THE DAISY DUCKS

At enormous personal risk, deep behind enemy lines, they showed American B-29 bombers where to drop their eggs on Khmer Rouge supply dumps hidden beneath triple canopy jungles of Cambodia. They wrought havoc on the Viet-Cong and the North Vietnamese Army in Viet-Nam. They were THE DAISY DUCKS -- all eight of them. The name "Daisy Ducks" was derived from their operational designation, "DD". And they had a real-life model, young Danielle Cournot, nicknamed Daisy. When her father died at the 1954 siege of Dien BIen Phu, one year old Danielle was in Hanoi. A year later she was rescued, adopted and raised by Lithuanian-born soldier of fortune Liatis Roantis ***** Readers of others of the nine DOC ADAMS mysteries by Rick Boyer, know that after later fighting in the U.S. Army, Liatis retired to teach martial arts in Boston. There Doctor Charles Adams became an adept pupil and devoted friend. After Liatis saved Doc's life, there was nothing Doc would not do to return the favor. Roantis now enlists a reluctant Doc to help him recover a statue of the Hindu god Siva, allegedly given to two of the Daisy Ducks fighting in Cambodia by a Buddhist village elder who was also a river pirate. At novel's beginning, the gold statue reposes in a bank vault in Hong Kong. It takes two keys to retrieve the statue: one belonging to Daisy Ducks leader Liatis Roantis and the other to his deputy, Hispanic Ken Vilarde. ***** In fairly short order, Liatis is shot in the chest (but survives) by a sniper using a favored combat rifle of the Daisy Ducks. The shooter cuts the key off Liatis and within two days the statue disappears from its Hong Kong resting place. ***** And the novel is off and running. From the beginning Doc Adams suspects treachery by one or more of Liatis's band of marauders. Liatis will hear nothing of it. After all, loyalty is loyalty. But while recuperating, Liatis asks Doc to do his best to contact survivors and try to find out who might have had it in for the powerful Lithuanian. Doc obliges and travels to Texas and the mountains of North Carolina to develop facts. Before long, Doc, soon joined by undercover U.S. agent Daisy, by Liatis and by a couple of other Ducks, is up to his ears battling a hidden survivalist camp in the mountains near Robbinsville, North Carolina. *****THE DAISY DUCKS is a real page turner. Lighter on clues and red herrings than most DOC ADAMS yarns, it has more straightforward action, chase, pursuit and combat. Easy reading for an otherwise boring day! -OOO