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Charles Hood #3
Shamelady
Charles Hood battles with a gold-smuggling gang, master-minded by a super-computer.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 2, 2021
Shamelady kicks off with the murder of a local poacher by the grotesque giant Oscar. The action takes place along the perimeter of a secret installation south-east of Paris. It’s barely relevant, but starts James Mayo’s third Charles Hood thriller in the vein of horrifically muscley encounters for which he routinely peppered his previous two efforts.
Hood has been sent to New York to watch over Alexis Falkenburg, an Austrian banking operative who has the inside line on playboy-come-gold bullion smuggler Narcisso Rosario. Hood learns that Alexis has died and spends the weekend with Bonbon, a red-haired classy good-time girl he meets at swanky celebrity orgy – minus the celebrities, unless you count a glimpse of playboy-come-gold bullion smuggler Narcisso Rosario. Bonbon gets more than her teeth into Charles Hood. A few days later they bump into one another in London and on impulse, Hood flies with her to Morocco and her friend Narcisso Rosario’s gorgeous coastal estate. Rothsteil’s, the private banking corporation and member of the Circle, had its eye on Alexis Falkenburg as she’d performed a series of dodgy gold trades for Rosario’s companies, mostly undeclared Soviet bullion. They wanted to turn her; did Roasario get to her first? wonders Hood.
Once the adventure pitches up at El Tabela, Mayo picks up the pace dramatically. Hood drops his guard, becomes fascinated by the intoxicating Bonbon, unaware she’s under orders to seduce him. The urbane Rosario introduces him to his world of thrilling exotica, including elaborate feasts, gorgeous surroundings, orchards, the titular bashful flower, an enormous super-computer and a crazy plan to hijack a Russian cargo plane loaded with gold bullion. Hood also encounters Mayo’s usual range of ghouls in the villain’s entourage: Bendix, a paraplegic security guard; Oscar, the lobotomised boy-giant; Tugan, the split-lipped personal adjutant; the Basque, a pelota playing assassin; Kankin, the wiry, bespectacled Russian planner. As the novel progresses through thrust and counter thrust, from one absurd violent action to the next, Hood single-handedly eliminates all of Rosario’s goons, usually in grisly, unlikely fashions.
The tale is well-described and has a solid enough plot, which probably tries to touch too many bases – Rosario has been robbing jewellery warehouses and banks as well as smuggling state gold. Mayo’s writing doesn’t neglect our external senses. The sights, sounds and scents, touch and taste of places, people and things is paramount in Hood’s dangerously tailored world. Mayo gives them all a fair lick. We’re never too far away from a sensuous trickle of Roman water fountains, a damson flavoured claret, a Van Gogh mustard sunset or the soft lilting purse of a pair of ruby lips. You get the general idea. We understand Hood is a sophisticate and a glutton. He enjoys his wine and women. He also revels in the violence. The fights appal him, latterly, but he’s almost always stoked with righteous anger. Rosario becomes his Enemy Number One and several times we are told Hood dislikes him, wants to punch him or kill him. Yet he has an unswerving admiration for the man. The good living blinds our bon viveur to the ugliness within. This is about as close to internal emotion as you get in a James Mayo thriller.
Oddly we are told Hood falls in love with Bonbon. The feeling is mutual. But this doesn’t stop him chasing after the stunning Alexis Falkenburg once he discovers her residing naked like Robina Crusoe on a deserted coral island. This slightly distasteful scene is pure sexploitation. In fact the whole show has that air of a 1960s European spy flick, where the fights and chases and seductions happen thick and fast and for no apparent reason. The deeper I delved into Shamelady, the more I thought about those almost all forgotten movies like Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die or Our Man in Marrakesh. Even Derek Flint dovetails a little towards this fashion. Like the happenings in those kind of movies, it isn’t entirely clear why Alexis was kept alive.
The story resolves itself through an untidy series of chapter by chapter, scene by scene standoffs between Hood and each of his antagonists, ending in the prehistoric caves at Giron, Bordeaux. Best of these confrontations is probably the Basque’s pelota bashing, but a wicked fight with an Arab gardener who ends up impaled on his pitch fork is terrifying in its telling. After Hood is recaptured – he constantly escapes, returns, escapes, gets caught – he’s losing his spying touch – Rosario affably readmits him into his grand plan: “You roughed up a couple of the staff. The others took things into their own hands.” Let’s forgive and forget all the senseless killings…
The most bizarre showdown is with Lulu, the talkative super-computer packed full of witticisms and deadly devices to protect itself. This has all the desperate hallmarks of those cheap spy flicks I mentioned. It’s inventively silly. Mayo hasn’t done his homework though. Even in the 1960s computers were always housed in air conditioned, closeted rooms, so it would be nigh-on impossible for a locust swarm to come to Hood’s rescue. I kid you not. Locusts are one of the world’s most rampant insect pests. They swarm by the billion. They would also ravage Rosario’s orchards, flowers, the whole estate, and this isn’t even hinted at. A terrible authorial oversight.
So, did I enjoy Shamelady? Well, if action’s your thing and you aren’t too fussed how or why you got there, it does a grand job. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first two Charles Hood’s. Because of the bounties of sexy women, the over-imaginative plot, the sleek teak-like villain, the startling parade of horrid henchmen, the inventive spikes of hardcore violence, it feels almost too over-the-top. Mayo’s reused his own formula, gate-crashed his own party and over-painted his canvas. Yes, the novel is tough on action, gritty and suspenseful. It rarely slackens. Yet, for all the fine recipes – for deed, amore, nourishment and landscape – there is an ingredient missing: Charles Hood and the personalities that surround him lack any kind of soul.
Shamelady is certainly worth a read, but be prepared only for an action packed ride and characters as thin as a reed.
Hood has been sent to New York to watch over Alexis Falkenburg, an Austrian banking operative who has the inside line on playboy-come-gold bullion smuggler Narcisso Rosario. Hood learns that Alexis has died and spends the weekend with Bonbon, a red-haired classy good-time girl he meets at swanky celebrity orgy – minus the celebrities, unless you count a glimpse of playboy-come-gold bullion smuggler Narcisso Rosario. Bonbon gets more than her teeth into Charles Hood. A few days later they bump into one another in London and on impulse, Hood flies with her to Morocco and her friend Narcisso Rosario’s gorgeous coastal estate. Rothsteil’s, the private banking corporation and member of the Circle, had its eye on Alexis Falkenburg as she’d performed a series of dodgy gold trades for Rosario’s companies, mostly undeclared Soviet bullion. They wanted to turn her; did Roasario get to her first? wonders Hood.
Once the adventure pitches up at El Tabela, Mayo picks up the pace dramatically. Hood drops his guard, becomes fascinated by the intoxicating Bonbon, unaware she’s under orders to seduce him. The urbane Rosario introduces him to his world of thrilling exotica, including elaborate feasts, gorgeous surroundings, orchards, the titular bashful flower, an enormous super-computer and a crazy plan to hijack a Russian cargo plane loaded with gold bullion. Hood also encounters Mayo’s usual range of ghouls in the villain’s entourage: Bendix, a paraplegic security guard; Oscar, the lobotomised boy-giant; Tugan, the split-lipped personal adjutant; the Basque, a pelota playing assassin; Kankin, the wiry, bespectacled Russian planner. As the novel progresses through thrust and counter thrust, from one absurd violent action to the next, Hood single-handedly eliminates all of Rosario’s goons, usually in grisly, unlikely fashions.
The tale is well-described and has a solid enough plot, which probably tries to touch too many bases – Rosario has been robbing jewellery warehouses and banks as well as smuggling state gold. Mayo’s writing doesn’t neglect our external senses. The sights, sounds and scents, touch and taste of places, people and things is paramount in Hood’s dangerously tailored world. Mayo gives them all a fair lick. We’re never too far away from a sensuous trickle of Roman water fountains, a damson flavoured claret, a Van Gogh mustard sunset or the soft lilting purse of a pair of ruby lips. You get the general idea. We understand Hood is a sophisticate and a glutton. He enjoys his wine and women. He also revels in the violence. The fights appal him, latterly, but he’s almost always stoked with righteous anger. Rosario becomes his Enemy Number One and several times we are told Hood dislikes him, wants to punch him or kill him. Yet he has an unswerving admiration for the man. The good living blinds our bon viveur to the ugliness within. This is about as close to internal emotion as you get in a James Mayo thriller.
Oddly we are told Hood falls in love with Bonbon. The feeling is mutual. But this doesn’t stop him chasing after the stunning Alexis Falkenburg once he discovers her residing naked like Robina Crusoe on a deserted coral island. This slightly distasteful scene is pure sexploitation. In fact the whole show has that air of a 1960s European spy flick, where the fights and chases and seductions happen thick and fast and for no apparent reason. The deeper I delved into Shamelady, the more I thought about those almost all forgotten movies like Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die or Our Man in Marrakesh. Even Derek Flint dovetails a little towards this fashion. Like the happenings in those kind of movies, it isn’t entirely clear why Alexis was kept alive.
The story resolves itself through an untidy series of chapter by chapter, scene by scene standoffs between Hood and each of his antagonists, ending in the prehistoric caves at Giron, Bordeaux. Best of these confrontations is probably the Basque’s pelota bashing, but a wicked fight with an Arab gardener who ends up impaled on his pitch fork is terrifying in its telling. After Hood is recaptured – he constantly escapes, returns, escapes, gets caught – he’s losing his spying touch – Rosario affably readmits him into his grand plan: “You roughed up a couple of the staff. The others took things into their own hands.” Let’s forgive and forget all the senseless killings…
The most bizarre showdown is with Lulu, the talkative super-computer packed full of witticisms and deadly devices to protect itself. This has all the desperate hallmarks of those cheap spy flicks I mentioned. It’s inventively silly. Mayo hasn’t done his homework though. Even in the 1960s computers were always housed in air conditioned, closeted rooms, so it would be nigh-on impossible for a locust swarm to come to Hood’s rescue. I kid you not. Locusts are one of the world’s most rampant insect pests. They swarm by the billion. They would also ravage Rosario’s orchards, flowers, the whole estate, and this isn’t even hinted at. A terrible authorial oversight.
So, did I enjoy Shamelady? Well, if action’s your thing and you aren’t too fussed how or why you got there, it does a grand job. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first two Charles Hood’s. Because of the bounties of sexy women, the over-imaginative plot, the sleek teak-like villain, the startling parade of horrid henchmen, the inventive spikes of hardcore violence, it feels almost too over-the-top. Mayo’s reused his own formula, gate-crashed his own party and over-painted his canvas. Yes, the novel is tough on action, gritty and suspenseful. It rarely slackens. Yet, for all the fine recipes – for deed, amore, nourishment and landscape – there is an ingredient missing: Charles Hood and the personalities that surround him lack any kind of soul.
Shamelady is certainly worth a read, but be prepared only for an action packed ride and characters as thin as a reed.
January 17, 2024
Mayo ups the pace with his third entry in the Charles Hood saga, featuring a colourful array of Bond villains (including a literal paraplegic henchman who drives around on his wheelchair with twin front mounted sub-machine guns - fantastic). A much more entertaining read than the previous entry ‘Let Sleeping Girls Lie’ and full of the usual suspect spy tropes - but I relished every line and can’t wait to sample more. Bon appetit!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews