#8: Operation Snake by Nick Carter

Red China tries to get its hands on Nepal, and it's up to Killmaster Nick Carter to stop them, in Operation Snake, one of Jon Messman's entries in the long-running spy series.

Carter needs (various kinds of ) help from two women, one a British journalist and the other the daughter of a local leader.  Less inviting is a pit of snakes and a Yeti-type creature, all in a day's work for Carter.

Messman's entries are often considered some of the better ones from a wide range of offerings, and he wrote steadily in "Men's Adventure" and westerns under a number of names (his Trailsman series preeminent among them).

60s Nick Carter doesn't offer much in the way of finely-shaded characterization but offers plenty of slam-bang action, of which this entry is one.  Good for fans.

I got this in a big stack of Nick Carters and read it quickly.

#61: Triple Cross by Nick Carter

KIllmaster Nick Carter hunts an elusive, suicidal group of assassins called Blood Eagle across the European continent in one of Dennis Lynds' entries in the long-running spy series, Triple Cross.

Triple Cross was part of my casual re-read of the Nick Carter series I was so devoted to as a teenager.

Dennis Lynds writes a more well-rounded Nick Carter than some of the other authors (all writing quickly, with little reference to what happened in previous editions) and imagines more epic, complicated stories (in my opinion).

However, Lynds doesn't mind falling back on the familiar "teaming up with the sexy Soviet spy" trope.  Carter and his sidekick have quite a few setbacks and surprises before they uncover Blood Eagle, and their curious motive that crosses national boundaries.

Along with the Nick Carter novels penned by Martin Cruz Smith, I find Dennis Lynds one of my favorites to date, with this being the second one I've come across by him.

I got this from a big lot of Nick Carter paperbacks somewhere and read it quickly.

#59: The Green Wolf Connection by Nick Carter

Killmaster Nick Carter finds himself on loan to the CIA for a hit on a terrorist called The Green Wolf, but quickly finds himself the patsy in a larger scheme, in The Green Wolf Connection, an action-driven entry in the long-running spy series, this one penned by Dennis Lynds.

This is part of my casual re-read of a series I enjoyed as a teenager; this entry is from the mid-70s, right when I was reading them.  I don't know if I have ever read anything by Dennis Lynds--although he wrote under several other names--but I was a fan of his wife Gayle Lynds' spy novels (and she wrote some Nick Carter books, too).

I once read where someone said that there is so little continuity between Carter novels, written so quickly by a legion of paperback authors over such a long period of time, that it is better to treat each author's Nick Carter as its own character apart from the ones from other writers.  

I did find Dennis Lynds' Carter markedly different than some I've read; a bit more cynical and cerebral but just as quick to fight or have sex as any other iteration.

More so, Lynds writes good action, with big set pieces, making this entry a cut above the usual b-grade fare from the Killmaster novels.

I got this from a big lot of Nick Carter books somewhere and read it quickly.

#52: The Mark of Cosa Nostra by Nick Carter

Killmaster Nick Carter and a rookie agent go undercover to break up a heroin ring in The Mark of Cosa Nostra, an early 70s installment in the long-running spy series.

I picked this up as part of my casual re-read of the Nick Carter paperbacks that I enjoyed so much as a teenager.  This one was actually written by George Snyder, who penned lots of men's adventure stories.

Carter and his attractive young partner--armed only with a pair of specially-built panties with a spring-loaded single-shot pistol built in somehow--pose as a mafia boss and his girlfriend to unravel an unlikely, knotty plot involving the Chinese trying to take over the drug traffic into VietNam by controlling a branch of the mafia.

Convolutions aside, this is a burly, fast-moving story with an especially breakneck ending, where a badly wounded Carter tries to dispatch some baddies and free his partner. Enjoyable enough if you can ignore the broad strokes in which some characters and situations are portrayed in that moment in time.

I have a big stack of these Nick Carter books and have been working my way through them steadily.

#49: Time Clock of Death by Nick Carter

The Russians blame the Americans for a stolen Russian plane, so Killmaster Nick Carter swings into action to find out where it really went in Time Clock of Death.

This edition of the long-running spy series comes from the early 70s and was written by George Snyder, who chopped away at all kinds of men's adventure and western novels.  

I have been doing a casual re-read of some of the series, which I loved as a teenager, and I especially remember having this one from the curious title.  I'm surprised I don't remember more of it, as it opens with a woman getting shot while having sex with Nick Carter, and I think that would have stuck in my teenaged brain.

From there Nick Carter teams up with a sexy female agent to hunt "The Colonel," ending up at a Bond-style castle on an island filled with traps and shenanigans.  A leather-clad, whip-wielding villainess and her army of female bodyguards are also right out of this era of Bond villainy.  

Sits squarely in a less sophisticated era of race and gender relations, but a solid (though unremarkable) spy outing.

I got this from a big stack of Nick Carter books I got somewhere and read this quickly on a camping trip, the best possible way to consume it.

#39: Assassin: Code Name Vulture by Nick Carter

Killmaster Nick Carter loses a friend to a suspicious plane accident (that he himself walks away from), only to learn the friend had found out about a coup attempt growing in Greece, in Nick Carter's Assassin: Code Name Vulture.

I have recently, perhaps whimsically, been revisiting this fave spy series of my teen years.  This one, by veteran paperback scribe Ralph Hayes, is a decent enough second-tier spy novel.  

Carter finds out there is an affluent businessman apparently pulling the strings on the coup, but quickly learns that the real person has been kidnapped and replaced, with plenty of action forthcoming.

I think my biggest problem with this one, and it's not Hayes' fault, is the back copy, which promises an assassin with mechanical claws (there aren't any claws) named The Vulture (he is only called A vulture, not THE Vulture, and that's not until the end) and a bizarre double (it's just two brothers that look alike).

I got this in a big stack of Nick Carters somewhere and, fittingly, read it in a single day camping in Michigan.

#34: Ice Bomb Zero by Nick Carter

Killmaster Nick Carter hunts for a secret Chinese base in the Arctic, with a sexy Russian spy (there never seems to be any homely ones) as a lover and rival, in Ice Bomb Zero.

Ice Bomb Zero is part of a casual re-read I have been doing of this long-running series, which I consumed voraciously as a teen.  I picked this one by George Snyder, as he seems to be one of the pseudonymous authors favored by other readers.  Snyder had a long career as a scribe of burly men's adventure and, late in life, westerns.

This is a perfectly agreeable but unremarkable spy outing from the early 70s, with race and sexual relations not portrayed in a particularly nuanced way, as one might suspect.  The finale in the underground base unravels quickly at sort of a mid-range Roger Moore level.

The closeness in title to the popular Alistair MacLean novel Ice Station Zebra doesn't pass without notice.

I liked George Snyder's take on Nick Carter perfectly fine and would seek out another of his books.

I got this in a big lot of Nick Carters and read quickly.

#28: Pursuit of the Eagle by Nick Carter

 Killmaster Nick Carter is tracking an intelligent dog (!) when he finds what looks to be a missing American plane, and is soon on the trail of a kidnapped scientist in Pursuit of the Eagle.

This novel is part of my careful re-read of a favorite series as a youth, before I knew that Nick Carter wasn't a real person but a full slate of authors of various abilities.  I selected this one because it was written by Gayle Lynds, a thriller writer whose work I also read steadily--under her own name--as a young man.

This is a meat-and-potatoes thriller, but feels kind of low-stakes, with Carter being chased by Bulgarian spies and a not particularly adept German terrorist group while being helped by a Macedonian freedom fighter and a jolly French spy.

The mid-80s Eastern European politics seems about right, and the action comes steadily, so a solid entry for fans of the series.  Lynds wrote a handful of these--as did her husband, Dennis Lynds--and I would read another if I found one.

I've been steadily picking these Nick Carter books up here and there and read this one quickly.

#21: The Cairo Mafia by Nick Carter

 A spy accidentally switches a briefcase with Russian plans for a briefcase full of drugs, leading to his death and bringing the incident to the attention of Killmaster Nick Carter in The Cairo Mafia.

I've been revisiting some Nick Carters through adult eyes, after binge-reading through them as a teenager.  I decided to give veteran wordslinger Ralph Hayes another chance, after being disappointed in Agent Counter Agent.

This has a slam-bang open, with Carter breaking into an African prison to kill somebody, then breaking out again.  Once he finds out about the death of his fellow agent, he races his Russian counterparts into Cairo to find the plans and dismantle the crime ring that started it all.

Carter has the help of an Interpol agent/belly dancer and the hindrance of many, many foes.

While still a second-tier spy novel, this one was a more enjoyable read than the last, and much better plotted.  

I picked this up in a lot of Nick Carters somewhere and read it quickly.

#20: Agent Counter-Agent by Nick Carter

Killmaster Nick Carter gets captured and brainwashed by Soviet agents intent on disrupting a South American conference in Agent Counter-Agent, penned by hard-working pulp writer Ralph Hayes.

Hayes has written across all genres from men's adventure to western to romance over a long period of time.  He did a handful in this extensive spy series that I read steadily as a teenager and have decided to revisit here and there with adult eyes.

At the time, I did not know Nick Carter was not a single person but a large cadre of writers, generally thought to have worked with mixed results.  Even as a teenager I thought some were markedly better than others.

This one has a pretty rickety plot, where the spies break into the AXE training center to taunt Carter into catching them in their plans, which his espionage colleagues don't seem to believe for whatever reason.  Naturally it's a female double agent with a knockout lipstick that causes Carter's downfall.  Curiously, Carter is brainwashed into thinking he is an assassin pretending to be Nick Carter, a baroque ruse, and sent to kill the Venezuelan President and American Vice President. 

Fortunately his brainwashing is broken by a jet flying overhead, too complicated to explain, and is able to break the spy ring.

Definitely a second-tier spy novel, but written in an interesting enough way to give Hayes another try.  I got this one in a big batch of Nick Carters from a friend and have another Hayes standing by.

#53: Peking and The Tulip Affair by Nick Carter

Nick Carter, Killmaster, hunts his old enemy Mr. Judas (actually escaped Nazi Martin Bormann) as Judas teams up with the Chinese to launch a deadly drug called Agent Z, in Peking, part of the long-running spy series.

As a teen, I read Nick Carter books avidly, and have decided to tentatively dip my toes back in to see how they hold up.

In this entry, Carter forgoes his usual array of nicknamed weapons and instead using an Astra Firecat .25 pistol and an incredibly handy pen that actually injects a serum that makes the recipient seem dead (and is used multiple ways at convenient times throughout).

This one was penned by Arnold Marmor, an old-school pulp fiction jockey, who writes in a terse, overheated style with a Nick Carter prone to anger and violence.

So terse, in fact, that the story goes that the book was too short, so instead of padding it out Marmor wrote a little short story to stick in the back.  To my knowledge, this is the only time this was ever allowed to happen, and might have contributed to the fact that Marmor only wrote one Killmaster book.

The short story, The Tulip Affair, is a pretty poker-faced and straightforward account of a double agent called Tulip who Carter sets out to kill and chases around Asia a bit before finishing the job.

This is a second-tier spy novel I picked up in a big stash of Nick Carters somewhere, and read quickly.

#48: The Devil's Dozen by Nick Carter

Nick Carter avenges the death of a fellow secret agent by trying to break the back of a drug ring in the spy novel The Devil's Dozen.

Unfortunately, Carter meets a strong-willed crime boss who is every inch his equal, and he contemplates his place in the spy game as a result.  But there's more action than introspection, including a helicopter versus skier fight and a memorable wresting match against a Turkish villain, both in a remote mountain fortress.

Nick Carter starred in hundreds of spy novels, written by a legion of writers, and I read a ton of them as a teenager.  I have recently gone back and revisited all three of the ones by Martin Cruz Smith (a favorite contemporary author) written in his peanut-butter days, and liked this one the best.  It's a good second-tier spy novel on its own merits.

I would rank them as this one, Code Name: Werewolf, and then The Inca Death Squad for those interested.

I tracked this one down on eBay and read it quickly.  I might go back and look for more Nick Carter spy novels if the pseudonymous author is a good match for more interests.

#47: The Inca Death Squad by Nick Carter

 In 1970s Chile, superspy Nick Carter is asked to bodyguard a Soviet dignitary against revolutionaries as part of a secret deal in The Inca Death Squad.

I read these Nick Carter novels by the stack during my teen years, and thought I would revisit a few to see how they held up.  Although I could tell the quality varied widely, I didn't know they were all written by different people until the internet.  I wanted to start with the three Martin Cruz Smith wrote, as his ongoing Arkady Renko series I have steadily enjoyed.

The first I read, Code Name: Werewolf, was a solid second-tier spy novel, but this one I just didn't enjoy as much.  

The core plotting just doesn't make a lot of sense, starting with Carter delivering a new style of bulletproof clothing to the oafish Russian for kind of hazy reasons.  Later, rather oddly, he has a bolo fight with an Aztec warrior in ancient garb, but still has time to bed all of the Russian's comrade harem, which includes an undercover KGB agent.

But there is plenty of action, including a cavalry charge on a band of outlaws and a jeep versus fighter plane battle.

I have heard that Smith disavowed these early novels, and I can see a better argument for it here.  I have one more, The Devil's Dozen, to decide.

#29: Code Name: Werewolf by Nick Carter

In early 70s Spain, Nick Carter, Killmaster, takes on the unlikely job of protecting dictator Francisco Franco from an assassin in Code Name: Werewolf, part of the long-running spy series.

I read these Nick Carter paperbacks fervently as a teen in the late 70s and early 80s, and had no idea they were written by a large number of authors (although I could tell some were markedly better than others).  I even ordered them by mail from the backs of other paperbacks, paying with hard-earned allowance money.

I became interested (although tentatively) in revisiting a few and thought this was a good place to start, as this was one written by Martin Cruz Smith.  Martin Cruz Smith writes the Arkady Renko detective novels that I enjoy as they are released (beginning with Gorky Park).

Although Martin Cruz Smith has apparently disavowed his few Nick Carter contributions, I found this a solid and interesting spy thriller.  Spanish politics and culture, including several bullfighting scenes involving Carter (one intended to kill him), add interest.

This was a good second-tier spy novel, not at the level of a Donald Hamilton or Edward S. Aarons but eminently readable.

I accumulated a stack of these from a friend--at one point that seemed to be stacked up in used bookstores everywhere--and might dive into another if I find an author behind the pseudonym of interest.