QUICK SHOTS: Nick Carter Killmaster #1: Run, Spy, Run by Nick (Michael Avallone) Carter

I'm back on my side-quest to read the number #1's in various long running series with the first Nick Carter Killmaster. I have never reviewed a Nick Carter on the blog. I have like a whole bookshelf full of them, a lot of them purchased cheap from a thrift store next to the local Airforce base. I guess Nick had fans there. But I rarely read a Nick Carter, in fact a lot of the time I sorta forget of the series as a whole when thinking of Men's adventure books, when the series was one of the longest running. Am I not a fan?

The books were a Lyle Kenyon Engel produced joint, and he seemingly tried to recreate the success of these with a dozen other series like Aquanauts, Hot Line, The Baroness, Chopper Cop, etc. etc. but Nick Carter was his biggest action series. The whole thing was a throwback to begin with, a "reboot" of Nick Carter, Detective from the pulps, movies and radio. Seems like we've always recycled ideas. Here, Nick is switched from a gumshoe to a secret agent to keep up with Mr. Bond. He works for an agency called AXE and packs a Luger and a dagger along with other gadgets. I think this is one of the reasons I rarely think about 'ol Nick. I love the ideas behind a lot of Engel's produced series. An underwater troubleshooter with his own submarine? An undercover 70s cop on a motorcycle? A spy who poses as a race car driver? All those sounds awesome, but since it's all for hire work through a middleman to the publisher, it all sort feels a little bland a lot of the time. Too many of the edges have been sanded off. 

Engel hired one of my favorite writers ever Michael Avallone to pen the first couple adventures of this new Nick Carter. Avallone had written a fair number of mysteries in his Ed Noon series by then and would go on to write a lot of swinging spy stories with The Man from UNCLE, The Girl from UNCLE, The Coxeman, The Butcher, and even Ed Noon soon took spy missions from the president. I've covered one of his own super spy characters (that I wish got a series) David Seven here and a bunch of his other work on the site before. I'm a fan.

And this is one of the few #1's I have read before, but it was so long ago that I remembered nothing of it. Run, Spy, Run is the well-designed #1 for a series. It introduces the new set-up and the side-characters. Nick's gear and the swinging spy vibe that the series would carry on. Avallone is tamped down here (more on that later) and playing it fairly "straight." He's a kooky writer, full of exuberance that flowed onto the page. Here we have a competent piece of genre fiction that does what it sets out to do: sell more books. 

Engel didn't seem to like Avallone's draft of the book and in Avallone's own words, said it was "heavily edited," by Valrie Moolman and that's clear. Occasionally a Avallone line will appear, and I do think all the stuff with Nick Carter's pistol, knife, and gadgets all having nicknames was probably Avallone's idea. That's a major throwback to the pulps. Something like The Avenger's "Mike and Ike" gun and knife. Avallone loved the pulps. 

Run, Spy, Run isn't a bad book, it's just not super remarkable. Even #13 or #19 of the Ed Noon books are remarkable, so I blame it on the editing. Avallone couldn't help writing like Avallone, take a look the review for his novelization of Friday the 13th: 3-D and see how he could make most anything come out like his. 

Here in #1, we set up Nick's Blofeld, Judas with his plot to blow up planes with politicians on it. The rest is the trappings of the Bond-era of spy fiction, with secret bases, sexy ladies, travel and action. Though the action isn't dwelled upon and seems a little lifeless. It's almost like it was rewritten too much...hmm...weird, right? The whole thing just makes me want to take an Ed Noon of the shelf and get a proper jolt of Avallone's style.

My copy of Run, Spy, Run is a bundle-up with Nick Cater #100 packaged with, well, #100: Dr. Death and The Preposterous Theft, a pulp Nick Carter tale. It's a dandy little package. This wasn't my favorite Nick Carter, that would be John Messman's Sea Trap or Manning Lee Stokes's Spy Castle. Theses used to haunt used bookstores, but I see less and less in the wild anymore which is a shame, but they can still be found pretty cheap online in big lots. 

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

Jon Messmann's "A Bullet for the Bride"

Jon Messmann was a journeyman pulp writer who could crank them out and fill the pages up. Seriously his pages are dense with words. He seemed to put effort into his work, which isn't always the case for writers that very often wrote under established house names and who's covers had numbers on them. Quite often there's a lot blank space on pages, but Messmann seemed determined to give you bang for your .95 cents. Apparently he got his star writing comics in the 40's before moving onto books. He created a couple good series in "The Revenger" and "Jefferson Boone, Handyman" and worked in the Nick Carter world and the short-live Hot-Line books. Then turned his gun-sights towards westerns and coming up with the super long running "Trailsman" series of adult westerns. That's a damned fine run of writing books.

Along the way he wrote "A Bullet for the Bride" for Pyramid books. First off it's got a terrible lack-luster cover for the kind of book it is, making the book look like a tame mystery when it's a rip-roaring sea-faring secret agent adventure. Also it's from he 70's, designed for men and has boats in it so it obviously has mention of Travis McGee on the cover which was a prerequisite it seems. It's also suffers from the 70's phenomena of explaining zero about the contents of the book on the cover instead just having a excerpt of a sex scene. I bought the book on a whim because I enjoyed Messman's other work and figured it was worth the 4 dollar eBay risk. The paperback god were smiling upon me. It's even more surprising that I read it nearly as soon as I got it. Books usually languish on my To Be Read Pile for weeks (or months or years or decades) but the stupid bride and groom on the cover called out to me, I guess. Pyramid had some great covers on Joseph (Terry Harknett) Hedges' Stark series and Michael Kurland's War Inc. books, if "A Bullet for a Bride" had some decent artwork it might have sold more. Not that I have any idea how it sold being a guy who was born well after the book was first published and having no idea if any records likes that is kept. It's just that the book is obviously Captain Ed Steele #1: A Bullet for the Bride but just without any more books to follow.

Hard-case Captain Ed Steele is a vet who skippered a boat with his CIA buddy Bryon on missions during the Korean War. After the war the CIA pays for his super cool boat The Squid; that's built like a brick shit-house but looks like an out-house on the outside and got him to pay it off by doing dirty jobs for the company. The boat is described in great detail. I know nothing about boats so I don't know if it's actually well described or just made up. I assume Messmann knew his stuff cause it all sounds like boat things. Not that I care about boats. Ed is a dick in the way that a lot of Men's Adventure fiction heroes, but not unbearable. Messmann has character habits his heroes are often a bit introspective and classically read. Jefferson Boone and Ben Martin aka The Revenger are pretty similar. Messmann knew the kind of guys he liked to write about.

Pretty rich girl, Cam hires Ed to find out if the woman her father is about to marry is really evil. Ed doesn't want the job but gets talked into by his old CIA buddy Bryon and he doesn't even buy Cam's story. BUT SURPRISE the soon-to-be-evil-step-mother is actually evil. So Ed's in hot water with killers, wins a big boat race, sleeps with Cam,gets mugged, drinks a lot of gin, rents a convertible, sails through HURRICANE and sieges a island fortress full of baddies. Along the way he picks up his buddy Domino who acts as his side-kick, shipmate and Meyers to Ed's Travis McGee.

The book is full of enough fun and color to breeze right on by. Messmann is a seasoned pro and it's obvious that he cared about this book, the boating is big part of it and while I'm not the biggest fan of nautical adventures Messmann makes these scenes thrilling, particularly the boat race at the beginning. I loved the combo of the espionage/sea adventure it was an interesting concept that could have supported a lot more salty tales. Its not without it's faults, Cam the female lead is stupid and does all the wrong things at the wrong time. The finale and the evil plan is a bit rushed bit too easily stumbled upon. But even with these few detractors it's a helluva fun book that's packed with action and some wiseacre humor. Also keep an eye out for his Handyman and Revenger series both of which are a lot of fun. He also wrote MY ALL TIME FAVORITE Nick Carter: Killmaster book: The Sea Trap.