The Penetrator #17: Demented Empire

The Penetrator #17: Demented Empire by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1976
Price I paid: 50¢

A crime and swindle operation syndicate has set up a weapons warehouse in Florida.
Five senior citizens are dead. They were conned out of their life’s savings on phony land deals and made the mistake of complaining. This mob is also distributing wholesale weaponry, ammunition, and drugs to any thief or psycho with money. Tony Rossi of La Cosa Nostra asks his old friend, Mark Hardin, to smash the Florida operation. And Mark is forced to help the Mafia against their non-Sicilian opponents because of their threat to innocent people!
Join the Penetrator as he wreaks havoc on organized crime: fighting from Florida to Guatemala to bust up the most insidious drug, gun, and swindle operation ever to threaten our national security!

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The Penetrator #30: Computer Kill

The Penetrator #30: Computer Kill by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1979
Price I paid: $1.50

Electronics wizard Hector Lattimer has at last figured out a fool-proof way to beat the system. Using his ingeniously designed portable computer terminal, Lattimer can tap into any programmed bank and authorize payment to his account. Then, in a flash of a diode, all data is wiped out—with no one the wiser…and Lattimer the richer.

Even the Penetrator is baffled—until he learns that the engineer is an embittered ex-employee of an electronics firm; a madman whose attempts at extortion have failed, who is now planning to destroy the entire works by automating a deadly device that will trigger an explosion.

It’s a touchy situation, and Mark Hardin’s number may be up—unless he can stop the bomb before it blows!

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The Destroyer #32: Killer Chromosomes

The Destroyer #32: Killer Chromosomes by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
Pinnacle Books, 1978
Price I paid: I forgot

What happens when a lady scientist discovers a “key” to the manipulation of genetic patterns that keep different species from intermingling?

The lady becomes a tiger—of the man-eating variety. She is wild, beautiful, and deadly. And she soon decides that she must share her sinister secret with other women. The lovely killer genes multiply geometrically…and so does the fatality rate. The country becomes littered with chewed-up bodies. All men.

Enter Remo and Chiun—The Destroyer—the only weapon against this carnivorous cutie. Handsome Remo, fast on the chase becomes her prisoner—and love slave. Conspiracy and criminality fall into Remo’s usual area of operation. Genetic warfare and animalistic passions are something else again. Especially when the enemy looks like a Playboycenterfold!

So, as Remo is about to choose between going down in flames or up in smoke, Chiun sees a way to preserve the integrity of man’s chromosomes, and stay alive…something to do with the ancient Korean proverb about knowing which tale of the tiger to take!

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The Penetrator #24: Cryogenic Nightmare

The Penetrator #24: Cryogenic Nightmare by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1978
Price I paid: $1.50

Preacher Mann is too much for the FBI and the CIA. He has dual citizenship and friends in diplomatic circles and he’s too powerful for the regular legal channels. He’s come a long way: from a pimp in Harlem he’s worked his way to the top―of the rackets. He’s into international dope, espionage―and now, in his orgy palace off the Florida coast he’s onto a new wrinkle!

The most beautiful women in the country are systematically vanishing. And Preacher Mann is holding them on ice―literally. He’s freezing them until needed―to be shipped to the highest bidder.

Only one man can defrost the situation―the Penetrator. He must succeed where others have failed. One man on a mission that’s too cool to handle!

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NYPD 2025

NYPD 2025 by Hal Stryker
Pinnacle Books, 1985
Price I paid: 90¢

IN A WORLD OF THE NEAR FUTURE,
WHERE DECENT PEOPLE LIVE IN FEAR,
WHERE JUSTICE IS DYING AND
THE LAW PROTECTS THE GUILTY―
THE COMBAT OPERATIONS POLICE COME ROARING IN!

The bleeding heart lawmakers have taken lethal weapons out of the hands of the law enforcers―and in the world’s largest city criminals are on a perpetual holiday. Rape, murder, robbery, and sabotage are the order of the day. The answer:

COP
COMBAT OPERATIONS POLICE

A special enforcement unit made up of the toughest, bravest, and most cunning street-smart fighting men, using the best in weaponry―including Andy Jumbles, an android, indestructable against bullet, dynamite, or laser. They are heading right into the deadly shadows of Manhattan to stomp the human trash that rules the dark―and give the city back to its people!

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The Penetrator #4: Hijacking Manhattan

The Penetrator #4: Hijacking Manhattan by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1974
Price I paid: $1.50

Mark Hardin…

…is prepared for trouble in New York City, but he’d hoped to arrive in time to prevent it. The first subway station blew up while he was still en route from California, piloting a sleek new twin-engine plane. It was fast, but not fast enough to get him there in time to stop the 72nd Street IRT station from caving in, carrying a large section of Broadway with it.

A Third World group, an alliance of Afro-Asian students, the Eusi Dhahabu, has been formed in Harlem. It says that they are working for racial equality, but they are asking for money. Lots of it. Exactly two million dollars in unmarked, used twenty-dollar bills. If they do not get the cash promptly, twelve more subway stations will go. During rush hours. With thousands of people in them.

Responsible blacks cannot infiltrate the group. They have tried. How, then, can the Penetrator? Honkies stand out in Harlem. Somehow Hardin must reach back into his Indian past for a disguise that will work…and fast. There are forty-two subway stations in New York City, and time is running out.

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The Penetrator #35: Black Massacre

The Penetrator #35: Black Massacre by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1980
Price I paid: $1.50

Alarmed over the increasing number of mysterious deaths among the black population, the Penetrator rushes to Indianapolis, where he learns that a strange epidemic of sickle cell anemia is sweeping the country.

Then, hearing that a similar situation is occurring in Puerto Rico, Mark Hardin flies to San Juan…and finds out that a deranged toxicologist has developed a secret formula that triggers the fatal disease…an invisible death spray to infect those susceptible, killing them one by one…

It’s a race against the clock as the Penetrator searches for the insane scientist responsible for dealing sudden death to the blacks, and discovers the shocking reason for his deadly revenge…

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The Executioner #32: Tennessee Smash

The Executioner #32: Tennessee Smash by Don Pendleton
Pinnacle Books, 1978
Price I paid: none

That familiar byline on millions of copies of Executioner novels has now become a guarantee of the most exciting writing in a whole new category of hard-hitting adventure fiction.

Don Pendleton had written more than thirty books before writing the first book in the Executioner series, War Against the Mafia, a few years ago. That was the start of what is now America’s hottest action series. With thirty-two volumes complete and three more on the drawing board, Don has little time for writing anything but Executioner books. Each book is written in about six weeks as Don simultaneously gathers and directs the research for upcoming adventures.

A much-decorated veteran of World War II, Don saw action in the North Atlantic U-boat wars, the invasion of North Africa, and the assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He later led a team of naval scouts, who landed in Tokyo preparatory to the Japanese surrender. As if that weren’t enough, he went back for more in Korea, too!

Before turning to full-time duty at the typewriter, Don held down positions as a railroad telegrapher, air traffic controller, aeronautical systems engineer, and even had a hand in the early ICBM and Moonshot programs.

He’s the father of six and now makes his home in a small town in Indiana. He does his writing amidst a unique collection of weapons, photos, and books—usually half-buried in research, news clippings, and maps. Whether it’s Boston, Cleveland, or Nashville, you’ll get the feeling Don and Mack were there.

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The Penetrator #1: The Target is H

The Penetrator #1: The Target is H by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1973
Price I paid: 50¢

MARK HARDIN…

The Penetrator. He’d learned how in Vietnam. Infiltrate the enemy’s position, determine the plan of action and then strike swiftly, taking out as many key men as possible, wreaking destruction, leaving chaos in your wake.

Now he was in Los Angeles, engaged in a new, far more sinister war. But he was fully prepared and totally committed, and bound by no rules but his own.

He is tall and slim, reflecting his unique Indian-Welsh background. His driver’s licence indicates his age is twenty-eight. If he seems a bit grim, it is for good reason.

He was orphaned at four, when his parents and three brothers and sisters were killed in an automobile crash. Since then he’s been mistreated, brutalized by life, injured in games (football), and wounded in combat. But he’s survived. Mark Hardin is tough, a survivor. And an expert. Marksmanship, karate, aikido, and even the crossbow, are part of his arsenal.

He is a new breed of warrior—without uniform, without rank—dedicated to the American way of life, and pledged to fight anyone who seeks to destroy it. On either side of the law. That’s why he’s in Los Angeles. Just the beginning of a long and lonely series of brushfire wars.

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The Penetrator #21: The Supergun Mission

The Penetrator #21: The Supergun Mission by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1977
Price I paid: $1.50

It started with the smuggling of Mexican “wetbacks” for slave labor in the U.S. They were brought to an island in Lake Texoma, north of Dallas, to work on a top-secret operation directed by H.H. Christiansen…and were forbidden to leave. But it wasn’t until twenty-five Mexicans died in a mysterious tank truck fire that the Penetrator was called in. That’s when this simple smuggling assignment turned into a national security threat.

The project is the development of a sonic gun—the ultimate weapon—which causes the human body to explode from internal pressure, turning flesh and bone to jelly. The Cubans, the Albanians, and the Red Chinese are in on the buy. But the scientists working on the project are in need of a guinea pig—and Mark Hardin, the Penetrator, is just what the doctors ordered…

He has only one shot—to destroy the supergun before it annihilates him and all of the free world.

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