The Big Brain #3: Energy Zero by Gary Brandner

 

(1976: third book in The Big Brain trilogy. Publisher: Zebra Books.)

 

From the back cover

“THE BIG BRAIN IS POWERLESS. . .

“And so is the rest of the country. Call it energy crisis, black-out, magnetic warp. . . call it what you will, but there is just no electricity, plain and simple. Lights won’t light, motors won’t start, auxiliary generators are dead. And without any AC, DC is on its knees, ready to surrender.

“Even Colin Garrett, whose super bain can untangle the most incomprehensible technical problem, finds this truly a current conundrum. But even if he has to short every circuit in his brain, Garrett must learn who pulled the switch on Washington!”

 

Review

The Chinese are again the (probable) villains in Energy Zero, this time operating an “oil exploration” station in the frozen hell called the North Pole—it seems they, while seemingly working on a legit program, might be using a mysterious machine whose broadcasting power nullifies its targets’ electrical power, rendering them completely helpless energy-wise.

Of course, Energy has familiar setups and characters (again, Garrett gets a case partner: this time Ko Chun, who seems on the up-and-up, but is he really?). But Brandner ups his game here, plays with men’s adventure genre/Big Brain expectations with new-to-the-series twists and character motivations which, along with Garrett’s second-to-third-act survivalist situation (truly harrowing and inventive, with luck thrown in), make Energy (at least for this reader) the best entry in the already-fun, smartly written Brain trilogy. Garrett’s proclivity for casual sex (usually with affection—he is truly a lover of women) is in evidence as well, keeping with the first two books, so readers who enjoy that aspect can smile at it anew. Excellent, humorous and fun-in-a-men’s-adventure-way read, this crisply written and edited adventure is a great, playful ending for the Big Brain series.

The Big Brain #2: The Beezlebub Business by Gary Brandner

 

(pb; 1975: second book in The Big Brain trilogy. Publisher: Zebra Books.)

 

From the back cover

“What good is a billion-dollar brain when there’s the devil to pay?

“It’s hell on earth for Colin Garrett—the Big Brain—when an assignment to investigate the President’s chief advisor on forgeign affairs leads him to the Beezlebub Club. The elite club is a haven of sex and Satanism for Senators and other Washington headliners: it may also be afront for undesirable political activists. Garrett’s Big Brain usually functions faster than a computer, allowing him to probe men’s minds and read their thoughts. But now a deadly, impenetrable mind shield, wielded by Beezlebub, has Garrett almost helpless in a masterful duel of brain waves. Because if just one circuit shorts, it will blow out the Big Brain forever!”

 

Review

The second Big Brain novel finds Colin Garrett and his Agency Zero boss (General Jefferson “J.J.” Judd) investigating Alec Danneman, friend and close advisor to the current US President—it seems that Danneman has been become secretive with his colleagues, his actions made more suspicious by the fact that Danneman is set to engage in important international negotiations with Chinese government officials (among them Chung Tao-Lin, head of the Chinese intelligence agency).

Garrett’s job becomes more complicated when Judd’s friend, Darrell York, member of Executive Committee of Foreign Affairs board, is publicly stabbed to death; York was the one who gave Judd the heads-up on Danneman. Another violent death, possibly connected to York’s killing, widens the scope of the investigation, bringing two others into Garrett’s orbit: Norman Schuyler, husband of the recently deceased Bebe Schuyler; and Liona Wolfe, a satanic dominatrix linked to the notorious Beezlebub Club (which Danneman recently visited).

Fortunately for Garrett, Beezlebub‘s Garrett Woman (think “Bond Girl”) is Trudie McKenzie, a smart, sometimes girly, Washington D.C. guide who provides more than transportation help to the titular cerebral spy-detective.

One curious character, briefly mentioned as a “friend” of Judd’s, is Dr. Arnold Tesla. Arnold’s name is close to Bela Lugosi’s character, Dr. Armand Tesla, in the 1943 Lew Landers film The Return of the Vampire. Not sure if it’s a coincidence, or why it might be a cinematic-to-pulp in-joke, but given Brandner’s genre-smart pulp sensibilities, it perked my interest.

As with the first novel (The Aardvark Affair), Beezlebub’s writing is fast-paced, tightly edited and bluntly male-gaze in its language, with its casual-womanizer Garrett deftly, sometimes violently and carnally adapting to its corkscrew events and lots-of-suspects characters. (The two sex scenes are explicit enough to make the sexually shy blush, but fall short of being completely X-rated.) The killer (or killers) isn’t too hard to figure out, but it’s an entertaining action-flick, short-read trashy novel by an excellent, having-fun author. Worth reading, this. Followed by The Big Brain #3: Energy Zero.

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

 

(pb; 1975: first book in The Big Brain trilogy. Publisher: Zebra Books.)

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.) Judd 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.