What do you think?
Rate this book
Manny DeWitt #3
Code Name Gadget
A shadowy trail of espionage and counter-espionage in a race against time as the machine that would destroy the world ticks on. A Manny de Witt adventure.
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
9 people want to read
About the author
Peter Rabe
111 books15 followersPeter Rabe aka Peter Rabinowitsch, was a German American writer who also used the nom de plumes Marco Malaponte and J.T. MacCargo (though not all of the latter's books were by him). Rabe was the author of over 30 books, mostly of crime fiction, published between 1955 and 1975.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 21, 2024
Code Name Gadget (1967) is the third of the three novels in Rabe’s Manny DeWitt series which features a lawyer named Manny DeWitt who is given assignments by Hans Lobbe, head of Hans Industrial, often without much detail, leading to odd adventures as well as misunderstandings. Here, DeWitt is in the middle of negotiating lobster-bed rights in Honduras when he is ordered to return to the States. Upon arriving at the airport, he is then instructed by a phone call at the bar conveniently located on his way out to head for London, England, with all deliberate speed.
DeWitt’s instructions are to buy “the Gadget,” an “electronic apparatus [that] could be programmed to record the relative purity of any compound contained in commercial elements.” Old Crevassette had refused to sell it for years, but he suddenly dropped dead in the middle of Lobbe’s negotiations and Lobbe had managed to secure an option that was only good for the next 24 hours. When he reaches Ireland because London is too fogged in for commercial flights to land, Lobbe himself meets DeWitt and tells him there are only 18 hours remaining and he has to get the deal done in ten hours.
In fact, Max Garten, who acts like he is still a maverick ace pilot, has been assigned to take DeWitt there in a private plane and then onward to Soho where Meghan Bushmill lives. She is Crevassette’s private secretary and she is to turn over the keys to the safe where the plans are and the inventory. Of course, if things could be that simple, there would be novel to read. When DeWitt gets to Bushmill’s apartment, it is well after midnight and Bushmill has a kind of London-type costume ball going on. DeWitt has to worm his way into the apartment, avoid inebriated jolly partygoers, and find Bushmill before convincing her to go with him to the office and open the safe in the middle of the night. Bushmill though has no idea that Crevassette died and it comes as a shock to her.
DeWitt has also been instructed to obtain the model of the Gadget, have it disassembled, and crated for shipment to New York. A full-scale Gadget was the size of four telephone booths stacked together and weighed about 650 pounds. It was kept in a locked vault at the facility. But when they finally got it open, there was no Gadget to be found.
Thus went DeWitt’s adventures in London as he tried to follow his instructions to a T and obtain the plans, the blueprints, and the model of the famous Gadget, but alas none was to be found and, meanwhile, he is dealing with a merry band of alleged British agents, industrial competitors, and Bushmill herself.
The whole thing is an odd farce about bureaucratic imperatives and following vague instructions. Throughout most of the novel, you as a reader only get hints and clues as to what a fully operational Gadget could do and you may not be as impressed as Lobbe was. The DeWitt novels are sort of like espionage novels, but not exactly. They are their own twisted little category.
DeWitt’s instructions are to buy “the Gadget,” an “electronic apparatus [that] could be programmed to record the relative purity of any compound contained in commercial elements.” Old Crevassette had refused to sell it for years, but he suddenly dropped dead in the middle of Lobbe’s negotiations and Lobbe had managed to secure an option that was only good for the next 24 hours. When he reaches Ireland because London is too fogged in for commercial flights to land, Lobbe himself meets DeWitt and tells him there are only 18 hours remaining and he has to get the deal done in ten hours.
In fact, Max Garten, who acts like he is still a maverick ace pilot, has been assigned to take DeWitt there in a private plane and then onward to Soho where Meghan Bushmill lives. She is Crevassette’s private secretary and she is to turn over the keys to the safe where the plans are and the inventory. Of course, if things could be that simple, there would be novel to read. When DeWitt gets to Bushmill’s apartment, it is well after midnight and Bushmill has a kind of London-type costume ball going on. DeWitt has to worm his way into the apartment, avoid inebriated jolly partygoers, and find Bushmill before convincing her to go with him to the office and open the safe in the middle of the night. Bushmill though has no idea that Crevassette died and it comes as a shock to her.
DeWitt has also been instructed to obtain the model of the Gadget, have it disassembled, and crated for shipment to New York. A full-scale Gadget was the size of four telephone booths stacked together and weighed about 650 pounds. It was kept in a locked vault at the facility. But when they finally got it open, there was no Gadget to be found.
Thus went DeWitt’s adventures in London as he tried to follow his instructions to a T and obtain the plans, the blueprints, and the model of the famous Gadget, but alas none was to be found and, meanwhile, he is dealing with a merry band of alleged British agents, industrial competitors, and Bushmill herself.
The whole thing is an odd farce about bureaucratic imperatives and following vague instructions. Throughout most of the novel, you as a reader only get hints and clues as to what a fully operational Gadget could do and you may not be as impressed as Lobbe was. The DeWitt novels are sort of like espionage novels, but not exactly. They are their own twisted little category.
Displaying 1 of 1 review