Detective Joe Ryker is still an asshole in THE TERRORISTS, #3 in Leisure Books' series by Nelson DeMille, though I presume paperback readers wouldn't have him any other way. Partnerless this time, Ryker is assigned to a major case: terrorists calling themselves the American Freedom Army are kidnapping wealthy people, blowing up buildings and machine-gunning hundreds of disco dancers as their way of sticking it to The Man. DeMille, who appears to despise anyone under thirty, doesn't even let the cops ultimately take care of business, as Ryker drops a dime on the AFA to the Mafia, who clean up the garbage in gut-busting splendor. Once again, Leisure's proofreaders miss references to "Blaze," rather than "Ryker," making it a certainty that DeMille's Ryker novels were originally intended for the Super Cop Joe Blaze series. I'm not a big fan of Ryker, though the violence and sleaze are plentiful. I realize most of these men's adventure paperbacks were written quickly, but I wouldn't be surprised if DeMille cranked this one out in a couple of days, and he way overdoes the use of capital letters to denote shouting or radio conversations.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Killer's Justice
Detective Joe Ryker is still an asshole in THE TERRORISTS, #3 in Leisure Books' series by Nelson DeMille, though I presume paperback readers wouldn't have him any other way. Partnerless this time, Ryker is assigned to a major case: terrorists calling themselves the American Freedom Army are kidnapping wealthy people, blowing up buildings and machine-gunning hundreds of disco dancers as their way of sticking it to The Man. DeMille, who appears to despise anyone under thirty, doesn't even let the cops ultimately take care of business, as Ryker drops a dime on the AFA to the Mafia, who clean up the garbage in gut-busting splendor. Once again, Leisure's proofreaders miss references to "Blaze," rather than "Ryker," making it a certainty that DeMille's Ryker novels were originally intended for the Super Cop Joe Blaze series. I'm not a big fan of Ryker, though the violence and sleaze are plentiful. I realize most of these men's adventure paperbacks were written quickly, but I wouldn't be surprised if DeMille cranked this one out in a couple of days, and he way overdoes the use of capital letters to denote shouting or radio conversations.
Ummm... This can't possibly be the same Nelson DeMille of "The Charm School," "The Gold Coast," etc., etc., can it?
ReplyDeleteOh, wait, I just read the earlier post. Never mind.
ReplyDeleteThis one was by Leonard Levinson. As for the name change halfway through the book...in his nongenre book "The Last Buffoon," publihsed under the psuedonym "Leonard Jordan," Levinson shows how stuff like this happens. His character, Alexander Frapkin, is halfway through a "tough cop" manuscript when his editor calls him to tell him to change the main character's name.
ReplyDelete"The Last Buffoon" is pretty great and highly recommended reading for anyone into lurid '70s action novels, as it shows the type of people who wrore them. I just read it for the second time, and will have a review up on my blog in a week or so.