'Chopper Cop' debuted in 1972 as a
Popular Library paperback. Author Paul Ross is actually Dan Streib,
the man behind 70s action oriented series' like 'Killsquad', 'Hawk',
'Steve Crown' and 'Death Squad'. The series would last three
installments with Streib writing the first two. While the cover, font
and badge logo would indicate a high-paced action formula fitting of
Streib's writing style, the end result is an entirely different type
of story. Personally, I think this was probably a grand misplacement
of what literary power-broker Lyle Kenyon Engel envisioned when
hiring Streib. Engel would later denounce the author, furthering the
theory that the supply didn't meet the demand.
Think of series debut, “Valley of
Death”, as an eerie, Gothic investigative novel. Odd I know, but
Streib's use of heavy sea fog, moonlit graveyards, old mansions and
an abandoned mining town are the perfect backdrops for this dense
thriller. They are almost characters themselves, springing up from
time to time to introduce darkness and death.
No, this isn't the long-haired, biker
riding “Easy Rider” that's depicted on the book cover, but our
hero Terry Bunker does dress the part. He works for the California
Governor, sort of a special operative piece that is utilized by
leadership as an official State Department of Criminal
Investigation...investigator? He receives requests from the Governor
to solve crimes. He's extremely successful, allowing him to refer to
leadership as “hey guv” despite hatred from his departmental
peers.
The debut mystery is a rather grim one;
young wealthy women are committing suicide in San Francisco and
Sacramento. Yet, they are reaching out to their loved ones
posthumously through bizarre phone calls or supernatural apparitions
lurking just outside the window. The crime? Whoever is behind the
ghostly apparitions are ransoming the return of these resurrected
dead girls for millions of dollars. The culprit might be a strange
seaside cult that's sacrificing drugged women for cash. But that
doesn't explain the seemingly life after death undertaking of these
heists.
Bunker isn't as funny as say...Kolchak,
Fox Mulder or Carter Brown's bumbling detective Al Wheeler. But he's
no Shaggy either. This character is vulnerable, even scared at times
as he navigates ghosts and graves to find the criminal leader. But he
can get the job done. It's a slap in the face to readers looking for
a hard-edged, bone-breaking chopper cop. But once you can forgive the
creator, this is a really fun mystery that had some longevity. I
could see this sort of thing working on multiple levels, whether
supernatural or just a “crime of the week” featuring some
abstract scenario. Unfortunately, the struggle between publisher and
author led to this being canned shortly thereafter. I'm on the hunt
for book two.
