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The Mod Squad #2
The Mod Squad # 2: A Groovy Way To Die
- GenresMedia Tie InMystery
158 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1968
14 people want to read
About the author
Richard Deming
106 books3 followersRichard Deming (1915-1983) was a solid and reliable pro whose crime-writing career extended from late 1940s pulps to early 1980s digests. He also wrote several volumes of popular non-fiction late in his life.
He is most likely to be remembered as one of the most prolific contributors to Manhunt and the early days of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and as a paperback original writer, sometimes of novels based on TV shows (Dragnet, The Mod Squad, and under the pseudonym Max Franklin, Starsky and Hutch). He was also a frequent ghost for the Ellery Queen team on paperback originals and for Brett Halliday on lead novelettes for Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.
He is most likely to be remembered as one of the most prolific contributors to Manhunt and the early days of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and as a paperback original writer, sometimes of novels based on TV shows (Dragnet, The Mod Squad, and under the pseudonym Max Franklin, Starsky and Hutch). He was also a frequent ghost for the Ellery Queen team on paperback originals and for Brett Halliday on lead novelettes for Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 4, 2021
This PUPPE is All Bark, No Bite
Pete, Linc, and Julie go undercover to infiltrate a political organization being funded by a Mafia capo. There's a murder, a locked-room mystery, and many suspects with sufficient motive for pushing an icepick into the chest of the sleeping mobster.
There are many suspenseful moments, intriguing characters, and the story keeps the curve balls coming even after the reader assumes the mystery is solved. But nonetheless, this second of five Mod Squad novels by Richard Deming falls short of the high standard set by The Greek God Affair.
Part of the problem was the absurd scenario Deming devised. Why would a button-down pro-business political organization called the Patriots' Union to Preserve Private Enterprise (PUPPE) allow itself to have an acronym everyone pronounces as "Puppy"? Deming tries but fails to lend menace to this organization, whose ultimate goal is simply to raise up candidates and run the government on business principles. The organization's leader, Norman Shill, gives a rousing speech in a rented hall, and a smattering of people sign up and then chat over coffee and cookies. The Harper Valley PTA meetings boasted more excitement and intrigue.
The Mod Squad are assigned to infiltrate the group because local Mafioso Big Jake Casale donated $40,000 to the group and is a true believer in its principles. His legitimate operations are being taxed upwards of 90%, and he believes Big Business could run government more efficiently than career politicians.
Big Jake isn't hurting financially, however, and he invites all the new members and PUPPE leaders over to his mansion for an impromptu party. People drink to excess, dance and flirt and when it's finally time to call it a night the fog is so thick everyone has to stay the night. With everyone tucked in their beds, suddenly a scream pierces those wee small hours: Jake's wife Roberta shrieking that someone murdered her husband. Nobody came in or out of the house so the killer had to be one of those present. Whodunnit? Pete, Linc, and Julie are undercover, so play along as suspects when the police arrive and investigate.
To Deming's credit, he brings back Martinez and Bidder, the homicide detectives we first met at the Temple of Zeus in The Greek God Affair. Their characters are developed even further here, and I'm hoping they and their banter become a regular part of the series. They lent the book some continuity. Martinez and Bidder actually enjoy more page-time than Captain Greer.
Pete, Linc and Julie each investigate a suspect individually. Pete plucking the plum assignment of wining and dining the kooky French maid Kitty. Linc returns to Watts to meet accidentally on purpose a young black woman whose father was murdered on Big Jake's orders, and Julie gleans clues from PUPPE's top dog and his lieutenant while performing volunteer clerical work in the office. Once again, this supposedly "sinister" organization is a toothless tiger when its leader himself is typing the newsletter and stamping the return address on each one.
I can only imagine a zealous editor at Pyramid wrote the bombastic cover copy: "they're violent, vicious hate mongers... with big, bad plans for America." Huh? PUPPE never expressed hate for anyone, and welcomed people of all ages, races, and businesses into their public meetings and membership rolls. Okay, second-in-command Ray Proust got a little violent when he learned undercover fuzz were in his midst, but not because of PUPPE's principles, but because he was worried the Mod Squad would throw a monkey wrench into his avaricious ambitions to marry the millionaire Mafia widow.
Deming did come up with a compelling mystery and he had me fooled all the way. But I think Deming had a 100-page story but needed to fill 158. There's a lot of padding in here, like a full page dedicated to describing the guards' drill, excruciatingly detailed descriptions about floorplans and rooms and of what each person was wearing right down to color and fabric (e.g., "... a plump middle-aged woman with a moonlike face... wore a maroon bathrobe with the hem of a flannel nightgown showing beneath it and a pair of knitted bedroom slippers" p. 58). Here's a typical example of Deming's stretching out a scene like a freshmen comp student typing until he hits the minimum word requirement:
Straightening away from the refrigerator, he walked over to a cabinet next to the sink, took down a glass and ran it half full of water. After drinking it, he set the empty glass on the drainboard and turned to face Proust again (p. 134).
And there are many similar examples of wordy wheel spinning throughout the book. They distract and slow the momentum, but they aren't dealbreakers.
Are Deming's books canon? He adds interesting details to the Mod Squad chronicles; for example, "Pete Cochrane had once been arrested for car stealing. Linc Hayes had been involved in a bombing in Watts. Julie Barnes had a record of arrest for vagrancy" (p. 6). Linc later criticized PUPPE's opposition to government handouts, "Me and my ten brothers and sisters would have starved more than once if it hadn't been for welfare" (p. 26). With such a big family in the L.A. area, none ever appeared on the television series that I recall, though we met a number of his old friends.
Cool title, but it made no sense: A Groovy Way to Die? In the one scene where the Mod Squad's lives were imperiled, Pete and Linc were wearing business suits and ties and Julie had on a conservative blue dress, so nothing groovy about that. And while the "hate machine out to topple America" was all-bark and no-bite from the marketing department, who likely never read Deming's manuscript, there's still a good mystery story here with lots of twists and turns right up through the final pages. All that and the Woody too!
Pete, Linc, and Julie go undercover to infiltrate a political organization being funded by a Mafia capo. There's a murder, a locked-room mystery, and many suspects with sufficient motive for pushing an icepick into the chest of the sleeping mobster.
There are many suspenseful moments, intriguing characters, and the story keeps the curve balls coming even after the reader assumes the mystery is solved. But nonetheless, this second of five Mod Squad novels by Richard Deming falls short of the high standard set by The Greek God Affair.
Part of the problem was the absurd scenario Deming devised. Why would a button-down pro-business political organization called the Patriots' Union to Preserve Private Enterprise (PUPPE) allow itself to have an acronym everyone pronounces as "Puppy"? Deming tries but fails to lend menace to this organization, whose ultimate goal is simply to raise up candidates and run the government on business principles. The organization's leader, Norman Shill, gives a rousing speech in a rented hall, and a smattering of people sign up and then chat over coffee and cookies. The Harper Valley PTA meetings boasted more excitement and intrigue.
The Mod Squad are assigned to infiltrate the group because local Mafioso Big Jake Casale donated $40,000 to the group and is a true believer in its principles. His legitimate operations are being taxed upwards of 90%, and he believes Big Business could run government more efficiently than career politicians.
Big Jake isn't hurting financially, however, and he invites all the new members and PUPPE leaders over to his mansion for an impromptu party. People drink to excess, dance and flirt and when it's finally time to call it a night the fog is so thick everyone has to stay the night. With everyone tucked in their beds, suddenly a scream pierces those wee small hours: Jake's wife Roberta shrieking that someone murdered her husband. Nobody came in or out of the house so the killer had to be one of those present. Whodunnit? Pete, Linc, and Julie are undercover, so play along as suspects when the police arrive and investigate.
To Deming's credit, he brings back Martinez and Bidder, the homicide detectives we first met at the Temple of Zeus in The Greek God Affair. Their characters are developed even further here, and I'm hoping they and their banter become a regular part of the series. They lent the book some continuity. Martinez and Bidder actually enjoy more page-time than Captain Greer.
Pete, Linc and Julie each investigate a suspect individually. Pete plucking the plum assignment of wining and dining the kooky French maid Kitty. Linc returns to Watts to meet accidentally on purpose a young black woman whose father was murdered on Big Jake's orders, and Julie gleans clues from PUPPE's top dog and his lieutenant while performing volunteer clerical work in the office. Once again, this supposedly "sinister" organization is a toothless tiger when its leader himself is typing the newsletter and stamping the return address on each one.
I can only imagine a zealous editor at Pyramid wrote the bombastic cover copy: "they're violent, vicious hate mongers... with big, bad plans for America." Huh? PUPPE never expressed hate for anyone, and welcomed people of all ages, races, and businesses into their public meetings and membership rolls. Okay, second-in-command Ray Proust got a little violent when he learned undercover fuzz were in his midst, but not because of PUPPE's principles, but because he was worried the Mod Squad would throw a monkey wrench into his avaricious ambitions to marry the millionaire Mafia widow.
Deming did come up with a compelling mystery and he had me fooled all the way. But I think Deming had a 100-page story but needed to fill 158. There's a lot of padding in here, like a full page dedicated to describing the guards' drill, excruciatingly detailed descriptions about floorplans and rooms and of what each person was wearing right down to color and fabric (e.g., "... a plump middle-aged woman with a moonlike face... wore a maroon bathrobe with the hem of a flannel nightgown showing beneath it and a pair of knitted bedroom slippers" p. 58). Here's a typical example of Deming's stretching out a scene like a freshmen comp student typing until he hits the minimum word requirement:
Straightening away from the refrigerator, he walked over to a cabinet next to the sink, took down a glass and ran it half full of water. After drinking it, he set the empty glass on the drainboard and turned to face Proust again (p. 134).
And there are many similar examples of wordy wheel spinning throughout the book. They distract and slow the momentum, but they aren't dealbreakers.
Are Deming's books canon? He adds interesting details to the Mod Squad chronicles; for example, "Pete Cochrane had once been arrested for car stealing. Linc Hayes had been involved in a bombing in Watts. Julie Barnes had a record of arrest for vagrancy" (p. 6). Linc later criticized PUPPE's opposition to government handouts, "Me and my ten brothers and sisters would have starved more than once if it hadn't been for welfare" (p. 26). With such a big family in the L.A. area, none ever appeared on the television series that I recall, though we met a number of his old friends.
Cool title, but it made no sense: A Groovy Way to Die? In the one scene where the Mod Squad's lives were imperiled, Pete and Linc were wearing business suits and ties and Julie had on a conservative blue dress, so nothing groovy about that. And while the "hate machine out to topple America" was all-bark and no-bite from the marketing department, who likely never read Deming's manuscript, there's still a good mystery story here with lots of twists and turns right up through the final pages. All that and the Woody too!
August 16, 2023
Memories of reading this in 7th grade. I loved this at the time. 😂
August 20, 2012
I loved just about everything current back then!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews