The Set-up: The set-up is all there, taut and worthy of some laughs and done in 20 or so pages.  Max begins with the walk into the building, where the author William Johnston decides to have an encounter with Pedro, the shoe shine boy in front of Control Headquarters.  Clever wordplay follows and the Chief calls to get Max moving.  The assignment includes Agent 99, also in the office, but for this one there is no third party, no dog, no absent-minded professor.  The fate of the world is not all that lies in the balance, but something greater; the fate of Control.  And that affects their paychecks so this time it’s personal.  The set-up is a race between KAOS and Control, mirror efforts brought about by the coincidence of both Control agents and KAOS agents leaving their Little Black book of the layouts, locations, and organizational structure of every KAOS installation.  Also coincidentally both KAOS and Control have developed pea size bombs which can be placed remotely and then activated simultaneously by a button at the KAOS or Control Chief’s desk.  The mission, as he chose to accept it, was for Max and 99 to get the pellets on all of KAOS’ installations before the KAOS agent did the same for Control installations.  So, the agents are Max and 99, the supplies are a bag of explosive pellets that look like green peas, and a black bag with the peas, R&D gadgets and the fact sheets on the installations they are targeting.  As it turns out the four installations they are infiltrating all mirror the four that KAOS is going after.  Max and 99 are aided by an atom powered helicopter capable of taking them on missions without refueling, and the helicopter pilot, Lance Chalfont.  Described as a handsome, blond, granite-jawed, steely-eyed young man.  Self described as a “silent birdman” he cannot stop talking inanely throughout the book.  He is hopeless with any map know-how or directions, and gets nervous and frightened very easily.  I would think that somewhere in this, based on the authors’ military background, are a few inside jokes, as he gets specific about some of Chalfont’s idiosyncrasies. 

First Stop: KAOS science lab in the Sahara Desert, run by Dr. Yeh.  The doctor has ‘been in the desert too long’ and now believes he is a sheik and runs the lab like a sheikdom. Once landed Max and 99 attempted to get in via a collapsible pole for vaulting over high walls, but the sand sunk them.  Dr. Yeh mistakes them for an American Advisor from the State Department, presumably there to provide some cursory guidance and a significant amount of cash, and 99 is a replacement ‘flung’ for his ballet company (“...those who do the flinging are flingers and the one who is flung is the…”).  Max and 99 are eventually found out, and by aid of the operator placing a call to the helicopter they are rescued from the roof.  They avoided the fate of the firing squad through the use of an R&D supplied lighter, which did not do anything but light, but was fascinating enough to get them out.  The peas were successfully planted by 99 who presented them to Dr. Yeh as a pea necklace.  

Stop Two: KAOS underwater weapons arsenal, Six fathoms deep in the Atlantic Ocean.  Operated by the notorious Dr. Gill, a man now part fish as his lungs acta s storage of fresh air allowing him to live without an auxiliary air supply in his lair.  Dr. Gill captures them immediately and keeps them alive as company during dinner.  The Doctor also has remote activated devices that can cut off their air supply whenever he chooses.  The dinner is seaweed, he was offended when Max suggested lobster, and amongst his many gadgets for living are plastic (not soap) bubbles which carries air from the surface to the underwater capsule and purifies it from all the toxins on the surface air.Dr. Gill has a greenhouse where he grows sea carrots, sea tomatoes, sea peas, sea cabbage, and so on.  Max and 99 are held in a steel cell, which is where they plan their escape.   When trapped in the cell they check the bag for something to help get out and there is a Collapsible Electric Saw. The issue with power for the saw is solved as R&D included a collapsible electric power unit for operating the collapsable electric saw for sawing through the bars of a cell if there is no electrical outlet in the cell.  Feeling they are saved is short lived as they realize the power unit...requires an outlet. But they do eventually find the Collapsable battery pack for operating a collapsible electric saw for sawing through the bars of a cell when there is no electrical outlet in the cell.  And they get out of the cell...oh no wait….the saw is actually disguised as a saw but is really an electric toothbrush.  Fortunately they also have a six-ounce container of super activated rust which, though it takes three to six years to be effective the R&D note provides that it can be hastened by the application of neat, and that friction causes heat, and they then toothbrush super activated rust to break through the bars of the jail.  Max glues a pea pellet to the tomato, explaining that Dr. Gill will think he was growing a new hybrid plant, a peamato, and make sure it is kept safe, and then through the use of the plastic bubbles they avoid Dr. Gills remote and are ventilated to the ocean where Lance Chalfont carries them away.  

Stop Three: KAOS Training School: Max and 99 are flown by Chalfont to this inland location where they impersonate two freshmen on the road, convincing them it’s a hazing ritual, and use their badges.  They are Macy and Gimbal, per the badges.  A gag which was certainly at home in 1966. They end up in classes, and one with the main professor, The Professor.  First name “The” last name “Professor.”  Where Max is volunteered as a Control agent in a series of espionage games to show off KAOS R&D gadgets.  It appears that The Professor is old school, and has been modifying them to be more effective; like taking bullets from a gun and replacing them with a boxing glove on a spring.  So, he would be one of the reasons the KAOS / Control warfare is more Looney Tunes than James Bond.

Stop Four: KAOS Senior Home, aka KAOS Experimental Medical Lab. It is here we get our requisite fill of absent-mindedness, as Max is mistaken for a surgeon and uses the perfectly reasonable excuse of absent-mindedness to have him brought up to speed by Dr. Medulla, the brain surgeon for KAOS, on who he is and what he is doing there.  What they are doing there is he is operating on a half robot, half human average looking person who is to have a SUPER BOOM planted inside him which will then be set loose to unknown places by KAOS with the threat to the world that they get a lot of money or they will set off the Super Boom. Max does a decent job of playing along and operating, the humanoid is funny throughout, happy to help and be blown up if it will result in getting his face on the newspapers, and the KAOS agents / doctors match the secret agent code of idiocy established by Max. 

Like the previous book, this one finds its footing in replicating the TV series characters.  Max has some decent ideas, but still gets caught up in by the book moments.  All around them, KAOS and Chalfont, are on a par with them for ineptness  The recurring theme in this one is the gag about 99 coming up with a good idea, and then Max discounting it and then repeating it verbatim to her approval.  In one part the author references this as Max gets grumpy at an idea from 99 and says that as the senior agent he should be the one to come up with the brilliant ideas.  She convinces him that it was he who planted the idea in her head and he feels better about it.  Not to say it always works, 99 occasionally brings things to a wrong turn.

It is about 8 pages before the end that the mission is successfully completed and Max begins to dream of the metal to come.  But the Chief advises them to return to Control ASAP and that something terrible has come up.  They find out that both KAOS and Control are locked in a game of chicken, each with the power to obliterate the others (not called it, but a foreshadow of “mutually assured destruction”) and the situation needs to be mediated by HIM.  At which it is decided that destroying everyone is bad for business, and that if they have a truce this will result in more hiring and agency growth as they need the agents to assure neither side is breaking the peace.  Unfortunately, Max activates the peas, obliterates the KAOS installations, is blamed by all, and gets yelled at by the Chief.  Who informs him KAOS has vowed to return and get revenge, which means hiring more agents...and so on.

Overall: With a book title that would be at home in a Perry Mason novel alliteration, you have a book with some fun within the paint-by-the-numbers plot. The characters are established by this point and Johnston doesn’t waste energy on any superfluous agents.  The plot is a linear race; and makes the book break into four parts where we meet new settings and predicaments.  Johnston is a funny writer, and I would guess that the 150 pages gives him more room than he needs which allows him to stretch out for added gags and puns along the way. Enjoyable and would rank in the solid B category for the book series.

  By the Numbers:

Pages: 9-154

Chapters: 11

Control Agents: Agent 99

Non-Control Side Kick: Lance Chalfont, Silent Birdman, Helicopter Pilot

Baddies: KAOS as a whole and specific agents at each location: Dr Yeh, Dr. Gill, The Professor, Frank Sadwell, Dr. Medulla

R&D Gadgets: The main one in the black bag Max is carrying is the bag of pea shaped explosives, which he is to plant at the four KAOS installations.  When trapped in the cell they check the bag for something to help get out and there is a Collapsible Electric Saw. The issue with power for the saw is solved as R&D included a collapsible electric power unit for operating the collapsable electric saw for sawing through the bars of a cell if there is no electrical outlet in the cell.  Feeling they are saved is short lived as they realize the power unit...requires an outlet. But they do eventually find the Collapsable battery pack for operating a collapsible electric saw for sawing through the bars of a cell when there is no electrical outlet in the cell.  And they get out of the cell...oh no wait….the saw is actually disguised as a saw but is really an electric toothbrush.  Fortunately they also have a six-ounce container of super activated rust which, though it takes three to six years to be effective the R&D note provides that it can be hastened by the application of neat, and that friction causes heat, and they then toothbrush super activated rust to break through the bars of the jail.

Collapsable fins for when invited to a seaweed lunch (Discovered too late).

Binoculars that were a gag item as they left two black sooty rings around Max’ eyes.

Collapsible pole for vaulting over high walls

Operator Gag: the operator is continually worried about the show. And asks for updates throughout and is hurt when Max theorizing he might be awarded a medal told the operator he wouldn’t wear it on or carry it in his shoe.