The Camp by Jonathan Trask but Actually Peter McCurtin and Len Levinson

One of my first reviews on here was "The Sundance Murders" by stalwart writer of ass-kickers Peter McCurtin. The book introduced Berger a hard-boiled reporter like they don't make anymore. A drunken cut-down Walther P-38 muckraker who travels to the desert and kicks up shit and ass. It was a novel after my own heart. I noted that it very much seemed like a first in a series or an installment in a series but sadly Peter McCurtin was a busy writer and editor at the time churning out his own work, ghost-written work, and editing great series like John (Ben Haas) Benteen's Fargo and everything in-between. So, I guess poor Berger got lost in the shuffle.

Jonathan Trask was Peter McCurtin, but he was mostly Len Levinson for this book. Len Levinson is a fantastic author with paperback-cred longer then your arm, working on series like "The Sharpshooter," "Ryker," "Joe Blaze" and creating  super-spy "Butler" and kick-ass W.W.II tales of "The Sargent" and "The Rat Bastards." Not to mention westerns and stand-alones of all genres. He like McCurtin is an author you can trust to give you a good time. They both seem to understand what their audience wants, their books are lean and fit with no filler and colorful characters. They do have completely different styles and voice, its fairly easy to point out either of their work even if their name isn't on the cover.

So, here's the rub. I think "The Camp" started out as a Berger novel. McCurtin wrote the first chapter, it's really clear that it's his work, it's got a lot of his ticks, old movies on TV, being more morose, heavy drinking etc. etc. The hero is now named Phil Gordon but it it starts roughly the same way with out narrator talking to us about himself. Gordon/Berger explains that he's a roving reporter who packs a Walther and ain't afraid to use it, that they work for a tabloid paper etc. etc. It's nearly word-for-word for a paragraph. I got totally deja-vu. Was this my long lost 2nd Berger novel? Well, yeah I sorta of think it is. It's a Frankenstein book with the two authors narrative styles being quickly bolted together, because after the McCurtin chapter Levinson's behind the wheel and it's his free-wheeling action/adventure with wiseacre humor peppered in. Gordon stops being McCurtin's character and becomes the slightly unhinged, slightly necrotic Levinson character. He's a happening guy with a sweet Porsche, he's good at his job, ex-army and always on the look out for trouble and women. The kind of guy you want to read about.

The Camp's long lost brother?

The plot is real nice I can see why it was saved from either being unfinished or forgotten by McCurtin and handed to Levinson who was producing some of the best work in the Belmont-Tower line. Basically Gordon goes to hang out with his old Native-American buddy in the Maine woods and finds out that there's a mysterious army installation who may or may not be responsible for the disappearance of his nephews. They look into and find the remains of tortured hippies in the camp and then nearly get killed. Gordon's now all in, he goes back home, makes some friends in high places and boinks with a attractive women within a few hours of meeting her and sets up his mission to get the story and hopefully find his friends nephews. It's got some heavy 70's political thriller vibes in the middle, a little "Parallax View," and "All The President's Men" mixed with man-on-a-mission pulp. Gordon gets help from a friendly general and sneaks into the ultra-right-wing-death-to-all-that-disagrees-with-us-murder-camp and gets a guided tour by a randomly gay army officer. Here's the only minor problem I had with the book: Gordon's in the camp for a day, sees what he's going to see  (torture chambers, murdering hippies for sport, etc. etc.) and then raises hell with grenades, rifles and the prisoners of the camp and gets the hell out. Some more time inside the camp with some build up might have been nice but then the result is the same. The ending is total awesome 70's (probably still now) paranoia with a real nice button on the end.

All in all its a fine little paperback thriller, full-tilt and lean with enough character and surprises to spend a pleasant few hours with. McCurtin and Levinson are some top-shelf guys at writing this stuff, buy anything with their names or pseudonyms on it.  There's a lot of hack-work in this genre/type of book (mostly on the best-seller list) and I long for the days of sub-200 page roller-coaster rides. Looking around after reading the book I was mildly surprised to see the price on the second hand market. It must have had a short-print run and Belemont books always seem to be pricey anyway. I got mine in a lot of books on ebay chock full of expensive McCurtin creations. It was a good chunk of change until you worked out how much the books cost individually. I guess the moral of the story is to buy books like things at Costco: IN BULK.