Vintage Hardboiled Reads: Pyramid

John Eagle-Expeditor #13-Operation Weatherkill by Paul Edwards.
Pyramid V3874, Copyright 1975

With all the elite, adventure, hero types the paperback publishers were spitting out in the 70s, it’s amazing they weren’t bumping into each other around the world. “Operation Weatherkill” is number 13 in the 14 book Expeditor series. A little heard of series, that turns out to be surprisingly enjoyable.

John Eagle is the first and only agent for the Expeditor Project. It’s a program run and financed by a special U.S. government group to insure the survival of the free world. Eagle, who came from an Apache upbringing, has been trained and equipped to take on any threat from evil forces.

A secret organization has developed a technical way to control the weather in any location they choose. They can produce rainstorms for days, which create floods, disease, and crop destruction. This in turn causes an economic disaster for the countries targeted. Nations are blackmailed to pay up in gold or the disasters will continue. After a couple of strikes in America, the leader of the Expeditor Project gives John Eagle the mission to locate and destroy the threat. Eagle traces the location to a Slavic island called Sveti Hvar, and quick discovers that a Turkish millionaire named Ferit Sunay is the leader of Operation Weatherkill and his goal is to bring back the great Turkish Empire. On the island Eagle bumps into a beautiful, blond, nymphomaniac, Soviet agent, who is on a similar mission for Russia. They agree to team up to destroy Sunay and Operation Weatherkill. They make an effective team, slowly eliminating some of Sunay’s men and also in some vigorous lovemaking. Finally the duo sets out to destroy the operation’s headquarters, which is an old castle on the island. Later Eagle discovers that the cold-blooded, female KGB agent wants a few of the secrets for her government and risks both their lives to kidnap the lead scientist. At the end, the two of them enter the castle headquarters to complete the mission and only one comes out.

“Eagle squeezed the soundless trigger. The steel-vaned dart entered the man’s skull with a sound like an arrow sinking into a melon. He dropped in his tracks.”

I guess I am drawn to these paperbacks because I get nostalgic for these old Cold War stories, where the KGB and CIA are playing cat and mouse. Eagle is a fairly well-oiled machine. He has been well trained and has some neat gadgets that he uses on missions. He has a high-powered pistol that fires deadly darts, a specially designed suit that allows him to blend into any background, and even a one-man nuclear submarine. As in most of these numbered series books; there is a lacking of character depth and realistic plot development. But these paperbacks weren’t about that; these were about action entertainment for men, which is how they should be read. This may not be for everyone and there is nothing new here, but I still enjoyed reading the paperback. Not to be taken too seriously, just to sit back and have some fun.

Paul Edwards is actually Lyle Kenyon Engel (1915-1986) who used many pseudos. He is credited as the author of “The Baroness” series, “The Chopper Cop” series, and others using the name Paul Kenyon. But he did not actually author these books; instead he commissioned others to write them. I guess you would call him a “paperback production manager.”

Expeditor - Paul Edwards