Nick Carter - The Bright Blue Death

The Bright Blue Death, published in 1967, is the 30th of the Nick Carter Killmaster spy thrillers. All the Killmaster books are credited to Nick Carter which was of course simply a house name. This one was written by Nicholas Browne.

Nick has to find a way to infiltrate a Swedish base. It’s not just a base, it’s a vast underground city designed to house a large portion of the Swedish population in the event of a nuclear war.

Why is an American agent trying to infiltrate a Swedish base? The reason is that the agency for which Nick works, AXE, is concerned that the Swedes have a security breach. And that security breach has something to do with an advanced anti-laser device the Swedes are working on. The Chinese want to sabotage that anti-laser research because it would neutralise their own new laser weapon, a weapon which is a threat to Civilisation As We Know It.

Nick gets into the Swedish base and he encounters something unexpected - a whole bunch of German spies. They’re not agents of the West German government. They work for a sinister neo-nazi movement known as the Teutonic Knights. This movement is led by the crazy Count von Stadee.

Nick finds something else odd - a dead Swedish scientist whose skin has turned bright blue.

He also meets a beautiful blonde Swedish scientist named Astrid Lundgren. She’s involved in all sorts of top-secret research including the anti-laser project and she tells him the dead scientist was a victim of the dreaded indigo rays. Somehow the anti-laser device produces these rays, which are instant death. Which of course threatens the whole ant-laser project.

Nick will have to infiltrate the Teutonic Knights, by pretending to offer to sell Astrid to them.

All this craziness happens really early in the book. 

And there’s more craziness to come. Such as one of von Stadee’s henchmen, who is a thousand-year-old Viking. Not some lunatic who imagines himself to be a Viking, but an actual Viking born a thousand years ago. And there’s a zeppelin as well. Plus some great action scenes in an amusement park. I should also mention the murderous laughing dwarf.

Astrid isn’t the only glamorous female in this tale. There’s also Boots Delaney, an American biker chick who is von Stadee’s girlfriend. A very frustrated girlfriend. Von Stadee is either unable or unwilling to satisfy her in bed due to some very peculiar sexual kinks that he has.

This is a fairly typical Killmaster adventure, although with perhaps a higher weirdness quotient than most. The pacing is so frenetic that you don’t have time to worry about how crazy some of the story elements are. It’s reasonably violent - there’s even a decapitation. Nick kills lots of bad guys using guns, knives and his bare hands.

There’s a moderate amount of sex, not too explicit but you get the message. Boots Delaney is a splendid crazy bad girl. She’s like a wildcat, both in bed and out of bed. Von Stadee is a fine megalomaniac villain. Making him kinky adds a bit of extra spice.

Nick Carter is your basic square-jawed womanising ruthless action hero.

Neo-nazis were one of the weird pop culture obsessions of the 60s. They turn up in just about every spy fiction series and TV spy series of the decade.

The author makes good use of some imaginative settings. There’s underwater action and there are epic fights in the underground city pus the amusement park scenes I’ve already mentioned.

This is great pulp spy thriller stuff. It has no literary aspirations but it delivers supercharged action and thrills. Highly recommended.