites. His attempt to talk some sense into Remo is just wonderful, but I suspect it only works if you have read a lot of the preceding sixty-six novels.

 

This book also introduces Russian agent Anna Chutesov who is a recurring character. She and Remo have a somewhat romantic interest in each other, but that isn’t what makes her so good. She sees through problems exceedingly well and she’s a breath of fresh air for the series. Seeing Smith talked into not trying to force Chiun and Remo to eliminate her to preserve the secret of CURE was just great.

 

Lost Planet Homicide 2 Ghosts of Zenith by Larry Correia

Lost Planet Homicide 2 Ghosts of Zenith by Larry Correia

In the last book, Cade learned two facts dangerous enough to get him killed. The first is that his colony did not end up tens of thousands of lightyears from the paradise it started out toward by accident. The second is that earth people with extensive body modifications continue to live on the colony manipulating events toward an unknown end. Those people do not hesitate to murder and commit other crimes to advance their end. In this novella, Cade runs up against the conspiracy from earth again.

 

His problems begin with a terrorist act that makes no sense. It’s an exciting police problem, the solution of which raises many more questions than it answers. Cade can’t believe that the terrorism was actually terrorism, but someone does not want him to find what really motivated the attack. This story does not advance the mystery of why this colony was planted in a place the colonists never agreed to go, but it does show once again how far the bad guys are willing to go to keep anyone from learning their plans.

 

Vorpal Blade by John Ringo

Vorpal Blade by John Ringo

Vorpal Blade is a little slower moving than Into the Looking Glass. It roughly divides into three sections. In the first, there is a lot of activity surrounding the launching of America’s first starship. This includes a lot of things that reminded me of W.E.B. Griffin’s nuts and bolts style of telling a military tale (not to the level of requisition forms, but how do you build a combat unit type of stuff). We see the crew and the combat troops on this first starship figuring out how life on a starship very far from any support by the U.S. is going to play out. This stuff was great the first three times I read this book, but it felt a little slow this last time.

 

The second section is what I think of as the Star Trek portion if landing parties had included powered armor and the Star Trek television audience could handle the redshirts being gruesomely eaten (and other things) by the alien fauna. It’s exciting and just plain old fun. The science is still there but it takes a backseat to the action portions of the story.

 

The final section involves a genuine first contact situation with a new alien civilization. By unforeseeable accident, the arrival of the Vorpal Blade and its crew triggers an apocalyptic crisis for the denizens of this world. I thought Ringo handled the first contact exceedingly well and he always kicks butt when it comes to combat situations. Even is you didn’t enjoy the first two sections (and they are quite enjoyable) this last portion makes the whole book worthwhile as the crew of the Vorpal Blade figures out how to fight a war in space. It also offers very strong possibilities for future novels.

 

The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon

The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon

This is the first novel I ever read. I was six years old and we got the book as part of a deal on the back of a cereal box. When I finished it, my father (probably unintentionally) confirmed me as a reader forever by asking me to tell me the entire plot at the breakfast table. I ended up reading all of the blue hardbacks over the next four years and I’m fond of the Hardy Boys series to this day.

 

The Tower Treasure is the first book in the series. I read it a few times during my childhood. It’s not my favorite Hardy Boys book, but it establishes the characters and the tone of the series. Set in the 1960s, Frank and Joe are brothers, eighteen and seventeen respectively, and are what we might call good American boys—popular with their classmates and wholesome and decent. Their father is a famous detective, and they are desperate to follow in his footsteps.

 

The novel opens with the boys getting their chance to solve their first mystery on their own. Their friend Chet’s much-loved car has been stolen and the boys are anxious to help him find it again. They search for clues and organize a search for the car, but even as they taste their first victory, a bigger mystery falls into their lap. One of the wealthiest families in town has been robbed and the father of one of Frank and Joe’s friends is arrested for the crime. The brothers dedicate themselves to finding the missing money and proving their friend’s father is innocent.

 

There isn’t a lot of depth to the majority of the characters. One of the most fun is Oscar Snuff, a not-particularly-talented detective desperate to prove himself and win a spot on the Bayport police force. Snuff is everything the Hardy Boys are not—a crude blunderer with the appearance of questionable ethics. He’s not exactly a villain but he is a purposeful counterpoint to the heroes.

 

It's interesting to read the book again after many decades. I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the book and how many small details I remembered. I think it was a pretty good choice for my first novel.

 

Digger 4 Lucifer's Weekend by Warren Murphy

Digger 4 Lucifer’s Weekend by Warren Murphy

Digger is back with another crazy case. A woman is refusing to accept half of a million dollar insurance payout because she cannot believe her husband was so stupid or careless that he accidentally electrocuted himself. Digger’s insurance company is concerned that if she doesn’t accept the full amount they might be liable to a lawsuit down the road when the woman realized how foolish she was being. So, Digger goes to a small Pennsylvania town to convince her and ends up looking into the incident and suspecting that the man had actually been murdered.

 

This has a great cast of characters—especially a wonderfully depicted eight-year-old girl with a genius-plus level IQ. It’s a delight to watch Digger slowly get himself motivated to find out what was really going on, and his lazy personality leads him not to take a precaution that would have protected him from the events at the end of the book. Usually, when something like that happens, I get irritated at the author for lazy writing, but not this time. Digger’s lapse was totally in character.

 

Perhaps the best thing about the crime was how easy it actually was to prove that the official story could not have happened. It sums up the situation in the town perfectly. This one is another gem in the series.