William Johnston

#2 in Series: 1966

The Set-Up:

The second book in the series brought both more of the same along with some new wrinkles to the book series universe.  In this one Max once again has Agent 13, Fang, with him, but for this caper with the “fate of the whole civilized world hanging in the balance” Max has Agent 99 along with him.  The formulaic start begins with Max called into Control headquarters to get his assignment from the Chief.  Here we get a cameo from the Cone of Silence, ineffective as always, and  Max gets the assignment: Dr. X has created an invisibility serum.  The doctor offered it to Control for a million dollars but their budget on invisibility serums only went to five hundred thousand, so they offered to negotiate, at which time Dr. X replied that he was going to sell to KAOS.  Yes, KAOS, the “international organization of No-good-niks,”makes its book debut, they were substituted in the first book by FLAG, but here we have the full TV series tie-in.  So, with 99 in tow, KAOS as the target, we get the full Get Smart experience put into motion.

Once again, “Smart = dumb” and there are plenty of jokes about big words “Infiltrated? Isn’t that some sort of exotic mushroom?” and other giggles along the way.  The plot kicks in aboard a cruise ship the “Queen Edward” (the King wanted a son...) where there is a group of scientists on the way to Europe and Dr. X will be on there, presumably to sell the formula to the highest bidder, assuming that bidder is KAOS. Max and Fang have one stateroom, and 99 the other, due to Control’s budget their rooms are about 11 levels below the main deck and are as small as a broom closet.  There they try to figure out who Dr. X is, using deductions like whether or not he has a beard, and by their superior surrevlence skills.  Okay, they also decide to just break into rooms and look for the suitcase of 6 invisible guinea pigs.  Did I forget to mention the guinea pigs?  They were established by the initial meeting with the Chief as the proof that the serum works and are suspected as being carried with Dr. X on the cruise ship.  The breaking in ends up being a proof of fool plan because a nosey steward keeps catching them in the act, often just because Max ends up misusing his Control gadgets.  A clever twist is the ship Captain; a clueless gent but one who appreciates the income produced by having petty criminals on cruise ships, too, as long as they don’t get caught.  Unfortunately, the Control agents quickly use up their three strikes and end up in the brig.  In this book, Max again is mostly clueless, and 99 is ahead of him often but willing to defer to Max to keep the peace, or something. Max does have dependable jujitsu skills which sometimes work on the wrong person, has decent waiter order skills, and manages to make some decent deductions on the way to finding the guinea pigs and Dr. X.

So that leads up to the finale, in a decent William Johnston book there are about 150 pages which means around 147 you can find the whole thing wrapped up in a hurry.  In the case of this one, the agents confront Dr. X in his stateroom and find out that Dr. X threw out his formula, as it had been written on the back of a grocery receipt that he absentmindedly discarded, and had one dose left in a hypodermic needle.  Smart convinces him he lost it because the needle is empty (invisibility serum, after all) and he tosses the “empty” needle out his porthole.  The book concludes with passengers wondering why the ocean disappeared.

Overall: 

Shoe phone calls to the Chief along the way, with the operator again providing a foil to Max’s ways, this one differs from the first book in that Johnston did not get too deep into the plot.  Find Dr. X, destroy the serum.  So the 150 page limit is spent more on the yuks and gags and plays along nicely, with some decent creative energy in there too.  The ship Captain worked well, the other passengers Max and 99 disturbed (“Vot are you doing in my room!”), and the affably absentminded Dr. X all worked to the goofy ‘ocean invisible’ ending.  This one feels like Johnston had a better handle of the character and I’d put it as in the upper tier of his Get Smart tie-in books.

 By the Numbers:

Pages: 9-154

Chapters: 11

Control Agents: Fang (K-13), Agent 99 (cameo in beginning)

Non-Control Side Kick: None

Baddies: Dr. X (invisibility serum creator and seller); KAOS

R&D Gadgets:

Operator Gag: Handles overseas calls.

Review by Brian DiMarco

© 2020 Brian DiMarco