The Set-Up:

 This was the third in the series but feels more like it should be the second; in that maybe the order of release was reversed, as this one also does not have Agent 99 in it, and instead gives Max a female non-agent to assist him and accompany him through the book.  I don’t know, but even the title would point towards this being a sequel to the first book, as would the character and plot established by the author, William Johnston.

Here we have the Chief meeting and assignment in the beginning and then the 150 pages of hijinks, all explained at the very end.  Agent 99 is in the office at the beginning but has another assignment and is soon dispatched.  For this one there is KAOS (and as a counter to my theory this was originally book #2, in this one KAOS is assumed to be the foil, whereas in “Sorry, Chief…” they do give a little context to that) and the Dooms Day Plan.  This is a cryptic message Control intercepted from KAOS with the assumption that the fate of the whole civilized world lies in the balance.  Max is partnered with Peaches Twelvetrees, a cryptographer (she photographs graves?) a gorgeous blond who will work on cracking the code while Max gets her far out of the danger of DC and a  location where they can avoid KAOS from catching up to her.  Why not Moscow or Peking?  Control budget issues, the best they can do is get to New York City.

That right there might be key in that the plot basically revolves around Smart being unable to get her out of the DC Metro area despite a “planes, trains,and automobiles,” boats, etc., effort to find a mode of transport that would get them on the way to NYC.  Max and Peaches have the code with them: Sad Al, Astor, Mays, Bronco Con, Map Change, Three Bs, Watch.  As Peaches attempts various formally named decoding techniques her concentration is broken by Max’s ham-fisted attempts to tie the words together (“Mays?  That’s Willie Mays…”).  Meanwhile their foil in this book is KAO agent I.M. Noman who will go to any length to regain the Dooms Day Plan.  Noman is an agent who had been surgically fitted with an India rubber face, allowing him to assume any facial identity.  As William Johnston repeatedly tips the reader off to (like Noel in the first book) the reader can identify Noman because, whereas his face changes his mannerisms and body do not change.  This is not readily apparent to Smart, and once again Peaches is ahead of him on most things, only to be admonished as he recites his training and agent resume.

Their first exit from Control Headquarters is through the secret elevator that takes them to the sub(x7) basement, where Willoughsby and Ponsberry are older gents helping to guide lost agents through the underground maze, and ask for an update on President Lincoln.  Their deserted part of the city still has a taxi there who is lost but can take them to the airport to get a flight to NYC.  Yes, it’s Noman, and his plan is to get the Dooms Day Plan at gunpoint and leave the taxi on auto-drive while it’s programmed to dunk into the Potomac.  He has an ejector seat, and in a bit that is repeated again and again, as he hits the eject, Max grabs the plan from his hand.  Then, thanks to a Control-issued gadget pen that helps as a parachute and a sledgehammer, they make their way out of the taxi before it hits the river.  Unlike the adoring Miss Blossom, Peaches is less enamored with Smart and his exploits and expertise, and usually rebukes his ideas with a simple “You’re mad!”  Unlike the earlier books though, Smart has some skills in this book and similar to the TV series, it is the bureaucracy that is being satirized and Max’s adherence to it.

The other formula at work here is that they try to get to a mode of transportation that will exit the DC Metro area, Noman pops up and Max doesn’t realize it, he gets the plan escapes with them approaching their doom, Max grabs the plan from him as he escapes and then they get out of the jam.  They call the Chief, the operator discusses Aunt Harriet with Max, the Chief wonders why they are still hovering around Control Headquarters and Max comes up with a new layer towards his own code break while Peaches uses various code-breaking techniques.  Rinse and repeat.

So along the way Noman gets them to take a flight to NYC using Arr Dee Airlines (the Arr Dee stands for R.D. which in turn stands for Ruptured Duck), Norman pulls over their rental car then is the small town judge who sends them down into a trap-door dungeon.  The dungeon has brainwashed Control agents, and long story short they end up preferring their existence down there to freedom and a Control pension. 

At some point Peaches becomes disgusted with the life of cryptography and decides to pursue being an “empty headed blonde” while they have the same route of no luck on the train.

So, it’s page 143 when the resolution occurs, which gets Noman to reveal the secret of the Dooms Day Plan to Smart after being threatened to have his India Rubber face used to erase invisible ink.  Turns out the code is just menu items, you can figure them out yourself, but page 144 lists them, and that it was for a dinner honoring a KAOS agent named Dooms, and they wanted to hide it because if the world knew KAOS was throwing a dinner for someone everybody think they were softies.  Max tells Chief who decides not to use this information to disgrace KAOS, because, in sum; the world would know that KAOS wasn’t all that bad, and in a world where there are no bad guys, there’s no need for Control.  The 154 page ending has Peaches asking for KAOS’ address because she wanted to pursue Noman.  “With that face he could be a pudgy Cary Grant in the morning, a pudgy Rock Hudson at noon and a pudgy Tony Curtis at night.”

Overall:  This was one note played over and over again.  There was some imaginative stuff in there; the hidden world of Control, Max being a little more clever in his duels with Noman.  Peaches has the weird transformation from cryptographer to ‘dumb blonde’ but it was a list of odd words and the end gag was slight; jus trearranged menu words.  I’d peg this one as a solid C effort, easily forgotten but chuckle worthy along the way; pretty much the definition of a tie-in novel.

  By the Numbers:

Pages: 9-154

Chapters: 10

Control Agents: Agent 99 (cameo in beginning)

Non-Control Side Kick: Peaches Twelvetrees (cryptographer)

Baddies: I. M. Noman (KAOS’ top agent)

R&D Gadgets:

Operator Gag: Butting in, Telling Aunt Harriet.

Review by Brian DiMarco

© 2020 Brian DiMarco