The Big Brain #1: The Aardvark Affair by Gary Brandner

 

(pb; 1975: first book in The Big Brain trilogy)

From the back cover

“Before his birth, even before his conception, everything about Colin Garrett’s life was planned with a single goal in mind: to produce a genius child. The plan was so successful that the standard tests for intelligence did not measure high enough to rate Colin on their scales.

“But one thing the brain wasn’t smart enough to do was keep his mind power hidden from the Army.

“When serious trouble erupts at Aardvark, Colonel Jefferson (J.J.) Juddd makes it his business to start the brain working again for the highest-level espionage operation ever conceived—Agency Zero.

 

“Judd tells Garrett that Aardvark is a soil reclamation project, testing ultrasonics and laser light to change the molecular structure of barren soil. And there people have become mental vegetables in the course of that testing.

“But you can’t keep a secret from a man with X-ray intelligence. Garrett knows one of those three is faking.”

 

Review

This 189-page “men’s adventure” book, the first in Brandner’s The Big Brain trilogy, is a fun, tightly penned, action-punctuated and oh-so-masculine spy-ish thriller where the titular, ultra-smart character (Colin Garrett) and his muscular partner-in-espionage, Beverley “Beano” Rocker, set out to discover who’s responsible for the sabotage of a top-secret government program (Aardvark). Their spiraling investigation takes them to (for them) unexpected places, with inevitable and well-placed, effective twists, and a solemn finish. While there are few surprises for genre-familiar readers in Aardvark, it’s an above-average thriller from the author of The Howling trilogy. Fans of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Ian Fleming’s James Bond series might especially enjoy Aardvark.

Aardvark is followed by The Big Brain #2: The Beezlebub Business.