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Charles Hood #4
Sergeant Death
Charles Hood's fourth assignment.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 22, 2021
Originally titled Once in a Lifetime, my paperback copy of James Mayo’s fourth Charles Hood bears the legend: “with minor additions, published 1969 by Pan Books Ltd.” Hitting the hardback shelves in the UK in May ’68, one month after the movie premiere of Hammerhead, this novel must have troubled the publishers for the title change wasn’t the only alteration being made. Something has gone seriously awry with the author’s fourth stab at the spy genre. The blurb on the inside sleeve reads as if nothing much has changed: sex and sadism never had it so good. Start reading the book however and it feels vastly different. Basically, this is because Mayo doesn’t spend his narrative following the exploits of his hero, which he so carefully and outrageously maintained throughout almost the entire length of the previous three. Sticking to one character’s – the hero’s – point of view often aids a reader’s identification with that person. In Sergeant Death, it is the titular Quartermaster Sergeant Lloyd Bannion who is the primary focus of the swift and perfunctory prose.
Bannion has been running illegal rake offs from U.S. Air Force stores for five years. He’s got a comfortable life in Tehran. Drinking hard, bullying subordinates and blatantly seducing women takes up the majority of his time. The rest is spent defrauding the military or shipping stolen artefacts to Europe for Iranian smugglers. His contact is the shrewd Ahmad Malik, who is rivals with the South American Franklin Delgado. Malik’s teenage over-sexed wife Zarin is sleeping with them all (and others). She hasn’t yet though got her claws into the archaeologist Helpman, who is singlehandedly digging out the lost tomb of Nebuchadnezzar and unearthing priceless totems. Bannion thinks he can get a bigger slice of the antique action and aims to remove both Malik and Delgado from his path. He reckons without Helpman’s objections or the scrutiny of Charles Hood, who drops into Tehran following a lead about fake objects d’art being sold at Kristoby’s auctioneers.
Mayo spends the earlier section of the novel following Hood’s path. A murder in Tehran doesn’t seem relevant, until his Paris enquires at Sarda’s sordid little strip club, send him jetting to warmer climates. Iran was a favourite haunt of the decadent rich in the sixties and early seventies, so Mayo’s picked a juicy little location to frame this sex-and-bullets escapade. What he doesn’t do is wallow enough in the territorial landscape. Hood spends most of his time galivanting around the posh international hotels or resorts, private villas and officer clubs frequented by the same hoodlums he begins to investigate. This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact Mayo spends such an inordinate amount of time describing the figures of the opposite sex. This becomes a distraction. Although there isn’t very much to distract the reader other than a few rudimentary pieces of detective work and couple of street fights.
Bannion is a distinctly unlovable character, deliberately I’m sure. The problem is, so too is Malik, Delgado and Helpman. The latter is a selfish egotist chasing money rather than prestige on a bizarre revenge kick against the establishment who have discredited him – rightly – for forgeries and theft. He may be a genius. He’s also an idiot. The other three are all powerful men. Bannion brutally, physically so; he’s a psychopath, rapist and murderer, he just hasn’t been caught yet. Delgado is a strong, wealthy, confident, malicious man, who wants to possess whatever he cherishes, be it businesses, paintings or people through blackmail and wealth. He too has committed untried crimes. Malik uses stealth and secrecy. He’s a go-between, a money-grabber, a sexual deviant. Never have I read of such a distasteful bunch. The deeper I delved into the book and Mayo described their lives and lifestyles, the more disheartening an exercise it became.
Hood pairs up with the delicious swimmer Debbie Ansell. She’s one of Delgado’s former victims and appears to shrug off the vicious past encounter – a horrifically related BDSM rape – as if it was par for the territory of working for the Circle. Debbie’s so incautious she almost goes through the same motions with Bannion, who stalks her and breaks into her house. Hood claims to love dear Debbie, but given they spend exactly five days together this seems hopelessly romanticised.
I’m not entirely sure what kind of novel I’m supposed to be reading here. I will acknowledge Mayo’s clever analogy of Nebuchadnezzar’s period of insanity, of which the King famously spent time eating grass in the wilderness; this descends upon the four trophy hunters seeking his sarcophagus. It’s a stretched point and I didn’t recognise it this time around. I will concede Mayo has drawn detailed backgrounds for his protagonists and spends time with each of his characters, allowing us a window into their realm and emotions.
Sadly, this isn’t enough for me. While Charles Hood is present, he isn’t centre-stage. The novel loses its focus, or rather the series loses focus, because of it. Hood sits drinking whisky sours on the periphery of the action and only becomes involved at the very end and even then he’s as good as stumbled across the situation. So a few nasty murders, some nasty hallucinations of pornographic sex, nice locations nicely described, some nasty rough stuff, a sprinkle of wickedly acid-barbed lines nicely delivered here and there and a nasty taste left in the mouth.
Overall, nicely nasty or nastily nice. Take your pick.
Bannion has been running illegal rake offs from U.S. Air Force stores for five years. He’s got a comfortable life in Tehran. Drinking hard, bullying subordinates and blatantly seducing women takes up the majority of his time. The rest is spent defrauding the military or shipping stolen artefacts to Europe for Iranian smugglers. His contact is the shrewd Ahmad Malik, who is rivals with the South American Franklin Delgado. Malik’s teenage over-sexed wife Zarin is sleeping with them all (and others). She hasn’t yet though got her claws into the archaeologist Helpman, who is singlehandedly digging out the lost tomb of Nebuchadnezzar and unearthing priceless totems. Bannion thinks he can get a bigger slice of the antique action and aims to remove both Malik and Delgado from his path. He reckons without Helpman’s objections or the scrutiny of Charles Hood, who drops into Tehran following a lead about fake objects d’art being sold at Kristoby’s auctioneers.
Mayo spends the earlier section of the novel following Hood’s path. A murder in Tehran doesn’t seem relevant, until his Paris enquires at Sarda’s sordid little strip club, send him jetting to warmer climates. Iran was a favourite haunt of the decadent rich in the sixties and early seventies, so Mayo’s picked a juicy little location to frame this sex-and-bullets escapade. What he doesn’t do is wallow enough in the territorial landscape. Hood spends most of his time galivanting around the posh international hotels or resorts, private villas and officer clubs frequented by the same hoodlums he begins to investigate. This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact Mayo spends such an inordinate amount of time describing the figures of the opposite sex. This becomes a distraction. Although there isn’t very much to distract the reader other than a few rudimentary pieces of detective work and couple of street fights.
Bannion is a distinctly unlovable character, deliberately I’m sure. The problem is, so too is Malik, Delgado and Helpman. The latter is a selfish egotist chasing money rather than prestige on a bizarre revenge kick against the establishment who have discredited him – rightly – for forgeries and theft. He may be a genius. He’s also an idiot. The other three are all powerful men. Bannion brutally, physically so; he’s a psychopath, rapist and murderer, he just hasn’t been caught yet. Delgado is a strong, wealthy, confident, malicious man, who wants to possess whatever he cherishes, be it businesses, paintings or people through blackmail and wealth. He too has committed untried crimes. Malik uses stealth and secrecy. He’s a go-between, a money-grabber, a sexual deviant. Never have I read of such a distasteful bunch. The deeper I delved into the book and Mayo described their lives and lifestyles, the more disheartening an exercise it became.
Hood pairs up with the delicious swimmer Debbie Ansell. She’s one of Delgado’s former victims and appears to shrug off the vicious past encounter – a horrifically related BDSM rape – as if it was par for the territory of working for the Circle. Debbie’s so incautious she almost goes through the same motions with Bannion, who stalks her and breaks into her house. Hood claims to love dear Debbie, but given they spend exactly five days together this seems hopelessly romanticised.
I’m not entirely sure what kind of novel I’m supposed to be reading here. I will acknowledge Mayo’s clever analogy of Nebuchadnezzar’s period of insanity, of which the King famously spent time eating grass in the wilderness; this descends upon the four trophy hunters seeking his sarcophagus. It’s a stretched point and I didn’t recognise it this time around. I will concede Mayo has drawn detailed backgrounds for his protagonists and spends time with each of his characters, allowing us a window into their realm and emotions.
Sadly, this isn’t enough for me. While Charles Hood is present, he isn’t centre-stage. The novel loses its focus, or rather the series loses focus, because of it. Hood sits drinking whisky sours on the periphery of the action and only becomes involved at the very end and even then he’s as good as stumbled across the situation. So a few nasty murders, some nasty hallucinations of pornographic sex, nice locations nicely described, some nasty rough stuff, a sprinkle of wickedly acid-barbed lines nicely delivered here and there and a nasty taste left in the mouth.
Overall, nicely nasty or nastily nice. Take your pick.
February 4, 2019
Really didn't like this one. It's my first Charles Hood, and it just wasn't very good. Very underwritten, with certain narrative sections made particularly confusing by non-specific uses of "he" and "she" when referring to characters despite the presence of multiple people to whom it could apply. Plus there were three Big Bads that were all essentially the same Tough Guy No One Messes With with one defining tweak (one was Military TGNOMW, one was Rich TGNOMW, and one was Local Middle Eastern TGNOMW), except for when the story called for them to be cowed or subsurvient. There was one great moment of violence featuring Hood where he stabs a pin through a guy's upper neck into his mouth, then swings around and grabs another guy's moustache and pulls up, essentially tearing the guy's lip from his gums, but other than that it's a boring fifth-grade-level read. Shame, because the premise of the plot (Hood is a hired gun for an international antiques dealer conglomerate like Sotheby's, and has to track town the source of well-made fakes that are bringing the conglomerate into public ridicule) is an interesting one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 15, 2024
Sadly this one fell flat after the previous three entries in the Charles Hood series, which were all fairly high octane stories focusing on Hood’s point of view. In this entry he is firmly backstage right up until the last few pages, and at times it was a tough read to get through. Most of the book was a slow burner filled with unlikeable characters. Bannion makes for an interesting villain as a concept but the showdown with him at the climax feels more like a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment. A real shame as Mayo’s previous three Hood adventures were great spy stories echoing the footsteps of Connery’s Bond. I wanted more, but I didn’t find it here.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews