Mon 14 Nov 2016
Book Noted: BILL S. BALLINGER – The Spy in the Java Sea.
Posted by Steve under Books Noted[3] Comments
BILL S. BALLINGER – The Spy in the Java Sea. Signet D2981, paperback original; 1st printing, September 1966.
Book five of a five book paperback spy series from the same publisher who made a lot of money printing the James Bond stories. Joaquin Hawks, son of a Nez Perce Indian father and a Spanish mother, is the leading character in each, all I believe taking place in Southeast Asia just before the war in Vietnam.
The descriptions of the at-the-time exotic locales are done in detail and done well, but if this final tale in the series is an example, the stories are straight-forward, told without any verve I could see, and filled with cliches. In Java Sea, a malfunctioning CPU unit on a new US nuclear submarine has it stranded immobile somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, and both Moscow and Peking are close on Hawks’ trail as he hopes to find it.
The result? Nowhere nearly as good as James Bond, and it pales completely in comparison to the Quiller spy adventure I read recently. I skimmed ahead to the end of the book to see if anything happened that I didn’t foresee happening. It didn’t, and I basically abandoned this one on page 46. In all honesty, I wasn’t a big fan of these knockoff spy novels back in the 60s, and I guess I’m still not now. You may enjoy this one more than I did.
November 14th, 2016 at 9:37 pm
The best of the series had Hawks in a Russian circus working with a trained bear. I liked the series for what they were, but certainly minor Bond and Ballinger.
November 15th, 2016 at 8:19 am
I read one, THE SPY AT ANGKOR WAT, mainly for the setting, which is the only thing I really remember about it after 40 years.
November 15th, 2016 at 12:54 pm
Here’s a list of all five books in the series:
The Chinese Mask (n.) Signet 1965 [China]
The Spy in Bangkok (n.) Signet 1965 [Thailand]
The Spy in the Jungle (n.) Signet 1965 [Viet Nam]
The Spy at Angkor Wat (n.) Signet 1966 [Cambodia]
The Spy in the Java Sea (n.) Signet 1966 [Far East]
The books were quite popular at the time, as I recall, and I think the exotic pre-Vietnam War titles and settings had something to do with it. I don’t know which one had the circus and Russian bear in it.