Ahh, here's another good one for learning lots of cool tidbits about history and international relations. Buried within the pages of this Nick Carter espionage adventure is a wealth of stuff about terrorism in Europe during the 1970s, the Arab-Israeli war, and how it was all linked together and most likely masterminded by a bunch of cranky Nazis who were still pissed about World War Ii and hoped that by creating chaos in Europe, they would make people wish for a strong central state like the Nazis wanted to offer.

This time around, Nick Carter is assigned with preventing "something." All anyone knows is that a lot of terrorist organizations are mobilizing for something big. No one knows who is in charge or what they are planning. Killmaster is, of course, supposed to find the ringleader and kill him, as well as killing as many foot soldiers as he can along the way.

Whatever is about to happen is happening in Italy, a big hotbed of terrorism during the 1970s. Carter soon discovers a plot in which Arab terrorist and Nazi backers are planning to steal Air Israel passenger planes and use them to bomb Israel. Standing in their way, of course, is Killmaster Nick Carter.

Besides the numerous tidbits if history about Committee X, Mossad, terrorist organizations, and other such nuggets of joy, this is a pretty straight-forward, action-packed entry into the Nick Carter series. The sex is not as plentiful as was in stories like 14 Seconds to Hell, though if you think Nick Carter is going more than a few chapters without getting laid by some Italian bombshell then you haven't been paying attention. It seems like Nick alternates between bedding fellow agents and bedding enemy agents who betray him. This time around he gets the enemy agent. But hey, that's how things were back during the Cold War. You kids growing up today really missed out. I mean, all things considered, the Cold War rocked. You had all this cool espionage and everything, but there was never any real danger. Well, maybe during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but besides that, everything was just a big cloak and dagger game.

These days you have all these murderous rouge states, terrorism, people really getting killed. There's nothing fun about that. Give me the old days when we would just swap spies with the Ruskies every now and then. Seriously, you kids missed out. You didn't even get to hear any of Ronald Reagan's insane Cold War speeches, which were among the best ever.

Massacre in Milan is set in the transitional time. Our beef with the Russians was pretty low priority for everyone but Rambo and the makers of Red Dawn (incidentally -- Cubans invading Colorado? What the fuck???) once the 1970s rolled around and we had things to deal with like the Arab-Israeli war and terrorism. Suddenly, what had been a lot of posturing and tail feather flashing between us and Russia became a very real, very bloody conflict between the West and Islam. Gas rationing, oil embargo, the image of the American hostages in Iran that will be forever burned into my memory. The 1970s were a colossally fucked up and weird time, not just because of disco. The 1960s and 1970s were the decades terrorism came into its own, and the world has never been the same since then.

It's that setting that makes Massacre in Milan so cool despite it's being somewhat tame for a Nick Carter book (but still plenty violent, sexy, and shocking to the uninitiated). There's really not as much to offend people this time around except for the obvious anti-Arab sentiment, although there is some cursory attempt to explain why the Arabs are so pissed off in the first place. It's not like they just randomly decided to hate America, after all. It all stems from World War II, when England randomly carved out a chunk of Arab territory, named it Israel, and gave it to the displaced Jews who fled Germany and Europe during Hitler's reign of madness.

The Arabs who had previously been living there were none to happy about this, especially since no one really asked them if it was okay. Things got worse in the early 1970s when Israel decided it needed a little more breathing room, and so launched an offensive to take more land from the Arabs. Things generally haven't gotten much better between the parties since then. As America is an unconditional supporter of Israel, and as we pretty much outfit their army with the latest and greatest weapons (many of which we don't even give our own troops), it goes without saying that the Arab countries would become a bit miffed.

Of course, Nick Carter eventually uncovers the conspiracy's Germanic roots, which is actually entirely possible, and not just the wild ranting of a violent espionage pulp novel. Various Arab terrorist organizations have been linked to German backers, most of them members or ex Members of the Nazi regime, financing their war with left-over spoils of war and those hidden Nazi treasures we all hear so much about. Pissed off Arabs who lost huge chunks of their land were an excellent group of people for the Nazis to use in their ongoing war with the Jews. Thus you get things like Black September and Baader-Meinhof working together and pulling stunts like the 1972 Olympic Massacre.

Anyway, as always, take the political views of a Nick Carter book with a grain of salt, don't look for political correctness, and what you have here is a great little adventure full of killing and sneaking about. Yes, Nick gets captured and only escapes thanks to stupid luck, apparently the master spy's greatest weapon. Luckily, his captors have that disease where they laugh and say, "Since you are going to die, there is no harm in telling you our plan," then they tell him and leave the room. If any of you out there are aspiring evil geniuses, and I would hope at least a few of you are, remember to never say "Since you are going to die anyway, there is no harm in telling you our plans." Then don't tell them and leave them alone in the room, or with one guard who is asleep or playing solitaire.

Labels: Espionage, Series: Nick Carter