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Sam Durell #37
Assignment Amazon Queen
Deep in the rain forest of Brazil they had a formula for poisoning the entire world and they were using that fear to blackmail the world's richest nations. So far the crime was kept from the public but it wouldn't keep for long if Durell can't lead a small band up the Amazon to find and destroy the plotters.
- GenresEspionage
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
37 people want to read
About the author
Edward S. Aarons
264 books17 followersAKA Paul Ayres, Edward Ronns.
Edward Sidney Aarons (September 11, 1916 - June 16, 1975) was an American writer, author of more than 80 novels from 1936 until 1962. One of these was under the pseudonym "Paul Ayres" (Dead Heat), and 30 were written using the name "Edward Ronns". He also wrote numerous articles for detective magazines such as Detective Story Magazine and Scarab.
Aarons was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and earned a degree in Literature and History from Columbia University. He worked at various jobs to put himself through college, including jobs as a newspaper reporter and fisherman. In 1933, he won a short story contest as a student. In World War II he was in the United States Coast Guard, joining after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He finished his duty in 1945, having obtained the rank of Chief Petty Officer.
Edward Sidney Aarons (September 11, 1916 - June 16, 1975) was an American writer, author of more than 80 novels from 1936 until 1962. One of these was under the pseudonym "Paul Ayres" (Dead Heat), and 30 were written using the name "Edward Ronns". He also wrote numerous articles for detective magazines such as Detective Story Magazine and Scarab.
Aarons was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and earned a degree in Literature and History from Columbia University. He worked at various jobs to put himself through college, including jobs as a newspaper reporter and fisherman. In 1933, he won a short story contest as a student. In World War II he was in the United States Coast Guard, joining after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He finished his duty in 1945, having obtained the rank of Chief Petty Officer.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 25, 2022
In my review of Edward Aarons' Assignment Ceylon, I mentioned Arthur O. Friel, the writer of South American adventure novels and stories during the 1920s. I mentioned how much Aarons' Ceylon reminded me of Friel's Amazonia and South America. Then, next thing I know, I pick up the next book in the Assignment Series that follows the career of CIA agent Sam Durell. Its title? Assignment Amazon Queen, a story about a trek up the Amazon to a remote and abandoned rubber plantation from the 1920s. There, a Portuguese mercenary has co-opted a scientist who has made his escape from the USSR, leaving his family behind. The scientist develops an infertility formula that threatens to leave barren every living thing on Earth. Durell musters a group of agents and they go off in search of the scientist, the mercenary, and the chance to bid for control of the formula.
A couple of things. First, although you can still read any novel in the Assignment Series without having read prior ones, it is beginning to be the case that the stories from earlier novels very much intertwine with the latest ones. This is especially true for Amazon Queen. Prince Tim and his half sister, Sally, from Golden Girl return to complicate Durell's quest to acquire the formula. Also back for the third novel in a row is Willie Wells, the African-American mercenary who Durell brought into the CIA. And the aged captain of an ancient paddle wheeler that traverses the river ends up being connected to Durell's family history two generations ago.
Second, there is the very interesting influence, I believe, of Arthur O. Friel who I mentioned in the first paragraph. Amazon Queen takes place half a century at least after the great rubber plantation boom in 1920s Brazil. All through the story are the ruins and reminders of that earlier time. But now the atmosphere is filled with mists, half dilapidated plantations only partially brought back to life, cemeteries overgrown with vines and moss that yield up mysterious clues to Durell's own origins. It is as if we are reading about the ghostly remains Friel's one time world of hidden civilizations, Indian empires and plots to regain the Amazon for themselves. Friel, too, started out his Pedro and Lourenco stories on the rubber plantation of their employer, an American colonel. They and later heroes, such as Friel's McKay, Ryan, and Knowlton take canoe journeys into hidden off shoots of the Amazon and on into off shoots of the off shoots. Always danger. Often the promise of gold. But Friel's world is one of brightness and strong shadows, of silvery nights and lakes and rivers fully illuminated by the moon. Not the dreary, rainy land of humid vapors that seems to coil around Aarons' Durell. Yet they are one and the same place, same world. It's just that one has begun to slide into the ooze of time and disappear from its former grand origins. Read Friel and then read Amazon Queen.
A couple of things. First, although you can still read any novel in the Assignment Series without having read prior ones, it is beginning to be the case that the stories from earlier novels very much intertwine with the latest ones. This is especially true for Amazon Queen. Prince Tim and his half sister, Sally, from Golden Girl return to complicate Durell's quest to acquire the formula. Also back for the third novel in a row is Willie Wells, the African-American mercenary who Durell brought into the CIA. And the aged captain of an ancient paddle wheeler that traverses the river ends up being connected to Durell's family history two generations ago.
Second, there is the very interesting influence, I believe, of Arthur O. Friel who I mentioned in the first paragraph. Amazon Queen takes place half a century at least after the great rubber plantation boom in 1920s Brazil. All through the story are the ruins and reminders of that earlier time. But now the atmosphere is filled with mists, half dilapidated plantations only partially brought back to life, cemeteries overgrown with vines and moss that yield up mysterious clues to Durell's own origins. It is as if we are reading about the ghostly remains Friel's one time world of hidden civilizations, Indian empires and plots to regain the Amazon for themselves. Friel, too, started out his Pedro and Lourenco stories on the rubber plantation of their employer, an American colonel. They and later heroes, such as Friel's McKay, Ryan, and Knowlton take canoe journeys into hidden off shoots of the Amazon and on into off shoots of the off shoots. Always danger. Often the promise of gold. But Friel's world is one of brightness and strong shadows, of silvery nights and lakes and rivers fully illuminated by the moon. Not the dreary, rainy land of humid vapors that seems to coil around Aarons' Durell. Yet they are one and the same place, same world. It's just that one has begun to slide into the ooze of time and disappear from its former grand origins. Read Friel and then read Amazon Queen.
September 14, 2016
Having not read any of the other books in this series, I didn't expect much. It is part of a spy series that suddenly has my attention after picking up several titles at a bargain price.
The hero, Sam, is often called the Cajun. He is a spy and this one plays heavy on spycraft and not so much on the gadgets, etc. In this case, there is a formula that has been offered to multiple governments at an auction, with the highest bidder taking all. The formula has already been demonstrated as effective and has the potential to be a weapon of terror-- sterilizing every living thing including plants, animals, and people, within a particular area. Okay, a bit of a corny idea, but the focus is really on the trip to the auction and the auction. With competing agents trying to prevent our hero and his team from arriving at the auction, and some double dealing-- this becomes a really tense spy novel set on a South American River.
The good:
The author doesn't make his hero a superman, though he is clever and intelligent.
The author makes an effort to play up sensuality, but in a non-pornographic way. Of course, Sam gets the women. We knew that would be true all along... The women are described in sensual detail, but the author stops short of turning the novel into a porn-spy novel.
The plot is clever and the double-dealing interesting.
The hero manages to deal with the problem in his way-- sort of 007ing his way through--- regardless of how the government officials want to use him to obtain the formula and make it into a weapon of terror.
The Bad:
Along the way Sam runs into a boat captain who once worked with his grandfather. There's a mystery about his grandmother woven into the fabric of the story that make an interesting plot element, but is a bit too coincidental for me.
The author references a Colt Frontier .48 caliber pistol. For some reason, the hero finds one in a safe and automatically can tell it is from a matched set. How he could tell this just by looking at a gun in a safe is beyond me. Also, I've never heard of a Colt .48. If you have, perhaps you can enlighten me. Maybe a rare South American gun?
The author chose to start the tale in the middle of the mission, only revealing later in flashback form how Sam's team got to that point of the story.
Running into characters that I assume were from another book in the series--i.e. past enemies-- well, that was a slight drawback for me. They already hated each other, but the details are never fully fleshed out for the reader who missed that installment.
OVERALL:
Overall this was good pulp reading, published in 1974 at the height of the cold war... Good spy stuff..
The hero, Sam, is often called the Cajun. He is a spy and this one plays heavy on spycraft and not so much on the gadgets, etc. In this case, there is a formula that has been offered to multiple governments at an auction, with the highest bidder taking all. The formula has already been demonstrated as effective and has the potential to be a weapon of terror-- sterilizing every living thing including plants, animals, and people, within a particular area. Okay, a bit of a corny idea, but the focus is really on the trip to the auction and the auction. With competing agents trying to prevent our hero and his team from arriving at the auction, and some double dealing-- this becomes a really tense spy novel set on a South American River.
The good:
The author doesn't make his hero a superman, though he is clever and intelligent.
The author makes an effort to play up sensuality, but in a non-pornographic way. Of course, Sam gets the women. We knew that would be true all along... The women are described in sensual detail, but the author stops short of turning the novel into a porn-spy novel.
The plot is clever and the double-dealing interesting.
The hero manages to deal with the problem in his way-- sort of 007ing his way through--- regardless of how the government officials want to use him to obtain the formula and make it into a weapon of terror.
The Bad:
Along the way Sam runs into a boat captain who once worked with his grandfather. There's a mystery about his grandmother woven into the fabric of the story that make an interesting plot element, but is a bit too coincidental for me.
The author references a Colt Frontier .48 caliber pistol. For some reason, the hero finds one in a safe and automatically can tell it is from a matched set. How he could tell this just by looking at a gun in a safe is beyond me. Also, I've never heard of a Colt .48. If you have, perhaps you can enlighten me. Maybe a rare South American gun?
The author chose to start the tale in the middle of the mission, only revealing later in flashback form how Sam's team got to that point of the story.
Running into characters that I assume were from another book in the series--i.e. past enemies-- well, that was a slight drawback for me. They already hated each other, but the details are never fully fleshed out for the reader who missed that installment.
OVERALL:
Overall this was good pulp reading, published in 1974 at the height of the cold war... Good spy stuff..
March 20, 2021
Back to Sam Durell for me, and one of the very best. Sam's latest assignment is to bid on a deadly formula that can sterilize all life on Earth. But first, he has to undergo a lethal trip down the Amazon at the whim of the madman who owns the deadliest threat he's ever faced. A terrific novel with plenty of action and twists.
September 15, 2022
This book was written in 1974. Sam is our hero who gets assignments all over the world. This time he is chasing someone with a secret formula for poisoning the whole earth and is currently blackmailing the world’s mightiest countries. Sam has to find a formula before it’s leaked out and destroys all life on the earth. This is my first book in this series. I am open to reading others.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews