Tue 4 Nov 2014
Archived Review: RANDY STRIKER – Key West Connection.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[7] Comments
RANDY STRIKER – Key West Connection. Signet, paperback original, 1981. Reprinted as by Randy Wayne White “writing as Randy Striker,” Signet, paperback, 2006.
Here’s the first installment of a brand new “action-packed” adventure series. The hero is Floridian charterboat captain Dusky MacMorgan, ex-US Navy (underwater demolition). He’s a cross between Travis McGee and Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan, if you can believe it.
He leaves a lot of dead people behind him. And, of course, so do the villains. In this book they’re a gang of dope smugglers. The top levels of the gang include a US Senator (unnamed) and assorted top officials in all levels of the executive branch. And an ounce of humanity you would not find in any of them.
MacMorgan’s wife and twin little boys are killed in a bomb accident (it was meant for him), and he takes his remorse out in total retaliation. He leaves a lot of dead people behind. (Or did I say that?)
I think Randy Striker (is that his real name?) should quit the annoying habit of telling the end of each chapter first. Otherwise, well, you probably already know if you’re going to go out looking for this book or not. If Striker is the charterboat captain we are informed he also is, these are — if you’ll excuse this expression — his wet dreams.
Rating: C minus.
The Dusky MacMorgan series —
1. Key West Connection. Signet, 1981.
2. The Deep Six. Signet, 1981.
3. Cuban Death-Lift. Signet, 1981.
4. The Deadlier Sex. Signet, 1981.
5. Assassin’s Shadow. Signet, 1981.
6. Everglades Assault. Signet, 1982.
7. Grand Cayman Slam. Signet, 1982.
November 4th, 2014 at 11:24 pm
I actually read this and one other, and about six years ago found the whole series at a second hand bookshop. Despite the fairly nice covers I skipped them the second time.
I was never a Bolan fan, but Pendleton at least had conviction. This reads exactly like one of those bright idea concepts: What would happen if I crossed Travis McGee and Mack Bolan?
The answer here was not much.
November 5th, 2014 at 12:58 am
Sometimes well-known and successful authors who’ve written books like this early in careers try to bury them and make believe they never happened. You can name names, but I’ll refrain.
But White doesn’t seem to mind that these books were reissued under his own name, and I’ll give him credit for that. For the market for which they were intended, they may even have been better than average. And of course he probably made more money with them the second time around than he did the first time.
White, of course, became well-known and successful with his series of “Doc Ford” novels, of which there are now 21, starting with SANIBEL FLATS in 1990. I read one, decided it wasn’t meant for me, and so far I’ve never tried another.
For what it’s worth, it should be noted that White wrote five of the MacMorgan books in one year, and two the next.
Between the books in this series and the Doc Ford novels, White wrote another series of men’s adventure books as by Carl Ramm, which from the titles sound a whole lot more like the Executioner books, titles such as Atlanta Extreme, Vegas Vengeance, Operation Norfolk, and Detroit Combat. I’ve not read any of them.
There was a market for this kind of book then, and some decent authors were responsible for writing some of them, but either men don’t read these kinds of books any more, or publishers don’t think they do.
November 5th, 2014 at 9:38 am
I wrote a number of these sorts of novels back in the 1980s, and got out just in time. While the Bolan franchise continues, the audience for action adventure was pretty much absorbed by the Big Book thriller writers like Ludlum and Clancy and their progeny, which is where the field stands today.
November 5th, 2014 at 3:30 pm
Very good point, Steve. I wrote very few of these and got out quick.
November 5th, 2014 at 3:37 pm
Nothing against the genre or the writers or even White outside of these, I haven’t read his other work. These weren’t badly written, he may technically have been better than Pendleton as a writer, but the series was just a high concept and not about an actual character. Pendleton believed in Mack Bolan in the way Spillane believed in Hammer, and in this sort of book that makes a difference.
That’s why Gibson’s Shadow, Page’s Spider, and Dent’s Doc Savage tales stand out from the others writing the same series under house names.
Obviously there were interesting books in the Men’s Action genre, the Destroyer series and Barry Malzberg’s Lone Wolf stand out for me.
The genre was tiring even before Clancy and that group intro’d the Techno Thrillers that replaced them and now have morphed into the works of writers like James Rollins, Steve Berry, and the various Clive Cussler series. In an ironic way Ted Bell’s Hawke books swing things back around to James Bond.
What killed the genre as much as anything was cost. It’s one thing to pay $8 for one of Rollins or Cussler’s books and another to pay almost that much for a disposable Men’s Action novel. At $5 or more a book few men want to pick up a handful of disposable books for bathroom reading.
If any publisher or group of publishers ever has the sense to recognize the potential of e-books and lower the prices to a sane degree (sorry, I’m not paying $15 for an electronic book DRM’d so I can’t even transfer it to a new PC.)we might see a resurgence of this sort of book, but there is no sign publishers are going to recognize the potential anytime soon. And business has never been a strong point for publishers.
Today the genre that most closely mirrors the old Men’s Action or Women’s romance books are the genre’s of romantic suspense, fantasy, or historical novels. Again there are good writers in these genre’s, but the majority are quickly written and turned out much the same way the Men’s Action series were though with no ‘house names’. The biggest difference is that women fans of these books are organized, vocal, loyal, and have input into the books themselves that never happened with Men’s Action, and the writers are making much more money. The books are marketed in places where middle class women with some disposable income can easily find them.
Then too, why buy a book when big budget movie series like The Expendables, Fast and Furious, Die Hard, and the Red films are essentially live action Men’s Action novels come to life?
November 5th, 2014 at 10:08 pm
I always thought that these types of books were an excellent way to get some experience (and make some money) while learning the craft. DeMille had his Jack Cannon books, Alan Furst had his Roger Levy novels (which were hardcovers published under his own name) and Martin Cruz Smith had his Simon Quinn novels, along with many other writers. In the 60’s the soft porn novels seemed to be the training ground, and in the 70’s and 80’s it was the series adventure novel.
White does a great job with his characters in the Doc Ford stories, in the first book he has a minister show up to perform a ceremony and in two or three paragraphs he goes from being a stock character to one with some depth. A writer of lesser talent and the scene would have been forgotten quickly.
November 6th, 2014 at 6:21 pm
David
I recall now reading a few Doc Ford books and I agree with you about them. I didn’t find reason enough to stick with the series, but I liked it. I guess I had a momentary mind blank trying to tie them to these.