I must confess - I had not read a Nick Carter "Killmaster" thriller for a long time. A very long time. But a close acquaintance more or less forced me to read this work. "You read many Nick Carter novels in the past and enjoyed them! Relive the past and read this old one I found in our attic," he said rather smugly. Even before I read it, I thought: "Ah, Nick Carter; always the same formula in every adventure...our hero somehow avoids being killed by scores of people, and in fact annihilates them all; and of course he gets to sleep with at least three lovely ladies in every book, with his prowess being lauded by the salient ladies!" In this work the pattern is more or less the same, though this adventure is not written in the first person. The plot - such as it is - centres around a rather sinister political party, Chinese encroachment in a particular area – plus startling currency forgery - and an imperious, bizarre Countess who orchestrates a private kingdom from her castle...and the CIA and AXE who are very much interested in the goings on. Initially, the Countess seems of peripheral interest, but takes on centre stage as the action progresses! Known locally as The Bitch, real (?) name Gerda von Rothe, very attractive and irresistible - though stated to be 70 years old! Nick Carter of course takes on all the daunting odds and foes and trumps them all. In the end he is even up "for a Medal and Citation". Well done! And two other things to note in this work: unusually and thankfully (?) there is a paucity of explicit sexual description and details. And Carter does not use his familiar private weapons - Hugo, Wilhemina, and Pierre - in this work. Pity.
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