Hero and the Terror

by Michael Blodgett

The Hero, Herrara Fiddleman, chief of detectives for the Venice, California, police department, matches wits with the Terror, Simon Moon, a shyster lawyer and deranged sex murderer

247 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1986

About the author

Michael Blodgett was born on January 1, 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Blodgett attended the University of Minnesota and began his acting career in his hometown of Minneapolis. Michael earned a law degree in political science from Cal State Los Angeles and attended Loyola Law School for a year. Blodgett quit acting in the late 70s and became a successful novelist and screenwriter. He penned the novels "Captain Blood", "Hero and the Terror" and "The White Raven". In addition, he either wrote or co-wrote the scripts for the Chuck Norris action vehicle "Hero and the Terror" (1988) , the hit comedy "Turner & Hooch" (1989), "Rent-a-Cop" (1987), "Run" (1991), and "The White Raven" (1998). Michael Blodgett died at age 67 from a heart attack on November 14, 2007.

Reviews

[Bryan Brassfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was made into a movie in 1988. It was made by Cannon and starred Chuck Norris as Hero and Superman II’s Jack O’Halloran (Non) as Terror. If you’ve seen the film you are getting just a bare outline of this book. There’s some characters and situations that are in the film, but they are not representative of the tone of this book. This isn’t an action/thriller about a cop after a serial killer like the film. This book is sleazy, filled with sex, violence and lots of bonkers moments. Chuck probably saw the premise of the book and said yeah I’m not doing any of this unless stuff changes. Cannon films has wallowed in the sleaze factor before so it had to be Chuck who put his foot down.

The book has a cop called Hero (he’s called this because someone in his family couldn’t pronounce his name correctly) who is a cop that knows some karate. This is just made in a passing mention and doesn’t really play into the plot, but it was enough for producers to think Chuck Norris! He has plenty of sex with his live in model lover. At one point he even molests her at a fancy restaurant while on a date! He is always thinking about having sex with every female he meets. He’s an avid jogger oh and he’s a poet as well! We get the (dis)pleasure of reading these poems. Every one in the book loves them and thinks he’s a genius. On a side note maybe Cannon could have got WWF poet laureate Leaping Lanny Poffo for the part and he would have been cheaper than Norris.

Hero was on the case of a serial killer in the late 70’s nicknamed The Terror. His modus operandi is to rip women’s throats out with his bare hands ala Sonny Chiba in The Streetfighter (In the film he breaks their necks). The killings just stopped for several years and then start happening again. So you would think that Hero would be obsessed with finding The Terror. Nope he’s got more important matters like jogging, sex, poetry, thinking about sex, and dealing with other cases that he’s not really good at solving.

These other cases involve: An overweight pedo who makes snuff films of his victims. He keeps getting away with it because Hero can’t get enough evidence to put him away. It gets resolved with Hero having nothing to do with it.

Then there’s a female doctor who goes by the name Placenta. I’m not making this up! Seems she has been using her boyfriend’s sperm to artificially inseminate a bunch of women without his knowledge. He finds out and wants to meet his children. Hero resolves this by breaking the law.

He also has to teach some bodybuilders a lesson who are bullying a couple on the beach. He does this by hitting the lead bullies balls so hard they swell up and he has to walk funny.

Oh then there’s the man with no face who is thrown randomly into the story to make you think he’s a victim of the Terror. Nope. It’s just a bizarre encounter for no apparent reason.

The other half of the book is about The Terror. We follow him around and learn he settled down and had a family. This is why the killings have stopped for several years. He slowly starts to loose his mind again at a Christmas party and goes back to his old ways. We also get his backstory. Mom didn’t want him and showed him no affection. Dad was an abusive drunk. He was traumatized when he witnessed his dad cutting off his hemorrhoids with some shears. You know the normal stuff that turns one into a serial killer.

We also find out that he’s a lawyer who at one time worked in the legal department at MGM studios! Cannon films missed out on not having Jack O’Halloran playing a serial killing lawyer for Cannon films!

I can’t say the book is good, but I enjoyed its trashy and sleazy vibe. The sex stuff is quite hysterical in its descriptions and reminds one of the over the top Penthouse letters of yesteryear. The book is just all over the place and not what I expected out of a serial killer thriller. One moment we got a scene where a woman loses her glass eye and it’s implied that the Terror is going to…well you get the picture. The next we get Heroes poetry or jogging techniques. One moment we get the tragic backstory of The Terror finding true love only for it to end bad. We follow this up with Hero doing a BB King impersonation singing a song about performing oral sex on his girlfriend. I would have loved to see Chuck tackle this tender moment in the film.

The book is nuts! If you find it on the cheap I say pick it up. It goes by pretty quick. Just don’t expect a Thomas Harris Red Dragon or Silence of the Lambs. Think more of a trashy Rex Miller novel. Of course the book has to end on one of Hero’s shitty poems. Spoiler alert I guess.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 1983. Mass murderer must be stopped.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Time to pack it up when the Cannon Films adaptation of your book has better characters, structure, and story.

[Charles Bodenheimer · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF
140 pages in.

[Pat Devlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it was by no means a masterpiece, it was a nice, easy read. I bought it out of curiousity because I knew that the Chuck Norris movie of the same name was based on a novel. The novel and movie are so different, I can't believe the novelist also wrote the screenplay. Needless to say, I found the book to be a lot more enjoyable than the movie.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good one. I liked it a lot and thought they made a decent movie of this one with Chuck Norris.