Yes, it’s another book called Hot Cargo. What are the odds? Well, pretty good. We picked them both up precisely because the titles were identical. Also, we were into the Doug Weaver art here. We were sure this novel, like yesterday’s, would be about shipgoing difficulties between one woman and a large male crew, but surprise—it’s almost the opposite. It’s about a pilot—not of a ship but a cargo plane named Nelly—and multiple hookers he’s been hired by a mobster to fly from L.A. to San Francisco, Boise, and other locales for bacchanalian parties.
The pilot is named Barry Davis, and among the women he meets are two that aren’t cargo to be winged around the West Coast: cheesecake photographer and self-confessed sex addict Joan Verril, and mobster’s wife Ann Cummings. He’s drawn to both, of course, but it’s Ann who asks for help. She wants to leave her mobster boyfriend Blacky Jenson, and wants Barry to use his plane to fly her far away. Trouble is sure to follow.
Hot Cargo (2), like Hot Cargo (1), is not well written, though it tries for a different stylistic approach: By the time he got back he was beginning to really feel higher than the space satellites. His brain cells were spinning orbital things that rammed against each other, sending beautiful, colored stars exploding crazily before his eyes. That last drink had done it!
We said different, not good. Unfortunately, Davidson is repetitive. That helps him push his page count to 192, but if editors had deleted its unilluminating interior musings—especially fretful Joan’s—the book would be more readable. We did like the final plane ride, that long sought escape, which is complicated by the fact that Jenson chooses that trip to tag along, but otherwise Hot Cargo (2) is blah. You win some and lose some. Advice: maybe don’t pick books because their titles are identical.
