There's Something About de Villiers ... Or, I Really Need to Learn French

Black Lizard is out with its latest Gerard de Villiers Malko novel, Surface to Air, and as always it's a grabber from page one. I suppose, however, that the chosen format for this edition hints that it is the last of the U.S. translations, because instead of a glossy trade paperback, we get a traditional mass market printing, which means my set won't match. Dammit, Black Lizard!

It also means I have to learn French if I want to read the rest of the de Villiers canon.

When you read the back cover about a terrorist plan to shoot down Air Force One, you might think, meh; when the opening chapters are of said terrorists repeating durka durka jihad over and over, you might also think, meh; but when you get into the guts of the story, de Villiers has a way of making this tired terrorist-of-the-week plot seem fresh. If I can figure out how, I'll make a million bucks on my own terrorist-of-the-week books.

Anyway it's sad to see what looks like the last of the U.S. editions, unless I want to pay an arm and a leg for the '70s Pinnacle paperbacks, and I might just do that. As flawed as he can be, de Villiers knows how to tell a story, and that's always a good thing.