(Since Black Gat Books has just reprinted this novel, it seems like a good time for me to repost my review of it from 15 years ago. This post originally appeared in slightly different form on August 29, 2008.)
Day Keene, whose real name was Gunard Hjertstedt, started his writing career in the pulps and went on to become one of the most reliably entertaining authors of paperback suspense novels for Gold Medal and other publishers during the Fifties. In the Sixties, in addition to his crime and suspense novels, he also began writing glossy soap opera-type novels. ACAPULCO G.P.O., from 1967, fits quite nicely in that category.
Not that there’s no crime and suspense in this novel. There’s plenty, as there is in any good soap opera. Centered around Acapulco and a nearby former fishing village that’s now home to a number of wealthy jet-setters, Keene spins a yarn with a large cast and a number of intersecting storylines. Among the characters are a former Red Chinese army general who defected and wound up in Mexico, a beautiful movie star whose popularity has faded (you’ve got to have one of those in a book of this type), an angst-ridden artist and his model wife, and numerous horny teenagers. As for plotlines, you get drug smuggling, prostitution, kidnapping, murder, and lots of sex to go along with the crime and violence. Make no mistake about it, this is a lurid book.
Which, of course, is part of its guilty-pleasure appeal. Keene knows what he’s doing and does it extremely well. The storytelling skills he honed in the pulps keep things moving at a very fast pace, and then he springs a late twist in the outcome of one of the storylines that took me completely by surprise. ACAPULCO G.P.O. is well worth reading.
(The Black Gat Books reprint is available from Amazon in both paperback and e-book editions.)
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