QUICK SHOTS: The Penetrator #1: The Target is H by Lionel (Mark Roberts) Derrick

It's hard to believe it's taken me this long to get around to reviewing a Penetrator novel here. Before the blog, I read a two-fistfuls in pretty quick succession and it as a series is high on my list of favorite Men's Adventure series. Then promptly didn't read one for years. Too much Hardin in my life. Wait.

It's a funky bunch of books that sometimes feel like a Roger Moore Bond film, sometimes an episode of Baretta or Banacek or Lookwell. Wait. and other times it's a bloody orgy of death and destruction. It's got a lot of the buzzword-trappings of the 70s. The interest in Native American history, "computers," obviously the mafia, and Mark Hardin aka The Penetrator's hideout really feels like it's the playset to a very violent series of G.I. Joe-knockoffs. (Go to YouTube and watch the Lookwell pilot starring Adam West. You'll thank me)

But I hadn't read the first Penetrator, in fact I rarely read the first installment of series like these. I guess I'm afraid of dull set-ups. But as of this review, I'm VERY close to finishing the first novel in a series that's very much a throwback to the heroes of 70s. It's the first, full-length novel that I'll publish. My first book, Gunpowder Breath, didn't really get to the full word count; it'd be a novella or a novelette if it had ever got the chance to be published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. This one, *TITLE REDACTED* is the length of a Gold Medal paperback or a Gold Eagle adventure, so it's good and I might even try to find a real publisher for it (let me know if you got any suggestions, ha!) so I have bragging rights. 

All that to say, writing the first in a series got me to think about all the first installments I had avoided. So, as I finish the first draft and go into the second I thought I might see how others did their first installments. So, I dug out the Butcher #1, Death Merchant #1, Executioner #1, etc. etc. some of which I have read, but it was ages ago to take a look at again. So, keep an eye out of this unofficial series of #1s here on the site. 

All that to get to Penetrator #1: The Target is H. This one it's an odd-numbered book in the series so it's written by Mark K. Roberts (Chet Cunningham handled the evens) who wrote a lot in the Men's Adventure field, writing the Liberty Corps and Solider for Hire books as well as westerns and, you know, anything that made him a buck. Respect. He's a pretty solid action writer, with a real meat 'n' potatoes style. I think I generally prefer Chet Cunningham though. I've read a bunch of the adventures of Mark Hardin, but I don't really remember if I'd ever really read one of his. I must have but there's been a lot of books ran through my brain over the years.

Obviously, this is a set-up novel for a long-running series. Mark Hardin is a 'Nam vet who comes home battered from his work overseas. Hardin doesn't know what he's doing...for like three pages and then he's on his quest to kill the mafia for killing the love of his life. It's an incredibly swift set-up, so swift that I had to re-read to double check if some pages weren't missing. It gets through with his backstory (most of which is provided for in with faux-record and stats at the beginning of the book) in ten pages before they introduce his secondary characters and his secret lair. Then bingo-bango he's off a-murdering bad guys. 

Mark Hardin is super similar to the rest of our buddies, Mack Bolan, Bucher the Butcher, Johnny Rock, Philip Magellan, etc. etc. He's got a little more fantasy/pulp hero vibes going on with his sidekicks the mad scientist and Native American buddy and gadgets. It'd be easy to make an illusion to The Spider or Doc Savage, but maybe he's just a little more like John Eagle, Expeditor. Either way he's a cool dude. I think I dig this series because of this exact flavor. Hardin doesn't mull of his mission to take down the mafia; he hangs up in a desert lair with his buddies and then goes out and fucks shit up. Seems like a fine life. 

The Target is H has Hardin taking down a heroin ring on his quest to rid the world of mafia scum. These books are a little wilder/gorier than the usual Executioner but never hit Destroyer levels of funny. There's plenty of shoot-outs, mafia goons, fightin' and particular gruesome bit with sticky firebombs that's pretty gnarly. Here everything is a little loose and Roberts/Cunningham hadn't fully locked in the character or the world which is some of the charm of reading early series books. They are wild and the beginning, get "standard" in the middle and usually devolve into some wild again toward the end. 

These used to haunt nearly every used books store I went too; I got a couple volumes in "blind bag" mystery piles of books when I was a teenager. I remember snickering at the obvious Mark Hardin-Penetrator-Joke. I still laugh a little. Nowadays they are a little scarcer and a bit pricier (which seems to be EVERY Men's Adventure book now) I got most of mine in a couple big lots off eBay, giving me a lot of cheap entertainment. Which is exactly what this series is. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!