Morocco Jones

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Created by Jack Baynes
Pseudonym of Bertram B. Fowler
(1893-1981)

“Only suckers play straight in my game. Ethics is a word that means holes in your head— bullet holes. I’m one of those old-fashioned operatives. When someone takes out after me I don’t bother to haul out my conscience and frisk it for motives. I just shut my mouth and swing. A gun is nice, too, but I like the personal touch. There’s this Russian agent Bardo, for instance. I’ve been waiting a long time to catch up with him. And vice versa. He just rented a bunch of trigger-happy gorillas from the Mafia zoo. It gripes me to have to keep shoving corpses out of my hotel room, but I like things neat.”
— please allow him to introduce himself, in Meet Morocco Jones

Two-fisted Chicago P. I. MOROCCO JONES, “whose mind is as sharp as the edge of lightning—whose fists are as deadly as a forty-five—and whose morals—well, the less said the better,” takes on the Communists, the Syndicate and various other miscreants in a quartet of rompin,’ stompin’ Crest paperback originals from the late fifties, all featuring covers by legendary pulp illustrator Barye Phillips.

Morocco is a lanky side of beef, all muscle and sinew, relentless and deadly—not someone to mess with, though the ladies certainly find him attractive, throwing themselves at him with alarming frequency. Maybe it’s the cold gray eyes which turn green when he gets aroused.

A coldly efficient former agent with “the top counter-espionage unit in Europe,” he served under the hard-charging General Weyland, working behind the German lines during WWII, and spying on the Soviets in Europe during the Cold War, gaining a nemesis in the notorious but elusive evil Commie mastermind Bardo. In fact, it’s after a mission involving Bardo fails tragically that Morocco, the General and another colleague, decide to pull the plug and relocate to Chicago, where they set up a detective agency. Later, the ooh-la-la Llora Madigan, Morocco’s sometime girlfriend and former spy  known as “The Countess,” also joins the firm. Morocco, meanwhile, moves into a penthouse apartment from which he has a great view of the Windy City.

“We have wealthy clients who pay well for the return of missing jewels, of embezzled funds; for straightening out a crooked cape,” Morocco explains in the aptly title series debut Meet Morocco Jones (1957), “It’s duck soup after the old days, honey.”

Duck soup?

Hardly. There’s plenty of action here, and plenty of violence, as Morocco, never overly concerned with ethics, not only dishes it out but takes it, being rendered unconscious with alarming frequency.  He also gets to kill several villains, including a few with his bare hands. There are also plenty of babes, a lot of sex (mostly implied, not detailed), and loads of manly tough talk about the Syndicate and Commies,  a distinctive whiff of both Richard S. Prather and Mickey Spillane plainly evident. Especially when arch-nemesis Bardo figures themob and the KGB ought to pool their resources…

Fans of pulp and P.I. fiction of the Cold War era, as well as fans of the Men’s Adventure boom that was only a decade or so away, ought to get a kick out of Morocco.

WHAT?

  • It’s a neat piece of goofy coincidence, but Morocco Jones is not to be confused with fez-wearing Morocco Mole, the chauffeur and sidekick of Hanna-Barbera super-spy Secret Squirrel.

UNDER OATH

  • “Glorious! The writing is good…with a firm command of craft, character, and plot.”
    — Bill Crider on Meet Morocco Jones (Pop Culture Magazine)

NOVELS

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Colin Clynes for the heads up.

Published

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