The Quebec Connection

The Penetrator #15

by Lionel Derrick

The 23 May Liberation Front finances their terrorism by the sale of drugs in Canada and the U.S. Heroin, cocaine, hashish—the usual. Now they have their hands on a new synthetic called Ziff—a drug with an unusual side effect—it causes radical and permanent damage to the genetic makeup of the user, thus effecting generations yet unborn.

Join the Penetrator, the one man strike force, in a journey that take him from New York to Marseille. Those who play Russian roulette with the battle cry "Vive Québec Libre" are about to get a new croupier.

Genres: Action

180 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Lionel Derrick is the house name, or pseudonym, for Mark K. Roberts and Chet Cummingham while writing the Penetrator series for Pinnacle Books. Roberts wrote the odd books and Cummingham the even ones.

Reviews

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Penetrator is using the alias John Savage. He loves wearing Hush-puppies. He is the most wanted man in the US. His kill count has written thousands of pages of news articles. He punishes people his own way. He thinks of them as parasites. A beautiful lady blows up a bank. Flesh, glass, concrete thrown through the air. Money also flies around, people fighting over the bills. A terrorist group responsible. A mention of Pendleton's Executioner cheeky cheeky. The penetrator disguises himself as a priest. Hoodlums decide to rob him. Big mistake! Fingers bent back, kneecaps kicked in, elbows snapping like twigs, before pumping bullets into a mouth, gunk flying bone and blood. A new drug called Ziff is on the street mutating genes and turning fetuses into dwarfs. Penetrator gets captured by NSA and is let go to do their dirty work. Oh and he has a new designed bulletproof suit which saves his life. A bit of a mess overall.

[Joe Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Normally I am a fan of the Mark Roberts entries in this series, but The Quebec Connection is a pretty bland miss from the normally reliable author.

The plot is all over the map, literally, as Mark Hardin, the vigilante known as the Penetrator, starts his quest for vengeance in New York after a French-Canadian terrorist group bombs a bank and radio station on the Yank side of the border. He drifts over to dismantle the young revolutionaries and finds they are involved in the sale of a new drug called Ziff. So he figures to put a stop to that as well, which leads him to the makers of Ziff, in Paris, and, well, that's when things get weird.

Weird as in, the core scheme by the baddies is to alter the genes of any Ziff addicts to cause their babies to be little people. This is the plan because the makers of Ziff are, themselves, little people. Which doesn't seem like a terrible thing to me, but Roberts has decided that there can be nothing worse and even goes so far as to use the term "grotesque" when describing the otherwise ordinary businessmen involved in the plot. I mean, the dude is absolutely terrified of little people. I told you it gets weird.

The other oddity is the constant danger Mark is in from a shadowy Chinese crime lord. Ostensibly over events from a prior book, but they just keep turning up and trying to kill him and he refuses to die, even giving us an entire chapter devoted to the creation of a bullet-proof suit that I expected to come into play at the end, but no it is used before the chapter is out. Just because.

And that's a problem with the whole book. Everything just kind of happens and isn't very thrilling because Mark never has any challenges.

He bombs a bookstore, he rams a speedboat into a drug ship, he kills two squads of Chinese assassins with his magic Native American powers, he stumbles into drug plant after drug plant and uses household items to blow them up, all without ever being challenged. Not even the cops are a danger, because he is acting with the tacit approval of the US Government in this one, which kinda defeats the whole vigilante angle, you know?

The baddies never come up with a plan to even try and stop him, just figuring that they will. At one point they decide to ambush him because they know he's going for the drugs...and they don't even have any weapons! How do you plan an ambush without weapons?

The only highlight for me was the showdown at the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day, where the height-challenged villains attack The Penetrator while dressed as Musketeers because they thought they would somehow blend in? It's demented. But a fun scene. Wish the book had more of them.

This is a definite whiff for me. One of Roberts weaker titles in the series and just a weird, weird bit of filler.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Penetrator is in Quebec to stop The 23 May Liberation Front, a group of separatists that want to breakaway from Canadian rule. They use drugs. Heroin and Ziff, a new drug that is suppose to be a safe high, but is in fact a conspiracy to genetically alter a generation. One of the better books in this series I would say. The Three Musketeer dwarfs at the Eiffel Tower was a nice touch.

[Patrick Kirby · Rating 1 out of 5]

A pssable thriller. Not particularly interesting.

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old school
great stuff

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another men's adventure series from the 70's. Pretty much standard action, violence and sex. However a good standout is that the hero is healed and trained by an old Cheyenne Indian in the ancient mystic warrior ways of the Cheyenne. Recommended