Book Review: Michael Crichton writing as John Lange, pt. 2

- by Señor Editor, 28 March 2014

Earlier this year, I wrote about three of the eight books written by Michael Crichton under the secret alias "John Lange". All these books were re-released last year under the Hard Case Crime imprint, and now, thanks to the good people at Titan Books, I got the remaining books and am ready to talk about them! The John Langethon continues!

Since I already gave you the whole story about these brilliantly pulpy novels the last time around, let's just get right to the books themselves! Today I talk about "Odds On", "Easy Go", "Grave Descend", "Binary" and "Scratch One"!

Let's begin with 1966's "Odds On", in which three crafty men decide to rob the luxurious and remote spanish Hotel Reina, along with everybody in it, during one evening! It's the perfect heist, planned for months before by a man who's practically a genius. Everything is proceeding nicely after the men check in (they don't rob the hotel right away, as that would obviously put them as prime suspects), but they soon meet three incredibly sexy women, to which they grow more and more attracted to. They soon find themselves conflicted between their greed and their lust, which makes the preparations harder. That's not all: they find out that there are things even their master planner didn't account for.

I'm normally not a big fan of heist stories, but Crichton/Lange's ability to pull you into his books is nearly unmatched. Though it applies to all the Lange pulps, you really can't put this book away. Each of the three criminals (every one of them has a different specialty) is a compelling character, and they're just as calculating with the women they meet, as they are with the heist. 

Great thing about the Lange books is how each of them has a very specific setting, perfectly thought out, fitting the action and very well researched. The spirit of the '60s is very much present in this one, and Crichton's knack for writing larger than life characters from different cultures and backgrounds is astounding. The women are hot, the men are dangerous, and the stakes are high. What more could you want from a Hard Case Crime book?

"Binary", from 1972, is an unusual Lange novel in the way that (besides the beautiful cover by legendary Glen Orbik) it doesn't feature any women, sexy or otherwise! Gasp! There's a good explanation for that, though, as it's about a government agent John Graves, in a race against time to stop weapon of mass destruction from killing millions of people, including the President of the United States! So you can see how we could have other concerns.

Graves' opponent in here is a man with an equally (or more) analytical and dangerous mind, John Wright. He's a wealthy man with his own ideas of how the United States should be ran, and he won't back down from drastic ways to make his visions a reality. His men have been stealing chemicals from military transports, chemicals that are useless on their own. So why steal them? Because when put together, they create a binary nerve gas, that is a gas that is only dangerous when you mix the two main components. Graves doesn't have a lot time, and Wright is ready for almost anything the agent comes up with.

The pace and style of this is a little like a 1970s version of the TV show "24", just better. Graves is a very interesting character, who actually has to look at things from a new perspective, because his enemy knows everything about him and anticipated all his moves so far. Lange does a great job of playing with the "binary" theme - the theme of two interacting elements. It's a great thriller, featuring some ideas that were really ahead of their time.

1967's "Scratch One" is a classic tale of mistaken identity. There's an arms shipment destined for Middle East and a terrorist group has been doing their best to prevent it. They have been proceeding with assassinations in several European countries, and the US won't stand for it, so they send their best killer to take the terrorists down. Except he gets delayed in transit, and so an American accountant, Roger Carr, gets mistaken for the killer by all parties involved when he arrives in France (he's actually there to buy a villa for his client).

The thing about Carr, though, is that despite his profession, he's far from an average working stiff. He's charming, he's funny and he reacts to the higher-ups, who confuse him for their assassin, and to the enemy agents in really funny ways. If this was an '80s movie, he could be played by Chevy Chase. Lots of funny dialogues, good action (a part of the book takes place during the Monaco Formula 1 races), and it all makes for a great page-turner. One of the best books in the Lange bunch.

One other great thing about "Scratch One" are the villains here. One of them is a doctor. A surgeon, actually. Crichton being a doctor himself, I'm kind of used to seeing all the medical specialists in these books, but he always adds a nice twist to these characters, so it's never the same thing over and over. The villains are great.

"Easy Go", from 1968, is a different kind of "heist" book. Archeological heist! An archeologist and a band of various specialists set out to find the last uncovered tomb of the pharaohs, and they have to be stealthy about their whole dig. When they find it, they will exchange the tomb's location (and the treasures within) for a big sum of money from the Egyptian government. 

This is a great adventure book, with plenty of colorful characters, but most importantly to me, it really shows how GOOD pulp should be. Pulp fiction often gets a bad rep, but when its done well, its fantastic and shouldn't be considered worse literature than anything else. Lange/Crichton really does his homework here, from Egypt history, archeology, to the way the country was changing in the mid 20th century. A lesser writer would be content with just pushing the action foreward. Lange tells you what brand of Egyptian cigarettes the characters are smoking, and what European airline they used to get to Egypt.

And with a diverse cast of characters (from an English lord, to a Greek thief, several archeologists and scientists etc) these details DO play a big part in making the narration all the more richer and realistic. These are things the characters would and should know, and it's subtle touches like that that really make these books so great. You feel like you're there for these adventures, in those same countries and times.

Probably leaving the best for last here. "Grave Descend" (1970) is set on Jamaica, and follows diver and badass James McGregor. McGregor is hired to explore the wreck of the sunken ship Grave Descend, and retrieve what he finds there. Thing is, nobody tells him the same story about the ship. Nobody knows why it sunk. In fact, the day before McGregor was supposed to first dive and see the ship, he finds out the ship is completely intact. Then he sees it suddenly and rapidly sink before his eyes. So what the eff is going on? Why did they tell him the ship already sunk when it was still intact? Why sink the ship in the first place? What's on the ship and why is everything so goddamn weird? Well, that's what McGregor will have to find out.

From what I know, this book was praised by the critics when it first came out. It's very intriguing, and like the other Lange books, would make for a fantastic movie. The setting and the characters are also pretty original, and we go from Jamaican swamps and crocodiles, to the bottom of the shark-infested seas.

This is the kind of story where our hero can't trust anybody, and that's one of the things Crichton excels at - lies and schemes and backstabbing, similar to "The Venom Business" from the first batch of Lange books, but in its very own style.

I can't stress enough how much I love all eight of the Lange books. I went through them like mad, reading one after another and never stopping. I have never read a Hard Case Crime book I didn't enjoy, but the Lange books are definitely prime examples of amazing pulp literature, and a great addition to the line. I wholeheartedly recommend them. Get all eight. Request them as a birthday present or something, but get them. You won't be disappointed!


And you can get them all on the Titan Books website! Make sure to come back here later, and tell us what you thought! Planning on getting these? Leave us a comment!

Tagged: books, Reviews.

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